I Wanna Invest in Intel (NOT ADVICE) – Core Ultra Explained

[Plouffe]

Intel's Meteor Lake Core Ultra mobile chips are here, and they're exciting! Nearly DOUBLE the iGPU performance but... at what cost? And what is an NPU? And why are they changing the name? And when will this video description be over?

 

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Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.

 

 

[CyberneticTitan]

Didn't expect the inclusion of the MacBook but it's a welcomed change.

 

Where's the power efficiency analysis? It's one of the biggest selling points of MTL.

 

I'm guessing the software support for hardware AV1 encoding is not there because it is a big feature.

[marcgii]

Were they using the x264 encoder?  I would assume so based on the settings listed.  They really should have but that in the title. 

 

It's really surprising for me to see different files between platforms.  Is handbrake using different CPU instructions or computations depending system architecture? 

 

 

[Goodevil]

Feedback of MY OPINION:

 

The charts are hard to read, maybe something like this would be better:

 

idk, it's confusing because I keep going back and forth from the name to the numbers... you guys should do a poll of which charts are better to read... people would vote and decide for themselves...

[W-U-L-F-E]

Sorry if I’m being a bit dumb here; I was under the impression that Intel Meteor Lake is 14th Gen, not 15th Gen?
A quick bit of Googling supports that 15th Gen is currently being referred to as Arrow Lake?

 

My confusion stems from around 13:21 in the video; I clipped the relevant section from the video:
YouTube Clip from: I Wanna Invest in Intel (NOT ADVICE) – Core Ultra Explained

 

Is there something that I’m missing here?

 

Also, I’m new to the LTT Forums, so I apologize if I’ve done anything wrong here. No malice intended—just a little confused & hoping for some clarification.

[Uttamattamakin]

#1 I love the title of this video.  

I am a loyal viewer but I am not an Intel fan.  Generally I ignore Intel content.   That title made me want to watch. 

While I am not a Intel fan... I love Surface pro.  I will now wait to see a core Ultra in a surface pro.  If they go all ARM I'm going to migrate to a platform that has a core Ultra CPU.   

 

The tiled construction of this CPU makes me think Intel could just embrace ARM.  As AMD could.  Or maybe embrace, extend and extinguish RISC V while using IP from it to make a better x86.  It would start with putting ARM or maybe RISCV on a chip and using it to run a highly efficient virtual machine  for certain background task.  Do it in a way that is transparent to the OS.   Sounds crazy but there was a CPU that did that sort of thing back in the day made by a company called Transmeta.  

 

   

[marcgii]

19 minutes ago, W-U-L-F-E said:

Sorry if I’m being a bit dumb here; I was under the impression that Intel Meteor Lake is 14th Gen, not 15th Gen?
A quick bit of Googling supports that 15th Gen is currently being referred to as Arrow Lake?

If anything, Meteor Lake is 1st gen.  The whole generation thing doesn't apply with Intel's new branding. They may not refer to the Meteor Lake successor as a "2nd gen" in the same AMD doesn't use that terminology either.

 

At least that's my understanding.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[W-U-L-F-E]

1 minute ago, marcgii said:

If anything, Meteor Lake is 1st gen.  The whole generation thing doesn't apply with Intel's new branding. They may not refer to the Meteor Lake successor as a "2nd gen" in the same AMD doesn't use that terminology either.

 

At least that's my understanding.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Sorry, I think I phrased my original question poorly.
 

I've already seen Intel's confusing move to officially calling Meteor Lake 1st Gen Series (can't say I truely understand the reasoning lol), I suppose a better question would be:
Am I correct in thinking that Intel's previous generation was 13th Gen?
 

(What's with companies infatuation with the number 1 & difficulty counting properly lol)

[IkeaGnome]

The "X" and knowing we're going to be seeing "X" on CPUs again makes me wish it would be "modern HEDT", but I know it won't be

[powertoys]

I loved the bit where the Macbook couldn't finish a benchmark because the 8 GB RAM limitation made it crash.

