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2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

anandtech.com

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Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#161

Post by Tagbert »

murukesh_s wrote: post #113
ghaff wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one data point that's particularly interesting to me. As someone who (normally) travels a great deal, I'd probably go with the Air unless there were real throttling compromises, especially given that I use a different computer for multimedia editing at home.

Wish they re-introduce the discontinued Macbook 12 inch with the same specs as air. It weighed only 970grams vs 1.29 kg for air. In fact air feels bulky compared to other light weight laptops like LG Gram, not to mention the design is outdated. Always wondered why Apple killed the smaller model. Perhaps they want to push the iPad pro so killed off the netbook line. The wannabe traveller inside me keep drooling at 12…

The 12” MacBook could not be updated to newer Intel chipsets due to thermal issues. The single port was also a limitation. Once Apple upgraded the Air to retina, a large part of the market for the 12” was lost. They were too close to each other and cross-competed except for the super portable use cases which was not large enough.

This model of Air is obviously a transition product with new guts in an old shell. I suspect that as Apple introduce fully redesigned, second generation Apple Silicon products, you might see something that is closer to the 12” MacBook.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#163

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

AgloeDreams wrote: post #125
dtech wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say Intel has the deepest pockets regarding CPU R&D, and yet they are being overtaken left and right.

I also feel like Intel's depth is also limited by the breath of CPUS they must develop. With every release they are shipping tons of specific sets of cores and clock speeds to meet their market. Then you have the raw investment in Fab that has turned out to be just lighting cash on fire for Intel. They make all kinds of claims and then fail over and over, plus they are hemorrhaging key talent. I think their soul real…

> Best chip CEO by a wide margin

Reminds me of this story: https://www.theregister.com/2018/04/16/amd_ceo_f1/

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#164

Post by MagnumOpus »

blunte wrote: post #129

This may be a bit of a stretch, but would the power savings (value of which, Earth aside, could be measured in local electricity costs) of an M1 Mac be significant enough in a year to justify upgrading an otherwise functioning Intel Mac?

Nope. Say the differential under heavy CPU load is 10W, say you run it under full load for 2,000 hours per year (which nobody does on a laptop), then you saved about 20 kWh, or roughly $3.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#165

Post by crazygringo »

aero-glide wrote: post #90

I hope Apple allows us to install the OS of our choice. The battery life is impressive but I refuse to not use Linux.

If you want to use Linux for the tools, then just use a VM.

But if you want full control over your hardware... Apple isn't the way to go. I'm not even sure what the "OS of our choice" means when we're talking about a custom-designed SoC. The amount of reverse-engineering required to get any other OS to work would be staggering, no?

If you want to run a custom OS natively, you need to buy a laptop with a commodity chip, not a custom one. Fortunately, there are tons of them.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#168

Post by Aperocky »

OJFord wrote: post #142
jdlyga wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't pay for Apple hardware unless I wanted to use MacOS.

Why? The hardware's the nice bit.

Yeah this. Imagine if we had the same hardware but designed for linux, I'd pay a premium for that.

Although hardware specific software from Apple is probably a big part of that draw too. I don't think we're ever going to see Linux prioritize a certain hardware and put in the effort to make it integrate as well as macs does.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#169

Post by qz2 »

mey wrote: post #155
oefrha wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention 5950X alone without cooling ($799) costs almost as much as an entry level MacBook Air.

The single core performance between the 5600x and the 5950x isn't significantly different. The charts have some interesting gaps... Edit: Putting it head to head with the 5600x would make a lot of sense for price/core/desktop space comparison.

Yes. I'd like to see a decent-ish Ryzen APUs such as the 3400G up against one of these as well.

I did notice that the cinebench for the M1 is only about 10% higher than my Ryzen laptop (T495s) which is laughable as it's a 3500U and the whole thing cost me £470 new!

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#170

Post by alwillis »

aero-glide wrote: post #90

I hope Apple allows us to install the OS of our choice. The battery life is impressive but I refuse to not use Linux.

I hope Apple allows us to install the OS of our choice. The battery life is impressive but I refuse to not use Linux.

Apple's hypervisor technology runs natively on the M1; Linux running on that will be faster than Linux running on anything else you can buy for the same amount of money.

They showed Debian running on Apple Silicon during the WWDC keynote nearly 6 months ago.

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