Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro

#751

Post by asah » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 1:02 PM UTC

marcan_42 wrote: post #696

throwaway4good wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The results seem a little weird but if remotely true then these machines are going to sell like cup cakes. Why would anyone (who is not forced) buy an Intel PC laptop when these are available and priced as competitive as they are?

Until all software is ported to ARM, it will run in emulation, which is going to be slower in most cases. People invested in plug-in ecosystems, like DAWs or video editing, will likely have an endless long tail of plug-ins that aren't getting ported, or that require a re-purchase to get an ARM version. And due to Rosetta's architecture, you can't mix ARM and x86 plug-ins (in-process, like VSTs - Apple wants you to us…

won't emulation catch up in those timeframes ? still, 3+ yrs which is a long time...

Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro

#752

Post by frank2 » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 1:03 PM UTC

manmal wrote: post #720

kmlx wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would anyone (who is not forced) buy an Intel PC laptop when these are available and priced as competitive as they are? as a power user I will not be touching anything apple ARM until all my hundreds of software apps are certified to work exactly the same as on x86_64. i will not rely on rosetta to take care of this. i need actual testing. besides this, 8GB of RAM is how much a single instance of chrome uses. i…

> it's pretty clear their focus is not their power users' focus Depends on the definition of "power user". Music producers, video editors, and iOS developers will be served quite well. > lenovo thinkstation p340 tiny. you can configure it with 64gb ram and core i9 with 10 cores and 20 threads for less $$$ than what an underpowered 6 core mac mini is selling for. When making that calculation, one should also take powe…

Taking power consumption into account makes sense when the machine is running on battery power, but all modern processors are power efficient enough for the cost of electricity to be negligible for a tiny desktop computer.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro

#753

Post by joefourier » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 1:06 PM UTC

satysin wrote: post #750

This is very interesting and in line with Apple's claims. I am looking forward to some real world numbers for different tasks in the next few weeks and months as native apps become available. Jonathan Morrison posted a video [0] comparing a 10-core Intel i9 2020 5K iMac with 64GB RAM against an iPhone 12 Mini for 10-bit H.265 HDR video exporting and the iPhone destroyed the iMac exporting the same video, to allegedly…

Your h265 example is due to the iPhone having a dedicated HW encoder while the iMac was rendering using the CPU. A hardware video encoder is almost always going to be faster and more power efficient than a CPU-based one by definition. However, a CPU encoder offers more flexibility and the possibility of being continually improved to offer better compression ratios.

Generally, HW encoders offer worse quality at smaller fie sizes and are used for real-time streaming, while CPU-based ones are used in offline compression in order to achieve the best possible compression ratios.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro

#754

Post by gjsman-1000 » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

joefourier wrote: post #753

satysin wrote: post #750

This is very interesting and in line with Apple's claims. I am looking forward to some real world numbers for different tasks in the next few weeks and months as native apps become available. Jonathan Morrison posted a video [0] comparing a 10-core Intel i9 2020 5K iMac with 64GB RAM against an iPhone 12 Mini for 10-bit H.265 HDR video exporting and the iPhone destroyed the iMac exporting the same video, to allegedly…

Your h265 example is due to the iPhone having a dedicated HW encoder while the iMac was rendering using the CPU. A hardware video encoder is almost always going to be faster and more power efficient than a CPU-based one by definition. However, a CPU encoder offers more flexibility and the possibility of being continually improved to offer better compression ratios. Generally, HW encoders offer worse quality at smalle…

OK... but let's say I'm a professional. That's a big sell. Having dedicated HW to do something faster than CPU is a bonus, not cheating.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro

#755

Post by fluffything » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

blunte wrote: post #702

Tepix wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Macbook Air with 16GB RAM and 512GB isn't really priced competitively here in Germany. It's almost 1600€.

It's not trying to compete with German PCs (which have some nice options, but yet are Windows PCs, not Macs). I'm not an Apple fanboy, and I'm still very displeased with many of their decisions (touchbar being #1 on MBPs). But if you consider the packaging (small, light, sturdy, now-decent keyboard), and consider their performance, and then consider macOS, I think they are more than competitive. Even if you match eve…

I have a MacBook Air 2012, and have been waiting to upgrade for... 2 years already. The laptop will probably end up being 10 years old by the time I upgrade...