 

"but but but apple is more efficient so 8 gb ram is equivalent to 200 gb on windows"

[AbydosOne]

3 hours ago, marcgii said:

It's really surprising for me to see different files between platforms.  Is handbrake using different CPU instructions or computations depending system architecture? 

Yeah, this one made me pause it and think for a bit. I've always wondered if video encoding was perfectly deterministic, or if there were factors that could make an encoded video file differ either from run-to-run or (in this case) platform-to-platform. In my head, "same encoder plus same settings plus same input file" should yield identical output files, but that's obviously not true.

 

The fact that the output files aren't identical makes me question the validity of the benchmark entirely (AMD may be artificially/accidentally working slightly harder to achieve a smaller file, making its runtime longer; and vv for Apple); the benchmark should be either output-quality-normalized (using some pixel-difference metric against the original, for which I'm pretty sure Netflix (IIRC) made an entire library for) or output-size-normalized (for these cases).

[RabbidEwok]

I really don’t get including Apple when you don’t understand the product stack. The M3 base model ain’t a “Pro” machine. It’s just the air internals with a nicer chassis, you’re paying the premium for the display (which is about $400 to manufacture). The M2 air with 16GB of memory is there if you want to factor in price. 

[RabbidEwok]

2 hours ago, powertoys said:

I loved the bit where the Macbook couldn't finish a benchmark because the 8 GB RAM limitation made it crash.

 

"but but but apple is more efficient so 8 gb ram is equivalent to 200 gb on windows"

The benchmark crashed, the program without the benchmark would not. If they were running that test where they know it will crash without 16GB of RAM why didn’t they just get a cheaper Mac with more memory? Oh wait they just included it to rag on Apple again 

[powertoys]

40 minutes ago, RabbidEwok said:

why didn’t they just get a cheaper Mac with more memory?

There is no such thing as a cheaper M3 with more memory, that IS the base model as of today, unless you wanted them to do a comparison with Apple's M2 MacBooks.

Also mentioning a point that Linus himself made in the video: they are comparing it to ~$1300 Windows laptops. The $1600 base model will get beat by a similarly priced Windows machine in any RAM-heavy workload that makes it swap.

 

47 minutes ago, RabbidEwok said:

The M3 base model ain’t a “Pro” machine. It’s just the air internals with a nicer chassis,

 

The only response I can think of to this argument is that maybe, just maybe, the Apple website looks like this to you, and only you:

 

 

 

[RabbidEwok]

38 minutes ago, powertoys said:

There is no such thing as a cheaper M3 with more memory, that IS the base model as of today, unless you wanted them to do a comparison with Apple's M2 MacBooks.

The M3 isn’t a massive step over the M2 you’re talking 10% maybe, around the same as the tick tock Intel did for ages that everyone hated because it wasn’t enough improvement gen to gen. The “pro” laptop you’re paying the extra for the display. If you’re buying a MacBook for a “professional” use case you’re getting the Pro chip. 

38 minutes ago, powertoys said:

Also mentioning a point that Linus himself made in the video: they are comparing it to ~$1300 Windows laptops. The $1600 base model will get beat by a similarly priced Windows machine in any RAM-heavy workload that makes it swap.
 

In an artificial benchmark sure, in real world usage not so much. It’s also software than no sane person would run on a Mac considering FCP is an option and is a significantly better piece of software. 

38 minutes ago, powertoys said:

 

The only response I can think of to this argument is that maybe, just maybe, the Apple website looks like this to you, and only you:

 

 

 

Nope you’re just not understanding the product segmentation. It’s not about the chassis name is the chip that’s in it. Basic Apple quadrant. Consumer = M2/M3 Professional = M2/3 Pro and above. 

[Senzelian]

5 hours ago, RabbidEwok said:

It’s not about the chassis name is the chip that’s in it.

Ah yes, that makes a 40t truck a race car, cause it has 600hp. Perfect.

[RabbidEwok]

7 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

Ah yes, that makes a 40t truck a race car, cause it has 600hp. Perfect.

