Intel's latest ad campaign mocks M1-powered MacBooks

[midian182]

A hot potato: Apple's M1 chips have been winning praise from reviewers and consumers alike, and it looks as if Intel is getting a case of the green-eyed monster. Chipzilla, whose own processors were pushed out to make way for Cupertino's in-house solution, has launched an ad campaign highlighting the M1-powered laptops' shortcomings.

Intel has been posting the "Go PC" ads on its official Twitter account. The latest of these boasts that PCs are the machine of choice for both scientists and gamers, as they can "power a rocket launch and launch Rocket League."

Only a PC can power scientists and gamers alike. #GoPC

— Intel (@intel) February 10, 2021

The link in the tweet directs to an Intel-sponsored YouTube video by Jon Rettinger that examines why someone looking to buy an M1-powered Mac should consider one of Intel's new Evo laptops first.

"If you're looking for a good laptop in 2021, there are many things to consider, but processor choice might be more important than you think," reads the video description.

The ad follows another from last week that states no Mac can boast a tablet mode, touch screen, and stylus capabilities within in a single device, unlike a PC.

Only a PC offers tablet mode, touch screen and stylus capabilities in a single device. #GoPC

— Intel (@intel) February 2, 2021

Intel processors had powered Macs for years before the M1 chips arrived, and team blue's CPUs remain in plenty of MacBooks, but Apple says it aims to phase out all Intel processors from its lineup by 2022.

Intel recently published a series of benchmarks comparing an M1 MacBook Pro to a laptop with a Core i7-1185G7. The report has been criticized as the tests appear cherry-picked to favor Intel. The gaming section notes the "countless" games that don't run on the M1, though Apple's chip outperforms Intel's in several titles that work on both CPUs.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/88616-intel-latest-ad-campaign-mocks-m1-powered-macbooks.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

PC doesn’t have to attack Mac.

As long as I can run any game I want on PC, or replace any part I want to with any part I want to, PC has already won.

 

[Shadowboxer]

I think it’s important that we don’t take the marketing teams efforts for tech companies too seriously. This one reminds me of AMDs “poor volta” campaign a few years back. Mocking your competitor makes you look desperate and probably gives your competitor some sales along the way. Especially here, I reckon those who aren’t aware of the M1 chip will now look it up after seeing this advert. I think being able to play rocket league is a poor substitute for significantly worse battery life that the Intel chips have compared to the M1 in a professional notebook. But each to their own.

I bet the Intel engineers groaned hard when they saw this..

 

[Uncle Al]

Isn't it amazing how marketing has now swung to mocking the other guy rather than simply touting the benefits of your own products? I suppose this came about the same time as politicians started doing the same thing and worst of all ..... we all bought into it.

 

[franticfrosty]

So basically Intel just killed any possible hope that apple might just keep a line of products using intel cpu's alive lol, Why burn a bridge like that seems pointless even in business terms

 

[Avro Arrow]

Intel is a horrible company and they've shown it countless times.
Apple is a horrible company and they've shown it countless times.

I honestly don't care what happens between these two evil empires.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Isn't it amazing how marketing has now swung to mocking the other guy rather than simply touting the benefits of your own products? I suppose this came about the same time as politicians started doing the same thing and worst of all ..... we all bought into it.

What do you mean "now"???

Advertisers have been doing this since inception... and politicians have been doing it for millennia.... it's human nature!

 

[DZillaXx]

Honestly PC's won long ago.

Mac sales are only strong in one area, ultra portable laptops. The Macbook air M1 is best in class. For the price I find it hard to find a better option. You'd think other manufactures would listen and stop making crappy laptops. Dell XPS devices are nice, but it cost more than a macbook air while at best just being on par.

For a workstation laptop Dell and HP are still the best choice. My Dell Precision 7740 has 4 m.2 slots and 4 ram slots. I have 64GB of Ram and a 6 Core 12 thread i7. A Macbook Pro just wouldn't be able to keep up for storage requirements and cheap options for RAM. Nor would it be able to keep up with thermal demand. With a RTX3000 a Macbook just wouldn't be able to compare. Which is why I don't see anyone using Mac hardware doing 3D Cad Design.

