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M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

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Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#241

Post by throwaway894345 »

ekianjo wrote: post #208
simias wrote: post #100

I've never owned a Mac and don't intend to own one but I'm very happy with this M1 move, mainly for the reasons highlighted in the introduction to the article: >M1 Macs embarrass all other PCs — all Intel-based Macs, including automobile-priced Mac Pros, and every single machine running Windows or Linux. Those machines are just standing around in their underwear now because the M1 stole all their pants. I think it's…

> But I think the overarching point is true: now desktop and laptop makers can't just pretend that having a hot and/or slow, clunky, noisy x86-based architecture is just a fact of life. I hope and expect that it'll help create a new generation of ARM-based laptops and maybe even desktops that will run cool and smooth. Be careful what you wish for. X86 is the most open architecture right now. ARM, on the other hand, h…

I know very little about this space, but presumably that will change if/when a significant portion of the laptop space (and probably the server space as well) moves from x86 to ARM? It might be painful for early adopters for a few years, but I would expect this stuff to get ironed out in time, no?

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#242

Post by romanoderoma »

alwillis wrote: post #135
nix23 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Those machines are just standing around in their underwear now because the M1 stole all their pants. Not sure what shitty machine hes talking about, but my threadripper's are not impressed with some 4 core M1.

but my threadripper's are not impressed with some 4 core M1 The M1 has 8 CPU cores, 8 GPU cores and 16 Neural Engine cores. It also runs at 10 watts and maxes out at 24 watts. A Threadripper starts at over 100 watts…

But honestly, does it matter?

People buying a threadripper today don't care about it.

What matters to them it's the performance, my gf is a 3d artist, she doesn't care if some cpu consumes more or less power than another (when I say she doesn't care I mean she doesn't even know that CPU have very different power requirements), she needs the fastest gear she can buy on her budget.

Apple M1s are not it.

There are many other that do not care because the hardware stays at the office, where someone else pays the bills and they too don't care because the electricity bill is the last of their problems, fixing it buying more efficient computing devices would mean spending a lot of money in advance to replace at least half of the stock.

How many more months of electricity could that money pay?

A lot.

People buying Apple for its M1 low power consumption are a niche inside a niche.

So I think the reasoning stands: Apple M1s are not a real threat for its competitors because the market that really cares about its strengths is smaller than the one that doesn't and Apple will keep to largely miss the second one.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#244

Post by jb1991 »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #173
username3 wrote: post #105

There are no honest 8GB reviews. Gruber is selling 8GB Macs based on 16GB review units. This is the iPad 1 with 256MB all over again.

The justification that 16GB is "enough" from the Apple blogger clique like Gruber is ridiculous. Even if it is "enough" it's still what my MacBook Pro I bought 6 years ago shipped with for several hundred dollars less than this one. Why are we giving Apple a pass on RAM being stuck at 8GB and SSD being stuck at 128GB (only very recently bumping to 256) for almost a decade. Not to mention some of us get stuck on 8GB 1…

For the vast majority of users (who are not developers or doing production video work, etc), 16 GB is plenty. That's why.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#245

Post by simonh »

pathartl wrote: post #162
simonh wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's talking about the vast majority of PC chips sold today, who's power consumption / performance / thermal ratios just got marmalised. You're quite right, your machine and in fact everyone else's are still just as good as they were a few weeks ago. I got an Intel 5K iMac in the summer and I'm still very happy with it. I need to be able to run windows and Linux in VMs so M1 isn't for me right now. It's no for you ei…

It's all going to come down to user experience and versatility. Apple is doing some crazy stuff with the M1, but I personally would chock (most of it) it up more to being clever than true innovation. I think only Intel needs to be concerned right now because they're being outpaced by both AMD and Apple. Additionally if the acquisition of Arm by Nvidia results in what people expect, Intel will basically be losing out…

I don’t know about under $800, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Apple didn’t keep the current M1 Air on the lineup at a lower price when the Airs get their next revamp.

