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 batter…
16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile
371–380 of 529 posts
Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was until I tried doing the test myself. It takes 82 seconds to compile on my i5-4200M. I'm not sure this test is deserving of the breathless headline and commentary, especially since the original tweeter later follows up with: > Extra info: The M1 macbooks (air/pro) can't drive 2 external screens, and the air throttles a bit after 3+ minutes sustained compute (20-30%) https://twitter.com/rikarends/status/132875317…
How about compiling WebKit? https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/webkit-com...
https://blogs.gnome.org/mcatanzaro/2018/02/17/on-compiling-w...
Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile
#373I 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…
According to anandtech the memory throughput is off the charts at 68.25GB/s [1]. That's twice as fast as high speed ddr4 memory (DDR4-4000 at 32GB/s). In other words: they totally trounced and took it to the next level with regards to memory, because they can. If anything, memory control is their biggest advantage. Scaling the amount of ram won't be an issue. Increasing the bandwidth perhaps, but it'll still be way q…
Intel's LPDDR support has been lagging far behind what mobile SoCs support (largely because of Intel's 10nm troubles), but their recently-launched Tiger Lake mobile processors do support LPDDR4X-4266 (and LPDDR5-5400, supposedly).
Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile
#374Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Can’t you just instruct the compiler to compile for Intel on ARM and vice versa? We do this all the time, build ARM artifacts on an x86 CPU with GCC.
Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
The XPS line is the high-end of Dell, their most expensive one. So basically you're showing that the Macbooks are on par with the most expensive PCs. That's correct, but that's also the point. They're expensive machines.
_Of_course_ you can find a cheap PC that costs less but that's not the discussion.
The discussion is with regards to the same build quality.
Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile
#377I 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…
What uses most of your ram when you need 16GB+?
Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile
#378Is 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.
If you want a more realistic sense of how the M1 performs relative to x86 peers in raw, equivalent workloads, there are some cinebench numbers appearing out there:
https://hexus.net/tech/news/cpu/146878-apple-m1-cinebench-r2...
I am way more interested in non-accelerated, deeply out-of-order instruction processing capabilities if we are talking about a "new era of computing". Being able to compile to ARM faster than x86_64 and having super fast HW codecs for processing special unicorn byte streams are not very compelling arguments in this context.
Show me an ARM chip scaled up to the same power+price budget as an Epyc 7742, throw them both at a 24 hour SAP benchmark, and then I will start paying attention if the numbers get close.
Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
What kind of development are you doing? 16gb is OK for my needs at home running linux, but on the odd occasion I wish I had more. At work I find 32Gb is barely enough.
I would turn that around. What kind of development are you doing where you feel 32GB is "Barely enough"? Right now I primarily work on a very complex react based app. I've also done Java, Ruby, Elixir, and Python development and my primary machine has never had 32GB. More RAM is definitely better, but when I hear phrases like "32GB is barely enough", I have to wonder what in the hell people are working on. Even runni…
Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.)
A 30% improvement to the 865+ starts getting close to A13 single-threaded performance, on 7nm from a year ago. So Qualcomm won't be quite so far behind Apple, but it's still pretty significant.
If we'll just look at geekbench's single core bench, I'm sure Apple will still lead. (And overall likely still produce the better chips.)