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

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

#221

Post by kllrnohj »

SigmundA wrote: post #103
kllrnohj wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you drop the 'user replaceable' requirement and place everything close together, you can have the benefits of both high bandwidth and unified memory Rather, if you drop the "big GPU" requirement then you can place everything close together. So called APUs have been unified memory for years & years now (so more or less Intel's entire lineup, and AMD's entire laptop SKUs & some desktop ones). It still ends up asso…

From the Anand article you linked further up: "The first Apple-built GPU for a Mac is significantly faster than any integrated GPU we’ve been able to get our hands on, and will no doubt set a new high bar for GPU performance in a laptop. Based on Apple’s own die shots, it’s clear that they spent a sizable portion of the M1’s die on the GPU and associated hardware, and the payoff is a GPU that can rival even low-end d…

None of those games were designed for UMA nor do they benefit as the API design for graphics forces copies to happen anyway.

The M1's GPU is good (for integrated), but UMA isn't the reason why. I don't know why people seem so determined to reduce Apple's substantial engineering in this space to a mostly inconsequential minor architecture tweak that happen a decade ago.

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

#222

Post by agloeregrets »

postalrat wrote: post #151
agloeregrets wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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…

What environment you compiling your large typescript app in? Windows with WSL on a 7400 rpm disk drive? I think you have other things going on that's slowing down the compilation on the i9. Maybe if run linux and install a fast SSD your i9 will be faster than your m1. Then by your logic you should ditch the m1.

Ironically it was a Samsung Pci-E drive in non-WSL Windows. A 16 inch Macbook Pro i9 also put out roughly alike times in MacOS. Node compile is a single-core workload with a very strong focus on small fast translated instructions, the M1 is actually that fast at that specific task.

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

#223

Post by [deleted] »

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #129
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.

How long does it take on a Ryzen 9 5950X

[deleted]

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

#224

Post by lupire »

defaultname wrote: post #188

Interesting, enjoyable read. The conclusions seem a bit off though -Low QoS tasks are limited to certain cores. This doesn't necessitate efficiency cores (though it makes sense if you want power efficiency in a mobile configuration) and they could as easily be performance cores. The core facet is that the OS has core affinity for low priority tasks and quarantines them to a subset of cores. And it has properly config…

If it has nothing to do with ARM, why doesn't Mac do it at similar speed on Intel?

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

#225

Post by lupire »

smoldesu wrote: post #208
CitizenKane wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be an interesting comparison. Non-apple silicon has definitely not been great and lags behind significantly. Would be very interesting to see what Android would be like on more modern CPU tech.

Non-Apple has been perfectly fine. I mean, AMD was putting higher-performing APUs in laptops half the price of the M1 Macbook Air, and they did that 18 months before the M1 even hit the market. If you wanted an 8 core, 4ghz CPU with the GPU power of a 1050ti, the R74800u was prevalent in notebooks as cheap as $400, and was even lauded for a short period as one of the best budget gaming options on the laptop market. I…

Is that AMD example running at similar wattage?

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

#226

Post by InvaderFizz »

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #129
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.

How long does it take on a Ryzen 9 5950X

Ran a few cycles on my 5950x hackintosh:

  invaderfizz@FIZZ-5950X:~$ hyperfine 'cargo -q install -f ripgrep'
  Benchmark #1: cargo -q install -f ripgrep
    Time (mean ± σ):     19.190 s ±  0.392 s    [User: 294.890 s, System: 17.144 s]
    Range (min … max):   18.352 s … 19.803 s    10 runs
The CPU was averaging about 50% load, the dependencies go really fast when they can all parallel compile, but then the larger portions are stuck with single-thread performance.

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

#227

Post by defaultname »

lupire wrote: post #224
defaultname wrote: post #188

Interesting, enjoyable read. The conclusions seem a bit off though -Low QoS tasks are limited to certain cores. This doesn't necessitate efficiency cores (though it makes sense if you want power efficiency in a mobile configuration) and they could as easily be performance cores. The core facet is that the OS has core affinity for low priority tasks and quarantines them to a subset of cores. And it has properly config…

If it has nothing to do with ARM, why doesn't Mac do it at similar speed on Intel?

The focus of the linked article is responsiveness/user interaction, attributing that to efficiency cores. Apple can achieve exactly the same responsiveness benefit on their Intel devices by, as mentioned, limiting low priority tasks to a subset of cores. Say 2 of 6 real cores on a MBP with an i7.

Apple actually pushes low priority tasks to the efficiency cores for power efficiency reasons (per the name), not user responsiveness. So that MBP runs for longer, cooler on a battery because things that can take longer run on more efficient, slower cores. They do the same with the efficiency cores on modern iOS devices.

The "feeling faster" is a side effect. I am talking about that side effect which isn't ARM specific.

And FWIW, Intel is adding efficiency/"little" cores to their upcoming architectures. Again for efficiency reasons.

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

#228

Post by jmull »

dboreham wrote: post #171

All this reminds me of when the HP PA machines were first introduced. Loads of posts about how compilation was now so fast that the screen turned red due to time dilation, etc. Of course now nobody remembers PA.

You're talking about the HP's old precision architecture, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PA-RISC

That's an interesting comparison because it's another case where a big player created their own chips for a competitive advantage.

There are surely some lessons in there for Apple silicon, but I don't there there's any particular reason to think it will follow the same path as HP PA. PA started in the '80s. It was aimed at high-end workstations and servers. My impression was that the value proposition was narrow: it was sold to customers who needed speed and had a pretty big budget. Until checking now, I was unaware, but it seems to have carved out a niche and was able to live there for a while, so it wasn't exactly a failure.

Time will tell how apple silicon fares. Today the M1 is a fast, power-efficient, inexpensive chip, with a reasonable (and rapidly improving) software compatibility story, and is available in some nice form factors... so basically a towering home run. But we'll just have to see how Apple sustains it over the long run. Frankly, they can drop a few balls and still have a strong story, but it's hard to project out 5, 10, 20 years and understand where this might end up.

(Personally, I'm almost surely going to get an Apple silicon Mac, as soon as they release the one for non-low-end machines. The risk looks small, the benefits look big.)

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

#229

Post by kogepathic »

eldaisfish wrote: post #209
apexalpha wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The point is that with mid-2010s apple laptops, >5 year lifespans are the norm. With the majority of other, even comparably priced laptops, that is the exception. There are other laptops that are similar or superior build quality to those from Apple (N.B. - older MacBooks, not the newer ones) but those are also easy to spot. They’ll usually be ThinkPads or some XPS models from dell.

> With the majority of other, even comparably priced laptops, that is the exception.

Consumer grade PC hardware has terrible build quality, and regardless of the price of your unit, the consumer build spec is just inferior to the business/professional lines. Asus, MSI, Sony, Acer, etc laptops all have consumer grade build quality and they just aren't designed to last a decade.

> They’ll usually be ThinkPads or some XPS models from dell.

Precision/XPS and Thinkpad models (with the exception of the L and E series) are almost always in the same price range as a MacBook. Any business-class machine (Thinkpad, Precision/Latitude, Elitebook) should easily last >5 years. These are vendors which will sell you 3-5 year on-site warranties for their laptops.

This is why you can find so many off-lease corporate laptops on eBay from any model year in the last 10 years or so. The hardware doesn't break, it just becomes obsolete.

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

#230

Post by alkonaut »

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.

Are you compiling for ARM in both cases (or x86 in both cases)? Otherwise you are building 2 completely different programs, one is ripgrep for ARM and the other is ripgrep for Intel.
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