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Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

extremetech.com

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Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#321

Post by afavour »

ianai wrote: post #272
oblio wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference isn't that big: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKN9nvXTGHE And for 5nm, I'm quite sure AMD already has contracts for that with TSMC. So the gap should be even smaller.

His “as tested” was 11 hours for AMD and 13 for M1. His “max time use” for AMD was 14.5 and 20 for M1. That’s a 38% greater time for the M1 in a best possible outcome and 18% on “average”. Substantial differences that users would perceive noticeably.

I’m not so sure. I think it reaches a meaningful maximum. Can I do an entire days work on the laptop? Yes to both. Can it last an entire flight, even a long one? Yes to both.

It’s not that it doesn’t matter at all, it’s just that it matters a lot less once you’ve checked boxes like that. The effective experience of both would be “you only need to charge it overnight”

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#322

Post by detaro »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #252
matkoniecz wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mentioned "they come with blazingly fast SSDs" as part of what is "allowing devices to get away with less available memory"

I did indeed, I never said that SSDs are a replacement for RAM, I just said that having access to 2.5GiB/s RW operations allows you to offload many things into the SSD, yes, thrashing is an issue, but it is much more insignificant at those speeds than disks. I am not defending apple in any way whatsoever, I even mentioned in the first sentence of the comment. I stated that they are able to do that because they compen…

2.5GB/s isn't really all that extraordinary speed anymore.

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#323

Post by Cthulhu_ »

apatheticonion wrote: post #154

Can't wait for an iPhone Pro with an M1 processor that I can plug into a thunderbolt/usbc dock, run monitors, a keyboard, ethernet, and have it running MacOS when in desktop mode. EDIT: A little context; when I am in the office, I use vscode over ssh to connect to my desktop PC at home. My desktop takes care of my language server, syntax highlighting, compilation and vscode forwards my ports and spins up terminals. A…

And yet, for work I'd like to see something 10x as powerful as a phone still. The differences in performance between the two is quickly becoming less and nonexistent though.

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#324

Post by the_only_law »

GordonS wrote: post #315
arvinsim wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web Developer here. Wouldn't accept anything less than 32GB for a work machine.

Yep, if you're running big IDEs (e.g. Rider/IntelliJ, Visual Studio), containers and VMs, 32GB is really a must. There always seem to be people in these threads claiming that 16GB or even 8GB is enough - I just don't understand how that could possibly be for most of the HN demographic.

Yeah 32gb is my baseline now. I could probably work on a 16gb machine now but last time I was using an 8gb machine the memory was nearly constantly maxed out.

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#325

Post by GordonS »

nojito wrote: post #291
sto_hristo wrote: post #153

Make it as fabulous as much as you want, $1700 for an 8 core, 8 gigs of ram machine is just one plain fabulous joke. This in the time when 16 gigs ram is the baseline if you plan to do anything more than facebook and instagram.

> This in the time when 16 gigs ram is the baseline if you plan to do anything more than facebook and instagram. You'd be shocked looking at any telemetry data which says that the average ram is 8gb and average ram use is ~50% or so.

I'd believe that - because the average user likely doesn't do anything more than Facebook, Instagram, general browsing, word processing etc.

I'd also believe it, since the number of laptops available with only 8GB of RAM is ridiculous - I swear it's because more prevelant in the past few years, presumably because of RAM prices.

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#326

Post by thehnguy »

iSnow wrote: post #179
sto_hristo wrote: post #153

Make it as fabulous as much as you want, $1700 for an 8 core, 8 gigs of ram machine is just one plain fabulous joke. This in the time when 16 gigs ram is the baseline if you plan to do anything more than facebook and instagram.

I am not sure what the end-game for releasing those under-powered machines is, tbh. I am a bit more extreme in that I am not buying any machine below 32GB given RAM is no longer upgradable, but even if my mom came and asked me about those iMacs, I'd tell her to not buy. It's a shame that Apple is so great at greenwashing and at the same time spits on every way they could help create truly sustainable products by just…

I think that's a bit dramatic. I'm using a 16GB M1 Macbook Pro as my daily driver doing standard, boring professional work (lots of email, tabs open, PDF manipulation, Word, Excel, etc). It performs as well if not better than the 2018 Macbook Pro it replaced with 32 GB of RAM and an i7. And it cost less than that one.

The iMac will perform comparably (probably a bit better due to better thermals). My point is that these are not bad machines and I don't see why you'd steer someone away from them. However, the price is still quite high compared to other manufacturers and options. But that's always been the case.

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#327

Post by BadOakOx »

ianai wrote: post #272
oblio wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference isn't that big: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKN9nvXTGHE And for 5nm, I'm quite sure AMD already has contracts for that with TSMC. So the gap should be even smaller.

His “as tested” was 11 hours for AMD and 13 for M1. His “max time use” for AMD was 14.5 and 20 for M1. That’s a 38% greater time for the M1 in a best possible outcome and 18% on “average”. Substantial differences that users would perceive noticeably.

In the video, he mentions the 'max time use' is on somewhat standby. So, the second value is more representative (11 vs 13).

On the other hand, I think if you can go a full day on a battery, that should be enough. You won't be using your laptop for 20 straight hours.

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#328

Post by akmarinov »

ghaff wrote: post #317
akmarinov wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the time there’s a 5nm version of Ryzen, there’ll be a 4nm M2. AMD’s 5nm shift is scheduled for 2022 iPhone 13 (2021) rumors indicate a 4nm SoC

Node sizes are pretty meaningless at this point.

True, but that's what OP claims.

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#329

Post by Invictus0 »

Why does Apple bother with the 13 inch MacBook Pro if it has the exact same processing power as the MacBook Air? Touch bar and 2 extra hours of battery life aren't enough to differentiate the two. My guess is that Apple does intend to differentiate the M line but hasn't been able to do it yet, for what reason I don't know.

Re: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model

#330

Post by Toutouxc »

nisegami wrote: post #259
cigaser wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That machine is using swap file a lot, in couple of years SSD will die.

Pretty sure that Apple considers this a feature.

Funny. Except there are fully supported MacBooks from 2013 running the latest version of macOS, still on their first battery, still bringing people joy and productivity.
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