Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#231

Post by nomel » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 1:33 AM UTC

gtirloni wrote: post #186

kccoder wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also appears they've dropped the memory bandwidth from 200GB/s on the M1/M2 Pro to 150MB/s on the M3 Pro, and you have to upgrade to the tippy top M3 Max chip to get the full 400MB/s bandwidth experienced on the M1/M2 Max chips.

I remember getting one of those shiny aluminum MacBooks in 2009. Then MacBooks turned plastic and the aluminum ones became MacBook Pro's. Is this a thing Apple does? I'm not an Apple customer for many years now.

Apple hasn’t had any plastic devices for some time now.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#232

Post by 2muchcoffeeman » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 1:34 AM UTC

gtirloni wrote: post #174

dmitrygr wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to find a laptop with the specification you just mentioned that could last 20 hours on battery. Didn’t.

I'm personally always near a wall socket. My laptop is mostly a desktop. When I'm out and need to use the battery, it's only for a few hours. Do people really need >8h battery life?

There are a lot of things people don’t need on average. But when you do need it, or you have a particular use case, well, then you need it.

These comparisons are always based on raw performance numbers or price. Which isn’t useful.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#233

Post by lathiat » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 1:34 AM UTC

mastercheif wrote: post #205

kivlad wrote: post #160

A few things I noticed, as I'm seeing the variety of SKUs becoming more complex. - Note that memory bandwidth is down. M2 Pro had 200GB/s, M3 Pro only has 150GB/s. M3 Max only has 400GB/s on the higher binned part. - Just like the low-spec M3 14" has one fewer Thunderbolt port, it also doesn't officially support Thunderbolt 4 (like M1/M2 before it) - The M3 Pro loses the option for an 8TB SSD. Likely because it was a…

> Just like the low-spec M3 14" has one fewer Thunderbolt port, it also doesn't officially support Thunderbolt 4 (like M1/M2 before it) I believe this is due to the TB4 spec requiring support for two external displays on a single port. The base spec M series SoCs only support one external display. I’d expect the ports to work identically to a TB4 port in all other aspects.

I really, really wish they would fix this silly display scan-out limitation. I gave them a (frustrating) pass on the M1 given it was the first evolution from iPhone/iPad where it wouldn't have mattered. But seems silly to have made it all the way to the M3. Wanting to dock onto two displays even at the low end doesn't seem like such a niche use-case.

I'm sure there is some kind of technical explanation but both Intel and NVIDIA seemed to managed 3+ scanouts even on low end parts for a long time.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#234

Post by throw0101a » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 1:34 AM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #40

throw0101a wrote: post #16

I'd prefer if there'd be higher RAM limits for each variant: * ~~Ultra~~ Max probably has an adequate limit with "up to" 128GB * Pro would be nicer to have "up to" (say) 64GB, rather than 'only' 36GB * Base perhaps "up to" 32GB, rather than 24GB There are some situations (running a VM or three with different OS(es)) where there really isn't a substitute for more bits.

IMO, if I'm doing that heavy of a workload, I'd rather SSH to a server instead of trying to do it on hardware optimized to work on a battery.

It doesn't have to be "heavy": just running a browser in a different OS may need a minimal amount of RAM (even if the 1-2 assigned vCPU/cores are mostly idle).

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#235

Post by duskwuff » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 1:34 AM UTC

cglong wrote: post #111

jmspring wrote: post #61

Am I the only one shaking my head that they kept comparing the M3 chips against M1 chips skipping M2? Just like the last product release spent more time on huffing their own farts (the Apple Watch is the first of its kind carbon negative product), there is no real innovation or something to garner interest for me here.

A few years ago, I tried to figure out the battery life of the latest iPhone. The comparison page would only say "2 more hours than iPhone X", "4 more hours than iPhone 8", etc. Eventually I worked my way backwards to the iPhone 6 where the battery life was just listed as "—".

https://www.apple.com/iphone-15/specs/

Scroll down to "Power and Battery", about halfway down the page.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#236

Post by 1123581321 » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 1:34 AM UTC

polishTar wrote: post #195

kivlad wrote: post #160

A few things I noticed, as I'm seeing the variety of SKUs becoming more complex. - Note that memory bandwidth is down. M2 Pro had 200GB/s, M3 Pro only has 150GB/s. M3 Max only has 400GB/s on the higher binned part. - Just like the low-spec M3 14" has one fewer Thunderbolt port, it also doesn't officially support Thunderbolt 4 (like M1/M2 before it) - The M3 Pro loses the option for an 8TB SSD. Likely because it was a…

In addition to the reduced memory bandwidth, the M3 pro also loses 2 performance cores for only 2 more efficiency cores. M2 pro: 8 performance cores + 4 efficiency cores. M3 pro: 6 performance cores + 6 efficiency cores. Not a great trade... I'm not sure the M3 pro can be considered an upgrade

E cores are ~30% faster and P about 15%. So the question would be how much the Es assist when Ps are maxed on each chip. In any other situation, more/better E cores should outperform and extend battery. I’m not saying that means you should want to spend the money.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#237

Post by blep-arsh » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 1:34 AM UTC

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #169

dmitrygr wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to find a laptop with the specification you just mentioned that could last 20 hours on battery. Didn’t.

Yep. But, me and everyone I know keeps their laptops plugged in most of the time at work or at home, so not everyone needs all day battery life.

I didn't care much about the battery life but not having to be tethered to the nearest wall wart is unexpectedly convenient even when working from home. I also appreciate the laptop not being a hot air blower.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#238

Post by superkuh » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 1:34 AM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #16

I'd prefer if there'd be higher RAM limits for each variant: * ~~Ultra~~ Max probably has an adequate limit with "up to" 128GB * Pro would be nicer to have "up to" (say) 64GB, rather than 'only' 36GB * Base perhaps "up to" 32GB, rather than 24GB There are some situations (running a VM or three with different OS(es)) where there really isn't a substitute for more bits.

I just hope they stop selling 8GB variants entirely. All those do is make job security for tech support people.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#239

Post by monocasa » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 1:35 AM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #181

sharms wrote: post #152

It looks like these models won't be as useful for LLM inference which are heavily memory bandwidth constrained. The Macbook Pro page shows M3 at 100GB/s,150GB/s, and 300GB/s vs M2 at 200GB/s and 400GB/s. 400GB/s is available for M3 if you opt for the high gpu config, but interesting to see it go down across all of these models.

The presentation mentioned dynamic GPU caching: that seems like something transformer models would like.

Could be, but I'd like to hear more information about what it actually entails.

My gut feeling is that it's kind of like Z compression, but using the high amount of privileged software (basically a whole RTOS) they run on the GPU to dynamically allocate pages so that scare quotes "vram" allocations don't require giant arenas.

If that's the case, I'm not sure that ML will benefit. Most ML models are pretty good about actually touching everything they allocate, in which case, lazy allocations won't help you much and may actually get in the way startup latency.

Re: Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max

#240

Post by nomel » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 1:35 AM UTC

jchook wrote: post #221

On the power consumption vs performance ratios, every chart showed the M3 cranking at higher overall power usage than the M1 when under load. One of my favorite things about my M1 is the battery life. I wonder how the actual battery life will compare for the different market segments.

You can always turn on low power mode. I do this for extra long days.