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What’s Left in the Apple Silicon Transition

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Re: What’s Left in the Apple Silicon Transition

#221

Post by zitterbewegung »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #210
brookst wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

. . . and much louder, and much bigger, and running Windows. Macs have never been about highest possible performance at any price point. But there is a niche where people want a very fast computer that is quit and not too ugly (and who can find their apps on macOS).

Sorry, I don't think I was clear earlier. I blame post-Covid fatigue. I meant it more as a comparison to the Mac Pro (based on parent/grand parent comments). The Pro is expandable and upgradeable. And it - at least when introduced - was always basically the most desktop workstation you could buy short of sticking a server farm under your desk. The Studio is none of those things. So, while an equivalent Windows machin…

The Mac Studio is what the Trashcan Mac Pro tried to do. Only through efficiency will you get something that almost gets everything right of what the trashcan tried to do.

Putting two GPUS in a tight spot and the limitations of the time basically doomed it to failure but now we have much better data rates and better iGPUs.

Re: What’s Left in the Apple Silicon Transition

#222

Post by mfld »

jltsiren wrote: post #143
michaelt wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t remember previous Mac Pros being targeted this exclusively; heck, somebody in my freshman dorm in 2006 had the cheese grater Pro at the time for music production. Well, even before the rise of covid-induced work-from-home, Apple has been shepherding almost all of their users onto laptops. That college student's 2006 Mac Pro might have had 1GB RAM [1] - but these days, Apple has a laptop for users wanting 64…

The switch to working from home made high-end workstations a bit more relevant. While offices had fast and reliable internet connections, the quality of home internet is often much worse. You can't rely on the cloud as much from home as from office. I develop bioinformatics methods and software, and I see significant productivity gains when I can run tests with full datasets locally. So far I've been using an iMac wi…

A while back I built a linux box for bioinformatics and was happy with the performance [1]. You might need to look for suitable main boards to support your RAM requirements, though.

[1] https://www.ecseq.com/blog/2020/Whole-Exome-Analysis-on-a-Ma...

Re: What’s Left in the Apple Silicon Transition

#223

Post by SirGiggles »

klelatti wrote: post #199
SirGiggles wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say efficiency instead? It's to my understanding that the latest offerings from both AMD and Intel are competitive in regards to synthetic benchmarks at the cost of higher power consumption.

> keep part of Apple’s branding I made no comment about actual performance.

But are you not implying it with original statement?

Apple has publicly stated during their keynotes (albeit with slides that present minimal information) the efficiency their CPU holds over the aforementioned companies. And that isn't even going into the mobile space where Apple still holds the crown when it comes to performance on synthetic workloads.

Revisiting the keynote where the M1 was introduced [1] at 8:48 Apple states that the M1 uses the world's fastest CPU, which ties back into your argument, but then at 9:51 talks about performance per watt.

Apple does it again when the M2 was announced [2] at 58:21.

This isn't to say your argument isn't a valid one, and I hope I didn't give the impression that it is wrong; the optics has, at least in my perspective, shifted towards preferring power efficiency over raw performance output. What with tech news of x86 CPUs and GPUs from Nvidia and AMD consuming more and more power the M1 and M2 sip power by comparison.

No one doubts the performance of Apple devices, it's mainly efficiency by which it does so that has everyone paying attention to it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AwdkGKmZ0I

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5D55G7Ejs8

Re: What’s Left in the Apple Silicon Transition

#224

Post by grecy »

esskay wrote: post #55
samwillis wrote: post #40

The Mac Studio was a new product category, sitting just beneath the Mac Pro. I suspect during development they were unsure of if it would actually be the Mac Pro, that would have probably been another 2013 Mac Pro debacle though. The Mac Studio must be decimating Mac Pro sales, it must fit what 70-80% of Mac Pro users wanted. It's going to be incredible hard to Apple to justify development of an extended M architectu…

XServe would probably be pretty popular with the recent shift to ARM based servers for their lower power consumption. The problem would be their insistance for them to run full blown macOS instead of a dedicated Linux based server OS.

> XServe would probably be pretty popular with the recent shift to ARM based servers

I've been thinking for a while they'll bring XServe back (or the Mac Pro will be rackable) because they'll save a TON of money.

1. Lower power usage in their own data centres - that's gotta be huge.

2. Buying processors from themselves instead of from Intel.

Hopefully it will help get whatever chip they're going to use in the Mac Pro to some kind of production number that means economies of scale come into play.

Re: What’s Left in the Apple Silicon Transition

#225

Post by gumby »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #210
brookst wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

. . . and much louder, and much bigger, and running Windows. Macs have never been about highest possible performance at any price point. But there is a niche where people want a very fast computer that is quit and not too ugly (and who can find their apps on macOS).