Your analogy doesn’t work. I could easily reverse fhat and say a body kit makes any car into a race car. the lineup is segmented by the chip, that’s why the “Pro” line chips do things like supporting more displays, having more IO and starting at 16GB of RAM. The M3 14” is just a replacement for the 13” pro with Touch Bar, though at least you’re getting some worthwhile for the extra cost and it means you’re not paying 2K for stuff you don’t need 

[Senzelian]

1 hour ago, RabbidEwok said:

Your analogy doesn’t work. I could easily reverse fhat and say a body kit makes any car into a race car. the lineup is segmented by the chip, that’s why the “Pro” line chips do things like supporting more displays, having more IO and starting at 16GB of RAM. The M3 14” is just a replacement for the 13” pro with Touch Bar, though at least you’re getting some worthwhile for the extra cost and it means you’re not paying 2K for stuff you don’t need 

Nah I think it works perfectly well.

 

In the end, it doesn't matter tho. The product is called "pro", so it has to be for professionals. 1 + 1 is 2 and not 17. 

 

Maybe I should sell a fork which I call "spoon" and if it doesn't work as a spoon I just tell them "you dummy, it's a fork"!

[marcgii]

12 hours ago, AbydosOne said:

Yeah, this one made me pause it and think for a bit. I've always wondered if video encoding was perfectly deterministic, or if there were factors that could make an encoded video file differ either from run-to-run or (in this case) platform-to-platform. In my head, "same encoder plus same settings plus same input file" should yield identical output files, but that's obviously not true.

Doing a quick google search didn't yield any answers on if this is expected behavior.  Later I'll make a post about it on the Handbrake forum.  My best guess is Handbrake is using slightly different x264 parameters depending on platform.  Which would indicate LTT's test methodology is flawed. 

[IkeaGnome]

10 hours ago, RabbidEwok said:

The M3 isn’t a massive step over the M2 you’re talking 10% maybe, around the same as the tick tock Intel did for ages that everyone hated because it wasn’t enough improvement gen to gen. The “pro” laptop you’re paying the extra for the display. If you’re buying a MacBook for a “professional” use case you’re getting the Pro chip. 

But then you also get the "BuT tEsT uNfAiR. tHe MaCbOoK iS aN oLdEr GeNeRaTiOn!!!!!!!!"

[RabbidEwok]

2 hours ago, Senzelian said:

Nah I think it works perfectly well.

 

In the end, it doesn't matter tho. The product is called "pro", so it has to be for professionals. 1 + 1 is 2 and not 17. 

 

Maybe I should sell a fork which I call "spoon" and if it doesn't work as a spoon I just tell them "you dummy, it's a fork"!

Not how it works at literally any level. How many things have “Pro” added to them? Oh I’m sorry that toothbrush is called the “Pro 3” that means it’s for dentists. 

[RabbidEwok]

54 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

But then you also get the "BuT tEsT uNfAiR. tHe MaCbOoK iS aN oLdEr GeNeRaTiOn!!!!!!!!"

If we’re playing that game though why are they comparing the base spec M3 vs a mid stack Intel and AMD chips? Surely they should be using the middle of the road M3 Pro instead? The laptop is more expensive but that’s mainly due to things like the display rather than the internals. 

[Senzelian]

10 minutes ago, RabbidEwok said:

Not how it works at literally any level. How many things have “Pro” added to them? Oh I’m sorry that toothbrush is called the “Pro 3” that means it’s for dentists. 

Whataboutism is never the answer, especially when Apple started this whole nonsense.

[IkeaGnome]

36 minutes ago, RabbidEwok said:

f we’re playing that game though why are they comparing the base spec M3 vs a mid stack Intel and AMD chips?

I didn't realize I was playing that game. As you've shown, if they went with the route of using the M2, people would have just had something else to complain about saying the tests weren't fair. 

Your very next sentence shows this.

 

[RabbidEwok]

30 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

Whataboutism is never the answer, especially when Apple started this whole nonsense.

No dude you’re looking at the name of something rather than where it’s targeted