But I ended up getting a Macbook air with m1 as for the cost I just couldn't see a better option. I'd love to have gotten a Surface Go, but once you get it specs out to be even close what I'd call min spec that you'd get it the macbook air from the start. 256gb storage and 8gb Ram, the cost between the two is small and Macbook has better battery and build.

Intel should focus on not having the worst x86 chips than worrying about apple. AMD's Zen scales better and really what intel should worry about. If AMD was also to up their production scale and get manufactures to make some decent units with their U series of chips I'd be ready. I'd love a AMD Powered Surface Laptop.

 

[nonamepew]

I don't actually like Apple but with M1 they have done a really good job. It actually feels like they have done some great R&D and not just typical Apple stuff where they come with a 3 year old tech claiming it to be next gen.
I own Macbook pro M1 and its quite amazing. I am a software developer and I work on a data processing framework. Testing my code usually requires working with a decent amount of data. And M1 handles it pretty well, it doesn't get hot. And the best part is that it usually survives full day of work with around 40% battery remaining at the end of the day.
For the main system, I do have a desktop PC with 5900X and 3080 and it is definitely faster (way faster when it comes to multi-threaded application) but it does so while consuming way more power and generating way more heat.
Macbook is not for gaming that's pretty clear. And judging it on the basis of its gaming performance is like judging a fish based on its ability to climb a tree.

 

[ilovelinux]

I guess this is Bob Swan's Swan Song.

Mocking your competitors exposing your insecurity, instead of learning something from them and improving your products. Wouldn't expect any better from Intel anyway.

 

[Irata]

Seems like sour grapes....

 

[kapital98]

I guess this is Bob Swan's Swan Song.

Mocking your competitors exposing your insecurity, instead of learning something from them and improving your products. Wouldn't expect any better from Intel anyway.

Yeah, like how Apple mocked PC for years? Especially their really famous ads with Justin Long and John Hodgman. But who remembers that...

 

[Avro Arrow]

What do you mean "now"???

Advertisers have been doing this since inception... and politicians have been doing it for millennia.... it's human nature!

I think that Squid's referring to Intel Marketing's focus on products that aren't their own. For Intel, this is a relatively new development. For the longest time, Intel seemed to completely ignore the existence of AMD and always spoke as if Intel existed in a vacuum. When Ryzen kicked Intel in the balls, Intel suddenly realised that AMD existed and thus began a smear campaign. They did this by referring to Ryzen CPUs as "glued together" (which made me laugh more than anything).

Then of course, there was the situation in which Intel's mobile CPU presentation actually mentioned their own product an astonishingly small number of times. Since Steve Burke is the best for sarcastic videos that take potshots at corporations, I'll link his video because while I'm pretty sure that you've already seen it, if you haven't...well... just make sure that you don't have a full bladder before you start watching it.

 

[ilovelinux]

Yeah, like how Apple mocked PC for years? Especially their really famous ads with Justin Long and John Hodgman. But who remembers that...

Justifying a bad habit with another bad habit? I dislike Apple and Intel both to the core, but at this point Intel is mocking itself when it mocks others.

I am looking forward to a day when I can run Linux distros fuss-free on arm hardware at an affordable price. Otherwise, the effects of M1 are completely insignificant for me.

 

[Chemicalfaerie]

I don't actually like Apple but with M1 they have done a really good job. It actually feels like they have done some great R&D and not just typical Apple stuff where they come with a 3 year old tech claiming it to be next gen.

When you have the money and resource to design and fabricate a chip that only runs on your systems and your hardware, it better damn sure be the best thing out there. If you balance the scale though, as in "How well does it run other systems and on other hardware" it is a failure so far. I want to see a Hackintosh Windows build using M1 to really gauge its abilities.

I am aware of the one side PC master race POV of this argument. But Intel and AMD chips have been running Mac stuff for years so...

 

[Dimitriid]

PC doesn’t have to attack Mac.

As long as I can run any game I want on PC, or replace any part I want to with any part I want to, PC has already won.

Actually it kinda does because I think Apple has a legit chance at taking over. Things like replacing parts, custom esoteric software, fine control over all configurations, these things ultimately do not matter when it comes to just selling personal computers.

