Apple M1 vs. Ryzen 3900X vs. Intel I9 in Software Development • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple M1 vs. Ryzen 3900X vs. Intel I9 in Software Development

#321

Post by manquer » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 7:39 PM UTC

cesarb wrote: post #259

sdflhasjd wrote: post #71

I'm still extremely suspicious of all these benchmarks, because they don't seem to correlate with my real-world experience. All these benchmarks claim to be comparing real-world applications, but I don't trust them because of what they always show with regards to mobile i9 and desktop Ryzen. I've got a Intel Macbook Pro, and a Ryzen desktop. When I'm using them for development, my Ryzen is absolutely wiping the floor…

Are your real-world applications running on the same operating system? According to a thread on RWT ( https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=197081&curpost... ), macOS is much slower than Linux on the same hardware for some tasks like building software. If your Ryzen desktop is running Linux and your Macbook Pro is running macOS, that would be enough to explain at least part of the speed difference.

However it may not be fair comparison as apple has no incentive to support optimization outside their stack. A skewed better performance in OSX is not just about the processor but about their stack preferring one arch.

Benchmark for OS+CPU stack should be their best combination not where one vendor has advantage.

Re: Apple M1 vs. Ryzen 3900X vs. Intel I9 in Software Development

#322

Post by Reason077 » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 7:40 PM UTC

GeekyBear wrote: post #282

bhouston wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the m1 has dedicated js instructions.

There are several theories as to why the M1 does so well on on JavaScript benchmarks. >Firestorm can do 4 FADDs and 4 FMULs per cycle with respectively 3 and 4 cycles latency. That’s quadruple the per-cycle throughput of Intel CPUs and previous AMD CPUs, and still double that of the recent Zen3, of course, still running at lower frequency. This might be one reason why Apples does so well in browser benchmarks (JavaSc…

> "There are several theories as to why the M1 does so well on on JavaScript benchmarks."

A major reason it does so well is the native Javascript support added in ARMv8.3-A.

Specifically, FJCVTZS (Floating-point Javascript Convert to Signed fixed-point, rounding toward Zero)[1] which is a Javascript-specific variant of FCVTZS implementing the overflow and exception handling behaviour that Javascript wants.

Javascript needs to do these conversions a lot, since it doesn't have integer types, and it's much faster to have it implemented in silicon rather than using the old instructions and having to handle the overflow/error checking.

[1] https://developer.arm.com/documentation/100076/0100/a64-inst...

Re: Apple M1 vs. Ryzen 3900X vs. Intel I9 in Software Development

#323

Post by nextos » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 7:40 PM UTC

cesarb wrote: post #259

sdflhasjd wrote: post #71

I'm still extremely suspicious of all these benchmarks, because they don't seem to correlate with my real-world experience. All these benchmarks claim to be comparing real-world applications, but I don't trust them because of what they always show with regards to mobile i9 and desktop Ryzen. I've got a Intel Macbook Pro, and a Ryzen desktop. When I'm using them for development, my Ryzen is absolutely wiping the floor…

Are your real-world applications running on the same operating system? According to a thread on RWT ( https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=197081&curpost... ), macOS is much slower than Linux on the same hardware for some tasks like building software. If your Ryzen desktop is running Linux and your Macbook Pro is running macOS, that would be enough to explain at least part of the speed difference.

Yes, for that reason it'd be amazing if one could run Linux on M1 hardware. Despite some old Intel models were great for this purpose and Linus has shown some interest, I'm not holding my breath.

It'd be nice if we saw some good competing CPUs. Nvidia is in my opinion is well positioned midterm due to the acquisition of ARM. But I'd prefer AMD due to openness and staying within the PC standard.

Re: Apple M1 vs. Ryzen 3900X vs. Intel I9 in Software Development

#324

Post by TYPE_FASTER » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 7:40 PM UTC

pmontra wrote: post #159

Considering that Apple won't sell their chips to anybody else, and the M2, M3, Mn could be increasingly faster than the x86 chips, how long before we start moving along this path? 1. Amazon, Google, Microsoft start building their own chips for their own clouds. The most efficient chip could translate into the cheapest cloud, or the fastest one at the same price. Their choice. 2. There will be N somewhat compatible AR…

> 1. Amazon, Google, Microsoft start building their own chips for their own clouds.

https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/

> 5. If you want to develop for AWS you'll be safer to have a laptop with an Amazon chip,

Since I mostly work on Java that runs at Amazon, I develop locally using Amazon Corretto (https://aws.amazon.com/corretto/), less for performance than for greater confidence I won't run issues between JVM differences when deploying at AWS.

