Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 529 posts

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#61

Post by whalesalad »

TylerE wrote: post #58
whalesalad wrote: post #48

I love everything about the move to Apple Silicon with the exception of the decision to put memory on-die or in-package (not sure how it is configured). They call it 'Unified Memory'. It makes a lot of sense but I don't know if they are going to be able to pack enough memory in there. A lot of folks are fixated on CPU performance lately (which is rad) but I think that there is a tendency to ignore memory. I have 32gb…

I wonder if the CPU can support mixed RAM. E.g. have the on-die 8GB of "fast" ram, and then support 2 external DIMMs or something for "overflow", file caching, etc.

That is a great idea. I think the software is going to be the hard part. You would need some kind of heuristic or software to manage moving memory between those two locations. That is just my initial thought I could be totally wrong.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#62

Post by layoutIfNeeded »

phkahler wrote: post #9

The real competition is no longer Intel. Its AMD. Or if you're just buying Apple because you like them then there is no competition, you buy what they offer. I like fanless systems so I'll be watching Apple closely.

Huh? Apple is quite the opposite of fanless... They have literally the most devoted fanbase among computer vendors.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#63

Post by kube-system »

knolan wrote: post #56
51Cards wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then new M1 Pro relies on its fan to prevent throttling so I don't know about their plans to go fanless yet.

The Air in the article is fanless.

Right, and I think some benchmarks I've seen this morning indicate that it throttles during more intensive tasks. The Pro benchmarks better, the only difference being the fan.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#64

Post by bird_monster »

The next laptop I purchase for home use will be a linux laptop. Hopefully linux on a laptop has gotten a lot better than my last couple experiences with it. Apple products have just taken such a steep turn for the worse over the years, I can't justify paying that amount of money for such poor quality.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#66

Post by DonaldPShimoda »

whalesalad wrote: post #48

I love everything about the move to Apple Silicon with the exception of the decision to put memory on-die or in-package (not sure how it is configured). They call it 'Unified Memory'. It makes a lot of sense but I don't know if they are going to be able to pack enough memory in there. A lot of folks are fixated on CPU performance lately (which is rad) but I think that there is a tendency to ignore memory. I have 32gb…

Keep in mind that so far Apple has only started offering M1 on what are essentially entry-level computers. I think it's likely there will be a 32GB Unified Memory version for the 16" MBP (which maybe will become available on the 13" or Mac Mini too).

I think M1 would not be able to achieve the performance and efficiency improvements if the RAM were not integrated, so they'll stick with Unified Memory for the time being. I don't think this will be as tenable for the Mac Pro (and maybe not even iMac Pro), but those are probably much further from Apple Silicon than anything else, so we'll see what happens.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#68

Post by andy_ppp »

whalesalad wrote: post #48

I love everything about the move to Apple Silicon with the exception of the decision to put memory on-die or in-package (not sure how it is configured). They call it 'Unified Memory'. It makes a lot of sense but I don't know if they are going to be able to pack enough memory in there. A lot of folks are fixated on CPU performance lately (which is rad) but I think that there is a tendency to ignore memory. I have 32gb…

Is the new architecture better or worse with memory usage than x86 macs?

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#69

Post by bmurphy1976 »

cercatrova wrote: post #26

Is anyone else thinking, what the f*ck? Are we in a new era of computing? It certainly feels that way when looking at these desktop class ARM chips, where performance doubled every year or so, just like back in the 80s and 90s.

Normally this wouldn't feel so ground breaking, but the stars are in alignment and all these improvements are hitting at the same time. We're seeing years of work and investment paying off (AMD, Apple, ARM, Nvidia, Amazon), new process nodes (TSMC), and new tech (Ray Tracing, DLSS, machine learning) all hitting at the same time.

And that's the big stuff! There's also the steady incremental improvements such as battery technology, SSD and RAM that are ongoing.

You also have an incumbent (Intel) who's lost their way. If they were as scrappy as they were 15 years ago this wouldn't feel like such a banner year.

Yeah, I think we are in a new era of computing.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#70

Post by mlyle »

bigdict wrote: post #29

Is this cross compilation to x86 or a native compile to Arm? That could be playing an important role if it's easier to optimize and emit code for one architecture versus the other.

Maybe, but architecture-specific stuff is a relatively modest part of compiling. And in any case, if you're going through compile-test-run cycles, the fact that it might be easier/quicker on ARM is hardly a ding against it.
Post reply on HN