How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS • Hacker News Board

Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS

#161

Post by yaktubi » Mon, May 17, 2021, 2:22 PM UTC

josephg wrote: post #106

kryps wrote: post #75

It does not just feel faster, in many cases it is faster. E.g. compiling Rust code is so much faster that it is not even funny. cargo install -f ripgrep takes 22 seconds on a Mac Book Air with M1, same on a hexacore 2020 Dell XPS 17 with 64GB RAM takes 34 seconds.

I did a side-by-side comparing with my friends' M1 macbook and my (more expensive, nearly brand new) ryzen 5800x workstation compiling rust. The ryzen was faster - but it was really close. And the macbook beats my ryzen chip in single threaded performance. For reference, the ryzen compiles ripgrep in 19.7 seconds. The comparison is way too close given the ryzen workstation guzzles power, and the macbook is cheaper, p…

I think these performance metrics are somewhat limited in their usefulness. A Ryzen workstation might not have the same single-core performance or energy efficiency—however, a ryzen workstation can have gobs of memory for massive data-intensive workloads for the same cost as a baseline M1 device.

In addition: let’s talk upgradability or repairability. Oh wait, Apple doesn’t play that game. You’ll get more mileage on the workstation hands-down.

The only win for those those chips I think is battery efficient for a laptop. But, then why not just VNC into a beastmode machine on a netbook and compile remotely? After all, that’s what CI/CD pipeline is for.

Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS

#162

Post by atq2119 » Mon, May 17, 2021, 2:23 PM UTC

josephg wrote: post #106

kryps wrote: post #75

It does not just feel faster, in many cases it is faster. E.g. compiling Rust code is so much faster that it is not even funny. cargo install -f ripgrep takes 22 seconds on a Mac Book Air with M1, same on a hexacore 2020 Dell XPS 17 with 64GB RAM takes 34 seconds.

I did a side-by-side comparing with my friends' M1 macbook and my (more expensive, nearly brand new) ryzen 5800x workstation compiling rust. The ryzen was faster - but it was really close. And the macbook beats my ryzen chip in single threaded performance. For reference, the ryzen compiles ripgrep in 19.7 seconds. The comparison is way too close given the ryzen workstation guzzles power, and the macbook is cheaper, p…

Did both machines compile to the same target architecture? If you did native compiles, then perhaps LLVM's ARM backend is simply faster than its x86 backend...

Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS

#163

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 17, 2021, 2:24 PM UTC

elcomet wrote: post #112

kryps wrote: post #75

It does not just feel faster, in many cases it is faster. E.g. compiling Rust code is so much faster that it is not even funny. cargo install -f ripgrep takes 22 seconds on a Mac Book Air with M1, same on a hexacore 2020 Dell XPS 17 with 64GB RAM takes 34 seconds.

Is 22 seconds insetad of 34 seconds so much faster ? The difference does not feel huge to me

[deleted]

Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS

#164

Post by AJRF » Mon, May 17, 2021, 2:24 PM UTC

whatever1 wrote: post #4

Launching apps takes ages on M1 mini. Reminded me of the good Windows Phone times.

Are you sure they aren't being run through Rosetta? If I remember correctly, x86 apps run through a translation process on first launch which obviously takes time. An acceptable trade off given the alternative is to not have the app at all on Apple Silicon.

Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS

#165

Post by ideamotor » Mon, May 17, 2021, 2:24 PM UTC

omegabravo wrote: post #138

josephg wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a side-by-side comparing with my friends' M1 macbook and my (more expensive, nearly brand new) ryzen 5800x workstation compiling rust. The ryzen was faster - but it was really close. And the macbook beats my ryzen chip in single threaded performance. For reference, the ryzen compiles ripgrep in 19.7 seconds. The comparison is way too close given the ryzen workstation guzzles power, and the macbook is cheaper, p…

I've done a side by side with my Ryzen 3700x compiling a Go project. 6 seconds on the Ryzen, vs 9 seconds on the M1 air. `time go build -a`, so not very scientific. Could be attributed to the multicore performance of the Ryzen. Starting applications on the M1 seems to have significant delays too, but I'm not sure if that's a Mac OSX thing. Overall it's very impressive, I just don't see the same lunch eating performan…

I find M1 optimized apps load quickly while others vary. But what really varies is website load times. Sometimes instant, sometimes delayed.

All this said, there really is no comparison. I don’t even think about battery for the M1, I leave the charger at home, and it’s 100% cool and silent. It’s a giant leap for portable creative computing.

Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS

#166

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 17, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #149

coldtea wrote: post #9

Well, they don't just "feel" faster. They also complete lots of real-world tasks in shorter times, often significantly shorter than the last Intel Macbook Pro.

