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Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

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Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#51

Post by bee_rider »

gabereiser wrote: post #27
gizmodo59 wrote: post #3

I have seen so many articles on HN in front page about M1 over the past few weeks. Like a curious child I read all of them because somewhere in me I want to believe there exists a possibility of a giant leap for Desktop/Laptop. Having tried it myself, I should say this is going to be remembered just like the iPhone in 2007.

I have an M1 air 8-core 16gb ram model and yes, yes it will. I said something similar when it launched and people dismissed it. Article upon article online of PC die-hards dismissing it, Apple fanboys praising it. It’s a leap for sure. It’s a really really good chip. We’ll look back from 2027 and see.

The iPhone was a basically new form factor that over the course of the next 13 years (after trickling out to the lower priced Android phones), became the primary way that billions of people interact with technology.

The M1 is a really good new processor. We've been doing really good new processors for the last couple decades. It's great to have more competition in the CPU space, which was seeming to stagnate, but not matter how big an iteration, it's still just an iteration, it won't be remembered like coming up with a new type of device.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#52

Post by gamblor956 »

gizmodo59 wrote: post #3

I have seen so many articles on HN in front page about M1 over the past few weeks. Like a curious child I read all of them because somewhere in me I want to believe there exists a possibility of a giant leap for Desktop/Laptop. Having tried it myself, I should say this is going to be remembered just like the iPhone in 2007.

Benchmarks show that the M1 has better performance in only a few areas, and underperforms in others, and that's with Apple controlling literally every aspect of the hardware and software stack.

It's great for an ARM system for a vertically oriented company, but it isn't sufficiently performative to be a significant threat to the competition. And that's before you consider all the non-technical crap Apple has thrown at its customers recently.

And of course, the big issue is that in order to use the M1 you must switch your entire stack to Apple. Considering the broad swaths of essential business software that is simply incompatible with Apple OS, that's not going to happen.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#53

Post by MBCook »

xenocratus wrote: post #5

> Now you got a big problem, because neither Intel, AMD, or Nvidia are going to license their intellectual property I keep seeing this line and wonder - "did people miss the news about Nvidia buying Arm?". Sure, there are still plenty of hurdles to pass until it's official, but take a look at the initial piece written by Nvidia about the acquisition: https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-to-acquire-arm-for... Spe…

They may license the ARM technology, but will they license their own GPU technology? That’s what a Dell would need to make their own SOC.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#54

Post by kergonath »

random5634 wrote: post #9
Razengan wrote: post #2

> (If I may say so, that Note is worth re-reading if only for the amusement of noticing the similarity to the recent pooh-poohing of the newborn M1.) Apple's New Thing, 2001: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.5...

I actually used whatever was pre iPod - I think it was a phone I loaded your favorite 20 songs on? Either way, for all the talking down of the iPod when it came out - for folks who wanted to listen to music it was total magic. I bought the first iPhone too, and didn’t have a clue that it wasn’t a good email device. I still use only windows / Linux server side - but this new “gimmick” of the M1 does have me interested

I loved my Sony Ericsson phones. With a decent memory stick and headphones it felt like the future. In a way it was, but there were many limitations and I jumped to the iPhone one year after it became available without regrets.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#55

Post by whynotminot »

wyldfire wrote: post #49
amelius wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I should say this is going to be remembered just like the iPhone in 2007. I hope people will not forget about TSMC who made this all possible.

Is that really the case? Apple's design of the CPU itself seems like it's a bigger unique factor than the fab. Doesn't TSMC make competitors chips that are benchmarking much poorer than M1? Qualcomm got rid of their mobile ARM CPU designs a while back. Can the snapdragon cx / SQ2 series hope to compete using ARM reference designs, with Apple out so far ahead?

If you compare Snapdragon scores of the same TSMC node to their Apple equivalent, they come up wanting.

TSMC is a fantastic and innovative company, and they've done amazing things (in no small part to Apple's massive investment in them). But Apple chip design is superior to their competitors.

