Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors • Hacker News Board

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

#411

Post by pier25 » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 8:16 PM UTC

neogodless wrote: post #342

pier25 wrote: post #284

Anyone can comment on what Intel and AMD are going to do now? Will they be able to catch up or will Qualcomm become the alternative for ARM laptop chips? (and maybe desktop chips too)

This exact question was asked a year ago when the M1 was announced. In the year since, their laptop market share increased about 2% from 14 to 16%[0]. The reasons for this are: 1. When deciding on a computer, you often have to decide based on use case, software/games used, and what operating system will work best for those use cases. For Windows users, it doesn't matter if you can get similar performance from a Macbo…

All good points but:

1) In the pro market (audio, video, 3d, etc) performance is very relevant.

2) Battery time is important to all types of laptop users.

3) Apple is certainly working on more desktop alternatives.

4) You don't need move all your devices into the closed ecosystem just because you use a Mac. Also, some people just don't want to use macOS on principle, but I'm guessing this is a minority.

> AMD's product line has improved drastically over the past 4 years

My desktop Windows PC has a 3700X which was very impressive at the time, but it is roughly similar in perf to the "low end" M1 aimed at casual users.

> Their Zen 4 announcement may also be on the 5nm TSMC node, and could be within the ballpark of M1 Pro/Max for performance/efficiency, but available to the larger PC marketplace.

That would be great.

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

#412

Post by derefr » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 8:17 PM UTC

mlindner wrote: post #386

cbarrick wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the power/performance curves provided by Apple, they imply that the Pro/Max provides the same level of performance at a slightly lower power consumption than the original M1. But at the same time, Apple isn't providing any hard data or explaining their methodology. I dunno how much we should be reading into the graphs. /shrug

I think you misread the graph. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/mac/standard/A... The graph there shows that the new chip is higher power usage at all performance levels.

Not all; it looks like the M1 running full-tilt is slightly less efficient for the same perf than the M1 Pro/Max. (I.e., the curves intersect.)

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

#413

Post by symlinkk » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 8:18 PM UTC

mannymanman wrote: post #388

So if I want a new Macbook purely for software development and building mobile apps, what should I pick between the $2499 14" and the $3499 16"? Doesn't look like there's any difference in Xcode build times from their website

I’d get the 16”, 14” is pretty small for something you’d be using every day

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

#414

Post by modulusshift » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 8:20 PM UTC

culpable_pickle wrote: post #398

the_arun wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could we use M1 chips on non-apple boards? If yes, I wish Apple releases these for non mac os consumption. Eg. Running linux servers in the cloud.

Why? There are plenty of server oriented ARM platforms available for use (See AWS Graviton). What benefit do you feel Apple’s platform gives over existing ones?

Well, tons, there isn't another ARM core that can match a single M1 Firestorm, core to core. Heck, only the highest performance x86 cores can match a Firestorm core. and that's just raw performance, not even considering power efficiency. But of course, Apple's not sharing.

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

#415

Post by haberman » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 8:20 PM UTC

I always thought it was strange that "integrated graphics" was, for years, was synonymous with "cheap, underperforming" compared to the power of a discrete GPU.

I never could see any fundamental reason why "integrated" should mean "underpowered." Apple is turning things around, and is touting the benefits of high-performance integrated graphics.

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

#416

Post by strobe » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

yodsanklai wrote: post #122

> This also means that every chip Apple creates, from design to manufacturing, will be 100 percent carbon neutral. How is that even possible?

likely they not but is possible to say that because they buying a Carbon offsets or similar products to make it 100 neutral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offset

(obviously apple can afford that)

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

#417

Post by lowbloodsugar » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

znwu wrote: post #350

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really curious if the memory bandwidth is entirely available to the CPU if the GPU is idle. An nvidia RTX3090 has nearly 1TB/s bandwidth, so the GPU is clearly going to use as much of the 400GB/s as possible. Other unified architectures have multiple channels or synchronization to memory, such that no one part of the system can access the full bandwidth. But if the CPU can access all 400GB/s, that is an absolute game…

Not sure if it will be available, but 400GB/s is way too much for 8 cores to take up. You would need some sort of avx512 to hog up that much bandwidth. Moreover, it's not clear how much of a bandwidth/width does M1 max CPU interconnect/bus provide. -------- Edit: Add common sense about HPC workloads. There is a fundamental idea called memory-access-to-computation ratio. We can't assume a 1:0 ratio since it was doing…

Don't know the clock speed but 8 cores at 3Ghz working on 128bit SIMD is 8316 = 384GB/s so we are in the right ball park. Not that I personally have a use for that =) Oh, wait, bloody Java GC might be a use for that. (LOL, FML or both).

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

#418

Post by ksec » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 8:23 PM UTC

sam0x17 wrote: post #400

ksec wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of Hardware M1 Max is great. On paper you wont find anything match its performance under load. As even Gaming / Content Creation Laptop throttle after a short while. The problem is gaming isn't exactly a Mac thing. From Game selection to general support on the platform. So really performance should be the least of your concern if you are buying a Mac for games.

He typically just dual-boots windows anyway so selection isn't much of an issue, though I also don't know if that is working yet on the M1 platform

>though I also don't know if that is working yet on the M1 platform

Dual booting isn't working and likely not any time soon as Microsoft does not intend to support Apple M1 [1]. And I doubt Apple have intention to port their GPU Metal Drivers to Windows. ( Compared to using AMD Drivers on Windows in the old days )

He will likely need to use some sort of VM solution like Parallel. [2]

[1] https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/09/13/microsoft-says-wi...

[2] https://www.engadget.com/parallels-desktop-17-m-1-mac-perfor...

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

#419

Post by spacedcowboy » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 8:23 PM UTC

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #288

mohanmcgeek wrote: post #124

Disingenuous for Apple to compare these against 2017 Intel chips and call them 2x and 3.7x faster. I would love to see how they fare against 2021 Intel and amd chips.

The slide where they say its faster than an 8-core PC laptop CPU is comparing it against the 11th gen i7 11800H [1]. So it's not as fast as the fastest laptop chip, and it's certainly not as fast as the monster laptops that people put desktop CPUs in. But it uses 40% of the power of a not-awful 11th gen 8-core i7 laptop. The M1 is nowhere near as fast as a full-blown 16 core desktop CPU. I am sure we will see reviews…

... and neither is the M1 (in any configuration) a "full blown 16 core desktop CPU".

Those will be called M2 and come later next year, according to the rumor mill anyway.

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

#420

Post by titzer » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 8:23 PM UTC

These chips are impressive, but TBH I have always been annoyed by these vague cartoon-line graphs. Like, is this measured data. No? Just some market doodle? Please don't make graphs meaningless marketing gags. I mean, please don't make graphs even more meaningless marketing gags.