It’s funny how many articles that just won’t say the obvious - it’s a faster computer. I have two laptops side by side, one is an M1, the other a HP in a slightly higher price point (more memory, bigger SSD). The challenges Intel has in the form factor are obvious — it’s a 1.2Ghz chip that turbos almost 2x as heat allows. In any dimension that it can do what you need, the Apple wins. Cheaper, faster, cooler, longer b…

[deleted]

Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS

#167

Post by harikb » Mon, May 17, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

yaktubi wrote: post #161

josephg wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a side-by-side comparing with my friends' M1 macbook and my (more expensive, nearly brand new) ryzen 5800x workstation compiling rust. The ryzen was faster - but it was really close. And the macbook beats my ryzen chip in single threaded performance. For reference, the ryzen compiles ripgrep in 19.7 seconds. The comparison is way too close given the ryzen workstation guzzles power, and the macbook is cheaper, p…

I think these performance metrics are somewhat limited in their usefulness. A Ryzen workstation might not have the same single-core performance or energy efficiency—however, a ryzen workstation can have gobs of memory for massive data-intensive workloads for the same cost as a baseline M1 device. In addition: let’s talk upgradability or repairability. Oh wait, Apple doesn’t play that game. You’ll get more mileage on…

granted they charge exorbitant prices for their hardware, but I can’t believe how my 2010 MacBook Pro is still functioning perfectly fine.. except for them making it unsupported. I can’t say that about any other pc/laptop I have had. Not even desktops

Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS

#168

Post by king_magic » Mon, May 17, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

agloeregrets wrote: post #115

zelon88 wrote: post #48

That is all well and good. Great actually. And it makes sense. The high efficiency reduced instruction set computer has highly optimized architecture to improve efficiency. But we all knew that deep down. It's like the Ford Tempo. A mere 80 horsepower mated to a well designed and highly optimized transmission gave levels of performance that were higher than other cars in the same market. What I can't stand are all th…

...This is partially true in that the M1 is overhyped by some... But the M1 is also literally, by the numbers, the fastest machine in the world for some workloads. For us, my M1 Macbook Air compiles our large TypeScript Angular app in half the time of a current i9 with 64Gb ram on node v15. These are real-world, tested, and validated results. Nothing comes close..because the chip is designed to run JS as fast as phys…

> That said, I replaced a $2000 iMac 4K with a base model Macbook Air and it was a huge upgrade for my day to day work.

Essentially the same here, I just happened to replace my $2-3k Win10/Ubuntu desktop with my 8GB(!) M1 Air and it truly has been a huge upgrade for my day to day work. It feels like I'm working in the future.

That said - I primarily use this Air to ssh to all of my servers that do my heavy lifting for me. But that doesn't stop me from driving this thing hard - dozens of open tabs, multiple heavyweight apps left open (e.g. Office apps), multiple instances of VS Code, Slack, Teams, all running - zero slowdown. Zero fan sound.

It's black magic good.

Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS

#169

Post by adriancr » Mon, May 17, 2021, 2:30 PM UTC

kryps wrote: post #75

It does not just feel faster, in many cases it is faster. E.g. compiling Rust code is so much faster that it is not even funny. cargo install -f ripgrep takes 22 seconds on a Mac Book Air with M1, same on a hexacore 2020 Dell XPS 17 with 64GB RAM takes 34 seconds.

I just did a test on my old Lenovo laptop... Intel i7-8565U CPU @ 1.80GHz

# git clone https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep && cd ripgrep

# cargo clean

# time cargo build

real 0m23,805s

user 1m11,260s

sys 0m3,806s

How is my crappy laptop on par with your M1? :)

Re: How M1 Macs feel faster than Intel models: it’s about QoS

#170

Post by apexalpha » Mon, May 17, 2021, 2:32 PM UTC

harikb wrote: post #167

yaktubi wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these performance metrics are somewhat limited in their usefulness. A Ryzen workstation might not have the same single-core performance or energy efficiency—however, a ryzen workstation can have gobs of memory for massive data-intensive workloads for the same cost as a baseline M1 device. In addition: let’s talk upgradability or repairability. Oh wait, Apple doesn’t play that game. You’ll get more mileage on…

granted they charge exorbitant prices for their hardware, but I can’t believe how my 2010 MacBook Pro is still functioning perfectly fine.. except for them making it unsupported. I can’t say that about any other pc/laptop I have had. Not even desktops

I don't know, I feel other laptops at the same price point as Apple Macbooks do this too, sometimes even better. I bought a HP 8530w in 2009 or so and it still works. Replacing the DVD drive for a SSD required just a common Philips screwdriver and battery replacements are sold by HP themselves or many others.