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Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

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Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#811

Post by shuwix »

nodamage wrote: post #491
shuwix wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Microsoft came with "modern" smart phone much sooner. Actually too soon, technology wasn't there (price, computing power, size, weight, battery life). Apple never came first ... but often just at the right moment and had marketing skills to make it a new trend.

> technology wasn’t there Until Apple developed it. Those early iPhones employed a lot of tricks to squeeze usability, battery life, and performance out of underpowered devices. Prior smartphone attempts mostly applied PC-centric concepts to the device, it’s no surprise they ended up failing.

Apple developed capable multitouch technology. Germans made it happen and manufacure at scale through Chinese venture.

It was again the right time, when technology was there and Apple's skill was the ability to spot the moment when otherwise overly expensive touch screens can be cheapened by scale of production to acceptable level, had the marketing machine to sell an expensive device in millions at times, when most people were used to cheap cell phones for calls & sms.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#812

Post by vanderZwan »

VCFundedGenYer wrote: post #347
derwiki wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading Infinite Games, they tell an anecdote about a Microsoft exec on a flight telling an Apple exec that the Zune was a way better portable music player than the iPod. The Apple exec was just “yup, you’re probably right” and then soon after the iPhone dropped

To be fair, the Zune actually was a better media player than the ipod in almost every way. That wasn't a false statement. The issue was the abysmal marketing and "me too" attitude Microsoft had (and still has).

I dated someone studying at a conservatory (the music kind) around that time. IIRC the Zune was quite popular with the students - even if most of them had an iMac - because it had one of the best microphones for recording live performances in an affordable package.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#813

Post by spwa4 »

This is weird. These options are very different from existing options. The M6 memory bandwidth only went up a little bit, which means the bigger AI compute is not going to be worth much in practice. A base M6 should only be close to matching an M1 pro (and it's not even close to an M1 max)

M1 pro: 16 GPU cores, 200GB/s memory bandwidth

M6: 12 GPU cores, 170GB/s memory bandwidth

Now the AI compute is over 5x more. So it should probably be possible to make models that perform better on the M6, but the same models just won't work.

But the M5 pro mac mini will wipe the floor with the base M6, as most of its stats are double that of the M6 chip. Should be double the performance easily.

Perhaps also relevant: the M5 pro mac mini should have very similar to double the performance to the Nvidia DGX Spark, assuming the model fits the memory.

So that is probably the chip it should be compared to for a quick guess about benchmark results.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#814

Post by linuxhansl »

I feel so left behind with Linux machine on x86.

It's rather interesting that Apple (and Arm) are blazing the trail while Intel is seemingly left in the dust. Maybe not entirely on raw performance, but definitely on performance per watt.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#815

Post by ilidur »

sandGorgon wrote: post #810
alluro2 wrote: post #524

I was blown away by M1 Pro, and used it for 4 years before it became a little sluggish, and replacing it with an Asus S16 running on Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (an excellent laptop). One of the main reasons was missing my old Linux setup. I've briefly tested M5 Pro in an Apple store and was surprised by how quick it felt and did anything. A tangible and significant difference, and I really feel it would be good getting it, or…

have you tried Windows + WSL2 ? i have been on fedora for 20 years. WSL2 is one of the best linux experience you can have.

Sounds like an ad. No, any cross os operations need to happen via NTFS and using files on the mounted drives is horrible

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#816

Post by kristianp »

gardaani wrote: post #169

Rumors say that Apple will only release M6 base variant and skips M6 Pro, M6 Max and M6 Ultra variants to concentrate all efforts to create a good AI capable M7: "According to reports from Bloomberg, Apple will be skipping its M6 Pro, M6 Max, and M6 Ultra chips to accelerate development of the M7 chip. That means the only chip to be released from the M6 family will be the base M6. The reason for this break with tradi…

> I'd skip M5 and M6 chips for LLM work and wait for a year for M7.

Or you could lease an M5 max/ultra until the M7 equivalent comes out. At least in the US a leasing option is available.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#817

Post by lotsofpulp »

troupo wrote: post #207
derwiki wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading Infinite Games, they tell an anecdote about a Microsoft exec on a flight telling an Apple exec that the Zune was a way better portable music player than the iPod. The Apple exec was just “yup, you’re probably right” and then soon after the iPhone dropped

Zune was probably a better player. It was too late, and arrived when MS didn't much care. There are emails unearthed in various lawsuits where you can read Bill Gates screaming at his subordinates: "why the hell can't our partners like Sony and Creative create a similar device? Give them all, give them early access to everything, work with them". In the end MS felt compelled to make their own.

Because why would Sony go out on a limb and take all that risk for tiny hardware margins just so Microsoft could grab the lion’s share of margins with software licensing fees?

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#818

Post by kristianp »

torh wrote: post #802
alluro2 wrote: post #524

I was blown away by M1 Pro, and used it for 4 years before it became a little sluggish, and replacing it with an Asus S16 running on Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (an excellent laptop). One of the main reasons was missing my old Linux setup. I've briefly tested M5 Pro in an Apple store and was surprised by how quick it felt and did anything. A tangible and significant difference, and I really feel it would be good getting it, or…

Earlier this year, a few weeks before the price hike, I bought an MacBook Air M5, and it was everything I hoped it would be. Long battery life and silent. The last part is important for me. I've gotten so fed up over the years by Wintel (Windows/Intel) machines where the fans are always running, even when idle. My last Mac was an MacBook Air from 2011 (now we can talk about "a little sluggish"). I also don't dislike…

My Intel laptop is pretty close to silent on Linux. ThinkPad p14s. As soon as it boots into Windows 11 the fan is very audible.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#820

Post by perbu »

linuxhansl wrote: post #814

I feel so left behind with Linux machine on x86. It's rather interesting that Apple (and Arm) are blazing the trail while Intel is seemingly left in the dust. Maybe not entirely on raw performance, but definitely on performance per watt.

Intel has been making pretty good progress on efficiency the last year and efficiency is the name of the game, you basically can't do performance without it.

I think Intel will rise again.

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