- crappy webcam,

- no built-in SD card reader (a 1TB SD card is ~200$, and my music does not need to be stored on an expensive SSD)

- magsafe.. if this was the only downgrade, I'd upgrade, but TBH I love magsafe on my mac and I would miss it if I upgrade.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro

#756

Post by bluedino » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 1:10 PM UTC

martin_bech wrote: post #563

throwaway4good wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The results seem a little weird but if remotely true then these machines are going to sell like cup cakes. Why would anyone (who is not forced) buy an Intel PC laptop when these are available and priced as competitive as they are?

I was going to add you cant do Android development on these, as you need Android Studio, but that seems to be on the way — Support for Apple Silicon is in progress

Wouldn't the x86 version run under emulation?

Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro

#757

Post by majewsky » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 1:11 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #754

joefourier wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your h265 example is due to the iPhone having a dedicated HW encoder while the iMac was rendering using the CPU. A hardware video encoder is almost always going to be faster and more power efficient than a CPU-based one by definition. However, a CPU encoder offers more flexibility and the possibility of being continually improved to offer better compression ratios. Generally, HW encoders offer worse quality at smalle…

OK... but let's say I'm a professional. That's a big sell. Having dedicated HW to do something faster than CPU is a bonus, not cheating.

Well yeah, for that one use case. But you cannot go from "X is 20% faster than Y at H265" to "X is 20% faster than Y at doing computer stuff".

Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro

#758

Post by joefourier » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 1:12 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #754

joefourier wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your h265 example is due to the iPhone having a dedicated HW encoder while the iMac was rendering using the CPU. A hardware video encoder is almost always going to be faster and more power efficient than a CPU-based one by definition. However, a CPU encoder offers more flexibility and the possibility of being continually improved to offer better compression ratios. Generally, HW encoders offer worse quality at smalle…

OK... but let's say I'm a professional. That's a big sell. Having dedicated HW to do something faster than CPU is a bonus, not cheating.

You already have HW encoder blocks on certain CPUs and most GPUs. See: Intel Quicksync, Nvidia NVENC and AMD Video Core Next. Support for them will of course depend on your platform and the applications you are using. IIRC, video editing software will generally use HW decoding for smooth-real time playback, but use CPU-encoding for the final output.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro

#759

Post by ubermonkey » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 1:12 PM UTC

moondev wrote: post #682

throwaway4good wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The results seem a little weird but if remotely true then these machines are going to sell like cup cakes. Why would anyone (who is not forced) buy an Intel PC laptop when these are available and priced as competitive as they are?

> Why would anyone (who is not forced) buy an Intel PC laptop when these are available and priced as competitive as they are? - locked bootloader - no bootcamp - can't install or boot linux or windows - virtualization limited to arm64 machines - no windows x86 or linux x86 virtual machines - only 2 thunderbolt ports - limited to 16GB RAM - no external gpu support/drivers - can't use nvidia or amd cards - no AAA gamin…

"uncertain future of macos as it continues to be locked down"

Citation Needed.

Apple detractors LOVE to bring this idea up, but there's nothing to it in any real sense. Do Macs ship with a checkbox filled in that limits software vendors? Yes. This is a good thing. Is it trivial to change this setting? Also yes.

Anyone who buys a Mac can run any software on it they like. There is no lockdown.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro

#760

Post by satysin » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 1:13 PM UTC

joefourier wrote: post #753

satysin wrote: post #750

This is very interesting and in line with Apple's claims. I am looking forward to some real world numbers for different tasks in the next few weeks and months as native apps become available. Jonathan Morrison posted a video [0] comparing a 10-core Intel i9 2020 5K iMac with 64GB RAM against an iPhone 12 Mini for 10-bit H.265 HDR video exporting and the iPhone destroyed the iMac exporting the same video, to allegedly…

Your h265 example is due to the iPhone having a dedicated HW encoder while the iMac was rendering using the CPU. A hardware video encoder is almost always going to be faster and more power efficient than a CPU-based one by definition. However, a CPU encoder offers more flexibility and the possibility of being continually improved to offer better compression ratios. Generally, HW encoders offer worse quality at smalle…

Yes but that is kind of the point. Going forward all Apple Silicon machines will have this kind of hardware baked into the SoC at no extra cost whereas no Intel system (be it PC or Mac) will.

That is a big deal as it means Adobe, Sony, BlackMagic, etc. will be able to optimise to levels impossible to do elsewhere. If that 8x speed up scales linearly to large video projects you would have to have a Mount Everest sized reason to stick to PC.