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Apple introduces M4 chip

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Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#141

Post by philistine »

izacus wrote: post #84
praseodym wrote: post #10

"With these improvements to the CPU and GPU, M4 maintains Apple silicon’s industry-leading performance per watt. M4 can deliver the same performance as M2 using just half the power. And compared with the latest PC chip in a thin and light laptop, M4 can deliver the same performance using just a fourth of the power." That's an incredible improvement in just a few years. I wonder how much of that is Apple engineering a…

Apple usually massively exaggerates their tech spec comparison - is it REALLY half the power use of all times (so we'll get double the battery life) or is it half the power use in some scenarios (so we'll get like... 15% more battery life total) ?

Quickly looking at the press release, it seems to have the same comparisons as in the video. None of Apple's comparisons today are between the M3 and M4. They are ALL comparing the M2 and M4. Why? It's frustrating, but today Apple replaced a product with an M2 with a product with an M4. Apple always compares product to product, never component to component when it comes to processors. So those specs are far more impressive than if we could have numbers between the M3 and M4.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#142

Post by jupp0r »

onetimeuse92304 wrote: post #92

As an amateur EE it is so annoying that they reuse names of already existing ARM chips. ARM Cortex-M4 or simply M4 is quite popular ARM architecture. I am using M0, M3 and M4 chips from ST on a daily basis.

It's not like the practice of giving marketing names to chips is generally a world of logical sanity if you look at Intel i5/i7/i9 etc.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#144

Post by giancarlostoro »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #13

The 256gb and 512gb models have 8gb of ram. The 1tb and 2tb models have 16gb. Not a fan of tying ram to storage. https://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/specs/

Honestly though, that's basically every tablet you cant change the ram, you get what you get and thats it. Maybe they should call them by different names like Pro Max for the ones with 16GB in order to make it more palatable? Small psychological hack.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#147

Post by masklinn »

Hamuko wrote: post #63
cs702 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potentially > 2x greater battery life for the same amount of compute! That is pretty crazy. Or am I missing something?

Comparing the tech specs for the outgoing and new iPad Pro models, that potential is very much not real. Old: 28.65 Wh (11") / 40.88 Wh (13"), up to 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi or watching video. New: 31.29 Wh (11") / 38.99 Wh (13"), up to 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi or watching video.

Yeah double the PPW does not mean double the battery, because unless you're pegging the CPU/SOC it's likely only a small fraction of the power consumption of a light-use or idle device, especially for an SOC which originates in mobile devices.

Doing basic web navigation with some music in the background, my old M1 Pro has short bursts at ~5W (for the entire SoC) when navigating around, a pair of watts for mild webapps (e.g. checking various channels in discord), and typing into this here textbox it's sitting happy at under half a watt, with the P-cores essentially sitting idle and the E cores at under 50% utilisation.

With a 100Wh battery that would be a "potential" of 150 hours or so. Except nobody would ever sell it for that, because between the display and radios the laptop's actually pulling 10~11W.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#148

Post by mvkel »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #114
simonbarker87 wrote: post #21

Seeing an M series chip launch first in an iPad must be result of some mad supply chain and manufacturing related hangovers from COVID. If the iPad had better software and could be considered a first class productivity machine then it would be less surprising but the one thing no one says about the iPads is “I wish this chip were faster”

To me it just feels like a soft launch. You probably have people (like myself) trying to keep up with the latest MacBook Air who get fatigued having to get a new laptop every year (I just upgraded to the M3 not too long ago, from the M2, and before that... the M1... is there any reason to? Not really...), so now they are trying to entice people who don't have iPads yet / who are waiting for a reason to do an iPad upg…

I think (hope) wwdc changes this. The function keys on the Magic Keyboard give me hope.

Also, you know you don't HAVE to buy a laptop every year, right?

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#149

Post by nicce »

stuff4ben wrote: post #97
slashdev wrote: post #72

I've got a Mac Pro paperweight because the motherboard went. It's going to the landfill. I can't even sell it for parts because I can't erase the SSD. If they didn't solder everything to the board you could actually repair it. When I replace my current Dell laptop, it will be with a repairable framework laptop.

Just because you lack the skills to fix it, doesn't mean it's not repairable. People desolder components all the time to fix phones and ipads and laptops. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNKNjy3CoZ4

In this case, you need to find working motherboard without soldered parts to be able to fix it cost efficiently. Otherwise you need to buy factory component (for extra price, with soldered components...)

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#150

Post by wiredfool »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #100
giancarlostoro wrote: post #42

Call me crazy, but I want all that power in a 7" tablet. I like 7" tablets most because they feel less clunky to carry around and take with you. Same with 13" laptops, I'm willing to sacrifice on screen real estate for saving myself from the back pain of carrying a 15" or larger laptop. Some of this is insanely impressive. I wonder how big the OS ROM (or whatever) is with all these models. For context, even if the en…

I've been using the iPad Mini for years. I'd love to see them add something to that form factor. I do see a lot of iPad Minis out there, but usually, as part of dedicated systems (like PoS, and restaurant systems). On the other hand, I have heard rumblings that Apple may release an even bigger phone, which I think might be overkill (but what do I know. I see a lot of those monster Samsung beasts, out there). Not sure…

I loved my ipad mini. It's super long in the tooth now, and I was hoping to replace it today. oh well...
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