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Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

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

#811

Post by StrictDabbler »

eloff wrote: post #675
hutrdvnj wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've always thought Intel's marketing was a bit confused - i7 stays the same over 10+ years I think that is because the performance has been the same for the past 10+ years.

The performance difference between i7s of 10 years ago versus today is more than 2x per core, and the number of cores have also more than doubled in that time period. That's over a 4x performance difference in 10 years, it's not quite the good old days of Moore's law, but it's still an exponential improvement.

That sounds like an S-curve, not an exponential improvement. You can make any monotonically increasing function look exponential if you only have two points (f(n+x)/f(n)) and you get to pick both n and X. "It doubled over the past fifty years!"

If looking at all the points shows the time it takes to double is way longer than it used to be you're probably on the top of the S.

Which, ok, we know we're headed to an S-curve instead. There are limitations on what we can do on silicon, right?

It's just that the CISC/Intel S-curve is way lower than the ARM/M1 S-curve. Intel got used to leaving a margin of performance sitting on the table because it'll be faster next year. They got lazy. As chip gains have slowed those margins have started to add up.

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

#812

Post by CivBase »

slver wrote: post #520
CivBase wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't need to, they're fast enough. You had me with everything except this. Any time someone claims the current state of computing hardware is "enough" I'm reminded of that fake 640K quote. There is no indication we are running out of applications for more compute power.

I'm not saying we're running out of applications for more compute power. We're specifically running out of reasons to want faster linear (per core) general-purpose performance (in fact I'd say this happened some time ago). Everything else we get from here on in terms of smaller process etc. is just a bonus. We don't fundamentally need it to keep evolving our hardware for our ever-growing computation needs. And that's…

Linear compute is the ideal solution. Parallelization is a useful tool when we run up against the limitations of linear compute, but it is not ideal. Parallelization is simply not an option for some tasks. Nine mothers cannot make a baby in a month. It also adds overhead, regardless of the context.

Take businesses for example. Businesses don't want to hire employees to get the job done. They want as few workers as possible because each one comes with overhead. There's a good reason why startups can accomplish many tasks at a fraction of what it would cost a megacorp. Hiring, management, training, HR, etc... they are all costs a business has to swallow in order to hire more employees (ie parallelize).

This is not to say parallelization is bad. Given our current technological limitations, adding more cores and embracing parallelization where possible is the most economical solution. That doesn't faster linear compute is a "nice to have".

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

#813

Post by qshaman »

choeger wrote: post #332
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?

He won't know until all the templates are instantiated...

Lol monster

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

#814

Post by mvanbaak »

spurgu wrote: post #764
kstrauser wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a perfectly valid question. Lots of people use Chrome because they've used Chrome, and that's the whole reason. Some people need Chrome because it supports some site or tool that they require. I recommend that everyone else at least try Safari and see what they think of it.

Last time I tried it (couple of months ago) there were practically no extensions and Bitwarden didn't work in incognito. And Chrome's UI/UX is simply great. And dev tools as well.

That’s a personal preference thing. Personally I think chrome UI/UX is horrible and slow. Ut I’m a safari user so again: personal preference.

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

#815

Post by qshaman »

apatheticonion wrote: post #154

Can't wait for an iPhone Pro with an M1 processor that I can plug into a thunderbolt/usbc dock, run monitors, a keyboard, ethernet, and have it running MacOS when in desktop mode. EDIT: A little context; when I am in the office, I use vscode over ssh to connect to my desktop PC at home. My desktop takes care of my language server, syntax highlighting, compilation and vscode forwards my ports and spins up terminals. A…

I hope that browser you want to run on a “low power” computer is not Chrome

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

#816

Post by spurgu »

mvanbaak wrote: post #814
spurgu wrote: post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I tried it (couple of months ago) there were practically no extensions and Bitwarden didn't work in incognito. And Chrome's UI/UX is simply great. And dev tools as well.

That’s a personal preference thing. Personally I think chrome UI/UX is horrible and slow. Ut I’m a safari user so again: personal preference.

Sure, I've never used Safari enough myself to have an opinion (since it's never been an option for me due to various things), it might be equal to Chrome or even better (I like Safari's clean UI). I'm mostly comparing it to Firefox which is quite clunky in my opinion (I've given it many chances).

And I'm actually typing this on Safari now and it looks like the issue has been fixed - Bitwarden now works in private mode. Maybe it's time to give it yet another shot. :)

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

#817

Post by r00fus »

slver wrote: post #684
SavantIdiot wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is any of this specific to Intel? As of right now, there are 6 different Intel processor brands and close to 100 different SKUs. Source: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/details/pro... Currently, there is one M1.

I just explained above there's no single M1. They vary by core count, and by clockrate. And probably more. The only thing that's "one" about M1 is the brand. It's one brand. It's easy to have a clean brand, when you don't sell naked CPUs by themselves. "Oh everything we have has M1". It doesn't even matter if this is accurate or not, we realize that, right? Are we going to hold up Intel for having hundreds of SKUs be…

> It's easy to have a clean brand

I think vast evidence over the past few decades has proven this is actually not the case, especially in tech.

> , when you don't sell naked CPUs by themselves.

This is Intel's choice of a hill to die on. They drove everyone else out of the market then failed to realize that market itself is collapsing with the rise of cloud computing and ISA agnosticism and haven't evolved with the times.

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

#818

Post by gregsq »

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 have the same issue with freezing regularly. Using emacs aarch64 build and clang from llvm sources ( or OS X native clang, either one ) compiling in emacs window (Mx compile) and it will stop, hang for about 10 seconds, and then reboot. Rosetta isn’t in this chain. Haven’t looked to find why yet, but task switch to Apple news while I’m waiting and I can see the build in emacs halt for a while. Task switch works after a while, but sometimes it doesn’t and a watchdog kicks in it seems.

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

#819

Post by itslennysfault »

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 keep seeing an Intel ad on Twitter that is a picture of a MacBook Pro and says "Can this computer turn into a tablet? Hint: no"

It honestly just feels desperate to me.

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

#820

Post by skohan »

gambler wrote: post #442
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

Form factor and build quality are not something AMD can control by making a better CPU architecture.

True, but if I am considering an alternative to an M1 mac, I have to look at more than processor specs to decide if it's worth it
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