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Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

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Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#971

Post by mixcocam »

Spivak wrote: post #359
swiley wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Run an open source OS if you don't want stuff ripped out from underneath you. Preferably one like gentoo or alpine.

All my PCs run open source OSs and this really isn’t true. The GNU/Linux landscape has changed wildly in the last 5 or so years. You’re only slightly less beholden to the people that maintain your OS than with proprietary systems because you still have to update eventually. A lot of BSDs are still roughly the same but being OSS doesn’t necessarily imply you’re free of change.

- you can update whenever you want (or not do it ever) - you can modify any part of the OS, no restrictions - you can run any program you like: signed, unsigned, app-store, not app-store, etc.

==> the differences are there between OSX and GNU/LINUX

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#972

Post by Tepix »

marcodave wrote: post #743
hans1729 wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll see about that (with respect to pixel density and efficiency). I'm typing this on a 4k xps 15, and while the display is great, the battery cost is extreme. There would be no meaningful advantage in an 8k-display of the same form factor, so there is far, far less incentive for manufacturers to race to 8k. there will be 8k tvs, sure, but lets be real - the step to 1080p was massive, the step to 4k already couldn'…

> the step to 1080p was massive, the step to 1080p I'd say that, for some, could have been seen even as a downgrade. It was possible to use 1600x1200 back in the late 90s and early 2000s, with CRTs. The concept of "high definition" was already known by PC users (gamers and professionals, that is) 4k is a nice upgrade, and I'd say that many professionals already were using it with proper monitors 8k eeh, we'll get the…

We're talking about video editing, not screen resolutions.

The step to 1080p wasn't from 1600x1200, it was from PAL/NTSC (640x400 or 720x576). It was the biggest step by far.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#973

Post by Tepix »

huangbong wrote: post #654
Tepix wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are we even talking about 8k video? It's something that almost noone needs and even fewer people have to edit. My guess is most people are still happy with editing their FHD videos. Something that works well on a five year old laptop.

4 years ago “why do we care about 4K” 8 years ago “why do we care about 1080p” etc...

I think diminishing returns will stop 8k from getting mass adoption.

Same thing happened to audio players with "better than CD quality". They never caught on because there was no need.

65" 4K TVs start at 74 Watts (max is 271 Watts). 65" 8K TVs start at 182 Watts and go all the way to 408 Watts. For what? An improvement you won't notice unless you get off the sofa?

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#974

Post by Tepix »

1123581321 wrote: post #927
Tepix wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are we even talking about 8k video? It's something that almost noone needs and even fewer people have to edit. My guess is most people are still happy with editing their FHD videos. Something that works well on a five year old laptop.

You want to work with 6k or 8k so you can do crops and still output 4k or 6k. This means shorter productions. 8k also future-proofs the footage. In the future we'll be wanting more than 8k for this.

My point stands: Very few people edit 8K video, yet it is a popular benchmark.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#975

Post by joking »

Twisell wrote: post #646
joking wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you need 32 or 64gb of ram is not because the data structures or the programs you use need memory, it's because the data they use (database content, virtual machines, images, videos, music... ) fill that ram, and those data is not going to occupy less on an arm machine.

However real case usage of such massive amount of data are limited for typical desktop user. Massive database load usually happen on specialized servers in which 256Go RAM and more are pretty mundane. So on customer PC ram is maybe more used as caching mechanisms or eaten away by poorly designed memory leak/garbage collection. And if your GPU is able do to real time rendering on data heavy load maybe you need less ca…

that was not my point, my point was that if you need it, you will need it regardless of the architecture.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#976

Post by raxxorrax »

chongli wrote: post #408
xoa wrote: post #57

Not to speak for anyone else, but one thing I gently disagree with: > Given that Hackintoshers are a particular bunch who don’t take kindly to the Apple-tax[...] I have zero issues with an Apple premium or paying a lot for hardware. I think a major generator of interest in hackintoshes has been that there are significant segments of computing that Apple has simply completely (or nearly completely) given up on, includ…

Apple does not want to offer to the hackintosh/enthusiast market because they are the most price conscious segment. Targeting that segment means putting out extremely performant, low-margin commodity machines. Doing so then cannibalizes the market for their ultra-high-end stuff. Not only that, though. Enthusiasts are also extremely fickle and quick to jump ship to a cheaper hardware offering. If you look at all of Ap…

