Intel brings out the old Mac guy -- and gives Rocket Lake-S an Adaptive Boost

Oh boy, Intel is really pissed at Apple. In recent months, Apple captured the spotlight by showing that world that the ARM architecture can be extremely competitive in use cases where x86 used to rule the world supremely. The Apple M1 SoC is a technological marvel -- it enables the creation of ultraportable laptops with fast performance, extremely long battery life, zero noise production, and almost no heat output.

The M1 caught Intel off-guard and it's just the first salvo from Apple. Future versions of Apple Silicon for the MacBook Pro and the Mac desktop computers will be a lot more powerful. For the first time, Intel is feeling the heat from a non-x86 processor in its traditional markets. Of course, the impact is still limited because switching to Mac OS is not something everyone wants or can do. But looking a bit further into the future, Qualcomm is the next ARM-based company going after Intel's (and AMD's) marketshare in the computer market.

Intel decided the best course of action was to make fun of Apple's new laptops by doing a series of remakes of the old "I'm a Mac" commercials from nearly 20 years ago. Intel even hired Justin Long, the guy from the "I'm a Mac" ads, to hype up Intel-based products. Weak move Intel. Weak move.

Other examples from Intel's new ads include a brief conversation with a PC gamer wherein the PC gamer comments, "No one really games on a Mac," and Long quickly agrees. There's also a sequence where Long is surprised and disappointed that he cannot use a touch interface on MacBook's screen. He is instead confused by the Touch Bar (which Apple is expected to stop shipping in new Macs later this year, according to some reports). -- ARS Technica

Intel cooks up yet another Boost

Next there's a little bit of news about Adaptive Boost Technology (ABT), yet another Boost cooked up by Intel. This feature is exclusive to the Core i9 "Rocket Lake-S" series and will offer 5.1GHz on all cores on the flagship model -- providing that all necessary conditions are met.

It would seem that [ABT] will engage up to 100°C for 3 to 8 cores, whereas TVB will only work up to 70C. This theoretically will allow up to 5.1 GHz on select cores. Officially the Core i9 series offers up to a 4.8 GHz all-core boost, so this slide would suggest that if power and temperature requirements are met, then all cores should boost up to 5.1 GHz, 300 MHz above the specifications. -- VideoCardz