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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

#291

Post by selectodude »

ogre_codes wrote: post #244
sudhirj wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chalking it down to ARM doesn’t cut it... other companies make ARM chips too, including Qualcomm. Most Android phones run ARM, and given they outnumber iPhones heavily you’d expect massive improvements. But this is better than putting Qualcomm’s best chip into the Mac.

Yes, ARM is one piece of many. (Commented about this above) Though I suspect if Qualcomm were able to source a TSMC 5nm chip, it would be more competitive with Apple than Intel is at this point though. Apple has a lot of other things going for it where Qualcomm lags (the Secure Enclave, graphics performance, audio and photo processing, the neural engine etc etc)

Debatable. Qualcomm operates under a strict transistor budget because their chips lack a dedicated customer willing to pay what it costs to develop an ultra-wide CPU like this. Apple knows they're going to sell 100+ million of whatever core they make so they're able to more easily amortize and justify the costs of development.

Intel gets no such benefit of the doubt. I have no idea what on earth is going on over there.

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

#292

Post by hvis »

monocasa wrote: post #44
siraben wrote: post #20

Does anyone know what the state of Linux on Mac is since the introduction of the T2 chip and now this? Do people still run Linux on Mac and how has the experience been?

Since T2, there isn't a way for Linux to access the SSD AFAIK. You have to install it on an ext external drive and boot from that.

Apparently Linux 5.4 and newer can.

Most other peripherals are barely working, though.

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

#293

Post by Synaesthesia »

localhost wrote: post #65

Here's another benchmark, this time XCode, that I screencapped from Dave Lee's YouTube review: https://twitter.com/john_lam/status/1328754454930231299 The 3950X Hackintosh performed on par with the MBA.

SSD speed is important in this kind of operation. The SSD and controller in the Mac are very fast.

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

#294

Post by rualca »

codeulike wrote: post #282
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.

Note that the comparison is also compiling to ARM vs compiling to Intel, so its partly to do with the simplicity of the compilation process between the two architectures. https://twitter.com/rikarends/status/1328762958118346753

I'm also curious to learn where was the bottleneck in both tests.

I've read stuff about how the M1-packing MacBook Air shipped with a SSD whose burst write speed was far higher than the one shipped in older MacBooks. The bottleneck on build jobs tends to lie on disk access, specially with projects comprised of a significant number of small files whose build also outputs a bunch of small files.

This is one of the reasons behind doing builds on RAM drives.

If that's the case then these weird speedups might not be due to magic properties on Apple's M1 professor but due to the fact that the processor doesn't idle as much while waiting for all those reads and writes to finish.

If anyone has any data on this, please do share.

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

#295

Post by selectodude »

bartread wrote: post #275
smallnamespace wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple’s ‘low end’ segment is the lion’s share of both revenue and profit. A decade ago, the Intel Mac Pro also came out after the rest of the product line. For awhile you could only get a Powermac G5.

This is a fair point, but it's certainly a very peculiar - and somewhat offputting - dynamic where the bottom of the range outperforms the top end.

The first MacBook Pro immediately outperformed the Power Mac G5.

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

#296

Post by strictnein »

tomp wrote: post #103
tootie wrote: post #18

Nearly universal praise for the M1 versus it's predecessor but I don't see how this really changes Apple's position the way he implies. Their machines are still far more expensive than Windows and can't use high-powered GPUs like AMD/Nvidia. The people who choose PC, still have the same incentives to do so. For most users, the faster performance will probably not be very noticeable. The reduced power consumption is t…

> Their machines are still far more expensive than Windows Are they? I just checked now for US prices: 13‑inch MacBook Pro (Intel Core i5) 32GB = $2059 13-inch Dell XPS (Intel Core i7) 32GB = $2099 These are both the cheapest options available for my desired configuration (32GB RAM and 13-inch screen), and MacBook has far superior build quality, trackpad and OS. Probably for different specs MacBooks are comparatively…

You're comparing an i5 to an i7. Processor speed is also pretty important for dev use.

I run a 15" Macbook Pro and a 15" Dell XPS. The Mac is definitely not "far superior".

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

#297

Post by 3000000001 »

aidenn0 wrote: post #287
bhouston wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel in 2020 is IBM in 1980.

So in 2060 it will still be a huge company with $20B in revenue?

Past performance does not indicate future performance, but there are plenty of reasons to think Intel might be around for some time to come.

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

#298

Post by The_Colonel »

harrygeez wrote: post #264
The_Colonel wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

My concern is not with performance but the seemingly energy consumption advantage. If Arm chips perform just as well (or as we've just seen, better) than x86 chips while sipping much less power, why would anyone want x86 on mobile devices? Are there any workloads that requires or perform better with x86?

This is clear only when you compare against an obsolete Intel which is known to be throttling power hog.

The difference might be way smaller or non-existent once we see some comparisons with latest AMD offerings (especially when we have also CPUs with comparable process).

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

#299

Post by robotresearcher »

leptons wrote: post #266
redisman wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No - but for desktop maybe that's the future? I could imagine AMD and Intel offering multiple tiers of SoCs instead of CPUs.

No. That's a stupid idea for desktop. Not everyone needs 64GB of RAM, but some of us do - and that would be an expensive and awful upgrade to have to throw out your CPU with 32GB RAM on-chip just to put in the same CPU with 64GB on-chip. It makes absolutely no sense.

I'd tolerate that if it runs usefully faster every day. Could save money overall.

There are several parts in a workstation that are already monolithic packages. Most GPU+GRAM cards, for example.

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

#300

Post by perardi »

bartread wrote: post #275
smallnamespace wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple’s ‘low end’ segment is the lion’s share of both revenue and profit. A decade ago, the Intel Mac Pro also came out after the rest of the product line. For awhile you could only get a Powermac G5.

This is a fair point, but it's certainly a very peculiar - and somewhat offputting - dynamic where the bottom of the range outperforms the top end.

These machines are Apple’s volume in Macs. The MacBook Air, in particular. And today, Apple gets to tout their best-seller is dramatically faster and has dramatically better battery life.

Makes marketing sense to me.

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