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Apple unveils M1, its first system-on-a-chip for portable Mac computers

9to5mac.com

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Re: Apple unveils M1, its first system-on-a-chip for portable Mac computers

#403

Post by jamil7 »

Jtsummers wrote: post #218

Out of curiosity, how many people are actually constrained by 16GB of RAM? What applications are you using it for that 16GB vs 32GB is actually a deal breaker for you? Thinking about your average end-users, like most of my family, 8 to 16GB is about all they need for their systems (and if software were better written they'd probably need less). So is this specific work like machine learning? Video and image processin…

People running electron apps are likely constrained. Maybe with the ability to run iOS/iPadOS versions we can ditch things like the desktop version of Slack.

Re: Apple unveils M1, its first system-on-a-chip for portable Mac computers

#406

Post by StillBored »

jonplackett wrote: post #43
fulafel wrote: post #34

"This affords faster performance on Mac computers using M1 versus separate CPU, GPU, RAM, and other components" Are they really saying this vs dGPU?

I'm sure I heard them specifically compared it to other laptops with integrated graphics.

And very likely the intel integrated graphics in existing mac's (aka not Xe). The AMD integrated graphics are easily 3x faster in similar product lines in many benchmarks vs the intel's. Which means its probably roughly the same as the Amd product lines. Large parts of the presentation perf improvements are probably GPU related.

Course i'm viewing this with a healthy dose of skepticism, having been around in the PPC days when you would think from apple's marketing that the PPC based macs were massively faster than your average PC. In reality they were ok, but rarely even the fastest device across a wide swath of benchmarks, mostly sort of middling.

Re: Apple unveils M1, its first system-on-a-chip for portable Mac computers

#407

Post by forgot-my-pw »

rewtraw wrote: post #246
kevindong wrote: post #186

Completely unconfirmed speculation incoming: There's a solid chance that the logic board is exactly the same on all of the Macs announced today and the only difference is the cooling solution. If you play around with the Apple Store configurator, the specs are all suspiciously similar between every new Mac. https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/13-inch https://w…

If you compare the M1 Air and Pro, the only difference seems to be the addition of the Touchbar, 10% better battery life, and a "studio" speaker/mic on the Pro. https://www.apple.com/mac/compare/ I assume the addition of a fan on the Pro gives it better performance under load, but there doesn't seem to be a hugely compelling reason to not just get the Air.

I'm confused of their new pricing scheme / spec tiers for Macbook Pros.

There's no more core i7 for Macbook 13. You have to go to Macbook 16. I'd rather get a Dell XPS or other Core i7/Ryzen 7 ultrabooks.

So now, spec-wise, Macbook Air and Macbook Pro are too close.

Re: Apple unveils M1, its first system-on-a-chip for portable Mac computers

#409

Post by Rebelgecko »

slayerjain wrote: post #279

Pros: * Amazing chips. Probably more faster than both i9 MacBook Pro 16 and iMac Pros, and GREAT battery life! * Finally better camera and wifi 6 * same price Cons: * Wont not run all apps in full speed for now (temporary) * Memory expansion is expensive and limited to 16GB (temporary) Most limitations are temporary, I think these are amazing products unless you want more than 16GB memory.

Also looks like it only has 2 plugs

Re: Apple unveils M1, its first system-on-a-chip for portable Mac computers

#410

Post by varispeed »

ameen wrote: post #225
kevindong wrote: post #186

Completely unconfirmed speculation incoming: There's a solid chance that the logic board is exactly the same on all of the Macs announced today and the only difference is the cooling solution. If you play around with the Apple Store configurator, the specs are all suspiciously similar between every new Mac. https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/13-inch https://w…

I guess the cooling let’s them tweak the CPU clocks accordingly? Wonder if we can hack the Mac mini with water blocks and squeeze higher clocks. The memory limitation makes it a dud though.

Wouldn't be surprised if the cooling solution was serialised and it had a detection whether the cooling is originally programmed for the particular unit like they do now with cameras and other peripherals (check iPhone 12 teardown videos). I bet that the logic would check the expected temperature for given binning and then shut down the system if it is too cool or too hot. Apple knows better than the users what hardware should work with the unit.
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