I think the really cool thing is that this would theoretically rank the M1 as #1 on the Geekbench Single Core leaderboard, above both AMD and Intel's latest offerings!
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
#962Earlier quoted context omitted.
They probably have a lot of customers still demanding Intel CPUs. Mac minis are often used in server farms as build servers and there are many companies that would require Intel CPU there for some time.
The M1 Mini is far better than Intel Mini on cost/power, power/watt, power/heat measures. Server farms are going to switch rapidly, one leading Mini server farm just announced a 600 unit starter order, and the CEO noted that Big Sur also made significant changes to licensing to make its use in server farms easier.
Of course i just found out M1 only supports 1 gigabit Ethernet, but I don’t think that changes the decision much.
Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro
#963Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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.
Catalina already broke a TON of legacy software and you cannot downgrade newer Macs to Mojave (at least not without some serious hacking efforts, and I know at least one person who tried and failed).
That's not true at all. You can use recovery mode to trivially revert back to the OS that was installed when the computer was purchased. If that's pre-Mojave then you can just upgrade back to Mojave afterwards.
Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro
#964Dang, you do a very nice job of moderating here. Light touch approach, helpful guidance and enforcement when needed. Just wanted to let you know it's appreciated!
Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro
#965Earlier 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…
The claim of no AAA gaming is totally uncertain -- Apple seems to think that you'll be able to run games in Rosetta with better performance than what you can get on the existing 16" Macs. I guess we'll have to wait and see, but if these new Macs really are so great, I'd expect devs to start porting their games.
Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro
#966Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
It's a stop gap yes, but I am replying to someone that said their apps will not run on these new machines. And check my reply to a sibling comment where people are finding cases where Rosetta is faster than native.
Actually, you're replying to me. Check the usernames.
You can't run Windows on these things, and Rosetta 2 doesn't fully support kexts, VMs, or certain instruction sets. It's a translator and it's going to be imperfect in practice. That's why it's not intended to supplant development with native instructions.
Your other comment is a tweet regarding one function that is speculatively faster, but tells me nothing about real-world performance -- nor whether the tools I use for my business are going to be supported by Apple Silicon in the next few months.
Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro
#967Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple aren't using ARM's core designs, they're just licensing the architecture.
Are you sure about that? I didn't see this mentioned anywhere in the news, or on the M1 Wikipedia page.
Considering their A12 chip is designed by them I think it's safe to say the M1 is too. Not only that it states in the first sentence on Wikipedia that the M1 is designed by Apple.
Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro
#968Dang, you do a very nice job of moderating here. Light touch approach, helpful guidance and enforcement when needed. Just wanted to let you know it's appreciated!
Mr. Gackle is in large part what has kept HN from degrading into just another Internet forum.
Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro
#969Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there is also a moral angle that disturbs Windows fans to this as well: This is validation that Apple's heavy-handed walled-garden approach can, in fact, work and even sometimes beat an open ecosystem. That's freaky.
You’re kidding me. Are you seriously happy with the level of innovation coming out of x86? It’s a decades old pile of glue and skeletons. Intel has all but given up. AMD is out innovating Intel but at the end of the day the platform as a whole is aging and comes with a lot of baggage, spectre/meltdown, etc... You can certainly choose to view this as a step towards bolstering the walled garden... but my money is on Ap…
Spectre affected Apple's chips just like pretty much everyone else, it isn't x86 "baggage".
Re: Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro
#970I'm looking forward to seeing what the top end of this chip can do. 64 cores ought to be nice! 32 cores at least.
And I think it's safe to assume that is in the works for the iMac Pro and Mac Pro, it's just a question of when it will see the light of day.
The Mac Pro isn't a high volume unit. So it's unlikely that Apple will spend the money developing huge, workstation class CPUs.