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Introducing the next generation of Mac

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Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#341

Post by ksk »

fastball wrote: post #276
kllrnohj wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Better memory management means less RAM can be better than more RAM No, it can't. If more RAM means it's slower RAM then maybe it can be better to have less of it in some workloads. But otherwise it's never better to have less RAM than more RAM. Better memory management can make the impact of less RAM be less severe, but it's still unambiguously worse. Especially if you have workloads that actually need the RAM lik…

Only worse if your only goal is "have more RAM". If the purpose of owning a computer is "get shit done", better memory management absolutely can be better than just throwing more RAM at the problem.

It's true that if the OS could predict exactly which memory pages to keep and which to swap out, we could save memory wastage, but so far I haven't seen any memory management scheme that can reduce memory consumption by half.

For me personally, I won't even consider a machine with less than 32GB ram in 2020/2021. With 32GB, I never close out of applications that I use regularly, and so it allows me to switch state instantaneously for not that much more money. My workloads are typically read-heavy & multiple GBs - editing/screening/cataloging hundreds of RAW photos, loading of multi-GB games, having about 50 tabs open in FF, etc. After having switched careers I rarely code anymore, and I don't think these are uncommon requirements.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#342

Post by theorg »

Watching this event was definitely an interesting look at the top rungs of Apple. Their own corporate self-perception has certainly evolved in the last few years. I think many commentators have noted the way that Apple has tried to take its "decisive-break-with-the-past" marketing of prior years and prior hardware generations and make it something that can keep selling into the long term. Making their own chips seems like yet another salvo in that effort. For anyone interested in questions about the corporate structure of Apple behind-the-scenes, you might like this article: https://theorg.com/insights/the-minds-behind-apples-revoluti...

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#343

Post by Reason077 »

qz2 wrote: post #85
geoffeg wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing that since the RAM is now on the SOC instead of on separate chips creating models with more RAM becomes more difficult not only from a space constraint on the die but a cost to manufacture more variants?

I imagine they all are made with 16Gb on and the ones that are broken get sold as 8Gb. What worries me is my desktop has 64Gb of RAM which cost 1/3 of Apple’s usual upgrade mugging. I think I’ll walk away from this. Edit: just seen £200 to upgrade from a 8Gb unit to 16Gb. 8GB of RAM for £200 is “get fucked” territory. I paid £240 for the 64Gb in my desktop.

> "I imagine they all are made with 16Gb on and the ones that are broken get sold as 8Gb."

Don't think so. The M1's RAM is integrated into the SoC package, but it's not actually on the same die.

There's some images showing the discrete RAM modules in Apple's marketing material.

> "Edit: just seen £200 to upgrade from a 8Gb unit to 16Gb."

It's always been this way with Apple. Just in the old days you could pop the modules out and upgrade the RAM yourself.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#344

Post by dasKrokodil »

ibraheemdev wrote: post #39

Apple has been getting trashed lately by developers for how hot and loud their macbooks get. You can tell how much focus they put on cooling in this presentation. The macbook air literally doesn't even have a fan!

Wasn't the latest Intel-based MacBook Air fanless as well?

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#345

Post by mFixman »

callamdelaney wrote: post #150

I'll be sticking with my 2015 Macbook Pro Retina 13". Great machine, not too thin, heavy enough, no stupid touch screen, usb ports, great keyboard. Everything apple has done since hasn't compared.

You are missing out if you don't have 4 USB-C ports in both sides of your laptop. You can charge your laptop and connect a display with a single cable and without caring about putting the computer in the right direction.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#346

Post by lostgame »

shrimpx wrote: post #323

The new Air looks good. The new mbp 13” not so much. If they’re going to lower the max ram they should at least provide an explanation why 16g in the new architecture is comparable to 32 in the previous, if that’s indeed the case.

16GB RAM max prevented me from an immediate purchase. Next year, when I can at least have 32GB and be somewhat future-proofed.

That they are still selling new computers for $1000+ in 2020 with 8GB RAM as the default and 16GB of RAM max is a bad joke.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#347

Post by akmarinov »

regulation_d wrote: post #46

Did I miss something, or are they, once again, not upgrading the camera? The low light performance of the current version is real bad. Since we're all using these cameras way more, I really thought there would a hardware bump. You can only squeeze so much detail out of an under-exposed, noisy image with software.

It's looking like they stuck the M1 in the same bodies of existing Macs with the intention of upgrading everything next year.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#348

Post by nicoburns »

qz2 wrote: post #220
conductr wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, doing what??

IDE + VMs + office + slack + zoom etc

Yeah, I found running all my dev environments in Docker/VMs made everything too slow. So I've just installed everything natively and have my own little docker-compose style runner to simplifying running our in-house microservices. I would definitely appreciate decent Docker performance, but it was actually surprisingly painless to set this up.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#349

Post by 0xFFFE »

callamdelaney wrote: post #150

I'll be sticking with my 2015 Macbook Pro Retina 13". Great machine, not too thin, heavy enough, no stupid touch screen, usb ports, great keyboard. Everything apple has done since hasn't compared.

I returned my brand new top spec 2019 model to IT and took the 2015 model from their retired stock.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#350

Post by Shivetya »

dcchambers wrote: post #37

The 16GB RAM limit is unfortunate. Five years later and I still can't buy a new 13" laptop from Apple with more RAM than my 2015 MBP. Edit: Apparently you can configure a (Early 2020) Intel-based 13" MBP with 32GB of RAM - I was not aware of that. Hope they bring that option to the ARM versions ASAP, especially if the performance gains are as good as Apple claims.

This is 16GB which is shared with their GPU so it will be interesting to see what limit Apple puts on the GPU for grabbing memory.

There are stories that Apple is working on a gGPU so that would free space up on a future Mx chip for additional processors or memory. However looking at the space occupied by DRAM and GPU it looks like a larger die is required for any on board memory expansion.

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