Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model • Hacker News Board

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

#631

Post by api » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

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…

Are there any x86 processors that are competitive in performance / watt?

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

#632

Post by onli » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

DCKing wrote: post #595

onli wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a surprise. Stronger cores and double the cores and threads. And that's not a theoretical difference, they had a performance uptick of up to 100% even in games [0]. [0]: https://www.pc-kombo.com/us/benchmark/games/cpu/compare?ids%...

The 7700K and 10700K use virtually the same Skylake architecture cores with very minor tweaks between them. The only CPU performance gains Intel made in the 2015-2020 period were clock speeds, core counts and support for higher memory speeds. The 7700K and 10700K even share the same integrated graphics architecture.

I think that's correct. But it is all true at the same time. The cores are stronger because of the higher clock they can achieve and how the turbo clock works, and the higher core count does make a big difference. Higher memory speed also helps (though the difference in practice on Z board should be just a matter of what was typically on the market). Intel UHD 630 is even usually a tiny bit faster than the Intel HD 630, even if that's also only from the clock difference - only now with the UHD 730 and 750 did they improve things there.

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

#633

Post by agloeregrets » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

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 mean, that price tag is being swung in a kinda silly way. The Mini with 16GB of ram is like $899. At that price the CPU has 8 Cores but 50% greater single core performance than basically anything in the price range. In lightly threaded or thread-racey tasks the M1 will outperform any chip on the market for most people working on their machine. In my case, we build, run, and run tests on a very large typescript app in half the time of any single Intel chip we have ever tested, including desktop i9. I'm not defending the pricing of their ram or storage upgrades, those are nuts. But the pricing you are comparing with here is for machines that include a LOT of gravy in the build sheet intended to draw your point such as a 4.5K Display or TBs of PCIe SSD.

Did I mention that the case I was mentioning was in the very base Macbook Air with 8Gb ram cross-compared with an i9 64Gb machine?

You are kinda making a blanket statement that is a little unfaithful to the intent of any of these machines. None of these machines are intended as 'pro' machines, even the 'Macbook Pro' is just the low end model and it is three times as powerful as the outgoing model. Sure you can spec one to the moon to make a price point, but that's the story of anything.

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

#634

Post by brewdad » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

stjohnswarts wrote: post #596

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…

Yep and take computer from 2001 and run it in 2011, you wouldn't have been nearly as happy with the performance. There have been incremental upgrades but mostly just the core count which is great for handling server stuff but not nearly as noticeable as Hz counts increases

The other main improvement in the past 10 years is the power draw. You can get more than 10 hours of battery life in a machine that weighs less than 3 lbs. That would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

CPU improvements are only part of the story in making that happen but the are certainly far ahead of where things were in the not so distant past.

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

#635

Post by stjohnswarts » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

katbyte wrote: post #613

webmobdev wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's look beyond the hype: - With M1, Apple has finally closed the loop and created a fully closed system that it has control over vs an x86-64 platform that is more open and gives us users more choice and control. - All new devices with M1 SoC score very poorly on repairability and upgradebility vs the x86-64 platform that still allows you to repair / upgrade RAM, memory, CPU's and other parts in an affordable mann…

> kill switch can you elaborate?

I mean technically there's the T chip which could switch off everything. Parent poster seems to be posting conspiracy theories that apple will maliciously kill machines in 3-5 years at their whim. I would guess that would not go over with the government or customers and be the end of Apple PC type products though, so it's not going to happen

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

#636

Post by jopsen » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #254

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…

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.

Running a few Google Docs tabs and I can easily bring my 16GB Linux laptop down..

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

#637

Post by ZuLuuuuuu » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

BadOakOx wrote: post #306

skohan wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which Ryzen laptop currently competes with the latest macbooks in terms of form factor, performance, battery life and build quality? I'm honestly asking, I've been thinking about getting a Linux laptop in a while and I would be curious to see what the playing field is like

Dave2D just reviewed the new surface laptop comparing it to the new MacBook Air: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKN9nvXTGHE ...and he got pretty good battery life (11 hours on his own benchmark). edit: form factor, performance, build quality.. is also up there, I just didn't mention it, because I think the battery life is the killer feature of the M1.

It is a good battery life for a PC laptop but it is still significantly behind of M1 based Macs while also having significantly lower single core benchmarks compared to M1. And the performance difference is even bigger when both laptops are on battery power.

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

#638

Post by officeplant » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 4:02 PM UTC

asoneth wrote: post #438

Toutouxc wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny. Except there are fully supported MacBooks from 2013 running the latest version of macOS, still on their first battery, still bringing people joy and productivity.

Or in my case, a 2012 MacBook Air. I hope they'll support Catalina for another three or four years or at which point it's more than a decade old and can finally mature into a laptop's final stage of life as a Linux machine.

They tend to support OS releases for three years. Catalina EOL is likely to be sometime in 2022.

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

#639

Post by zaphirplane » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 4:04 PM UTC

shaan7 wrote: post #559

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?

One example is linking QtWebEngine (basically Chromium) which can sometimes take upwards of 64 GB of RAM.

How did chrome eat safari’s launch when they were both based on WebKit. amazing !

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

#640

Post by notahaterbut » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 4:05 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #541

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…

I have to admit this is right. Even my old 2012 i7 Mac mini is still a perfectly serviceable machine to this day.

I have a near death grip on my late 2012 Mac mini i7 (upgraded to 16GB and 2 1TB ssds) It has stood the test of time and to me is an engineering marvel.

Aside from gaming it can last another 10 years.

For longevity, I keep it on its side and replaced the bottom lid with an aluminum mesh lid. This has made it near silent for 80% of my tasks (programmer centric). I also regularly clean out the fan.