This is exactly what Apple did with the iPad, nowadays you can get a very decently specced 10.2” iPad with their 2018 CPU for $309. That’s astonishing, but it’s a great way for Apple to get extended value out of their silicon.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#246

Post by ogre_codes »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #203
simias wrote: post #100

I've never owned a Mac and don't intend to own one but I'm very happy with this M1 move, mainly for the reasons highlighted in the introduction to the article: >M1 Macs embarrass all other PCs — all Intel-based Macs, including automobile-priced Mac Pros, and every single machine running Windows or Linux. Those machines are just standing around in their underwear now because the M1 stole all their pants. I think it's…

> I think it's a bit unfair to lump Linux in there since it's been running on ARM and other embedded, low-power devices basically forever, but it is true that few of us run our Linux desktop on an ARM board. We aren't running ARM on our desktops because there aren't ARM desktops for us to use. The market jumps from low-end boards like the Pi and Pine's lineups - which are excellent for what they are, but suffer from…

> We aren't running ARM on our desktops because there aren't ARM desktops for us to use.

Indeed, while ARM based Linux desktops hit the price and energy efficiency on the nose, they aren't going to wow anyone with performance.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#247

Post by throwaway894345 »

zepto wrote: post #177
simias wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's ARM SoCs are definitely ahead, but it's not like the competition is hugely far behind. Top of the line Android phones and tablets perform well enough for most desktop tasks IMO. It's mostly the software and I/O that makes them unusable as such.

The numbers say otherwise.

When iPhone came out in 2007, Android was still an OS for BlackBerry like devices. It didn't take long for Android to discover touch screens once Apple made it clear that they were dramatically better. Similarly, it's not like other ARM chip manufacturers are going to have to go through all of the same R&D expense to figure out how to make chips that are comparably fast--they just need to copy what Apple did without infringing on any particular patents. Even if they did have to spend the same R&D expense to get there, Apple has already derisked it. So they have a small fraction of Apple's expense and none of the risk, so I would fully expect to see M1 competitive chips come out in a few years' time. This isn't to say that they'll catch up with Apple completely; only that they'll be able to recoup a significant amount of the gap in a relatively short period of time such that there will be a similar breakthrough in the PC market (this is effectively what TFA is predicting as well, if that lends me any credibility).

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#248

Post by pitterpatter »

pmarreck wrote: post #109
postalrat wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft has a version of windows running on arm in the surface pro. Wouldn't that give them the headstart on apple?

What’s the Windows app compatibility look like on those, though?

Most UWP apps should be easy to compile for ARM. Emulating x86-32 apps on ARM Windows has been a thing for many years and the further expanded x86-64 support is in Insider builds.

Really the bigger issue is that the ARM chips Windows has thus far run on don't have the similar TSO opts the M1 came with.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#249

Post by kllrnohj »

foobarian wrote: post #232
kllrnohj wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firestorm Cores use less than 4 watts each. This is just not true. A mini going from idle to a full single-core load is a power increase of 6W. A heavy multicore load hits over 25W. > A 16 firestorm core Mx will produce roughly the same multicore performance as your TR With what fantasy math? 30% faster single core performance would be 16 * 1.3 = ~21 equivalent TR cores. It'd be less than half the performance of a…

On-die memory is pretty much their one ace in the hole that nobody else will have the guts to match. Intel can't because their fabs are behind, and AMD probably doesn't have the resources to fork their architectures and/or piss off the server integrators. I can't live without 64GB in my desktop and would love to have more, so the new Macs are not for me.

M1 isn't using on-die memory[1]. It's on-package, and likely little more than just off-the-shelf Micron or Samsung dram modules that are just soldered instead of socketed.

1: https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/ZRQGFteQwoIVFbNn (from https://www.ifixit.com/News/46884/m1-macbook-teardowns-somet... )

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#250

Post by mpalmer »

brundolf wrote: post #238

> I actually discovered that I’ve had an instinct of measuring my MacBook’s CPU usage by feeling the heat on the strip of aluminum right above the Touch Bar, and I can’t even do that anymore now. Market opportunity here for a peripheral that's just an adhesive strip you put above your touch bar, and it outputs heat corresponding to CPU usage ;)

https://xkcd.com/1172/
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