alt Hacker NewsI disagree. Let's take the M1 vs the M5 (https://www.macrumors.com/2025/11/10/apple-silicon-m1-to-m5-...):
- 6× faster CPU/GPU performance
- 6× faster AI performance
- 7.7× faster AI video processing
- 6.8× faster 3D rendering
- 2.6× faster gaming performance
- 2.1× faster code compiling
Plus, realistically what makes an "ai" server different from a computer? This "lineage info of the family may be passed down through generations" sounds nice but do you know anyone passing down a Commodore 64 or Apple II that remains in daily use? I fail to see how "ai" would protect something from obsolescence.
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That first bullet is a bit sketchy. Benchmarks, particularly geekbench, may have increased 6x, but that's being manipulated.
The GPUs have become much larger, so 6.8x is believable there, as is the inclusion of a matmul unit boosting AI.
The 2.x numbers are the most realistic, especially because they represent actual workloads.
It doesnt matter if computers keep getting faster - it just matters if eventually they get to the point where everything is good enough for good AI.
That being said I feel like were gonna get to that point for most other stuff way sooner than AI (and already have for many pieces of software)
Today, not much differentiates them. But as time passes our only option will be to further specialize the hardware to get realistic gains; at some point perhaps a 'purpose built analog' computer kinda thing will get to the point where it is so useful, that it would be like the 'Standard Template Constructs' concept in Warhammer 30k. So what you can make a faster ai but, the current one can 'teach everyone, basically anything'.
It depends on what/how you're comparing. Core to core, according to CPU benchmark, the M1 is 5800 vs the M5 at 3600, so we're still not quite to 2x.
Overall system performance is better at about 2x improvement thanks to extra cores/other improvements/changes. I could see other more specialized benchmarks improving more thanks to different improvements/core/power/size improvements in other components (GPU/NPU/etc...).