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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

#601

Post by arrrg »

modeless wrote: post #121
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.

Wow, that's actually a pretty big limitation. I guess it's tough to do 64 GB with their on-package unified memory. I wonder if they're working on a version with discrete memory and GPU for the high end? They'll need it if they ever want to get Intel out of the Mac Pro.

They only launched their lower performance machines today. Air, mini, two port Pro.

So that’s the context to interpret the Ram they offer.

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

#602

Post by cbryan »

kllrnohj wrote: post #172
ericls wrote: post #140

I don't know if this will be a big success, but if it is, I think ARM will take over a large amount of server/cloud market.

> but if it is, I think ARM will take over a large amount of server/cloud market. Seeing as how Apple has zero presence in the server/cloud market, how do you figure? Are you hoping they bring back xserve? Otherwise I don't see how Apple having a custom power-efficient chip in a laptop is going to do anything at all in the server/cloud market?

There are other manufacturers that are building ARM servers these days. AWS even went so far as too build their own chip: https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/

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

#604

Post by WhiteNoiz3 »

kmonsen wrote: post #474
noncoml wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they got it wrong. I would pay money to NOT have the touchbar.

I got one of the MBP with the touchbar this year after holding out for many years (changed jobs so had to change laptop). Man it is so much hard to do the volume changes, and there has so far for me been zero benefit.

My problem with the touchbar is that I tap it accidentally while typing all the time. It needs to be like another centimeter away from the keys.

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

#605

Post by Aperocky »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #573

So there is an interesting trend here in the comments because HN is very developer focused. Everyone seems to say "well this does not work for my XXX because of RAM, etc." I would say yes, no surprises there! With this line up Apple is fine with that, because the Air and 13" are not targeted at you. This is the laptop for my wife or kids that use it for school, web, some music and video, nothing at a professional lev…

I'm a dev and I have the air as my personal, side-project computer, and I have already ordered the new one.

I use vim to develop primarily in python/js. So my need for performance is super low.

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

#606

Post by acchow »

numpad0 wrote: post #336
aldanor wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy cow, that's true. New 2020 Mini with a 16GB RAM, seriously?

This is super interesting. I personally wouldn’t consider a 8GB or 16GB laptop this year as my daily driver, but it’s true that the performance gain from extra RAM beyond 8GB is marginal, especially for average audiences and especially when their performances are measured only externally. Like, you might get super frustrated, develop mental health issues, not that the corporate cares. Expenditure reduces, ROI might e…

My 100 Chrome tabs easily consume 8GB

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

#607

Post by mmm_grayons »

jonplackett wrote: post #99
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…

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.

Can anyone who knows about machine learning hardware comment on how much faster dedicated hardware is as opposed to, say, a vulkan compute shader?

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

#608

Post by Aperocky »

beervirus wrote: post #457
dschuler wrote: post #352

The most important feature of an M1-based Mac will likely be OS support into the distant future. I'm still using a 2012 rMBP, which was the first-gen retina version, and it's held up much better than any other computer I've ever bought, partly due to OS support into 2020. I imagine Apple will stand behind this new generation for a long time as well. The new M1 SOCs max out at 16GB RAM, which seems like a major limita…

It sucks that the SSD is (presumably) not upgradeable anymore. Apple generally charges a ton for the larger SSD offerings, but it used to be that you could just buy a base model and replace the thing later.

Use external drives. They're cheaper and way larger.

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

#609

Post by suyash »

_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).

16GB limit with the latest MBP M1 13inch seems a big downer, I will wait for 16 inch MBP refresh now.

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

#610

Post by akmarinov »

jrsj wrote: post #288
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.

I'm expecting 16" MBP and iMac to support more along with an M1X chip or something along those lines.

It'll most likely ship some time in July, so could be an M2
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