They certainly wouldn't want to scare away developers, others have suffered greatly due to neglecting them and developers seems to be getting rarer. You always want the enthusiasts and of course they buy new hardware to look for ways how they can make it work for them. Many devs also have a high income so that price isn't as important anymore.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#977

Post by 1123581321 »

Tepix wrote: post #974
1123581321 wrote: post #927

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want to work with 6k or 8k so you can do crops and still output 4k or 6k. This means shorter productions. 8k also future-proofs the footage. In the future we'll be wanting more than 8k for this.

My point stands: Very few people edit 8K video, yet it is a popular benchmark.

It’s used because it’s a consistent workload to ensure a fair comparison, and long enough to make sure the performance seen is not just burst. Someone who plays games, edits smaller videos or photos all day, uses heavy web apps, compiles code, etc., can apply the result of a large video render to their purchase decision even though their work doesn’t aggressively use the battery as fast as possible.

Hopefully that helps. In your original example, you cited someone editing FHD doing fine with a five year old laptop, and now we’ve talked about why larger formats are used, and why someone upgrading a laptop would look at a benchmark of an intensive process, even if they themself don’t plan to run that specific process.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#978

Post by neogodless »

alwillis wrote: post #389
neogodless wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think it is too early to count out the competition. To be sure, the Air and 13" Pro are ultrabooks, and this seems to be a great fit for the great performance being extracted while sipping battery life. On the other hand, it's not a foregone conclusion that higher performance systems will dominate the competition. For most Apple-focused users, this is a comparison between overheating Intel chips shoved into Macs…

But the higher end "many" core CPUs (especially outside the Intel universe cough AMD) with much higher TDP are still achieving much higher overall performance. Apple still has to catch up to them in those markets. Did you see the AnandTech review of the Mac mini with the M1? The M1 undisputedly outperforms the core performance of everything Intel has to offer, and battles it with AMD’s new Zen3, winning some, losing…

https://youtu.be/RYZuagiyW_w?t=225

That's showing a 45W AMD Zen 2 mobile chip outperforming the Macbook Pro M1 11k to 7.5k in Cinebench R23.

Apple Silicon M1 does not outperform "many" core high TDP processors. Yes, they have amazing IPC, but they have 4 cores and a low TDP. I didn't dispute that. It's really incredible. But I'll repeat that it's not a foregone conclusion that they can translate that into higher core, higher performance and outright win/embarrass AMD. Maybe they will - we are just putting forth conjecture. Extracting all that performance with low power usage is certainly winning half the battle, and making bigger chips with more cores will get Apple a long way. Remains to be seen but it's far too soon to say "the rest catch up..." when it comes to those markets.

And I mentioned gamers and dedicated graphics - you countered with a comparison with the 2018 Mini at 768p resolution and a Radeon Pro 560? Meanwhile gamers are playing 2k and 4k games with RTX 3000 series and RX 6000 series cards (if they can get their hands on them.) And many games simply cannot be played on macOS.

Neither the M1 nor the above crazy expensive power-hungry graphics cards are a one-size-fits-all solution. And it may come to pass that Apple starts to compete in those areas and really does embarrass all competitors. But it hasn't happened yet, so I think such proclamations are premature.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#979

Post by hpb42 »

SulfurHexaFluri wrote: post #403
hpb42 wrote: post #98

I'm curious about the Neural Engine cores. What software use this? Why would I want to buy a Neural Network coprocessor in my machine, instead of using that money for a better cpu/ram/ssd?

The iphone uses it for image recognition on your photo library so your data stays local.

> so your data stays local.

That's very interesting. Thanks!

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#980

Post by diveanon »

I've seen lots of M1 benchmarks, but has anyone done a side by side comparison of what it is like to actually get work done on one?

Take a conventional dockerized local dev environment and just start building stuff. How much time do you spend working around M1 arch issues versus building your app?

This is the key factor that is keeping me from being an early adopter. I don't get paid to figure out how to work on a new chip architecture, in fact I pay a lot of money to not have to think about those problems at all.

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