> benchmarks show that AMD is much better at their chips running closer to TDP than Intel chips are, so the gap is probably actually wider
AMD gives their TDP with enabled turbo (similar to real usage), Intel gives TDP at rest / no turbo enabled.
There is still some variance from both between given and real TDP, but the core of the difference is well assumed, and dates back to almost a dozen CPU generations back when Intel already had to guzzle power like crazy to superclock their chips in the vague hope that they could compete with AMD's products of the time (and then they never reverted it once they took the lead back with the core architecture)
It's kind of similar to the whole "Intel wants comparison dont with SMT off", due to the last 15 years being theirs, the whole thing is biased toward Intel, ... yet they still massively lose those comparison.
This is accurate, several "95W" TDP intel chips will happily guzzle upwards of 200W+ for sustained periods (providing they don't down clock due to heating)
No this is absolutely not accurate. This only happens due to motherboard defaults running all cores at turbo speeds simultaneously as well as automatic overclocking behaviors on by default.
The reasoning doesn't matter, what matters is what the average consumer sees. If most consumer motherboards do it "wrong", Intel should use those numbers instead of the less common, but "correct" case.
And almost every benchmark will run on one of those motherboards, or do you have a list of curated benchmarks where they were done with TDP limitations per spec?
This is wrong, intel gives their TDP with CORRECT turbo enabled. The problem is that nearly every popular motherboard out there enables turbo on all cores simultaneously ("enhanced multicore" for example on ASUS boards) which blows the TDP out of the spec massively.
As a Small Form Factor enthusiast, I can attest to this with utmost confidence. The chips will run at their expected TDP when configured as specified by the factory, that's just not the default on almost any enthusiast board from known companies. In the case of ASUS it can actually be a bit of a battle to get things to run as intel specifies, both with MCE and automatic overclocking behaviors.
> The problem is that nearly every popular motherboard out there enables turbo on all cores simultaneously ("enhanced multicore" for example on ASUS boards) which blows the TDP out of the spec massively.
If that's the case, then also the performance is "massively blown out", since essentially all the benchmarks around are based on popular motherboards.
Anantech did a test some time ago with a real, fixed, 95 W TDP[¹], and it ain't pretty.
It's definitely good for Intel that "every popular motherboard" is, uh, guilty of going out of spec, otherwise, the popular opinion of Intel chips would be significantly lower.
Regardless, I'm also not really convinced that this can be considered "cheating" by the motherboards. According to the official Intel page [²]:
> The processor must be working in the power, temperature, and specification limits of the thermal design power (TDP)
so ultimately, it's the CPU that sets the performance/consumption ceiling.
And you can do the same on quite a few AMD boards with "Precision Boost Overdrive", which gives you a 300W TDP on 1950x if your cooling can handle it.
Or you can ignore turbo and flat overclock the thing, which depending on workload will produce better results.
AMD gives their TDP with enabled turbo (similar to real usage), Intel gives TDP at rest / no turbo enabled.
There is still some variance from both between given and real TDP, but the core of the difference is well assumed, and dates back to almost a dozen CPU generations back when Intel already had to guzzle power like crazy to superclock their chips in the vague hope that they could compete with AMD's products of the time (and then they never reverted it once they took the lead back with the core architecture)
It's kind of similar to the whole "Intel wants comparison dont with SMT off", due to the last 15 years being theirs, the whole thing is biased toward Intel, ... yet they still massively lose those comparison.