MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max • Hacker News Board

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#681

Post by jrochkind1 » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 6:42 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #602

jrochkind1 wrote: post #592

Of course I bought a new 14" MBP with M1 Pro two weeks ago. Looks like if i had waited, I could have paid the same price for faster CPU with more cores, faster wifi, and 8K HDMI output. I guess that's how it goes.

You can return it within 14 days of receiving it.

I did not know that, thank you!

But looks like I mis-spoke, the thing was actually ordered Dec 29, delivered Dec 30.

So actually two and a half weeks, a few days past 14, which does look like the return deadline in USA. I found a "check return eligibility" button... yep, nope.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#682

Post by zwaps » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 6:42 PM UTC

trynewideas wrote: post #460

> With up to 96GB of unified memory in the M2 Max model, creators can work on scenes so large that PC laptops can’t even run them.4 ... > 4. Testing was conducted by Apple in November and December 2022 using preproduction 16-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M2 Max, 12-core CPU, 38-core GPU, 96GB of RAM, and 8TB SSD, as well as a production Intel Core i9-based PC system with NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 graphics with 24G…

Apple has a point tho: what PC laptop or what typical PC for that matter (and that price) can give you 96 GB of VRAM?

If you could run ML models properly on that machine, it would be pretty nice for inference on larger models. Now, of course, Apple being Apple they expect you to hand-code ML algos in Swift (lol. lmao.) but still, 96GB of VRAM is 96 GB of VRAM.

Edit: Just to clarify, I understand that this has 400 gbs of bandwidth, not 3,2 tbs like an Nvidia Accelerator with the same size. But the latter costs tens of thousands and requires, well, a whole datacenter probably. This allows you to run some GPT-X or Diffusion model on your laptop. In theory.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#683

Post by grecy » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 6:43 PM UTC

djtriptych wrote: post #395

My new setup as of November is an M2 Air (16GB /1 TB) and an base model M1 Studio. I really couldn't be happier. I run a small WFH / Music Production / Photography studio in my basement and I really wanted an always-on always connected computer, for which the Studio has been perfect. The M2 Air is pretty close to a perfect laptop. My complaints (low audio volume, slighty cramped screen) are absolutely dwarfed by the…

Are you able to edit 4k video in FCP on the M2 Air with 16GB?

I'm looking to upgrade, and I want to go for the lowest config M mac that I can get away with for smooth 4k edits.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#684

Post by ac29 » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 6:46 PM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #258

myself248 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shame I can't buy an M2 Max on an ATX mobo.

I imagine a lot of the performance of the M1 and thereafter is a direct result of moving the memory closer to the die. The power efficiency, sure, that's all engineering, but super close and fast memory right next to the CPU is only one step away from AMD's 3D v-cache that has (had) the 5800X3D beating out newer 7000 series AMD chips.

> I imagine a lot of the performance of the M1 and thereafter is a direct result of moving the memory closer to the die

I'm not sure why this Apple marketing point gets repeated so often. The M2 has the same memory support as current Intel chips: 128-bit LPDDR5 6400. Mounting the memory on the same package as the CPU might have some engineering advantages compared to socketed RAM, but it doesnt make the (industry standard) memory any faster.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#685

Post by another_kel » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 6:47 PM UTC

diimdeep wrote: post #302

Adobe products lag even in new Macs with 40bln transistors M2 Pro CPU. Hilarious. How hard it must be to scale bitmap without lags ? https://youtu.be/6Ij9PiehENA?t=457

This is Illustrator, not photoshop, so it's vector. It doesn't really lag, the bounding box moves smoothly, but the preview is absent. To get preview you need gpu acceleration[1], which is either absent on arm macs or turned off here for some reason.

1 — https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/gpu-performance-previ...

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#686

Post by bahmboo » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

trynewideas wrote: post #460

> With up to 96GB of unified memory in the M2 Max model, creators can work on scenes so large that PC laptops can’t even run them.4 ... > 4. Testing was conducted by Apple in November and December 2022 using preproduction 16-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M2 Max, 12-core CPU, 38-core GPU, 96GB of RAM, and 8TB SSD, as well as a production Intel Core i9-based PC system with NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 graphics with 24G…

I think Apple is making a point that their GPU has 96GB of ram which no enthusiast PC Card can touch. The A100 (2020) goes to 80GB but is $15K (but also much much faster). So if you need that extra 16GB…

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#687

Post by coder543 » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

jyrkesh wrote: post #668

coder543 wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Intel hasn’t exactly been innovating in the last 2 years. What on earth are you talking about?! Alder Lake was a huge step up for Intel, and Raptor Lake has improved things more than I would have expected as well. Before Alder Lake, Intel's CPUs honestly sucked. AMD still seems to have a modest competitive advantage in terms of efficiency and battery life (making AMD not that far off from where Apple is in hours of…

> For a lot of legitimate use cases, there are at least half a dozen Windows laptops coming out right now that I would instantly pick over a MacBook, and the same would not have been said 2 years ago. Would you mind listing a couple? I'd prefer to buy a Windows machine for my next laptop, but I've been SO burned by hibernation bugs, CPU throttling, battery issues, etc. And I've had an OG 13" M1 MBP from work for the…

For me, there are basically two "categories" of new Windows laptops that I'm excited about: innovative form factors, and compact laptops with RTX 40-series GPUs. As much as Nvidia has been charging ridiculous prices for desktop GPUs, it looks like laptops using their GPUs aren't going to cost crazy amounts this year, and DLSS 3 Frame Generation should be a huge benefit for laptop gaming.

