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M1 Pro First Impressions: Core Management and CPU Performance

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Re: M1 Pro First Impressions: Core Management and CPU Performance

#81

Post by masklinn »

wmf wrote: post #4
Aeolun wrote: post #2

I’m not sure how to interpret this, even after reading the article. Is any reason given for why the last 4 Performance cores get only a limited amount of work?

I assume that a core cluster can power off if it's completely idle; this should be more energy-efficient than running both clusters at low utilization.

It can also allow for boosting a core more: the “turbo” ramping is on a per-cluster basis so if only one core is loaded it’ll work at 3.2, two of them at 3.1, and 3 or 4 lowers that to 3.0.

Re: M1 Pro First Impressions: Core Management and CPU Performance

#82

Post by capableweb »

yeldarb wrote: post #12

Mine just arrived today and I'm blown away. After upgrading our app's dependency chain to run native arm64 builds (which took a bit of googling) webpack's incremental build time on our app is down to 116ms from 983ms on my 2016 Macbook Pro. Over 8x faster. Our Tensorflow.js (webgl) models that previously ran about 8fps in the browser are now running at the camera's native 30fps framerate. (Similar to my desktop 2080t…

Rather than switching hardware, you can also switch out the software to more efficient one. esbuild would make your builds go sub-ms even without needing a M1 CPU, also worth a try if you cannot switch to the newest hardware, so I guess this comment is for poor people.

Re: M1 Pro First Impressions: Core Management and CPU Performance

#83

Post by rawoke083600 »

grey-area wrote: post #74
rawoke083600 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed ! We should also differentiate between "expensive" and "good-value for money". a Ferrari sports car is very 'expensive' and not many ppl can afford it, a Ferrari at 35% discount is a great deal but still 'expensive' for most ppl. Bringing this back to the M1 Macs, I think what you get for your money in terms of computing, power consumption and build quality is simply amazing ! I think few can argue that. But i…

M1 Macbook airs are 1k and a very capable machine so if this is your price range they are a great buy.

Ja true was looking at them, but I do like more storage and ram space. To be honest the "best value" is prob on apple refurb store ! Very well priced there.

Re: M1 Pro First Impressions: Core Management and CPU Performance

#84

Post by capableweb »

aroman wrote: post #55
midrus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not an "HN thing". These machines are damn fast in day to day use. Absolutely zero heat, zero usage of fans and incredible battery life too. I see a lot of hype and fanboys around here regarding certain techs, but these machines are objectively on a whole different league.

Do you have one of the M1 Pros? Mine very much does gets hot and I can definitely hear the fans when I'm building a project, but both fronts are certainly improved vs the Intel Macs. Honestly, it gets about as hot and as loud as the Intel version, just far less frequently.

Huh, I made a comment about this issue just the other day (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28988835) and had 5 commentators telling me that it has now been fixed, almost made me order a M1. But now you're saying it actually still runs as hot as before?

Re: M1 Pro First Impressions: Core Management and CPU Performance

#85

Post by capableweb »

DrBenCarson wrote: post #26
sydthrowaway wrote: post #18

These laptops are too expensive. What the hell is the markup on these things

I believe these are actually one of the lowest markups Apple has and in general a great deal. Consider this: 1. 14” or 16” custom miniLED display 2. Anodized one-piece aluminum clamshell 3. Completely custom SoC (much more expensive than buying Intel’s latest, at least in the short-term) 4. Completely custom OS with a full suite of native apps 5. Custom MagSafe adapter 6. Thunderbolt 4 (3 of them) Now consider that t…

> Now consider that this laptop outperforms most desktop workstations that cost $4k+…and does it on 16h of battery life.

> If you’re in the market for a high-performance computer, you’d have to be dense to not buy one of these (or building x86 firmware)

I'd love to see which $4000+ desktop gets beaten by any M1 processor. $4000 is A LOT for a desktop computer. I paid (in total, with upgrades over the years) around ~$1600 and easily beats anything provided by Apple.

