No mention of processor speeds, just like iOS devices. This is the new normal now for Macs.
Processor speeds are not necessarily a good comparator anyway given that things like caches and core counts are a thing.
Apple unveils M1, its first system-on-a-chip for portable Mac computers
251–260 of 1001 posts
Re: Apple unveils M1, its first system-on-a-chip for portable Mac computers
#252For the first time in a while I'm actually excited to see what is possible when the hardware and software are built by the same company.
These CPUs aren't meant for professionals but 18 to 20 hours of battery without all the heat from Intel CPUs is really nice.
Shame they didn't mention clock speeds
Re: Apple unveils M1, its first system-on-a-chip for portable Mac computers
#253I can't shake the feeling that they try to pull a fast one. For example, Mac mini: 3x faster CPU than the old one, and 6x faster in graphics. At the same time 5x faster than the "top selling PC desktop". What is the top selling PC desktop that it's essentially at the level of a 2018 mac mini, or below? Is that desktop at the same price level?
Also: People who use graphs without numbers on the axis should be shot on sight.
Re: Apple unveils M1, its first system-on-a-chip for portable Mac computers
#254Max 16GB of RAM on these new machines is really not that great to be honest. The mini supported up to 64GB before.
And it costs an extra €224 to go from 8 to 16gb. This is ridiculously expensive.
Any option in Euros is about 30% more expensive than buying the same in the US or Hong Kong (which is pretty crummy, but possibly related to taxes and the cost of doing business in the EU).
EDIT: I don't mean VAT/sales tax, I've considered sales taxes in the comparison, but also exchange rates of $1.18/1€. The difference is almost exactly 30%. It looks like the cost of doing business in the EU is much higher, and/or Apple chooses to price their products however they want by region.
Re: Apple unveils M1, its first system-on-a-chip for portable Mac computers
#255The M1 is basically what would Apple would call A14X / A14Z if it was on iPad Pro. So they decided to reuse the A14X / M1 across all three products. And the only differentiation are their TDP cooling. The MacBook Air is 10W TDP, and both Mac Mini and MacBook Pro are likely ~35W range. The did mention MacBook Air's SSD performances is now twice as fast, so this isn't exactly an iPad Pro with Keyboard. That is great ex…
I have to agree. While I'm sure the processors themselves are great, the anemic RAM and storage provided on base models (8GB in 2020, seriously?) is outrageous. Especially considering that the M1 chips should be much cheaper for them than the pricy intel processors.
Re: Apple unveils M1, its first system-on-a-chip for portable Mac computers
#256Apple mentions TensorFlow explicitly in the ongoing presentation due to the new 16-core "Neural Engine" embedded in the M1 chip. Now that's an angle I did not expect on this release. Sounds exciting! Edit: just to clarify, the Neural Engine itself is not really "new": > The A11 also includes dedicated neural network hardware that Apple calls a "Neural Engine". This neural network hardware can perform up to 600 billio…
I can't see how something that tiny can compete in any meaningful way with a giant nVidia type card for training. I'd imagine it's more for running models that have been trained already, like all the stuff they mentioned with Final Cut.
Not all NN models are behometh BERTs, U-Nets or ResNets. Person detection, keyword spotting, anomaly detection... there are lots of smaller neural nets that can be accelerated by a wide range of hardware.
Re: Apple unveils M1, its first system-on-a-chip for portable Mac computers
#257Max 16GB of RAM on these new machines is really not that great to be honest. The mini supported up to 64GB before.
Holy cow, that's true. New 2020 Mini with a 16GB RAM, seriously?
They’re not advertising any 16Gb models on their web site. It’s all 8Gb. Which you’re not going to be able to upgrade.
I’m out
Re: Apple unveils M1, its first system-on-a-chip for portable Mac computers
#258What happens when Apple deprecates support in macOS for these machines in 7 somewhat years?
Is there an upgrade path to install Linux on them like you currently can with Intel-based Macs? Or are these SoCs like every other ARM SoC that requires a custom kernel and bootloader to get Linux running on them?
Re: Apple unveils M1, its first system-on-a-chip for portable Mac computers
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's kind of sad that AMD spent years to get mediocre TensorFlow support and Apple walks in with this. It really shows how huge Apple is.
But they needed to, MacBooks are simply no option if you want to train models. I dont expect crazy performance but would be great if MacBooks would be an option again for prototyping / model development at least
Who mentioned training? Most of these chips are only any good for inference. A wonderful symphony with the Apple computing mantra, of course.
Re: Apple unveils M1, its first system-on-a-chip for portable Mac computers
#260The onboard graphics performance seems to be impressive (1050Ti - 1060 range). I wonder if Valve and Epic will start compiling games for ARM. This MacBook could be my first gaming laptop, who would have thought
I would guess that neither Valve or Epic will do that, it is up to game devs to do that. Mac is bad gaming platform, and dropping 32 bit x86 support from Mac OS didn't help https://www.macgamerhq.com/opinion/32-bit-mac-games/
I think it is clear they dropped 32bit x86 support so it would be easier to develop Rosetta 2 (The x86 emulation layer). I don't really see why they would drop support otherwise.