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Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

extremetech.com

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Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#311

Post by thehnguy »

raxxorrax wrote: post #249
sto_hristo wrote: post #153

Make it as fabulous as much as you want, $1700 for an 8 core, 8 gigs of ram machine is just one plain fabulous joke. This in the time when 16 gigs ram is the baseline if you plan to do anything more than facebook and instagram.

I have an M1 from work (which I now mainly use for private stuff...) and it does have 16gb memory. It did cost a bit less than $1700 (after taxes) I believe, although I am not sure. I know it has some upgraded gpu compared to the standard model in some form, but didn't know about the memory. As for the device: It is neat, but not revolutionary to any degree. I do paint and model and can run blender/krita just fine, i…

The M1 isn't what kills x86 (if it ever does completely). ARM kills x86.

Microsoft is working on the ARM transition. ARM has good control of mobile hardware. And Apple will be only selling ARM hardware (in the form of Apple Silicon) in another 12-18 months.

M1 and Apple Silicon are just part of the trend.

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#312

Post by dr-detroit »

iSnow wrote: post #179
sto_hristo wrote: post #153

Make it as fabulous as much as you want, $1700 for an 8 core, 8 gigs of ram machine is just one plain fabulous joke. This in the time when 16 gigs ram is the baseline if you plan to do anything more than facebook and instagram.

I am not sure what the end-game for releasing those under-powered machines is, tbh. I am a bit more extreme in that I am not buying any machine below 32GB given RAM is no longer upgradable, but even if my mom came and asked me about those iMacs, I'd tell her to not buy. It's a shame that Apple is so great at greenwashing and at the same time spits on every way they could help create truly sustainable products by just…

We are in a period of technological regress it is well documented that the trend is to power down your devices and make your computer into a passive experience like TV

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#313

Post by thehnguy »

martin8412 wrote: post #261
oblio wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple always nickel-and-dimes storage. Overpriced storage is how they make probably 5-10% of their hardware profits. iPhone still have 64GB as their base storage in 2021...

The default is 128GB..

Only on the pro's. The base iPhones still start at 64GB. But that's a heck of an improvement from a couple years back when the entry was 16 GB!

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#314

Post by ethbr0 »

gambiting wrote: post #220
klelatti wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At one point I think hyperthreading was i7 only too?

Mobile i5s always had hyperthreading from the beginning. Edit: nope, actually, I'm wrong - Core i5-430M was a straight dual core, no hyperthreading part.

Originally, my memory says "i7 meant 4+ core & hyper threading", "i5 meant 4 cores w/o HT", "i3 meant 2 cores (with or without HT)".

But I'm sure even at the beginning there were SKUs that broke the coding due to customer demand.

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#315

Post by GordonS »

arvinsim wrote: post #237
gambiting wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So my sister does professional photography, and went from a 16GB MacBook Pro(2016) to an 8GB Air, and reports no decrease of productivity - quite the opposite, in her experience all Adobe programs run much faster, and the machine is quieter and lighter to boot. So yeah, I'm not sure - maybe the ram amount isn't as a big deal as people make it out to be. On the other hand I'm a C++ programer and my workstation has 128…

Web Developer here. Wouldn't accept anything less than 32GB for a work machine.

Yep, if you're running big IDEs (e.g. Rider/IntelliJ, Visual Studio), containers and VMs, 32GB is really a must. There always seem to be people in these threads claiming that 16GB or even 8GB is enough - I just don't understand how that could possibly be for most of the HN demographic.

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#316

Post by AnonC »

klelatti wrote: post #150

One thing which I don't think has been commented on is the marketing effort behind the M1. It's getting a lot of prominence and its use across lots of computers means that there can be a consistent message that "M1 is great - get a new Mac and get an M1". It also provides an opportunity to distinguish between M1 and the next generation M2 (presumably). I've always thought Intel's marketing was a bit confused - i7 sta…

> I've always thought Intel's marketing was a bit confused - i7 stays the same over 10+ years with only the obscure (to the general public) suffix changing from generation to generation.

It's been a mess for a long time. An i7 may be less performant than an i5, which may be less performant than an i3...all depending on which specific processor is chosen.

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#317

Post by ghaff »

akmarinov wrote: post #294
the_duke wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the marketing effort is immense, and it's really surprising to me how many eagerly lap up the angle Apple is pushing without much reflection, even on HN. Like the good old Apple hype days. Now to be fair, the M1 is an impressive iteration on the A* chip line. But the Ryzen 5000 mobile chips really don't look bad at all in comparison, and a 5nm version of those would level the field.

By the time there’s a 5nm version of Ryzen, there’ll be a 4nm M2. AMD’s 5nm shift is scheduled for 2022 iPhone 13 (2021) rumors indicate a 4nm SoC

Node sizes are pretty meaningless at this point.

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#318

Post by Toutouxc »

sto_hristo wrote: post #153

Make it as fabulous as much as you want, $1700 for an 8 core, 8 gigs of ram machine is just one plain fabulous joke. This in the time when 16 gigs ram is the baseline if you plan to do anything more than facebook and instagram.

> 16 gigs ram is the baseline if you plan to do anything more than facebook and instagram

Just stop.

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#319

Post by afavour »

Grustaf wrote: post #305
oblio wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you're being downvoted. A 5nm version of the AMD stuff should be reasonably close to the M1. The main bottleneck is the production capacity, we badly need more manufacturers of high end chipsets.

So a future hypothetical AMD processor could be as good as the M1, and that shows how M1 is just marketing hype?

I think the OP is saying that it could be a mistake to focus on the processor so much when it might turn out that worthy competition is just around the corner. Apple have ever focused on processor like this before, instead opting to focus on the whole product, fit and finish, etc. Which arguably still very few rival them on even today.

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#320

Post by Cthulhu_ »

simonh wrote: post #132
tobyhinloopen wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Death of moore’s law? Hmm. Meanwhile I just got a R9 5950X and it is drastically faster than my 5 year old i7. There must be some doubling of transistors in there, right? Also maybe buying a 5950X at the birth of a new generation of ARM CPUs wasn’t the wisest choice. Or maybe it is, idk.

Back in the old days you'd get that sort of improvement in 2-3 years, not 5. I used to expect at least a 4x improvement on my last machine every time I upgraded.

Yeah, I bought myself a new PC two years ago or so to replace a 5+ year old one, and the difference was... okay? If it was twice as fast (mostly for gaming) I'd already be impressed.

Whereas back when (thinking of early 90's) you'd upgrade every three years and be taking massive leaps forward. 10x increase in disk space (40 MB to 500 MB), or going from diskettes (~1.5 MB? I don't even remember) to CD's (650MB). We went from Wolfenstein to Half-Life in just six years (it felt longer).

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