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

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

#441

Post by read_if_gay_ »

mrguyorama wrote: post #245
kayson wrote: post #161

I'm very curious to see some real benchmarks. I have no doubt that they've achieved state of the art efficiency using 5nm, but I have a harder time believing that they can outperform the highest end of AMD and Intel's mobile offerings by so much (especially without active cooling). Their completely unit-less graph axes are really something...

Read the fine print at the bottom, the claims they are making seem very..... not backed up by their testing. They chip they say they beat that makes them the best in the world is the last gen mackbook with an i7

Their claimed 3x faster is massive even if the baseline is low. And they also achieved that vs. the Mac Mini's 3.6GHz i3. So I don't think fastest singlethread performance is an outlandish claim.

Historically speaking, Apple doesn't underdelivier on their claimed numbers. I'm excited to see what they'll do with a full desktop power budget.

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

#442

Post by ValentineC »

KMnO4 wrote: post #130

Will the MBA have a different "M1" chip than the MBP? And the Mac Mini? Seems like they're all using the same processor.

I think they're using the same M1 processor, but the cooling solutions are different.

The Mac Mini and MacBook Pro will be able to sustain higher speeds for longer periods — this is already the case with the Intel versions of them.

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

#443

Post by vicnov »

capableweb wrote: post #147
greenpresident wrote: post #89

Max 16GB of RAM on these new machines is really not that great to be honest. The mini supported up to 64GB before.

Really, 16GB max? I find it very strange how Apple went from targeting professionals, seeing the strategy work from the ground up for many years, but now somehow want to pivot to hobbyists/others instead of professionals. Could someone try to help me figure out the reasoning behind Apple changing the target customer?

Probably saturated market. "What got them here, wont get them there". They continuously need to show growth. As you said, the strategy of focusing on Pro users worked. It's now time to focus on not so Pro users... those who don't need matte displays, 32gigs, fancy keyboards and much rather use a colorful touch bar than another row of buttons.

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

#444

Post by alisonkisk »

ksec wrote: post #195

The 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…

Steve Jobs called things "insanely great". Stop mythologizing him.

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

#445

Post by therealmarv »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #248
ojosilva wrote: post #28

Apple 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…

Yeah, I was confused at that implication. I don't think these are designed for training! (If they are or can be, I'm interested)

Is this just opinion? Maybe they are designed ALSO for training. I wonder if this things can replace nVidia graphic cards on training? The neural core has a LARGE area on the chip design similar to the GPU area.

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

#446

Post by threeseed »

ebg13 wrote: post #394
0x53 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often use more than 16 GB of RAM. Generally, I have 3-4 Windows 10 VMs running which each take at least 4GB to be stable. So if I have 4 running that is all the RAM already.

> Generally, I have 3-4 Windows 10 VMs running What are you doing that needs them all actually running simultaneously? Disk-backed VM pause/resume is extremely fast when your SSD's sequential read/write performance is measured in GBps. I have a hard time imagining a workflow that actually uses multiple systems all at once, so to me what you're saying sounds like "Well of course my RAM gets filled if I fill it on purp…

That's assuming that your SSD is doing nothing else at the time that it is pausing/resuming.

Often it is. And so whilst SSDs are fast they still aren't fast enough to not slow everything else doing under high load.

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

#448

Post by ljm »

varispeed wrote: post #410
ameen wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hardw…

So, essentially their new Macbook line is a glorified iPhone/iPad but with a foldable display (on a hinge)?

Not too far-fetched when you see the direction MacOS is headed, UI-wise. And it sounds nice, but if it means that repairability suffers then we'll just end up with a whole wave of disposable laptops.

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

#449

Post by egsmi »

onepointsixC wrote: post #210
carabiner wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhone has typically had lower specs while outperforming its competitors in benchmarks. I think the integration goes a long way toward efficiency.

But Mac OS X isn't iOS. The relative memory usage should be the same between an intel Mac and an ARM Mac. Which means for power users this is extremely disappointing.

That's not obvious at all. The memory hierarchy is very different in an Apple SOC compared to a typical PC architecture. For example, I don't think there is the equivalent of a system level cache in a PC.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14892/the-apple-iphone-11-pro...

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

#450

Post by wlesieutre »

_ph_ wrote: post #284
293984j29384 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8GB and 16GB configurations seem more than enough..

I had a quad-core Mini with 16GB in 2011. Almost 10 years later we should be much further, especially as the Intel Mini allows up to 64GB. (Which you probably would use only if you upgraded the memory yourself).

The intel Mac Mini is still available with the same 8GB in its base model, but configurable up to 16/32/64. RAM is definitely the biggest weakness of these new Macs.

On iOS they can get away with less RAM than the rest of the market by killing apps, relaunching them fast, and having severely restricted background processes. On Mac they won't have that luxury. At least they have fast SSDs to help with big pagefiles.

With the heterogeneous memory, your 8GB computer doesn't even have its whole 8GB of main system memory.

When the touchbar MBP launched in 2016 people were already complaining that it couldn't spec up to 32GB like the competition. Four years later, and it's still capped at 16GB.

Hopefully they can grow this for next year's models.

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