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Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

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Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#351

I would like to upgrade to Apple silicon, but I have no need for a laptop. I hope they put the M1 Max in a Mac Mini soon.

Seems reasonable. They still sell the Intel Mac mini, despite having an M1 powered Mac mini already. The Intel one uses the old “black aluminum means pro” design language of the iMac Pro. Feels like they are keeping it as a placeholder in their line up and will end up with two Apple silicon powered Mac mini’s, One consumer and one pro

I doubt that we'll see a really powerful Mac Mini anytime soon. Why? Because it would cannibalize the MacBook Pro when combined with an iPad (sidecar).

Most professionals needing pro laptops use the portability to move between studio environments or sets (e.g home and work). The Mini is still portable enough to be carried in a backpack, and the iPad can do enough on it's own to be viable for lighter coffee shop based work.

Not many would do highend production work outside a studio or set without additional periphery, meaning that highend performance of the new MBP isn't needed for very mobile situations.

A powerful mini and an iPad would therefore be the much better logical choice vs. a highend MacBook Pro. There where you need the power there's most likely a power outlet and room for a Mini.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#352

How do they get 200/400GB per second RAM bandwidth? Isn't that like 4/8 channel DDR5. 4/8 times as fast as current Intel/AMD CPUs/APUs? (E.g. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/201837/... with 45.8GB/s) Laptop/desktop have 2 channels. High-end desktop can have 4 channels. Servers have 8 channels. How does Apple do that? I was always assuming that having that many channels is prohibitive in terms of…

They are using LPDDR5.

Not the usual DDR5 used in Desktop / Laptop.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you don't follow what majority of the market do, it's much cheaper to just ignore that tiny customer segment which requires totally alien set of technologies iOS and Macs both use Metal. You can't refuse to support Metal without missing out on a very big slice of total gaming revenue.

On mobile devices - definitely On desktop - missing what, 2% or less? Checked Steam stats - yep, about 2%

Metal is Metal. Once you support Metal for iOS games they also work under MacOS when running on Apple's chips.

You can support traditional MacOS application chrome with little additional effort.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#354

I feel happy for the Apple community with these processors. But I can't stop to think my Intel machine. It feels like I am left in the dust and nothing seems to be coming that remotely looks like the M1.

Intel is years behind Apple, with no real strategy for catching up. Apple most likely already has the M2 ready, and the M3 under heavy development.

The good news is that AMD is working their butt off on this, and seems to be much closer to Apple in terms of Watts/unit of performance. Intel needs to get in gear, now.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#355
post #105

"Apple’s Commitment to the Environment" > Today, Apple is carbon neutral for global corporate operations, and by 2030, plans to have net-zero climate impact across the entire business, which includes manufacturing supply chains and all product life cycles. This also means that every chip Apple creates, from design to manufacturing, will be 100 percent carbon neutral. But what they won't do is put the chip in an expan…

Apple, the company that requires the entire panel to be replaced by design when a 6 dollar display cable malfunctions, is proud to announce its latest marketing slogan for a better environment.

Not to mention all the eWaste that comes with the AirPods.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#356
post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple, the company that requires the entire panel to be replaced by design when a 6 dollar display cable malfunctions, is proud to announce its latest marketing slogan for a better environment.

Just because you're not getting that panel back doesn't mean it's destroyed and wasted. I figure that these policies simplify their front-line technician jobs, getting faster turnaround times and higher success rates. Then they have a different department that sorts through all the removed/broken parts, repairing and using parts from them. No idea if this is what they actually do, but it would be the smart way to han…

Apple does nothing to improve front line technician procedures. They aren't even an engineering factor. If you happen to be able to replace something on an Apple product, it's only because the cost-benefit ratio wasn't in favor of making that part hostile to work with.

Apple puts 56 screws in the Unibody MBP keyboards. They were practically the pioneer of gluing components in permanently. They don't care about technicians. Not even their own. They have been one of the leaders of the anti-right-to-repair movement from day one.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#357
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, it'll be the same M1 Max. Just wait a few months like with the 24" iMac.

You're probably right. Maybe they have inventory to work through!

Yeah, M1 Pro/Max on iMac 30” likely in 2022 H1. Mini also, I imagine.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#358

The benchmark to power consumption comparisons were very interesting. It seemed very un-Apple to be making such direct comparisons to competitors, especially when the Razer Blade Advanced had slightly better performance with far higher power consumption. I feel like typically Apple just says "Fastest we've ever made, it's so thin, so many nits, you'll love it" and leaves it at that. I'll be very curious to see those…

FWIW, they are in general quite accurate with their ballpark performance figures. I expect the actual power/performance curves to be similar to that they showed. Which is interesting, because IIRC on the plots from Nuvia before they were bought their cores had a similar profile. It would be exciting if Qualcomm could have something good for a change.

If we can get an actual Windows on ARM ecosystem started things will get really exciting really quickly.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#359

This is roughly in line with what I expected, given the characteristics of the M1. It's still very power efficient and cool, has more CPU cores, a lot more GPU cores, wider memory controller, and presumably it has unchanged single core performance. Apple clearly doesn't mean these to be a high performance desktop offering though because they didn't even offer an Mac Mini SKU with the new M1s. But what I'm really curi…

I don't think they are going to make desktop versions, they'll probably put the pro and max versions in a new iMac body during Q2 2022 and might add config options to mac mini. Might be for supply chain reasons, focusing 100% on macbook pro production to meet the absolutely massive incoming demand.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#360

The benchmark to power consumption comparisons were very interesting. It seemed very un-Apple to be making such direct comparisons to competitors, especially when the Razer Blade Advanced had slightly better performance with far higher power consumption. I feel like typically Apple just says "Fastest we've ever made, it's so thin, so many nits, you'll love it" and leaves it at that. I'll be very curious to see those…

I think that for the first time, Apple has a real performance differentiator in its laptops. They want to highlight that.

If Apple is buying Intel CPUs, there's no reason making direct performance comparisons to competitors. They're all building out of the same parts bin. They would want to talk about the form factor and the display - areas where they could often out-do competitors. Now there's actually something to talk about with the CPU/GPU/hardware-performance.

I think Apple is also making the comparison to push something else: performance + lifestyle. For me, the implication is that I can buy an Intel laptop that's nicely portable, but a lot slower; I could also buy an Intel laptop that's just as fast, but requires two power adapters to satisfy its massive power drain and really doesn't work as a laptop at all. Or I can buy a MacBook Pro which has the power of the heavy, non-portable Intel laptops while sipping less power than the nicely portable ones. I don't have to make a trade-off between performance and portability.

I think people picked apart the comparisons on the M1 and were pretty satisfied. 6-8 M1 performance cores will offer a nice performance boost over 4 M1 performance cores and we basically know how those cores benchmark already.

I'd also note that there are efforts to get Linux on Apple Silicon.

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