Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 1001 posts

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

#431

Post by AdrianB1 »

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #370
bla3 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the memory was one of the more interesting bits here. My 2-year-old Intel MBP has 64 GB, and 8 GB of additional memory on the GPU. True, on the M1 Max you don't have to copy back and forth between CPU and GPU thanks to integrated memory, but the new MBP still has less total memory than my 2-year-old Intel MBP. And it seems they just barely managed to get to 64 GiB. The whole processor chip is surrounded by…

Just some genuine honest curiosity here; how many workloads actually require 64gb of ram? For instance, I'm an amateur in the music production scene, and I know that sampling heavy work flows benefit from being able to load more audio clips fully into RAM rather than streaming them from disk. But 64g seems a tad overkill even for that. I guess for me I would prefer an emphasis on speed/bandwidth rather than size, but…

Not many, but there are a few that need even more. My team is running SQL servers on their laptops (development and support) and when that is not enough, we go to Threadrippers with 128-256GB of RAM. Other people run Virtual Machines on their computers (I work most of the time in a VM) and you can run several VMs at the same time, eating up RAM really fast.

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

#432

Post by derefr »

bla3 wrote: post #118
fotta wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the higher memory is also a huge win, with support for up to 64gb.

I thought the memory was one of the more interesting bits here. My 2-year-old Intel MBP has 64 GB, and 8 GB of additional memory on the GPU. True, on the M1 Max you don't have to copy back and forth between CPU and GPU thanks to integrated memory, but the new MBP still has less total memory than my 2-year-old Intel MBP. And it seems they just barely managed to get to 64 GiB. The whole processor chip is surrounded by…

> but the new MBP still has less total memory

From the perspective of your GPU, that 64GB of main memory attached to your CPU is almost as slow to fetch from as if it were memory on a separate NUMA node, or even pages swapped to an NVMe disk. It may as well not be considered "memory" at all. It's effectively a secondary storage tier.

Which means that you can't really do "GPU things" (e.g. working with hugely detailed models where it's the model itself, not the textures, that take up the space) as if you had 64GB of memory. You can maybe break apart the problem, but maybe not; it all depends on the workload. (For example, you can't really run a Tensorflow model on a GPU with less memory than the model size. Making it work would be like trying to distribute a graph-database routing query across nodes — constant back-and-forth that multiplies the runtime exponentially. Even though each step is parallelizable, on the whole it's the opposite of an embarrassingly-parallel problem.)

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

#433

Post by other_herbert »

skohan wrote: post #321
raydev wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C# is the only odd item there. Entire companies are doing everything else in that list using exclusively MacBook Pros.

Isn't C# quite available on mac?

Yes and dotnet 6 (release date scheduled for 11/9, but is available now as rc2) works natively on the m1... REALLY quickly I might add :)...

I go between vs.code and JetBrains Rider (rider now has an EAP that runs natively on the m1)...

I am going to upgrade just because I didn't get enough ram the first time around :)

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

#434

Post by modulusshift »

zelon88 wrote: post #356
rdw wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 techni…

Oh hey they went back to screws on the keyboards? that's nice, they used to be single use plastic rivets, so at least you can redo that.

Also Apple's glue isn't usually that bad to work with. Doesn't leave much residue, so as long as you know where to apply the heat you can do a clean repair and glue the new component back in.

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

#435

Post by schleck8 »

rdw wrote: post #319
schleck8 wrote: post #170

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…

The reasoning was to make the device as thin as possible according to Verge iirc. The cable degrades because it's too short and can't be replaced.

Says it all pretty much.

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

#436

Post by jbverschoor »

patall wrote: post #389
sudhirj wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of my Apple laptops (maybe even all their products) see about 5 to 8 years of service. Sometimes with me, sometimes as hand-me-downs. So they’ve been pretty excellent at not winding up in the trash. Even software updates often stretch as far back as 5 year old models, so they’re pretty good with this.

And here I am sitting at my 2011 Dell Latitude wondering what is so special about that. My sis had my 2013 Sony Duo but that's now become unusable with its broken, built-in battery. Yes, 5 to 8 years of service is nice, but not great or out of norm for a $1000+ laptop.

Because they run windows.

If you look at android phones, you're looking at a few years only.

Because of software

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

#437

Post by mlindner »

ksec wrote: post #362
sam0x17 wrote: post #65

Any indication on the gaming performance of these vs. a typical nvidia or AMD card? My husband is thinking of purchasing a mac but I've cautioned him that he won't be able to use his e-gpu like usual until someone hacks support to work for it again, and even then he'd be stuck with pretty old gen AMD cards at best.

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.

I'm not aware of a single even semi-major game (including popular indie titles) that run native on M1 yet. Everything is running under Rosetta and game companies so far seem completely uninterested in native support.

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

#438

Post by andrewl-hn »

m15i wrote: post #340

Will the 64GB RAM max chip be practical for training deep learning models? Any benchmarks vs GTX 3090?

Their comparison charts showed the performance of mobile GPUs, not the desktop ones. So, I wouldn’t call this “practical”. Most likely depends on what kind of models you are building and what software you use and how optimized it is for M1.

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

#439

Post by time0ut »

mrtksn wrote: post #307
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just today I got one 6s and one iPhone 7 screen repaired Nice, except doing a screen replacement on a modern iPhone like the 13 series will disable your FaceID making your iPhone pretty much worthless. >Previously I got 2017 Macbook Air SSD upgraded using an SSD and an adapter that I ordered from Amazon Nice, but on the modern Macbooks, the SSD is soldered and not replaceable. There is no way to upgrade them or repl…

Hardware people are crafty, they find ways to transfer and combine working parts. The glass replacement(keeping the original LCD) I got for the 6S is not a procedure provided by Apple. Guess who doesn’t care? The repair shop that bought a machine from China for separating and re-assembly of the Glass and LCD. Screen replacement is 50$, glass replacement is 30$. iPhone 13 is very new, give it a few years and the hardw…

Only if Apple wants to let them as far as I have seen. The software won't even let you swap screens between iPhone 13s. Maybe people will find a work around, but it seems like Apple is trying its hardest to prevent it.

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

#440

Post by satya71 »

haberman wrote: post #415

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.

Very simple: thermal budget. Chip performance is limited by thermal budget. You just can't spend more than roughly 100W in a single package, without going into very expensive and esoteric cooling mechanisms.
Post reply on HN