> These [QOS levels] turn out to be integer values spread evenly between 9 and 33, respectively.
Anyone know why this is? seems fairly arbitrary...why not have 1,2,3,4,5?
How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS
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Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS
#32This is a pretty smart strategy. I'd say the majority of the time when something is slow on my machine, it's because there's a resource intensive background process (that I don't really need to complete quickly) eating up all my system resources. It seems like the same strategy would also make sense on Intel processors, although it probably requires at least 4 cores to make sense?
You can do it on one processor with a process/thread scheduler. This is what makes multitasking possible in general.
This is extraordinarily basic stuff. We knew how to do this kind of multitasking, with priorities, back in the 80s (or earlier). Yet people still don't understand it.
As an example, a while back I ran a multi-threaded process on a shared work server with 24 cores. It used zero I/O and almost no RAM, but had to spend a couple of days with 24 threads to get the result. I ran it inside "chrt -i", which makes Linux only run it when there is absolutely nothing else it could do. I had someone email and complain about how I was hogging the server, because something like 90% of the CPU time was being spent on my process. That's because their processes spent 90% of their time waiting for disc/network. My process had zero impact on theirs, but it took some explaining.
Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS
#33Well, they don't just "feel" faster. They also complete lots of real-world tasks in shorter times, often significantly shorter than the last Intel Macbook Pro.
I was an unbeliever, but we got some M1 Mac Mini's and this is the result. They even beat the dedicated workstation many of our people have set up. I get when people say it won't quite match a new ryzen for compute power, but in all of our tests, the M1 beat out all our workstations.
Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS
#34> These [QOS levels] turn out to be integer values spread evenly between 9 and 33, respectively. Anyone know why this is? seems fairly arbitrary...why not have 1,2,3,4,5?
They're a bit mask, with the LSB always set. The values are 100001 (33), 011001 (25), 010001 (17), and 001001 (9). And they're probably ORed with other values so multiple parameters can be set with a single word.
Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS
#35This certainly makes a lot of sense, and it's a brilliant strategy to improve overall performance. But it doesn't account for the full picture either. My M1 Macbook Pro feels about as responsive as my desktop system with an AMD Ryzen 3900X, which is impressive to say the least. It doesn't quite have the raw computing power of the 3900X, but given that it's a portable device that's something else.
Try a low latency kernel on your desktop if you use Linux, that should improve responsiveness some more. Apparently the increase in power consumption is minimal - I use (K)Ubuntu's low-latency kernel even on laptops these days.
Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS
#36Well, they don't just "feel" faster. They also complete lots of real-world tasks in shorter times, often significantly shorter than the last Intel Macbook Pro.
I was an unbeliever, but we got some M1 Mac Mini's and this is the result. They even beat the dedicated workstation many of our people have set up. I get when people say it won't quite match a new ryzen for compute power, but in all of our tests, the M1 beat out all our workstations.
What workloads do you run? I’ve got a 16GiB M1 mbp and a 2019 maxed intel and when compiling Java/sbt projects the intel is significantly quicker, albeit also much loader and power hungry.
Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS
#37People say that Ryzen is faster - but if it has a fan, then this is a deal breaker.
I have become so annoyed by fans I often just stop work when they start whirling, go make a coffee etc.
It seems like M1 is now the only laptop that can let you work in silence and be productive.
Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought the "unified memory" meme had been debunked multiple times here.
Memory is unified its just not on die. CPU and GPU and AI share unified memory which means zero copy transfers between them.
I laughed when they called it “unified memory.” Amazing what some marketing can do. In previous years, that was called “shared graphics memory” and it was only for low end systems.
Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS
#39> These [QOS levels] turn out to be integer values spread evenly between 9 and 33, respectively. Anyone know why this is? seems fairly arbitrary...why not have 1,2,3,4,5?
Best guess: either (1) it maps to internal values that macOS uses, or (2) they wanted to build in the potential to have more granular values later.
Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Strange. With the exception of electron apps (which are slow everywhere), I've found my M1 mini to be extremely responsive. Much moreso than my 16" mpb.
Cold start of Electron, MS office, Affinity (all ARM versions) takes me north of 15". 8GB M1 Mini, so maybe that makes the situation worse.
I have the 8GB M1 as my daily driver, the only apps that take a long time for me (but NOWHERE NEARE 15 seconds - maybe close to 5, but I'm not counting) are visual studio Mac (which is probably rosetta), Unity (which IS rosetta) and blender (also rosetta).