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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

#451

Post by userbinator »

baybal2 wrote: post #342
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.

> 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. Not look too bad best to say. Even if we add a one node advantage, we still have a ~15 watt chip making 20W-30W chips sweat. If you downclock Zen 3 to match 15W TDP, you may well get M1 beating it by double digit margin. M1 is simply a way more efficient chip than any X86 chip can be because…

latest x86 chips have patently gigantic decoders metastasising into backend.

It's still a tiny percentage of the area. The caches are the biggest.

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

#452

Post by josho »

michaelt wrote: post #446
jean_tta wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people have no need to compare CPUs between mobile/non mobile or generation. They just need to know if the laptop they're looking at has the high end / middle end / low end CPU. You'd be comparing a new laptop with latest(-ish) CPUs. The i3/i5/i7 makes it plain & simple to know that. You don't need to figure out what the "middle end" CPU is called this year. It's the i5, problem solved.

Maybe not. But if you're thinking "Should I upgrade my 6 year old i7 system?" or "Will I notice the difference from spending an extra $200 on my CPU?" these days it isn't easy to come up with a sure answer.

That’s intentional. It’s so that the salesperson can use messaging to guide you to whatever machine they have the best margins on.

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

#453

Post by gameswithgo »

baybal2 wrote: post #342
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.

> 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. Not look too bad best to say. Even if we add a one node advantage, we still have a ~15 watt chip making 20W-30W chips sweat. If you downclock Zen 3 to match 15W TDP, you may well get M1 beating it by double digit margin. M1 is simply a way more efficient chip than any X86 chip can be because…

>If you downclock Zen 3 to match 15W TDP, you may well get M1 beating it by double digit margin.

Nah, people have done that experiment and it is competitive

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

#454

Post by ascagnel_ »

Toutouxc wrote: post #400
arvinsim wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Another webdev here. My second dev machine has 8 GB RAM and works fine for my purposes. JetBrains IDE, MariaDB, Puma, browser.

Throwing in some more anecdata:

- 16GB MBP (Intel, not M1) - Running MacVim w/ coc.vim & coc-tsserver (so it's running partial TS compiles on save, much like VSCode)

- One image running in Docker

- Slack, Zoom (at idle), Safari (with a handful of tabs), and Mail.app running as well

Per Activity Monitor, 8.97GB of 16.00GB is used with 4.97GB marked as "Cached Files" and another 2.04GB of swap used.

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

#455

Post by shynrou »

tazjin wrote: post #375
maigret wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I know why all the websites I use are so slow :D

You joke, but I think this is actually true. If companies gave their developers of client-facing software slower computers the resulting software would end up being faster.

Yep because they would not get anything done ;)

In my experience as a web dev, all the performance goes out the window as soon as the tracking scripts are added.

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

#456

Post by fortran77 »

cainxinth wrote: post #401
Spooky23 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sweet spot is 8GB for most people. I’d guess 80% 8GB/15% 16GB and 5% more. Even many types of developers are fine with 8. Apple collects a lot of metrics and I’m sure they know this well.

The M1 also means that Apple regains full stack control of its desktops and laptops. Their phones and tablets prove that when they develop both the main chips and operating systems themselves, they are able to eke out greater performance from lesser specs. Flagship iPhones always have less ram than flagship androids, but match or exceed their performance.

It's the Gigabyte Myth! Less is more! Up is down! In is out!

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

#457

Post by uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh »

baybal2 wrote: post #342
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.

> 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. Not look too bad best to say. Even if we add a one node advantage, we still have a ~15 watt chip making 20W-30W chips sweat. If you downclock Zen 3 to match 15W TDP, you may well get M1 beating it by double digit margin. M1 is simply a way more efficient chip than any X86 chip can be because…

"Itanium failed therefore the market has shown it only wants x86"

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

#458

Post by kergonath »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #368
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.

With the M1 in the latest iPad Pros I’m not even sure if Apple will keep the Ax line but instead to upgrade their low to high end with just Mx series processors .

Isn’t the M1 a bit big to put in a phone? Presumably, both Mx and Ax SoCs are already very similar so the distinction could be mostly marketing. But they’ll probably want to have different names for the lower-power, fewer-cores phone SoC and the things they put in their Macs. If only to avoid the perception that Macs run on “low-performance” phone parts.

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

#459

Post by raxxorrax »

rswail wrote: post #435
raxxorrax wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main feature for me isn't the ARM, it is that the device is passively cooled and still very performant. If that isn't possible with x68, ARM might have a chance perhaps. But 99% of my time is still spend on that platform. I just wish I could install Linux.... If MS and Apple just provide their locked down environments, it will never be more to me than a neat device and I would still crosscompile instead of bindin…

I ran Linux for years on laptops/desktops/servers, doing OLTP software that does millions txns/day. I adopted Linux back when Solaris was the way to go for backends. But moved to Mac (and OSX) about 8 years ago. I don't get the "locked down" thing. On my current macs (a 2020 iMac and a 2015 MBP) I run Macports that lets me install pretty much every bit of userland software that I want. I also get the advantages of th…

But there is no technical reason for it being locked down. I don't want to subject myself to more of this, which would be the result if I get dependent on it. Why would I? There are only disadvantages if I don't want to sell software for the ecosystem.

I do some low level system developing and I doubt I would ever switch to MacOS for this. Higher level software? Maybe, but as I said, why give Apple any handle here and these sandboxes don't provide security for me. I will also not get a dev cert from anyone, that is just something that will never happen.

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

#460

Post by viktorcode »

alberth wrote: post #369

ARM is not more efficient / faster because it’s “newer”. People imply ARM is relatively new and thus could correct for the misdirection x86 has gone. 1978 is when x86 was introduced. 1985 is when ARM was introduced. ARM isn’t that much newer than x86. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture

ARMv8 is new though. That's where the path to M1 started.
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