AMD introduced a powerful new laptop chip today, the Ryzen AI Max. The company compared its new chip to Apple’s M4 line in several benchmarks, but there’s a very important detail it left out.
New Ryzen AI Max compared to two Apple chips, but not the relevant one
The new Ryzen AI Max from AMD is a 16-core laptop chip with a heavy emphasis on AI and graphics performance. It’s being marketed as an ultra-powerful option for creators, gamers, and more.
Naturally, AMD wanted to show off its new chip by comparing it to another option commonly favored by creators: Apple’s M4 MacBook Pro.
The problem is, it left a key M4 configuration out of the test.
Paul Alcorn writes at Tom’s Guide:
AMD also included numerous rendering benchmarks of its 16-core flagship against the 12-core Apple MacBook M4 Pro, claiming an up to 86% advantage in a v-ray workload. Naturally, the 14-core M4 Pro, also included in the benchmarks, is more competitive, but AMD still holds a stout lead in the Blender, Corona, and v-ray selection of benchmarks. However, the Ryzen AI Max+ isn’t as performant in the multi-threaded Cinebench 2024 test, beating the 12-core M4 Pro by a scant 2%, and trailing the 14-core M4 Pro by 3%.
Do you notice what’s missing there?
AMD’s 16-core chip is compared to:
- Apple’s 12-core M4 chip
- and the 14-core M4 Pro
But the 16-core M4 Max chip is suspiciously absent from all the benchmarks.
M4 Max’s absence from benchmarks makes sense…for AMD
During AMD’s presentation, one presenter touted the Ryzen AI Max’s performance as ‘winning easily against the 12-core [M4], and trading blows with the 14-core [M4 Pro].’
Apple’s 12-core M4 only offers a 10-core GPU. With the 14-core M4 Pro, you can get up to a 20-core GPU.
Top comment by Dr. Nobody Important
This is just AMD’s attempt to stay relevant in the processor market after Apple trounced everyone with the introduction of the Apple Silicon computers. Of course this is to keep people from upgrading from an AMD Windows machine to a Macintosh. Those of us who have already seen the writing on the wall have already upgraded and left Windows behind.
Only with the 16-core M4 Max can you get a 40-core GPU.
So I suspect that the M4 Max, based on the Ryzen’s struggles against the M4 Pro, would handily beat AMD’s chip in any relevant benchmark.
But of course, AMD doesn’t want you to know that. Instead, it’s comparing different classes of chip and claiming victory.
What do you make of AMD’s comparisons? Do you think they’re fair? Let us know in the comments.
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