Combine Apple's superior designs with first access to TSMC's premier nodes and you get some pretty special results, as we've been seeing for years with the A series chips, and which is finally getting the notoriety it deserves with this M series debut.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#56

Post by untog »

Aperocky wrote: post #22
untog wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that very much. The iPhone was a true revelation: in user interface, in form factor, in the things it allowed you to do. The M1 is amazing but it doesn’t compare. Performance (both raw and thermal) is a big boost but it’s not going to reinvent computing.

It won't reinvent UI, but it signaled the change to ARM and by extension, RISC. To a normal consumer, that's not a big deal (although 17 hour battery life is already pretty huge). To future PC hardware and server/backend infrastructure, that's a huge deal.

Oh, for sure. It’s going to be a big deal to use techies and represents a huge shift in terms of who holds the power in processing. (that said, the vast majority of PCs won’t be able to use it!)

But entire industries (e.g. ride hailing) were created in the aftermath of the iPhone’s launch. I just don’t think we’ll see that kind of change reflected in most people’s lives.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#57

Post by MBCook »

phkahler wrote: post #39

Where are some benchmarks comparing M1 to the best x86 processors from AMD? Since M1 is only 4 big cores maybe it would be fair to compare it to the 4 core 8 thread APUs and not crush the poor thing with an 8 core version. A1 is cool. Good for Apple, but it's not the computing miracle it's made out to be.

You’re right, it doesn’t stand up to the multi core performance of the absolute top of the line Xeon chip. But that chip probably cost more than the entire laptop with an M1 in it.

Apple started at the bottom of their lineup. Given the performance of the processor compared not only to the processors that it replaces but to others higher in their lineups, it’s extremely impressive.

Is it the absolute number one best in every metric on the planet? No. But you shouldn’t expect that part in a $999 laptop.

This was their first try, in the low end. In six months (or so) when they release stronger Macs with a different in one (or M2) we’ll see how well they scale it.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#58

Post by bee_rider »

random5634 wrote: post #9
Razengan wrote: post #2

> (If I may say so, that Note is worth re-reading if only for the amusement of noticing the similarity to the recent pooh-poohing of the newborn M1.) Apple's New Thing, 2001: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.5...

I actually used whatever was pre iPod - I think it was a phone I loaded your favorite 20 songs on? Either way, for all the talking down of the iPod when it came out - for folks who wanted to listen to music it was total magic. I bought the first iPhone too, and didn’t have a clue that it wasn’t a good email device. I still use only windows / Linux server side - but this new “gimmick” of the M1 does have me interested

There were more than a couple MP3 players before the iPod. I had a cool little device from Sandisk with, I think, a 512MB solid state drive? I bet it's still kicking. That thing was way cooler than an iPod, it ran off a AA battery (I think) and it seemed pretty tough. I dropped it in a slushy road puddle and it just kept trucking. The iPod had good capacity but the spinning drive in there was a huge failure point.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#59

Post by jaimex2 »

Its only disruption if it disrupts. No one cares other than existing Apple users so I guess the only disruption will be the year of really fast and efficient teething issues they will be dealing with.

We have one at work, I'd highly recommend waiting another year before getting one if you want to be productive.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#60

Post by GregarianChild »

xenocratus wrote: post #5

> Now you got a big problem, because neither Intel, AMD, or Nvidia are going to license their intellectual property I keep seeing this line and wonder - "did people miss the news about Nvidia buying Arm?". Sure, there are still plenty of hurdles to pass until it's official, but take a look at the initial piece written by Nvidia about the acquisition: https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-to-acquire-arm-for... Spe…

An interesting question here is: which of the big Arm customers are going to trust NVidia?

As far as I understand, Arm's license requires licensees to give Arm detailed and advanced information about implementations (IIRC long before they are fabbed). This would give NVidia unprecedented insight into the competition's processors long before they hit the market. Will Samsung or Apple be happy about that? Will AMD be happy about that? Given the tension between the US and China, it's almost inconceivable that the Chinese Arm customers will be happy about this. China is the world's biggest processor market, with a government mandate to reduce dependency on foreign technology!

Hello RISC-V!

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