Re: M1 Pro First Impressions: Core Management and CPU Performance

#86

Post by tdy_err »

capableweb wrote: post #82
yeldarb wrote: post #12

Mine just arrived today and I'm blown away. After upgrading our app's dependency chain to run native arm64 builds (which took a bit of googling) webpack's incremental build time on our app is down to 116ms from 983ms on my 2016 Macbook Pro. Over 8x faster. Our Tensorflow.js (webgl) models that previously ran about 8fps in the browser are now running at the camera's native 30fps framerate. (Similar to my desktop 2080t…

Rather than switching hardware, you can also switch out the software to more efficient one. esbuild would make your builds go sub-ms even without needing a M1 CPU, also worth a try if you cannot switch to the newest hardware, so I guess this comment is for poor people.

Unfortunately, ESbuild is not a drop-in replacement for Webpack either. So, the poor but lucky enough to rely on any plug-ins.

Re: M1 Pro First Impressions: Core Management and CPU Performance

#87

Post by sz4kerto »

masklinn wrote: post #80
sz4kerto wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are reviews where they actually burn through the battery in an hour. This is not surprising: the M1 Max model can consume 70 watts, plus the display consumes tens of watts in HDR mode.

> the M1 Max model can consume 70 watts In a 16” at least, the Max can go up to 92W per anandtech’s initial test, and display + ram + rest brings the wallplug draw to 120.

You're correct (I couldn't look it up and wanted a safe figure that still proves my point :) )

Re: M1 Pro First Impressions: Core Management and CPU Performance

#88

Post by ohgodplsno »

whalesalad wrote: post #30

I can’t wait for the desktop-class Pro hardware. If you extrapolate on power consumption alone it would be a complete monster. They could do something gnarly like fit 8 sockets on a single board and send your compute ability to level 9000. I’m hoping for a mid-tier unit though - a rebirth of the G4 Cube as a “Mac Mini Pro” I daily drive an M1 mini now and abuse the hell out of it. I’ve never heard the fan. It’s a rem…

That... is not how CPUs work, despite Apple's promises. As mentioned, there is a need of an interconnect between those sockets. Power usage aside, it is absolute hell to get it to efficiently and quickly send data between cores. Adding a socket interconnect will destroy the performance of any task that needs to send data between those cores.

So, what you're left with, is a 64 core M1. Which is still going to be less efficient than a Threadripper, an EPYC or even a Xeon (and that's quite sad) at multithreaded tasks, and, knowing Apple, about twice as expensive.

Re: M1 Pro First Impressions: Core Management and CPU Performance

#89

Post by ohgodplsno »

f6v wrote: post #70
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With that said, there is a huge M1 hype on HN. The main thing driving this is that people are comparing a new M1 to their Intel Mac laptops with processors from ~2016 and then naturally it's a marked improvement because it's being compared to a five year old machine. You compare them to a modern Intel or AMD system and they're competitive. They win some and lose others. Much was made about the M1 Max taking the sin…

> You compare them to a modern Intel or AMD system I compared my 2014 MBP to 2019 MBP and there was no marked difference. It was running hot and eating battery very fast. 2019 Intel Mac and 2020 M1 Mac are two completely different animals. Also, the price drop for a better-performing machine was jaw-dropping.

Apple selling you mid-range-3-year-old-intel CPUs (that are known to thermal throttle quite badly) at 50% markup, then robbing you slightly less hard on a product is not jaw dropping, it's merely you falling for their marketing three times in a row.

Re: M1 Pro First Impressions: Core Management and CPU Performance

#90

Post by tester34 »

DrBenCarson wrote: post #26
sydthrowaway wrote: post #18

These laptops are too expensive. What the hell is the markup on these things

I believe these are actually one of the lowest markups Apple has and in general a great deal. Consider this: 1. 14” or 16” custom miniLED display 2. Anodized one-piece aluminum clamshell 3. Completely custom SoC (much more expensive than buying Intel’s latest, at least in the short-term) 4. Completely custom OS with a full suite of native apps 5. Custom MagSafe adapter 6. Thunderbolt 4 (3 of them) Now consider that t…

>Now consider that this laptop outperforms most desktop workstations that cost $4k+

I'd really want to see that setup and benchmark

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