Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#121

Post by barkingcat » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:28 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #96

barkingcat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

M1 mac pros were always going to come. Apple themselves announced that the next 2 years will be transition. I'd say if you purchased a Mac Pro, it's still the same. If you find yourself not having enough power, you bought the wrong machine to begin with (probably modern threadripper pro would be what you should have been looking for) If the computer satisfies all your performance needs, what use is it to "feel frustr…

>(probably modern threadripper pro would be what you should have been looking for) Comments like this are always just so empty to me. This person was looking for a more powerful Mac, so suggesting they should have been looking for a CPU that's never going to be available for use in a Mac is just grandstanding. This person had been waiting for years for a product from Apple to replace the worthless trashcan systems. H…

Of course, as soon as the M1's were announced with the 2 year transition plan, the actual suggestion would have been to wait until the M1 mac pro comes out.

My suggestion was if there wasn't enough power, and the person needed a computer (which is the only reason one would buy a mac exactly during this changeover point), then a threadripper pro running linux would be the way to go for many workloads.

The alternative is to just wait a few months and see what comes.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#122

Post by barkingcat » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

treeman79 wrote: post #110

barkingcat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

M1 mac pros were always going to come. Apple themselves announced that the next 2 years will be transition. I'd say if you purchased a Mac Pro, it's still the same. If you find yourself not having enough power, you bought the wrong machine to begin with (probably modern threadripper pro would be what you should have been looking for) If the computer satisfies all your performance needs, what use is it to "feel frustr…

Resale value of macs is no joke. Always an option.

This is the best answer for the poster's situation.

Buy a mac, sell it after 1 year (many stores offer a buy back program for this exact purpose), get another new mac.

Easy. Done.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#123

Post by giantrobot » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

988747 wrote: post #115

oneeach wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the use cases. The Mac Pro is a desktop, always plugged in and used for the power. The M1 is on a laptop running on a battery where efficiency is more important to improve the battery life.

So why put efficiency cores in the desktop processor at all?

A desktop runs a lot of low priority processes. The efficiency cores can be given all those processes. This means some low priority thread will get scheduled on a performance core and bust the cache.

There's also plenty of time where the system has low intensity use or is idle. The efficiency cores let things like receiving notifications or checking e-mail happen for very little power draw. Fans only need to run during intense use and the system can be quiet the rest of the time.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#124

Post by GeekyBear » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

martinald wrote: post #103

GeekyBear wrote: post #59

Will TSMC 3nm be the second die shrink in a row where Apple does the unconventional thing and takes a reduction in power/heat instead of a performance increase? >Compared to it’s N5 node, N3 promises to improve performance by 10-15% at the same power levels, or reduce power by 25-30% at the same transistor speeds. https://www.anandtech.com/show/16024/tsmc-details-3nm-proces... It would certainly help pack that many c…

Considering M1 only uses 20W max, you could add a lot of cores without any efficency savings and still be within the current Xeon 200W TDP envolope. Indeed 8 M1s to make 32perf/32efficency would only be 160W. I'm aware this is very rough, but I also imagine even 8 M1s are a fraction of the cost of one Intel Xeon W chip, so much more margin for Apple. Not good times for Intel.

>still be within the current Xeon 200W TDP envolope

Apple needs very high performance core designs that also work in the thermal envelope of a handheld phone or a fanless laptop.

As noted when the A14 launched, taking the power/heat cut at the 7nm node change resulted in better sustained performance for those chips

>The one explanation and theory I have is that Apple might have finally pulled back on their excessive peak power draw at the maximum performance states of the CPUs and GPUs, and thus peak performance wouldn’t have seen such a large jump this generation, but favour more sustainable thermal figures.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16088/apple-announces-5nm-a14...

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#125

Post by valuearb » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

codycraven wrote: post #106

redm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"what use is it to "feel frustruated" over something that was expected to come" 1) The details were all speculation. 2) There was no other option if you needed more horsepower. 3)_I'm happy with the current Mac Pro, but its going to be phased out of software support before its time, just like the Motorolla. So it's more about the software support being phased out than new hardware coming out.

> ...but its going to be phased out of software support before its time, just like the Motorolla. This is precisely why I as a consumer do not buy Apple products. Apple has a long history of dropping product support with no upgradeable path forward, only buying new hardware. This is also, in my speculation, the reason Apple is one of the most valuable companies on the planet, even though they are primarily a consumer…

Apple typically has the last newer hardware support of any phone or pc manufacturer. My daughter still uses a 2011 iMac without problems and with relatively recent security updates.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#126

Post by StrictDabbler » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:45 PM UTC

redm wrote: post #63

newsclues wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren’t forcing you to phase out your machine. They will continue to support it.

Only for ~2 more years. I had a Motorola machine and when they switched to x86, it was useless pretty quickly, far before its time.

I mean, if you had a Motorola Mac (68XXX) at the time of the x86 transition, you must have gotten a good decade of use out of it...

I kid, obviously. I've never seen anybody refer to the PowerPC as Motorola machines even though Motorola was part of the PowerPC alliance.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#127

Post by mumblemumble » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:46 PM UTC

988747 wrote: post #115

oneeach wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the use cases. The Mac Pro is a desktop, always plugged in and used for the power. The M1 is on a laptop running on a battery where efficiency is more important to improve the battery life.

So why put efficiency cores in the desktop processor at all?

As has been mentioned elsewhere, devoting some cores to background tasks and reserving the others for higher-priority stuff also makes the system feel more responsive.

See, for example, this article from yesterday: https://eclecticlight.co/2021/05/17/how-m1-macs-feel-faster-...

Long story short, segregating background work from foreground work means that Spotlight indexing won't cause the UI to become sluggish. I'm guessing it also tends to be more cache-friendly.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#128

Post by dharmab » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:48 PM UTC

988747 wrote: post #115

oneeach wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the use cases. The Mac Pro is a desktop, always plugged in and used for the power. The M1 is on a laptop running on a battery where efficiency is more important to improve the battery life.

So why put efficiency cores in the desktop processor at all?

To reduce the need for noisy cooling.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#129

Post by ben509 » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:49 PM UTC

Pulcinella wrote: post #34

bebna wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on how well Apple designs thermals, we can only throw dice. [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiCBYAP_Sgg

Why does he take the back cover off and complain that the air flow and cooling don’t work properly?

He's not understanding that in the normal operating environment for Macs, there's an additional fan he's not seeing.

The person who bought it.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#130

Post by _ph_ » Tue, May 18, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

martinald wrote: post #103

GeekyBear wrote: post #59

Will TSMC 3nm be the second die shrink in a row where Apple does the unconventional thing and takes a reduction in power/heat instead of a performance increase? >Compared to it’s N5 node, N3 promises to improve performance by 10-15% at the same power levels, or reduce power by 25-30% at the same transistor speeds. https://www.anandtech.com/show/16024/tsmc-details-3nm-proces... It would certainly help pack that many c…

Considering M1 only uses 20W max, you could add a lot of cores without any efficency savings and still be within the current Xeon 200W TDP envolope. Indeed 8 M1s to make 32perf/32efficency would only be 160W. I'm aware this is very rough, but I also imagine even 8 M1s are a fraction of the cost of one Intel Xeon W chip, so much more margin for Apple. Not good times for Intel.

And I would assume that the GPU, which needs to be grown considerably too, might be on a second package, so the 8 M1s without GPUs would use less than 100W.