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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

#841

Post by Retric »

warmwaffles wrote: post #450
Retric wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mores Law as originally stated said transistor density doubled every 18-24 months. Using larger CPU’s for example let’s you have more transistors, but has nothing to do with Mores Law. Clearly density has kept increasing, but the law refers to a rate of increase that we haven’t been able to meet. The original 386 released in 1985 had 275,000 transistors, using the slowest interpretation we would need to be at (2^18)…

Did Mores Law take into account 3D density or was it just single layer compactness?

It’s per wafer area. Which effectively compresses the full 3D nature of modern chips into a 2D structure.

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

#842

Post by kube-system »

webmobdev wrote: post #698
kube-system wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the x86-64 platform that still allows you to repair / upgrade RAM, memory, CPU's Have you opened many x86 devices of a similar form factor to the current M1 devices? I haven’t seen a socketed CPU in a laptop in over a decade, and the vast majority of ultrabooks and thin-and-lights have soldered RAM now too. The latest trend has been to start soldering SSDs as well.

True, other manufacturers have been trying to ape Apple and solder RAM and other parts on the x86-64 platform too. Thankfully it hasn't yet fully spread to the desktop platforms - I can still build my own PC. I pin my hope on government regulations and right to repair to stem this - EU has already emphasised that they are serious about their "right to repair" legislation. I also like the attempt being made by indie e…

The right to repair has nothing to do with socketed components. You already have the right to own soldering equipment.

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

#843

Post by nl »

oblio wrote: post #506
nl wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because approximately no one in the whole supply chain wants to be stuck with a part dated last year. And product lines are speced 12 months in advance. So you need precise demand prediction all the way along your supply chain for this to work.

Who's ever going to use the full date in the marketing material? Apple never says iPad 2019 on their website, until you start digging really hard.

Exactly. This proves the point I'm making. No one - even Apple with the best supply chain management in the industry - wants the version scheme you suggest.

Vendors want version numbers to push upgrades to consumers. They don't want to deal with demand forcasting for something with a limited time of life though.

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

#844

Post by rurp »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #772
tazjin wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think it's the developers who are the problem. In my experience, they're usually the ones advocating to spend time improving performance. PMs and executives are the ones you should give slow machines to if you want more focus on performance.

Agreed, IME it's nearly always the devs arguing to improve performance.

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

#845

Post by jimmont »

I'm very curious to see what happens to Intel. When the TSMC Arizona plant comes online in 2024 or sooner there doesn't seem to be much left for it to do that AMD and others are already doing more effectively. Perhaps that's too much an oversimplification, however it seems to be the sum of the various parts given as others have said here and elsewhere (and was my experience too), the performance of Intel hasn't changed much in about 10 years.

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

#846

Post by gls2ro »

CountHackulus wrote: post #746
acdha wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're certainly correct for, say, highly-controlled benchmarks but don't discount subjective user experience. I've heard _far_ more M1 users talk about the subjective feel compared to even the previous generation MacBook hardware whereas it's been a long time since I've heard that about an Intel to Intel upgrade (basically since the Core -> Core Duo period) other than people with GPU-heavy needs and that seems like…

I do wonder how much of that is just getting a nice new laptop? If the average user was handed the equivalent laptop with an Intel CPU but told it was an M1 would they notice? Would they also think it was nice and fast?

Here is why I think your hypothesis is not true: people were buying new Macs also before M1, but it did not generated the same reactions. So newness is not the cause of this or at least it is not the only cause.

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

#847

Post by adwn »

userbinator wrote: post #773
adwn wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Area isn't what affects power usage, switching activity is. [1] Besides, the cache size doesn't negatively influence or constraint the design of the core logic, but highly complex instruction decoding absolutely does. [1] Well, mostly. There is such a thing as static power draw, but I suspect that the transistors in the L3 cache are optimized to have lower static leakage than the transistors in the core logic, which…

Leakage is actually a significant part of idle power consumption, especially at smaller process sizes, so much that some CPUs have the ability to turn off parts of caches when idle. I repeat my stance that x86 instruction decoding is a tiny part of a processor, and things like vector units (which are also often powered down when idle) and reordering logic take far more power. There's a paper about this that compares…

That paper doesn't show what you think it shows. There are too many variables between these CPU implementations to support the conclusion that the ISA doesn't matter for power consumption.

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

#848

Post by Too »

Anther wrote: post #433
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 ran a gadget shop for years. The amount of times people would say ‘What I have must be better because it has an i7 and that is an i5’. Then I’d have to explain that their i7 is ten years old and that they aren’t even in the same realm. Confusing marketing indeed.

The gadget shops around here turns this to their advantage. Trying to sell a five year old i7 at premium prices. Usually hiding the generation in very small fine-print.

Makes it next to impossible to give advice to family members what to look for when buying a new laptop. Simply Macbook M1 becomes much easier to recommend. As bonus you don't have to worry about underpowered ssd, noisy fans, weak backlight or what else the oem might have saved on.

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

#849

Post by Too »

oblio wrote: post #227
mysterydip wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine if you're buying new. Is there an i5 that beats an older i7 in performance? When buying a used laptop or desktop, how much extra research do I need to do to figure out which processor I'm actually getting? There's been 13 years of i7's.

I can't ever imagine why manufactures of > don't use dates. Product lines 1 - 10. Bigger is better. A minimal number of qualifiers next to the numbers, ideally just 1 of them next to a product line number (Pro/Home/Hobby/Enterprise/whatever). Date, month and year format if you really want flexibility. OblioCorp Oblio 1 Home 2020.06. Oblio 10 Enterprise 2021.04. How hard is that? Not that hard, from where I'm standing…

Cars do this. BWM 3-series or WV Golf has existed with that same name since forever, despite getting smaller or generational upgrades every year. Enthusiasts refer to them by model year. Of course you also have the engine size as the final variable.

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

#850

Post by pjmlp »

hutrdvnj wrote: post #378
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 I think that is because the performance has been the same for the past 10+ years.

This laptop from 2009, a core duo, has been maxed out to 8 GB and one 1 TB SSD disk, and running the latest W10 Pro version.

I still do C++, .NET and Java programming on it just fine, use Office, Adobe software, and it is docker free.

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