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

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

#231

I think Apple have screwed themselves over a bit here by sticking ARM-based Apple silicon in their lower-end/entry level devices first. I mean what's the point in spending £5k on a fully tricked out 16-inch MBP, as I'd been considering, when an entry level Macbook Air or Mac Mini is going to run rings around it? The reason I'm not going to buy one of these lower end Macs (the Mini would be the best fit) is that I can…

> can't stick enough memory in one

Sorely disappointed that the Mini is limited to 16GB. That alone makes it feel obsolete, because 16GB is the new 8GB with as much desktop virtualization I find myself doing.

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

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect HP/Lenovo/Microsoft are squirming in their chairs right now.

Qualcomm chips are not that far behind Apple's, and Microsoft has Windows on ARM ready for a while now. Those performance advantage won't be there for long. I think the bigger question is what does this spell for x86-64?

> I think the bigger question is what does this spell for x86-64?

Not much?

People are acting like M1 destroys x86, but as AnandTech showed in the recent benchmark, M1 is trading blows with Zen 3 in single thread performance while having much larger core and process advantage (5nm vs. 7nm) thus being actually more expensive to produce.

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

#233

I think Apple have screwed themselves over a bit here by sticking ARM-based Apple silicon in their lower-end/entry level devices first. I mean what's the point in spending £5k on a fully tricked out 16-inch MBP, as I'd been considering, when an entry level Macbook Air or Mac Mini is going to run rings around it? The reason I'm not going to buy one of these lower end Macs (the Mini would be the best fit) is that I can…

That's because we might be just seeing the low-end version of the M1 and we might see the high-end version of these chips next year or so. :)

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

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Satya Nadella just tweeted about their new Pluton processor. I have a feeling it won't get the same hype as the M1 but they are clearly already trying to defend.

FYI - Pluton is a security chip, not a general purpose CPU.

THIS. I saw multiple headlines calling it a processor, which may be somewhat true but it's not a General purpose processor and certainly is not a CPU. Yes, Apple's T2 chip has an A8 in it, but they don't call it a processor.

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

#235

I think Apple have screwed themselves over a bit here by sticking ARM-based Apple silicon in their lower-end/entry level devices first. I mean what's the point in spending £5k on a fully tricked out 16-inch MBP, as I'd been considering, when an entry level Macbook Air or Mac Mini is going to run rings around it? The reason I'm not going to buy one of these lower end Macs (the Mini would be the best fit) is that I can…

16GB is enough memory

"16GB ought to be enough for anybody."

If you think it's enough, it's probably not.

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

#236

I think Apple have screwed themselves over a bit here by sticking ARM-based Apple silicon in their lower-end/entry level devices first. I mean what's the point in spending £5k on a fully tricked out 16-inch MBP, as I'd been considering, when an entry level Macbook Air or Mac Mini is going to run rings around it? The reason I'm not going to buy one of these lower end Macs (the Mini would be the best fit) is that I can…

16GB is enough memory

What basis makes this comment apply to _everyone_ ?

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

#237

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…

Anandtech is reporting 62GB/sec memcpy, and the way-faster Geekbench results are the memory-bound ones (e.g., Gaussian blur is 4x faster!)

So I think the speedups like these are largely due to memory architecture.

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

#238

I think Apple have screwed themselves over a bit here by sticking ARM-based Apple silicon in their lower-end/entry level devices first. I mean what's the point in spending £5k on a fully tricked out 16-inch MBP, as I'd been considering, when an entry level Macbook Air or Mac Mini is going to run rings around it? The reason I'm not going to buy one of these lower end Macs (the Mini would be the best fit) is that I can…

Well, just to provide a positive opinion, isn't it nice that a company puts baseline good hardware in their consumer grade product that more people can afford, and gives the option for add on better features? (I mean, with the acknowledgement that baseline = relatively expensive with Apple)

Rather than dumbing down / intentionally hobbling a product so they can sell it for cheaper or segment the market and extract maximum profits.

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

#239
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

16GB is enough memory

What basis makes this comment apply to _everyone_ ?

I think he's joking as in the early Microsoft/Bill Gates statement about memory.

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

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qualcomm chips are not that far behind Apple's, and Microsoft has Windows on ARM ready for a while now. Those performance advantage won't be there for long. I think the bigger question is what does this spell for x86-64?

Uh, unless there's some new Qualcomm chip I haven't heard of, the Qualcomm chips are all being utterly crushed by Apple's offerings in geek bench and specperf.

Guess we'll see (maybe) in December (Snapdragon 875 will be announced December 1st at Qualcomms Digital Summit) - or a bit later, but the 875, now also on 5nm, supposedly will be quite a bump. Leaked (supposed) benchmarks show 30%+ improvement, which would be A14 territory.

I also have my doubts, but would be great for the market. (New Exynos 2100 supposedly also being up there.)

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