The most interesting thing to me is that switching to a new SOC process node gives you the option of bumping up performance or reducing power draw, and it sounds like Apple has once again chosen to reduce power draw.
It seems like other vendors have been going the "push performance no matter what it does to power draw and heat" route for a long time now.
On the CPU game, apple is so far ahead that it might not even make sense to talk about other vendors. Apple could deliberately downclock their CPUs and still beat the shit out of any flagship android. Hell, their 3 years old lineup actually beats the current year’s top.
It mostly comes down to manufacturing processes. When you compare 5nm Apple hardware to 5nm hardware from other competitors, the power/performance disparity closes significantly. Since Apple is the biggest though, they can out-spend anyone else who tries to buy out the latest node right now. This has been the case since 2020, and seems to still hold true.
Design makes a big difference, but Apple is not the only company designing high-performance ARM cores on TSMC's finest. Some might even say they aren't the best designers doing it, either.
To be honest, in general it does improve battery life if you are faster. Battery life is a race to CPU sleep mode, and if you finish the job faster, the more energy you can save.
Not much runs persistently, more like periodically. And the amount of time it has to be running still matter — processors when turner on leak a bunch of energy no matter what.
A faster processor reduces execution time allowing the CPU to return to sleep status faster. Total energy used is power x time. While increasing operating frequency increases power quadratically due to P = CV^2, it is usually a net energy savings to let the frequency boost as high as a mass produced chip can go to minimize time spent in the highest power state. This assumes a finite bursty workload.
>and it sounds like Apple has once again chosen to reduce power draw
We will have to see. They have a 10% performance increase and I am betting there will be 5% coming from Clock Speed.
And it is not like Apple could push power draw any further as they have maxed out single core power draw. Unlike other competitor ( ARM / Snapdragon ) which has a much lower single core power draw figures and hence they try to push as much as possible.
It seems like other vendors have been going the "push performance no matter what it does to power draw and heat" route for a long time now.