Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

eclecticlight.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 419 posts

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#141

Post by [deleted] »

masklinn wrote: post #115
user_7832 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So... functionally useless. (Disclaimer, I haven't driven a sports car but I have driven cars between "nice" and "struggles to reach the speed limit") While it might appear to be very similar, having a sports car that you're capable of driving well/defensively can literally be a life saver. There was this video from a few years back on reddit of this guy in a 911. Vehicle in front suddenly stops/crashes, he needs t…

> While it might appear to be very similar, having a sports car can literally be a life saver. Or it can be a life ender by planting you into the side of the road, something mustangs and BMWs are well known for, amongst others. > that you're capable of driving well/defensively If you need to be a skilled pilot to face the situation, it's less the car and more the pilot which does the life saving. And even skilled pil…

[deleted]

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#142

Post by aseo »

flashback2199 wrote: post #108

I don't see apple silicon in macs having been the right decision a decade from now because competing toe to toe with the entire semis industry on architecture has never worked before except in iphone where they had a huge first mover advantage.

I always understood the move to Apple Silicon was also for supply chain concerns, and not just technical. I remember reading that Apple would often express frustration at having to align their products' schedules based on Intel's schedules, and there would be a lack of support from Intel in their collaboration -- I could see this is a a valid bottleneck for Apple, and this isn't their first rodeo in processor transitions. Of course, now, their bottleneck moves down the supply chain and will be TSMC, but TSMC seems to be happy to provide whatever Apple asks for, as seen with their large 3nm orders.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#143

Post by wubrr »

zaphar wrote: post #135
wubrr wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong disagree. UI is very buggy and inconsistent. CLI tools/shell is attempting to follow more-or-less standardish unix/linux setup but fails pretty hard, with many of the same commands existing but behaving just differently enough to be annoying. Uses it's own set of shortcuts, different from what's standard on windows/linux and most other operating systems. Not sure what people mean when they say completely vague…

CLI tools/shell is attempting to follow more-or-less standardish unix/linux setup but fails pretty hard, with many of the same commands existing but behaving just differently enough to be annoying. They wasn't following unix/Linux standards they are following unix/bsd standards. Standards that predate Linux and for some of us are very familiar indeed.

What standards are those exactly?

Everyone knows that macos (and windows) took a lot from unix/bsd. But that does not mean they are actively following any kind of reasonable modern standard. And saying they might be following some 30 year old supposed bsd standard is pretty hilarious for an OS that portends to be cutting-edge, intuitive and well-integrated.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#144

Post by mananaysiempre »

sneak wrote: post #80
cylinder714 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're referring to the 13-inch model, that's been discontinued.

No, the 14. The Air is 13, and the “normal” MBP is now 16. The 14 MBP is not onerously large if you are one of the people who want an Air-sized computer with lots of IO. It would be annoying if you had to get a 16” laptop to be able to hook up to multiple external displays. I love my 16” MBP but my Air is the one that goes everywhere in my handbag.

The plain M3 version of the MBP doesn’t support more than one external display either[1].

[1] https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/ (scroll down to “Display Support”)

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#145

Post by arcatech »

wubrr wrote: post #110
asylteltine wrote: post #67

And yet the air can’t support more than one monitor. I know Apple is a small company with only a few engineers so it must have been too hard. Sarcasm obviously. As an Apple enthusiast it’s so annoying how they sniff farts.

I mean, the support for even one monitor is by far worse than windows or linux IMO. - Monitor randomly resets/readjusts for no apparent reason. Like multiple times every hour. - Windows disappear, become inaccessible after moving between monitors, even though it still open and active according to doc/task list. - Why can't I move a window to a monitor/workspace that has a maximized window? Like, you can do it by un-m…

Do you honestly believe all of those things happen to everyone? You think everyone who likes macOS is just ignoring those kinds of severe issues?

Obviously you have some kind of problem with your system.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#146

Post by jwells89 »

jmull wrote: post #15

It seems like the M3 favors efficiency and thermals over raw power. This makes sense for the devices they've put it in. I wonder if we're going to see different processors (M3X or M4) for the next release of the pro desktops, that favor power over thermals and efficiency? Maybe there will be a kind of tick-tock, with odd numbered processors favoring efficiency and even numbered processors for power? M3, M5, M7 for th…

It can make sense for desktops too, like in the case of the Mac Studio. The role it plays there is keeping fans inaudible while maintaining good thermals rather than conserving battery.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#147

Post by runjake »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #126
jader201 wrote: post #121

It’s ridiculous that the base and Pro only support 1 and 2 external displays, respectively. Want 3 monitors? Have to pay for the Max. https://www.macrumors.com/2023/11/02/m3-chip-still-supports-...

From what I know, this isn't some artificial limitation that Apple imposes. Adding support has a cost that most customers don't need to pay. Regardless, most people aren't going to be plugging in three monitors into their laptops, so most people aren't going to care about this.

  > Adding support has a cost that most customers don't need to pay.
It also adds heat, battery consumption, and space. For a chip that will also be used in iPads. Still I wished the base M3 chip supported at least two external displays. Or at least let you use two by disabling the internal display (eg. clamshell mode or whatever).

  > most people aren't going to be plugging in three monitors into their laptops, so most people aren't going to care about this.
Last summer (2022), or thereabouts, I got a survey request from Apple where they asked how much I cared about external monitor support, followed by subsequent questions about the number of external displays that was important to me. So, Apple's looking at it.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#148

Post by wkat4242 »

This guy is becoming too much of an apple apologist for me. I've seen him defending pretty bad decisions like John Gruber (who always was) so I've stopped following him like I have Gruber.

Also, because I've disagreed so much with Apple's decisions in the past years I've abandoned their ecosystem altogether so I'm also much less invested in the topic. Though I still use a Mac for work as a "least bad" option.

Too bad because he did have good technical insights.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#149

Post by paulddraper »

bloopernova wrote: post #98

I want a better system load metric now that we've got heterogenous cores in CPUs. The Pixel 8 Pro has 3 types, efficiency, performance, and one single ultra performance core. If your efficiency cores are always close to max usage, but your performance cores are idle, is your system being heavily or barely used? I understand that system load isn't really a useful metric between systems, but it's useful to compare on a…

Huh? # of running processes is the usage of the system.

---

If your system is running it on CPU, GPUs, high-efficiency, low-efficiency, etc....that's the performance level of your system, not the load on your system.

This is nothing new. We've had power-saving CPU throttling for ages. Carry on.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#150

Post by wkat4242 »

asylteltine wrote: post #67

And yet the air can’t support more than one monitor. I know Apple is a small company with only a few engineers so it must have been too hard. Sarcasm obviously. As an Apple enthusiast it’s so annoying how they sniff farts.

It's not hard. The pro can do it. It's simply market positioning to make you spend more.
Post reply on HN