> Or we'll end up with 5 different laptops (unlikely) or one that connects to a remote desktop running in the appropriate cloud with the correct chip.

We're already there when deploying Python with dependencies that need to be compiled from a different OS. The options that I've used so far are 1. Only using pure Python dependencies, which mostly works, and 2. Running a container locally. Thinking about the CPU you're going to be running on might make sense if you're working on native code, but it probably won't be a big deal.

Re: Apple M1 vs. Ryzen 3900X vs. Intel I9 in Software Development

#325

Post by my_usernam3 » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 7:42 PM UTC

jtwaleson wrote: post #244

gonehome wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple hardware resells extremely well and if you don't want to deal with the hassle of reselling privately you can can also trade it in for a decent return. If you're not on a super tight budget it's not terrible to just pick up the new machine and swap it out for the next one that ships if you want to.

In my mind the resell value of intel macbooks dropped significantly with the M1 release. Not sure if that's reflected in the second hand market already, but I think it will.

I'm curious about this too. I actually think it won't because even with the huge amount of marketing for this new chip that apple is doing, the average consumer doesn't explicitly care about the cpu.

Re: Apple M1 vs. Ryzen 3900X vs. Intel I9 in Software Development

#326

Post by threeseed » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 7:43 PM UTC

ogre_codes wrote: post #161

JohnTHaller wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're more light than ultralight. Otherwise the performance stands. LG Gram 2020: 2.07 lbs MacBook 2017: 2.03 lbs MacBook Air 2020: 2.8 lbs MacBook Pro 2020: 3.0 lbs

Apple deliberately kept the form factors of these the same for this launch. It will be interesting seeing where they go from here form factor wise. Also... I suspect benchmarking the LG or the 12" MacBook versus the Air would be pretty humiliating.

We pretty much already know.

14-inch and 16-inch with same size but thinner bezels are expected to next year.

Re: Apple M1 vs. Ryzen 3900X vs. Intel I9 in Software Development

#327

Post by bestinterest » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 7:43 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #88

bestinterest wrote: post #21

Really crazy results imo, being able to carry around the performance of a desktop in a laptop is quite the feat. I might pick up a MacBook next year if they allow for more than only 1 external display connected and increase to 4 usb c ports. Seems like a powerful portable option.

I don’t understand the 4 ports issue. If you have that many things to plug in at your desk, don’t you keep them plugged into a dock that has power delivery, and just connect one wire when you sit down?

To be honest now that you say that it sounds less of an issue than I think but I still feel a little strangled by only two ports for some reason.

Re: Apple M1 vs. Ryzen 3900X vs. Intel I9 in Software Development

#328

Post by chungus_khan » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 7:46 PM UTC

gpderetta wrote: post #133

R0b0t1 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was explored in detail in another thread, it seems most of the gains are from looser memory ordering.

I think that Apple "just" [1] picked a very happy place in the parameter space: lower clock means that main memory (which is already lower latency than usual) is "nearer" to the cpu plus a larger L1 with a shorter latency (3 cycles). These (plus probably a larger amount of sustainable outstanding misses) imply that the cpu stalls less which means that they can sustain a larger ILP [2]. A better branch predictor (whic…

I agree with the rest, but memory latency is actually pretty poor on the M1:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste...

Re: Apple M1 vs. Ryzen 3900X vs. Intel I9 in Software Development

#329

Post by ibraheemdev » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

The SQLite and Redis benchmark don't really make much sense here. They are more of a SSD/RAM benchmark than a measure of processor performance.

Re: Apple M1 vs. Ryzen 3900X vs. Intel I9 in Software Development

#330

Post by my_usernam3 » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

janmo wrote: post #296

giantrobot wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's only achievement...besides the actual design of the CPU, GPU, and ML accelerator that TSMC is manufacturing. Besides that what have the Romans every done for us?

Apple's M1 basically uses the architecture used for iPhone/iPad chips. Now I don't deny that the M1 is an impressive chip. But the question is would it be as good as the i9 if it would be a 14nm chip with only half of its 16b transistors?

I'm still not sure that question matters or is valid, because it isn't a 14nm chip.

To me its like comparing two car models, one that was designed and manufactured with a v8 (and no other option) vs one designed and manufactured with an inline 4 (also with no other engine option). Then asking, well what if that v8 car had only a v4, would it still be faster?