AMD pokes Apple in the artificial intelligence with its Ryzen announcement at CES.
Apple may not be participating in CES 2023, but that does not mean it does not loom large over the entire event. In its announcement of new PC processors, AMD criticized Apple’s MacBook processors.
To promote the performance of its new products, AMD compares them to Apple’s chips. AMD claims its new Ryzen 7040HS Series Mobile processors provide “up to 34% faster-multithreaded performance” in benchmarks for applications such as DaVinci Resolve BlackMagic, V-Ray, Blender, Cinebench R23 nT, and Handbrake 1:5:1. This is a very specific but impressive claim, although Apple will likely reclaim the title when its M2 Pro chip is released later this year. Also, even though AMD is a graphics-focused company, it makes no GPU performance claims in comparison to Apple’s impressive M1 Max processor, which features a 32-core GPU.
AMD also announced Ryzen AI, the “first dedicated artificial intelligence hardware in an x86 processor.” AMD claims that Ryzen AI chips are up to 20 percent faster and 50 percent more energy-efficient than Apple’s M2 System on a Chip, which features a 16-core Neural Engine dedicated to machine learning. Machine learning is an application of front-facing AI that enables devices to become more efficient without user intervention.
Apple introduced the Neural Engine alongside the A11 Bionic processor in the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and iPhone X in 2017 and incorporated it into the M1 and M2 chips. Apple states that its Core ML technology is “designed to seamlessly take advantage of powerful hardware technology, including CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine, most efficiently to maximize performance while minimizing memory and power consumption,” but makes no specific claims regarding the performance enhancements compared to chips that do not contain it.
Apple has previously utilized AMD graphics processors and cards, but never AMD CPUs in any Mac release. Since Apple’s M-series chips have had such a significant impact in such a short period, comparisons are inevitable. And competition leads to better products, so we’ll be watching what Apple does in 2023 with its chips.
