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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

#621

Post by jrm4 »

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…

Interesting. Marketing about "computer guts" has never been an Apple thing,so it's interesting to consider the motivation here. It could be that the M1 is that revolutionary, but Moore's Law et al makes me think this is not about new chip technology. More likely competing against Intel or whoever.

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

#622

Post by bayindirh »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #597
chrisco255 wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speak for yourself. Me personally? I would like one core per Chrome tab.

My new M1 constantly freezes, and I’m pretty sure it’s because of chrome. Or the secret SSD thrashing design flaw that Apple is hoping nobody talks about till they quietly fix it. Was a bit disappointing. I was like, finally! A new thing! I’m freeeeeee..... wait no it still freezes, I miss sandy bridge, etc.

I use an M1 powered 16GB MacBook Air and I've never seen any freezing, even under heavy load. I don't use Google Chrome though.

Also, system is writing to the SSD with the same rate of my Linux machines: 4TB/year.

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

#623

Post by klelatti »

onli wrote: post #577
klelatti wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You implied that they only saw a difference because Apple wasn't using "modern processors". You can't exclude everything but Zen 3 from any sensible definition of "modern processor".

The parent comment talked about the implications he thought this had about the architecture. Like half of the thread seemingly ignoring that a) there are x86 processors that are more than competitive and b) that the big leap he described is more likely coming from the faster storage and from comparing it with the very much older and weaker processors most people that bought an upgrade now had in their old laptops. He…

I know what you're trying to say is that you have to do a comparison of CPUs built on similar process nodes - and that maybe the parent has overstated the x86 vs Arm comparison.

I would have some sympathy with that - but that's not the same as discounting the parent's perspective because Apple somehow weren't using "modern processors" previously - because that simply isn't true.

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

#624

Post by stjohnswarts »

jsmith45 wrote: post #415
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.

But let's say that a 5nm Ryzen comes out ahead for mobile usage. (But not necessarily by very much.) Chips like the M1 (or ideally, something similar made available to other device manufacturers) is still really interesting. The ARM architecture can scale down better than x86/x64 can, allowing a device maker to hit low end performance targets with less cost than x86 chips can manage. For the low end, it also tends to…

Not really in any other way than speculation. No one can use M1 tech unless they steal it. Sure they can build what they think are similar designs to it but they don't know if they're going down the right path. M1 isn't just another ARM design, it's solely done by apple.

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

#625

Post by rsynnott »

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…

Yeah, it's arguably quite weird that Intel don't market this way anymore (they used to, particularly with the Pentium brand).

EDIT: Though, thinking about it, I can see why they might have been reluctant. Of the big releases over the last 15 years or so, Core 2 was, while a massive improvement, also essentially an admission that P4, and their whole strategy around it, had failed, and Skylake had a lot of teething troubles. The only big microarch shift that was an unqualified plus was Haswell, and I don't understand why they weren't louder about that.

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

#626

Post by bayindirh »

pdimitar wrote: post #566
kevstev wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am continually astounded that the quad core sandy bridge core-i7 I bought in January 2011 is still completely serviceable for pretty much all tasks outside of gaming. The bezel and overall form factor is clownishly large by todays standards, and the screen is starting to look a bit faded, but as a portable but mostly stationary PC it still works great alongside my main laptop I use for work. I knew back in 2011 I w…

My gaming PC is almost 10 years old and is with an i7 3770. Only upgrade was a GTX 980 five or six years ago. That thing flies for anything and everything I put it through. One day I'll retire it as a gaming machine and convert it to a Linux server or a casual workstation and I am sure it's going to be even faster than Win10.

My primary desktop is a 3770K running Linux. That CPU's the unexpected beast. Just churning through what you throw at it with incredible speed even for today. I process RAW photos, encode some audio and develop high performance scientific software on it (testing it lowers my heating bills, somewhat).

I want to try one of the new Ryzen CPUs, but I have no reason to upgrade.

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

#627

Post by ModernMech »

macintux wrote: post #515
ModernMech wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer the touchpad on my Surface Book 2 to the one on my Macbook Pro (2019). The one on my Macbook is comically huge, and I also am not in love with the feel/click noise compared to the Surface Book. YMMV.

Ideally there’s be no feel/click noise on an Apple trackpad. “Tap to click” is a revelation.

Oh no, I much prefer the tactile response and sound of a physical click. But again, that's maybe just me.

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

#628

Post by pas »

rini17 wrote: post #133
ipsum2 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moore's law is only about the number of transistors per chip doubling every 24 months, not about the performance. Seeing that the trend is still happening, Moore's law is not dead, as so many have claimed.

But what is it good for, if it does not improve performance? For example, increasingly larger and larger part of transistors on a chip is unused at a given time, due to cooling issues.

It makes other workloads more economical.

And as long as there's something to gain from going smaller/denser/bigger, and as long as the cost-benefit is good, we'll have bigger chips with smaller and denser features.

Sure, cooling is a problem, but it's not like we're even seriously trying. It's still just air cooled. Maybe we'll integrate microfluidic heat-pump cooling into chips too.

And it seems there's a clear need for more and more computing. The "cloud" is growing at an enormous rate. Eventually it might make sense to make a datacenter oriented well integrated system.

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

#629

Post by wombat-man »

BunsanSpace wrote: post #503
dmos62 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a C++ programer and my workstation has 128GB of ram and I wouldn't accept any less What on earth are you programming?

Large code bases in an IDE, program dumps, large applications (the software I write will gladly use 10-20gb in some use cases), VMs, large ML training sets, &c. 128gb is likely overkill, but I can see a use case depending on what you're doing.

I think everyone should get more ram than they think they'll ever need. 32 gigs is that number for me, but if I thought I'd get even close to using 64 gigs, might as well go for 128.

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

#630

Post by tonyedgecombe »

grishka wrote: post #218
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #101

> Apple’s gamble, with the M1, is that its custom CPU performance is now so high, at such low power consumption, that the choice of chip inside the system has become irrelevant within a given product generation. This is clearly wrong as they are still selling Intel versions of the MacBook and MacMini. Apple makes a lot of money by offering a range of processor options. At the moment we are early in the transition but…

Did they also offer a range of processor options back when they were using PowerPC? I get the impression that they did not.

I seem to remember the Mac Pro had an option for more than one processor.
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