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16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

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Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#301

Post by rualca »

JeremyNT wrote: post #269
phkahler wrote: post #9

The real competition is no longer Intel. Its AMD. Or if you're just buying Apple because you like them then there is no competition, you buy what they offer. I like fanless systems so I'll be watching Apple closely.

I can't help but chuckle whenever I read these comments on HN about how doomed Intel is. Intel just does this . Every now and then, they get so far ahead that the rest of the market just totally disintegrates, which allows them to screw around and juice up their margins while failing to actually innovate. Their brand is so strong it takes years for it to erode, even when they do suck, and when they have actual compet…

> Intel just does this. Every now and then, they get so far ahead that the rest of the market just totally disintegrates, (...)

Past performance does not guarantee future results.

Keep in mind you're trying to pin magical properties on a brand, and meanwhile people and technologies come and go.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#302

Post by lnanek2 »

bartread wrote: post #204

I think Apple have screwed themselves over a bit here by sticking ARM-based Apple silicon in their lower-end/entry level devices first. I mean what's the point in spending £5k on a fully tricked out 16-inch MBP, as I'd been considering, when an entry level Macbook Air or Mac Mini is going to run rings around it? The reason I'm not going to buy one of these lower end Macs (the Mini would be the best fit) is that I can…

Maybe they tried and the yield isn't there. There could be more memory and cores in the design right now and they are just having to disable some of it, for example.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#303

Post by epistasis »

xbar wrote: post #248
epistasis wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So though it's a new age in some ways, I don't think it will benefit many people. It will just increase the churn. Witnessing all the cries of "16GB of RAM isn't enough!" makes it quite apparent that software behaves like a gas rather than a liquid, and will expand to consume whatever hardware is available to developers. I think that for consumer products, which these are targeting, software responsiveness, usability…

I do not agree. Look at the AnandTech Speedometer 2.0 metric. https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste... The 8GB Macbook Air at $899 educational is faster, and will feel faster, than any laptop that anyone has owned or thought of owning at that price point. Millions of buyers who need laptops for *-at-home activities will sing its performance praises on Sheets and Salesforce. The "I need 16GB cro…

I guess my point is that any such gains are temporary and will soon disappear with the next release of software, or with the next website redesign.

MS Office apps, for example, are horrifically unresponsive on Macs. Switching the ribbon to a new view has 700-1000ms of lag on my 2.4 GHz i5. Maybe an M1 brings it to 350ms. Once MS developers start developing on an M1 laptop, the developers will change code, and it will slow down, and until it gets slower than it currently is, the code will not be optimized.

This is what I mean about software being like a gas rather than a liquid. Any new CPU performance will be consumed by developers because their threshold for performance optimization changes with each new performance improvement.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#304

Post by Sephr »

tomp wrote: post #103
tootie wrote: post #18

Nearly universal praise for the M1 versus it's predecessor but I don't see how this really changes Apple's position the way he implies. Their machines are still far more expensive than Windows and can't use high-powered GPUs like AMD/Nvidia. The people who choose PC, still have the same incentives to do so. For most users, the faster performance will probably not be very noticeable. The reduced power consumption is t…

> Their machines are still far more expensive than Windows Are they? I just checked now for US prices: 13‑inch MacBook Pro (Intel Core i5) 32GB = $2059 13-inch Dell XPS (Intel Core i7) 32GB = $2099 These are both the cheapest options available for my desired configuration (32GB RAM and 13-inch screen), and MacBook has far superior build quality, trackpad and OS. Probably for different specs MacBooks are comparatively…

The existing M1 devices only come with 8 or 16GB of RAM, so it can only reasonably be compared to similarly-configured Windows laptops.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#305

Post by rualca »

aidenn0 wrote: post #287
bhouston wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel in 2020 is IBM in 1980.

So in 2060 it will still be a huge company with $20B in revenue?

>>So in 2060 it will still be a huge company with $20B in revenue?

That's great for shareholders.

Meanwhile, keep in mind that IBM exited the consumer computing device market. If that's also in store for Intel then it's a bit pointless in the PoV of those in the market for consumer computing devices.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#306

Post by eulers_secret »

aidenn0 wrote: post #287
bhouston wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel in 2020 is IBM in 1980.

So in 2060 it will still be a huge company with $20B in revenue?

That'd be quite a decline, last year Intel reported $72B in revenue...

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#307

Post by threeseed »

bartread wrote: post #272
threeseed wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they didn't. There is simply too much complex, professional software that will take time to be ported to ARM versus the relative straightforward needs of entry-level users e.g. Go, Photoshop, Docker. And they need a large install base to push developers to invest the necessary resources.

But, in theory at any rate, Rosetta2 will allow you to run all that software on Apple silicon.

We already know that Rosetta2 doesn't support everything.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#308

Post by mft_ »

Someone wrote: post #276
JimDabell wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regardless, the thing which is kind of stunning about this chip is that they are getting this kind of performance out of what is basically their MacBook Air CPU. Or to put it a different way: this is the slowest Apple Silicon system that will ever exist.

Laptop or desktop: likely, but even if the next Apple Watch will be faster, which I doubt, their smart speakers and headphones probably can do with a slower CPU for the next few years.

Is there a name for this trait of bringing unnecessary precision to a discussion, I wonder?

I mean, contextually it’s obvious that the previous poster meant this is the slowest Apple Silicon that will ever exist in a relevant and comparable use case - i.e. a laptop or desktop. And the clarification that yes, slower Apple Silicon may exist for other use cases didn’t really add value to the discussion.

And I’m not even being snide to you - I’m genuinely interested whether there’s a term for it, because I encounter it a lot - in life, and in work. ‘Nitpicking’ and ‘splitting hairs’ don’t quite fit, I think?

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#309

Post by an_opabinia »

codeulike wrote: post #282
cercatrova wrote: post #26

Is anyone else thinking, what the f*ck? Are we in a new era of computing? It certainly feels that way when looking at these desktop class ARM chips, where performance doubled every year or so, just like back in the 80s and 90s.

Note that the comparison is also compiling to ARM vs compiling to Intel, so its partly to do with the simplicity of the compilation process between the two architectures. https://twitter.com/rikarends/status/1328762958118346753

Well that pretty much settles the matter, doesn't it.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#310

Post by sveiss »

nakkijono wrote: post #130
trillic wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every modern general purpose computer already has multiple layers of memory. This would just be an additional layer. The virtual memory subsystems in the OS will handle this. At the end of the day it's just caches all the way down. A workstation with 16GiB of "on-chip" memory would be like a huge L4 cache for the say 512GiB of "standard" DDR4. I really like OSTEP's chapters on virtual memory if you're interested in r…

Yet, is it a requirement in a memory hierarchy to copy the lower level in the upper one? Like, all the stuff in you L1 cache has to be also in your L2 cache. E.g. if you would have 32gb of external DDR it would add only 16gb more to the packaged 16gb?

It's not a requirement, and different systems in the past have made different choices.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache_inclusion_policy

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