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

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

#791

Post by totalZero »

manojlds wrote: post #457
totalZero wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite. You can't synthetically compare one chip to another and draw organic conclusions. Apple computers with M1 don't support the software that I use. That's why I bought a fully spec'd Intel MBP13 today. All this talk about battery life and benchmarks gets flipped on its head when I can't use the product in the real world.

Isn't there Rosetta that they talked about?

It's an emulator, not a panacea.

"Rosetta is meant to ease the transition to Apple silicon, giving you time to create a universal binary for your app. It is not a substitute for creating a native version of your app.”

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple_silicon/abou...

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

#792

Post by kube-system »

blunte wrote: post #698
wffurr wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Starts at $999 for the base laptop version. You can get much cheaper still good Windows laptops.

You lost me at "good Windows laptops". macOS has plenty of warts, but my experience with high quality equipment (Thinkpad, XPS, Alienware) has left me ultimately disappointed with Windows in many day to day situations compared to Mac. Windows is still clunky, despite many improvements. And aside from a Thinkpad Carbon X1, I haven't used any laptop with the performance and build quality (for the size/money) as a Macbo…

I bought a thinkpad hoping to avoid quality issues that I’ve experienced with other machines. The hardware is great (except for the wimpy cooling), but I have had various annoying issues with drivers, bios updates, and the behavior of their system update tool.

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

#793

Post by delfinom »

avalys wrote: post #380
torbital wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But now they are locking down their software hard. So there is really no free lunch.

In what respect is Apple “locking down their software hard” with respect to these new Macs?

Apple is moving to basically ban non-Apple store installs of Mac software. It's been in progress the last few years but they are on the final stages of turning Macs into iPhones.

Gotta take their 30% cut of everyone's revenue.

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

#794

Post by blunte »

eertami wrote: post #784
blunte wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>macOS is free Oh wow, that's cool, I didn't know that. Do you have a link to where I can download the free edition of macOS? Google doesn't seem to be helping me.

Depends on your country, but here's a US example: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/macos-catalina/id1466841314?ls...

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

#795

Post by AnthonyMouse »

rkangel wrote: post #775
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Absolutely. But how many of those hardware blocks exist for what you want to do? If you care about H265, great. Let's say you get a dozen specific hardware accelerators, that's still only 12 tasks. That might end up covering the vast majority of web browsing tasks (to pick one example), but particularly as an engineer there is always going to be something else. And not all intensive tasks are amenable to hardware acc…

Not only that, what happens over time? Not long ago the hardware accelerated codec would have been H.264. Soon it could be AV1. We're already at the point that professionals could want to be using AV1.

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

#796

Post by mumblemumble »

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 got a new computer from work last year. I spent quite a while carefully studying my options, and what I saw came down to this:

If you're only looking for computers that are comparable according to the usual hardware specs (cpu, ram, etc.), a Mac costs 25-50% more than the cheapest comparable PC.

If you also throw ergonomic factors like weight and battery life into the comparison, there's no price difference.

(This was USA prices.)

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

#797

Post by noir_lord »

andy_threos_io wrote: post #737
mcintyre1994 wrote: post #479

> The M1 chip, which belongs to a MacBook Air with 8GB RAM, features a single-core score of 1687 and a multi-core score of 7433. According to the benchmark, the M1 has a 3.2GHz base frequency. > The Mac mini with M1 chip that was benchmarked earned a single-core score of 1682 and a multi-core score of 7067. > Update: There's also a benchmark for the 13-inch MacBook Pro with M1 chip and 16GB RAM that has a single-core…

I checked this geekbenchmark with our several different computers on hand, and I can confirm that it's total useless measurements for real world applications or performance.

Torvalds ripped it apart nearly a decade ago.

It's a useless benchmark, what I want to see is things like time to compile a bunch of different software, things that take long enough for the processor/cooling to reach thermal equilibrium etc.

I.e. stuff that more closely matches the real world

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

#798

Post by noir_lord »

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…

IIRC, binaries on arm on osx have to be signed.

I.e. "We raised the walls on our garden further"

Balls to that, if I buy hardware I want to be able to run what I want on it or it's not a general purpose computer, it's something else.

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

#799

Post by blunte »

enragedcacti wrote: post #788
blunte wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> macOS is free while Windows is not what laptop are you buying where you need to purchase a Windows license?

The manufacturer of your laptop has paid Microsoft for the OS and is passing that cost on to you in the total price (excluding MS hardware such as the Surface).

Or if you buy a bare system or build your own, you need to buy Windows yourself.

Apple gives their OS away, but in theory you can only run it on their hardware.

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

#800

Post by ralfd »

aeyes wrote: post #738
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this could be a good time to jump the apple ship. it's pretty clear their focus is not their power users' focus. Their focus is not on power users ? They just completed the first, small, step of the migration to ARM. They only updated the very low-end models, those who were never targeted at power users anyway, and we're seeing that their cheapest, lowest-end models are whooping the i9 MBPro's ass. Sure, the featur…

They also updated the MacBook Pro so that is exactly the performance you are going to get for this generation. The big screen model might give you more cores and RAM but IPC is going to be exactly the same.

The 13" MBP was never a pro "pro" model. I bet the big screen models next year will have more RAM and maybe an M2 chip.

> but IPC is going to be exactly the same.

I am not sure what you mean with this?

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