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M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

eclecticlight.co

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Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#251

Post by foldr »

wredue wrote: post #248
karolist wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an issue even if you say it is. Takes 1 minute to setup brew on a fresh Mac, third party or not who cares when it's open source, apt is also open-source and in the same sense a third party someone develops, you just get that with the base Debian like systems, if we start counting the minute wasted to setup brew then you waste more time to install Debian in the first place, Macs come pre-installed.

Does brew still require mangling OS permissions?

No. This is answered on the Homebrew installation page: https://docs.brew.sh/Installation

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#252

Post by hartator »

asylteltine wrote: post #67

And yet the air can’t support more than one monitor. I know Apple is a small company with only a few engineers so it must have been too hard. Sarcasm obviously. As an Apple enthusiast it’s so annoying how they sniff farts.

I have the Air, it does support its own monitor + a 6k monitor.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#253

Post by foldr »

jamespo wrote: post #230
toast0 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why? Why do I need to use 3rd party package managers, or manual installations from 3rd party sources to install common tools that aren't a decade+ outdated? Because you want to control the version of 3rd party software. > It doesn't need to be tied to anything. If the OS needs specific libraries/tools then they can be installed in a separate location The OS installs tools in /usr/bin and you should install tools in…

We're not talking about keeping up to date with the latest revision of python / java here, it's a shell that's woefully out of date. Apple is not RHEL backporting fixes so binaries continue to run for 10 years - in fact they seem quite cavalier about backwards compatibility.

Bash is only there for backwards compatibility with old scripts. The default MacOS shell is an up-to-date zsh.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#254

Post by zamadatix »

tootyskooty wrote: post #112
bloopernova wrote: post #98

I want a better system load metric now that we've got heterogenous cores in CPUs. The Pixel 8 Pro has 3 types, efficiency, performance, and one single ultra performance core. If your efficiency cores are always close to max usage, but your performance cores are idle, is your system being heavily or barely used? I understand that system load isn't really a useful metric between systems, but it's useful to compare on a…

Sounds like power usage might fit the bill.

Raw power usage is very skewed. Getting that last 20% of performance the chip is capable of might take as much power as the first 80% did, and not each type of workload may have the same skew depending on which components are being stressed and how. Say you did have an adjusted map of powerutilization though, it still assumes "system utilization" means "how much of the total possible capacity of this system is being utilized". This is a valid take, if you can get such a mapping, but it's not necessarily the only valid take of what system load is.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#255

Post by FireBeyond »

jamespo wrote: post #236
shepherdjerred wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel/AMD chips don't approach the efficiency of what Apple makes.

I don't understand this pretence that the vast majority of the time laptops are plugged into the power anyway.

There's always one reason after another. "It won't fit", you say sure it can, others do it, "Well, they don't do it efficiently", you say okay, how many times are you driving multiple monitors (most of which support power delivery these days) on battery, then it'll be "Apple just understands this better".

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#256

Post by cduzz »

ahoka wrote: post #127
cduzz wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this just a subset of the existing capacity monitoring problem where I want to know how loaded a multi-core system is under the following scenario: Some critical path, single-threaded task is at 100% of capacity of a core; the system has 10 cores -- is my system at 10% utilization or 100% utilization?

Easy, measure the TDP usage instead of CPU usage, which is impossible to correctly measure at a given time anyway.

Well, I certainly track capacity by power used by servers under management, but a system that's pinned on one thread is at 100% utilization, for very real definitions of "capacity" but the power consumed will also be some small fraction of how much power would be drawn if you were lighting up all the cores at 100% also.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#257

Post by mhio »

jwells89 wrote: post #163
Terretta wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That fullscreen mode was introduced in 10.7 Lion and a lot of long time mac users have found it silly from day one. Personally I never use it. Agreed, however it's arguably for a different mental model. If people think of it as "focus mode" or "workspace mode" it makes more sense. Four finger swipe to slide between the workspaces or focuses. More importantly, you don't need MOOM. - - - To maximize a window to the d…

> To maximize a window to the dimension of the screen without entering full screen mode, either: This is a handy trick to know, but has caveats. Option-green-functionality is actually defined by apps, not the OS, and so in some cases it will for example act as a “fit window to content” button. Option-double-clicking a corner appears to be consistent across windows however.

Double click anywhere on the title bar works for me.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#258

Post by willseth »

masklinn wrote: post #245
willseth wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a business decision. You don’t think Apple knows the demand for multiple external displays? If they thought it would sell more Macs, they would do it.

> It’s a business decision. That doesn't make it less frustrating. > If they thought it would sell more Macs, they would do it. It's short term thinking, it generates bad feeling of nickel and diming and unnecessary upsells: on M3 you need to pay $2000 to be able to use two external displays, and $3200 for 3, even if you have no need for the rest of the processing power. Not only that but they managed to create more…

What you describe is only considered by a vanishingly small number of their customers. The vast majority don’t care or even own an external display. You could be right about range confusion, but I doubt it simply because, like everything else, Apple is so disciplined about market research. Time will tell

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#259

Post by tcmart14 »

jamespo wrote: post #236
shepherdjerred wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel/AMD chips don't approach the efficiency of what Apple makes.

I don't understand this pretence that the vast majority of the time laptops are plugged into the power anyway.

Perhaps because until recently, battery life has sucked? I used to plug in my laptops all the time. Now with the M1, it only gets plugged in to charge, then I don't plug it in until I charge it again. I have been enjoying sitting on my couch when I want to, to get work done rather than at my desk.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#260

Post by throwaway49594 »

GeekyBear wrote: post #179
exabrial wrote: post #158

I think I'll hold out to the M4 and make sure memory bandwidth and latency is restored to it's previous value.

Given that Intel and AMD tend to choke the memory bandwidth on anything below their server chips, this seems short sighted. The M3 Pro's "reduced memory bandwidth" is still double the memory bandwidth you see on Intel and AMD's HEDT chips. Step up to the M3 Max and you're looking at five times the memory bandwidth of Intel and AMD's chips.

You're comparing strictly CPU memory bandwidth to CPU + GPU. If you add CPU + GPU bandwidth for a PC you'll get similar numbers.
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