In terms of innovative form factors, look at these:

- A laptop with a nice OLED screen and a Color E-ink screen. This seems like an incredible combination, although the 60Hz limit on the OLED screen is unfortunate: https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/5/23541379/lenovo-thinkbook-...

- This dual screen (dual OLED, even!) concept seems like it would be challenging to pull off, but every hands-on review I've seen was really impressed with it, and I can totally see use cases for this: https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/5/23518872/lenovo-yoga-book-...

- The Flow Z13 is like a Microsoft Surface with an actual GPU and a 165Hz display. This one isn't as appealing to me as the two above, but it is neat: https://rog.asus.com/laptops/rog-flow/rog-flow-z13-2023-seri...

In terms of the other category,

- The Acer Swift X 14 comes with a nice 120Hz OLED screen and an RTX 4050, so it seems like a nice, balanced laptop, but I wish it had the option for more than 16GB of RAM: https://youtu.be/va3OmoYHKYs?t=298

- The Flow X13 now comes with up to an RTX 4070 and 165Hz display and up to 32GB of RAM, and this is significantly more compact than the Swift X 14, but the display is not as nice as an OLED. This is also a convertible, so you can use the 360 degree hinge to make it into a tablet: https://rog.asus.com/laptops/rog-flow/rog-flow-x13-2023-seri...

- The new Zephyrus G14 is probably the one I find most exciting, offering a 165Hz MiniLED display that's almost as nice as OLED, as well as up to an RTX 4090 (Laptop) and 32GB of RAM, but it is about the same size as the Swift X 14, so not as small as the Flow X13: https://www.techradar.com/reviews/asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-2023

A number of these also have user-upgradeable RAM, SSD, or both. I really like OLED, so it's great to see so many options for that, and MiniLED is going to be significantly more common this year than it was last year. It would be nice if my M2 MBA offered OLED or MiniLED.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#688

Post by csdvrx » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 6:49 PM UTC

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #621

kmeisthax wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm skipping over a few details here[0]. ARM has several different classes of memory access mappings; the normal one is called... well, Normal. I/O and storage is mapped using Device mappings, which don't cache reads and can be further divided into how little the CPU is allowed to try and optimize writes[1]. GPUs need Normal memory because applications written for modern graphics APIs expect to be able to map GPU mem…

Considering the complexity of a SoC like the M1, that there is zero documentation for it, and the Asahi team can only reverse-engineer it, what are the odds that they just don't know the magic bits to twiddle to get this functionality?

> Considering the complexity of a SoC like the M1, that there is zero documentation for it, and the Asahi team can only reverse-engineer it, what are the odds that they just don't know the magic bits to twiddle to get this functionality?

I'd consider that very low because you've got a lot of eyeballs trying to get the most out of a COTS easily available hardware. The goal is to make it the best-in-class Linux support. Personally, I believe it can be done.

I follow their progress with great interest, as some of the non-technical limitations of the macbook (OLED and touchscreen) could easily be fixed.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#689

Post by freejazz » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 6:49 PM UTC

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #389

mk89 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree with you. They are diversifying their laptop/desktop solutions like crazy. Even a Macbook Air can almost compete with the entry-level version of the Macbook Pro, which is great to be honest. I heard they are exceptionally good. Honestly, 7-900$ for a machine that will not get old very soon is not so bad, especially if you already own a screen (which due to WFH you kind of have to have together with a…

"that will not get old very soon" No idea how you can write that with straight fingers.

I was using a 2013 air up until two months ago

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#690

Post by gumby » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 6:50 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #100

jchw wrote: post #34

It's worrying that they are shying away from specifying generational improvements or at least comparing to it's competitors. The "fastest Intel MacBook" is not really the competitor for an M2 MacBook Pro, it's a predecessor. But I'd rather hear about generational improvements from M1, especially because both Intel and AMD seem to be making great strides in the low power space lately.

It's no secret that Apple's M2 series processors are a pretty minor improvement over the M1 series. Expect much bigger improvements in the M3 series which will likely be using TSMC's 3nm process (and then probably only minor improvements again for the M4 series). It seems that Apple's ridiculously impressive consistent year-on-year gains up the M1 were in large part possible because they were behind the state of the…

> Now that they've caught up with Intel and AMD...

I'm an enormous fan of the M series. But there is an interesting consequence of a couple of fundamental design decisions.

The M series has huge memory bandwidth but look at its focus on I/O. It reminds me of one of the design decisions of the Alto (memory bus was 3/2 the screen refresh rate, a mind-boggling decision for its time). The fact that the M1 can go in an ipad is insane, but is enabled by the way the M series was designed. Their design for long battery life while drawing onto directly connected displays is unmatched.

However I believe that same decision has hobbled the M1 in a way that may make a Mac Pro version "impossible" (i.e. too much change to be worth doing). M series are optimized to dash rapidly then quickly go to sleep.

I feel the Intel and AMD guys are still thinking of sustained performance, a holdover from the desktop world and its mainframe, or at least minicomputer roots. Psychologically their mobile chips look to me like scaled down desktop machines.

If my belief is right, AMD and Intel aren't really catching up on mobile, while Apple will probably never produce a Mac Pro worth buying (for me they never were, but I'm sure there are people for which they were a great deal).