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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

#751

Post by mark-r »

celeritascelery wrote: post #707
mark-r wrote: post #691

So Apple will be shipping 5nm chips while Intel is barely able to produce 10nm? Must hurt to be Intel right now.

while it certainly hurts to be Intel right now, be aware that the generation notation does not mean what it used to. They just mark new generations, not actual transistor size. Intel's 10nm is roughly equivalent to TSMC 7mn, and Intel 7nm should be equivalent to TSMC 5nm. So yes, Intel is behind, but not as much as it might seem.

If what you say is correct, Intel appears to be a generation and a half behind right now. Isn't that the kind of lead Intel used to have that made them untouchable?

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

#752

Post by pgib »

I placed an order this morning for a new MacBook Pro to replace my 2016 with Touchbar, but after humming and hawing all day, I cancelled it. Since I'm working from home these days without any prospect of that changing, I've decided to get a new M1 Mac mini instead. It's actually going to eliminate the need for this Elgato Thunderbolt dock I have, and really the only think I'll really miss is TouchID. Some things allow me to use my Apple Watch instead, so that'll have to do to.

At the end of the day, after four years, I want to be buying a replacement laptop that feels even moderately evolved from what I already have. I have a 12" MacBook that I love, so that will be my on-the-go computer for the times I need that.

With the money I'm saving going with the mini, I'm upgrading my daughter's iPad and still have some left over after that.

I'll re-evaluate in the future when hopefully Apple puts some more energy into the laptops. I do actually like the TouchBar but I would expect that after four years, they could at least add proper haptic feedback. As well, the USB-C ports only one side (and the wrong side for me) feels like a downgrade from my 2016 model which has two on each side.

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

#754

Post by grandmczeb »

ffhhj wrote: post #569
sz4kerto wrote: post #467

"Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction MacBook Air systems with Apple M1 chip and 8-core GPU, as well as production 1.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based MacBook Air systems, all configured with 16GB RAM and 2TB SSD. Tested with prerelease Final Cut Pro 10.5 using a 55-second clip with 4K Apple ProRes RAW media, at 4096x2160 resolution and 59.94 frames per second, transcoded to Apple ProRes 42…

Sorry to ask, what is the "Fabric" module in their architecture? Also, is the "Neural Engine" some neural network specific processor?

The "Fabric" is the interconnect between different components on the chip. It's what the different units use to communicate and transport data.

The "Neural Engine" is a special compute unit specifically for machine learning. The iPhone Camera app uses it for semantic segmentation, for example.

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

#755

Post by 00deadbeef »

highfrequency wrote: post #22
dreamer7 wrote: post #12

The iPhone-like speed of waking up from sleep itself is enough to convince many of us to go for the M1 macbooks

How long does it take the current gen of macbooks to wake from sleep, ~1 second?

By time I've lifted my screen in to position it's ready for me to log in. It's very quick. I've never felt held up by it.

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

#756

Post by unethical_ban »

xienze wrote: post #506
satysin wrote: post #165

No 32GB options on any of the models announced today is a shame. Or not I guess as it means I won't be buying anything today M1 looks impressive, hopefully it scales as well to higher TDPs. Pretty much what I expected today with all the low power models getting updated. With no fan I expect the Air will throttle the CPU quickly when using the high performance cores. Calling it an "8-core CPU" is a little cheeky IMHO…

> Or not I guess as it means I won't be buying anything today Honestly, people who don't use their computers as Facebook machines or have very specific things they want to do with the ML engine should probably stay away from Arm Macs for a couple years. There's bound to be plenty of software that doesn't work or doesn't work well, Docker will have ~limited usefulness until more and more people publish Arm images, etc…

Hmmm... What is the day 1 ability for, say, a systems programmer to run VSCode/golang development locally? It'd be neat to find out. The fact that they don't say doesn't tell me much, either it's "not a problem" or it's "such a problem we won't talk about it".

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

#757

Post by npunt »

highfrequency wrote: post #741
dawnerd wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But for MacBook Pro, You are essentially paying $300 more for a Fan and Touch Bar. More than that. Better screen. Bigger battery. Better speakers. Better mics (although I don't know how much I would buy this one as 'studio quality' is silly). A "USB Power Port". The fan will make the MBP perform without throttling a lot longer than the air. The price difference is minor for all that IMO.

Is the screen better on the MBP? I see "2560-by-1600 native resolution at 227 pixels per inch" for both: https://www.apple.com/macbook-air/specs/ https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-13/specs/

500nits vs 400nits is only difference I'm spotting.

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

#758

Post by unethical_ban »

beervirus wrote: post #641
Aperocky wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And slower. And one bumped cable away from corrupted data. No thanks, not for my boot drive.

Not slower, with USB/SSD speeds today.

Do you need a 512GB boot drive?

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

#759

Post by nsxwolf »

lukifer wrote: post #681
noncoml wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I intentionally took a performance hit by moving from a Pro to an Air almost entirely for this reason (although the low power and light weight are pleasant benefits). I'm glad that the new Air still has F-keys with Touch ID; but I'm flabbergasted that they're still not making the Touchbar optional for the Pro series, given how polarizing it's been, and the underwhelming adoption of new Touchbar functionality by third…

They brought back the escape key which is what really matters.

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

#760

Post by gsnedders »

wffurr wrote: post #684
2ion wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will Apple to transparent emulation (x86-on-ARM) or just not run x86 binaries?

Rosetta 2 is a x86_64 to ARM64 translation layer. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple_silicon/abou... Some things still won't run though. Among other issues, there's a page size difference (16 kb vs 4 kb) that bit Chrome (since fixed): https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=110219...

> Some things still won't run though. Among other issues, there's a page size difference (16 kb vs 4 kb) that bit Chrome (since fixed): https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=110219...

Rosetta 2 on shipping hardware uses 4kb pages; it was only the DTK that was 16kb-only.

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