Sorry, I don't think I was clear earlier. I blame post-Covid fatigue. I meant it more as a comparison to the Mac Pro (based on parent/grand parent comments). The Pro is expandable and upgradeable. And it - at least when introduced - was always basically the most desktop workstation you could buy short of sticking a server farm under your desk. The Studio is none of those things. So, while an equivalent Windows machin…

Given that TB3 and TB4 provide PCIe, Apple has retained their strategy of expansion that way as opposed to add-in cards. That was the approach of the trashcan and it's been retained in the Studio.

It's a valid approach in theory but it seems pretty clear that the market hasn't embraced it. The most recent Mac Pro recognized that people weren't embracing it, but really, are there many (or any?) 3P cards that can be plugged into a Mac Pro?

Re: What’s Left in the Apple Silicon Transition

#226

Post by llampx »

UltraViolence wrote: post #58

I have famously predicted that sales of Mac's will decline and could even lead to a rout. Many professionals need Intel CPU support in order for them to run Windows on their Macbooks natively. And no, emulation isn't an option. I predict that Mac sales will sag and that this will lead Apple to slash more and more models, eventually undermining the legitimacy of the platform. Most users will switch to Linux on Intel l…

If your prediction relies on LOTD, I suggest thinking twice before putting any money on it.

Re: What’s Left in the Apple Silicon Transition

#227

Post by brailsafe »

softjobs wrote: post #215
brailsafe wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you really look into what's available, there's a fair bit of variation in the market for different customers, but there's incredibly few 5k+ displays at 27 or ~30 inches. Like zero if you discount the LG. Everything else is kind of ok, but not always a good replacement.

Hot off CES: "The ViewFinity S9 (Model Number: S90PC) is Samsung’s newest addition to its monitor lineup. It features a 5K 27” screen for the first time and is optimized for creative professionals such as graphic designers and photographers. Its 5,120 x 2,880 resolution combined with its wide color gamut of 99% DCI-P3, provides crisp and true-to-form details, and its average Delta E ≦ 2[1] color accuracy also produce…

Wow, that's extremely timely and is pretty much exactly what I was hoping someone would link to correct me. I'll keep my eye on that, thanks. I'd personally still only be in the market for a >27" size, just because I feel like 27" is too small, but this would open the floor for competition in that range.

I really like the 30" Ultrasharp, and would consider a 32" as long as the resolution, connectivity, pixel density, and panel tech are in place.

Re: What’s Left in the Apple Silicon Transition

#228

Post by philistine »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #181
alberth wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the Mac Studio not address all those points?

A similarly priced Windows PC is expandable and upgradeable while also being faster than a Mac Studio.

I'm not sure about faster anymore. You'll have to get your reactionary opinions up-to-date.

Re: What’s Left in the Apple Silicon Transition

#229

Post by philistine »

ajross wrote: post #182
klelatti wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm, performance has been a key part of Apple’s branding for decades from Power PC (don’t disagree with your point on G4 though) through Intel in the MacBook Pro and Mac Pro and now on iPhones and M series Macs. Edit - this is a comment about branding ie how Apple presents itself not actual performance.

I think the marketing of performance has always been a subthread. But the actual machines have always been merely "good enough". The 68k macs lagged PCs significantly. PPC had a brief moment where it was faster than 486/P5 devices but then got demolished by P6+ cores, to the extent that Apple had to switch to Intel themselves. Then for almost two decades they shipped what amounted to the same silicon as high end wind…

You're talking about laptops. To me, a heavy computer user, the case is more important than CPU performance. There Apple has always been second-to-none. Lenovo has always been second but one look at their laptops and I want to fall asleep.

Re: What’s Left in the Apple Silicon Transition

#230

Post by philistine »

Damogran6 wrote: post #160
yesenadam wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Apple is Dooomed!" Google: 8,310,000 results in 0.38 seconds For the phrase "Apple is Dooomed!", including similar results, I get only 4 pages of google search results. For "Apple is Doomed!", including similar results, I get 31 pages.

You're missing the point. Apple's decisions and methods have been criticized for longer than many HN viewers have been alive. The OP is making a claim that Apple's decisions are unwise [i]despite the fact that it's the most profitable company evar[/i] cite: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/apple-3-trillion-market-cap-fir... What chance can anyone else have if the Mac Pro is doomed if iPhone sales dip?

People have not updated their opinions with regards to facts since 2008. It might actually be new information to that person that Apple is now the most profitable company in the existence of the human race.
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