I think a lot of people don't realize the level of performance Qualcomm has reached with these. This is the closest competition to Apple's M series that we have, for the laptop form factor at least. They are better than Intel and AMD's best. I'd love to buy an X2 laptop with Linux preinstalled and supported.
Check this chart. Single core performance is where Apple has dominated the most. Qualcomm is above every non-Apple competitor including desktop chips, and only 5% behind the fastest M5 MacBook Air (this chip is going into Air-class laptops). Yes, M6 is coming, but X2 has been available for months already.
For Geekbench in particular, expect to gain a few percent in Linux vs. Windows. Of course, you should always look at your workload. The thing that causes me to wait for my computer the most is build times, where the multi-core benchmarks are more interesting than single core benchmarks, and these look like they could make for interesting low power dev boxes when/if proper Linux support lands.
"Desktop chip" hasn't been a meaningful variable for single-thread performance in more than a decade. A single core can't use more than a given amount of power or it would melt and laptops have that much in their power budget.
Where a desktop's TDP is actually useful is for multi-thread performance, and naturally the multi-thread chart is topped by Threadrippers.
Moreover, Geekbench is rubbish in general. For example, it has Threadripper 9980X with a <50% higher multi-thread score than Ryzen 9 9950X even though it has twice the memory bandwidth and four times as many of the same cores and you have to look pretty hard to find a real multi-threaded workload where it's not significantly more than twice as fast:
Yes, where desktops differ is not so much the chips but rather the cooling capability. You have the space to have proper air flow and water cooling etc. So that do give quite a bit of performance.
modeless · · focus · HN ↗
dmitrygr · · focus · HN ↗
Not very close at all, not even to the two-year-old model, it appears
<a href="https://wccftech.com/snapdragon-x2-plus-loses-to-m4-in-4-out-of-5-cpu-and-gpu-tests/" rel="nofollow">https://wccftech.com/snapdragon-x2-plus-loses-to-m4-in-4-out...
modeless · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://browser.geekbench.com/processor-benchmarks" rel="nofollow">https://browser.geekbench.com/processor-benchmarks
lern_too_spel · · focus · HN ↗
AnthonyMouse · · focus · HN ↗
Where a desktop's TDP is actually useful is for multi-thread performance, and naturally the multi-thread chart is topped by Threadrippers.
Moreover, Geekbench is rubbish in general. For example, it has Threadripper 9980X with a <50% higher multi-thread score than Ryzen 9 9950X even though it has twice the memory bandwidth and four times as many of the same cores and you have to look pretty hard to find a real multi-threaded workload where it's not significantly more than twice as fast:
<a href="https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-threadripper-9970x-9980x-linux/9" rel="nofollow">https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-threadripper-9970x-9980x...
yxhuvud · · focus · HN ↗