Introducing the next generation of Mac • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#861

Post by skohan » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 9:12 AM UTC

kllrnohj wrote: post #103

skohan wrote: post #23

I'm interested to see the benchmarks vs. comparable AMD systems. Some of the claims, like 2x performance increase on the MBP are impressive, but intel laptops have been absolutely trounced by AMD 4000-series laptops of late. Also will be interested to see the benchmarks of the integrated GPU vs. discreet GPU performance.

> Also will be interested to see the benchmarks of the integrated GPU vs. discreet GPU performance. If they're "only" claiming 2x over anyone else' integrated, then it's not going to be all that interesting to compare integrated vs. discreet. By comparison here the 2060 Max Q is around 4x faster than the Vega 8 in the 4800U. Although that 2x faster than anyone else's integrated also has some really big question marks…

The claim was 2x CPU performance over the previous 13" MBP, and 5-6x GPU performance over the previous integrated graphics.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#862

Post by foldr » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 9:19 AM UTC

mantap wrote: post #690

foldr wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video encoding is one example of a laptop use case where the iPad Pro has very competitive performance. Gaming is another.

We're talking about RAM. RAM usage is a direct function of how many apps you have open at the same time. For an iPad that number is a lot smaller than for a laptop.

I don't think that's the reason the iPad Pro performs well at video encoding (or else you'd be able to say the same thing for any Android tablet). It's a combination of dedicated hardware and a fast CPU.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#863

Post by foldr » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 9:22 AM UTC

novok wrote: post #692

foldr wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video encoding is one example of a laptop use case where the iPad Pro has very competitive performance. Gaming is another.

Video encoding is usually special dedicated hardware, so it's more measuring the hardware encoder than the general speed of the device. Go head to head with AV1 encoding for example and you'll see it matches it's general benchmark.

Yes, but Apple are moving in the direction of adding dedicated hardware to support a lot of common use cases. The point remains that video encoding is something that people often use laptops for. Users just want it to go fast; they don't care how exactly the hardware is making that happen.

The iPad Pro has strong raw CPU performance in any case. It certainly outperforms plenty of entry-level Windows laptops.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#864

Post by enriquto » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 9:24 AM UTC

BatteryMountain wrote: post #794

How are companies still releasing hardware with 8GB RAM? My MacBook Air from ~2016 has 8GB of RAM. My first PC which had 8GB of RAM was built in ~2010 if I remember correctly. My current machine has 32GB. In all honesty, 32GB is not even much, considering my motherboard can take 128GB (in the old days, if your motherboard could take max 8GB RAM, people would fill all the slots to capacity). Also, I have a Lenovo mach…

> How are companies still releasing hardware with 8GB RAM?

8GB is a huge amount of RAM. I cannot imagine writing a serious program that needs more than 2% of that. The real problem is programmers using "frameworks" and shit that requires inordinate amounts of unused memory.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#865

Post by GordonS » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 9:30 AM UTC

enriquto wrote: post #864

BatteryMountain wrote: post #794

How are companies still releasing hardware with 8GB RAM? My MacBook Air from ~2016 has 8GB of RAM. My first PC which had 8GB of RAM was built in ~2010 if I remember correctly. My current machine has 32GB. In all honesty, 32GB is not even much, considering my motherboard can take 128GB (in the old days, if your motherboard could take max 8GB RAM, people would fill all the slots to capacity). Also, I have a Lenovo mach…

> How are companies still releasing hardware with 8GB RAM? 8GB is a huge amount of RAM. I cannot imagine writing a serious program that needs more than 2% of that. The real problem is programmers using "frameworks" and shit that requires inordinate amounts of unused memory.

Do you only ever run a single process in some non-multitasking OS?

The rest of us are using Linux, Windows and MacOS, where many processes run side by side, each with memory requirements.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#866

Post by blame_lewis » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 9:30 AM UTC

enriquto wrote: post #864

BatteryMountain wrote: post #794

How are companies still releasing hardware with 8GB RAM? My MacBook Air from ~2016 has 8GB of RAM. My first PC which had 8GB of RAM was built in ~2010 if I remember correctly. My current machine has 32GB. In all honesty, 32GB is not even much, considering my motherboard can take 128GB (in the old days, if your motherboard could take max 8GB RAM, people would fill all the slots to capacity). Also, I have a Lenovo mach…

> How are companies still releasing hardware with 8GB RAM? 8GB is a huge amount of RAM. I cannot imagine writing a serious program that needs more than 2% of that. The real problem is programmers using "frameworks" and shit that requires inordinate amounts of unused memory.

Mostly Electron. I don't like it either, but Electron is a fact of life now.

While you don't have to join in on that as a developer, you still have to be aware that 95% of users will have no idea that their instant messaging application uses 800mb of RAM to idle, or whether that's a bad thing.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#867

Post by Teknoman117 » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 9:44 AM UTC

tiffanyh wrote: post #445

I don't understand the pricing of the MacBook Air vs the 13" Pro. The Air ($1249) vs 13" Pro ($1299), you get: - same CPU - same GPU - same Neural chip - same RAM (8gb) - More storage for the Air (512gb vs 256gb with 13" Pro) - You get Touch Bar with 13" Pro So if you don't care about the Touch Bar, you actually get with the Air: - better specs - smaller device footprint - and $50 cheaper. Am I missing something?

The larger chassis allows for better cooling and more battery. Their comments would make it seem that the same processor in the MacBook Pro performs better because of more thermal headroom due to active cooling. The Air is fanless.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#868

Post by weystrom » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 9:44 AM UTC

I don't see people mentioning it here, but the Pro machine only supports one external display. People have called the sales rep to confirm and this is indeed the case.

This is kind of bad news for the Pro machine.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#869

Post by amelius » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 9:44 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #734

lovelyviking wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who downvoted your comment and why ? This is a good comment and good strategy to teach them a lesson. Without some efforts those companies would not recall moral values. Richard Stallman was warning us about this development long ago and he was right. Cripled hardware is useless for hacking mind.

Because it’s just creating e-waste, and if you do it enough they’ll stop selling you things.

So the e-waste stops the moment they stop selling us junk?

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#870

Post by alexott » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 9:47 AM UTC

nfin wrote: post #860

alexott wrote: post #853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upgraded my MacBook in 2012 from 4 to 16gb for 110 euro... Just put new memory even before first booting

it seens that RAM is now in the package, making it very very hard (almost impossible in practical terms) to upgrade. Right? Or did I miss something?

yes, right now memory is built-in into the motherboard... So you need to buy overpriced memory from Apple (and it makes me think about leaving Apple platform)