And I know this because if any of what you said was true, then Linux would have overtaken Windows several years ago as having Windows 10 is a constant battle against Microsoft to have some measure of control over your hardware.

Apple is not pretending to give you any control whatsoever over the experience, except they come out of the gate with a fanless, all day battery laptop that trades blows with Windows based ones already on their very first iteration we can safely assume will be the worst one, while the PC enthusiasts that could care about the very deep level of customization of their experience currently can't buy anything decent cause all GPUs and even all decent laptops are being bought out by miners.

What do you honestly expect common people to do? "Oh wait, you want a sleek looking laptop that has 0 noise and you don't even need to take a charger with you at all?

Or should I listen to the weird nerds posting at techspot.com about how much better an X86 laptop is so I should go without any computer for 6 months to a year at least while they manage to actually sell those at places I can buy from?"

They'll take the macbooks, on unprecedented numbers.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

So basically Intel just killed any possible hope that apple might just keep a line of products using intel cpu's alive lol, Why burn a bridge like that seems pointless even in business terms

No, Apple has already decided they were dropping Intel.

I think Intel's hope here was to try and convince people that Apple doesn't have their best interests at heart and that people should be getting an Intel chip in a comparable/better laptop.

Sad thing is, folks that buy Apple buy them because they don't know any better or firmly believe Apple iOS can only provide them with what they need and that no other device and/or OS can.

 

[brucek]

I vote with Intel that PC is the more flexible platform, but I've got to hand the marketing award to Apple. When Apple tries to sell on you on something, their message tends to land, even when it's highly exaggerated and maybe even misleading. Meanwhile those Intel slides just make my head hurt and I'm probably a lot more receptive to them than your average computer shopper would be.

 

[duckofdeath]

I think it’s important that we don’t take the marketing teams efforts for tech companies too seriously. This one reminds me of AMDs “poor volta” campaign a few years back. Mocking your competitor makes you look desperate and probably gives your competitor some sales along the way. Especially here, I reckon those who aren’t aware of the M1 chip will now look it up after seeing this advert. I think being able to play rocket league is a poor substitute for significantly worse battery life that the Intel chips have compared to the M1 in a professional notebook. But each to their own.

I bet the Intel engineers groaned hard when they saw this..

They sort of have to respond with facts not filtered through Apple's hype train. Just the last week, stories have been printed everywhere implying the Apple processor can do 16k VR. Even though that's pure nonsense. Influencers unfortunately have a habit of reposting a lot of this.
The launch of the Apple processor was also an extremely tailored outtake of optimised "reviews", with carefully handpicked "benchmarks". The way Apple always launch products.

 

[OneSpeed]

So basically Intel just killed any possible hope that apple might just keep a line of products using intel cpu's alive lol, Why burn a bridge like that seems pointless even in business terms

I don't think Intel will dictate the relationship between it and Apple; the marketplace will.

 

[OneSpeed]

Seems like sour grapes....

Sour grapes = marketing; you can love it or hate it.

 

[OneSpeed]

No, Apple has already decided they were dropping Intel.

I think Intel's hope here was to try and convince people that Apple doesn't have their best interests at heart and that people should be getting an Intel chip in a comparable/better laptop.

Sad thing is, folks that buy Apple buy them because they don't know any better or firmly believe Apple iOS can only provide them with what they need and that no other device and/or OS can.

C'mon, who buys a computer for an OS? Mac's iOS lets you drop things into a garbage bin. We all know we buy a computer and its OS for the applications that can run on it.

 

[OneSpeed]

PC doesn’t have to attack Mac.

As long as I can run any game I want on PC, or replace any part I want to with any part I want to, PC has already won.

And Apple never attacked the PC's??? You don't have to go too far back to remember when they were notorious for it. It sounds a little hypocritical...

 

[wiyosaya]

Sounds like sIntel - always willing to further BS in the name of screwing their customers.

 

[wiyosaya]

Isn't it amazing how marketing has now swung to mocking the other guy rather than simply touting the benefits of your own products? I suppose this came about the same time as politicians started doing the same thing and worst of all ..... we all bought into it.

Well, not all of us have, thankfully.