So why should I buy any Apple Laptop with M3 chip now (if I'm not in hurry)? lol
That’s why a lot of people weren’t expecting this an even questioned Mark Gurman’s article saying it would happen.
Apple introduces M4 chip
331–340 of 1001 posts
Re: Apple introduces M4 chip
#332Why are we running these high end CPUs on tablets without the ability to run pro apps like Xcode?
Until I can run Xcode on an iPad (not Swift Playgrounds), it's a pass for me. Hear me out: I don't want to bring both an iPad and Macbook on trips, but I need Xcode. Because of this, I have to pick the Macbook every time. I want an iPad, but the iPad doesn't want me.
Re: Apple introduces M4 chip
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's fairly absurd that they're still selling a 256gb "Pro" machine in the first place. That said, Apple's policy toward SKUs is pretty consistent: you pay more money and you get more machine, and vice versa. The MacBooks are the only product which has separately configurable memory / storage / chip, and even there some combinations aren't manufactured.
>> It's fairly absurd that they're still selling a 256gb "Pro" machine in the first place. My guess is they want you to use their cloud storage and pay monthly for it.
Or use an external storage. I’d be wary of using my iPad as primary storage anyway. It’s only work in progress and currently watching/reading media.
Re: Apple introduces M4 chip
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it's strictly for price gouging/segmentation purposes. On the Macbooks (running MacOS), RAM has been used as data cache to speed up data read/write performance until the actual SSD storage operation completes. It makes sense for Apple to account for with higher RAM spec for the 1TB/2TB configurations.
That is called a buffer/page cache and has existed in operating systems since the 1980s.
No this is caching with SSDs, it's not the same league.
Re: Apple introduces M4 chip
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be honest, I wish my iPad's chip was slower! I can't do anything other than watch videos and use drawing programs on an iPad, why does it need a big expensive power hungry and environmentally impactful CPU when one 1/10 the speed would do? If I could actually do something with an iPad there would be a different discussion, but the operating system is so incredibly gimped that the most demanding task it's really su…
I'm under the impression that this CPU is faster AND more efficient, so if you do equivalent tasks on the M4 vs an older processor, the M4 should be less power hungry, not more. Someone correct me if this is wrong!
It's more power efficient than the M3, sure, but surely it could've been even more power efficient if it had worse performance simply from having fewer transistors to switch? It would certainly be more environmentally friendly at the very least!
Re: Apple introduces M4 chip
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple usually massively exaggerates their tech spec comparison - is it REALLY half the power use of all times (so we'll get double the battery life) or is it half the power use in some scenarios (so we'll get like... 15% more battery life total) ?
IME Apple has always been the most honest when it makes performance claims. LIke when they said an Macbook Air would last 10+ hours and third-party reviewers would get 8-9+ hours. All the while, Dell or HP would claim 19 hours and you'd be lucky to get 2 eg [1]. As for CPU power use, of course that doesn't translate into doubling battery life because there are other components. And yes, it seems the OLED display uses…
> ME Apple has always been the most honest when it makes performance claims.
Okay, but your example was about battery life:
> LIke when they said an Macbook Air would last 10+ hours and third-party reviewers would get 8-9+ hours. All the while, Dell or HP would claim 19 hours and you'd be lucky to get 2 eg [1]
And even then, they exaggerated their claims. And your link doesn't say anything about HP or Dell claiming 19 hour battery life.
Apple has definitely exaggerated their performance claims over and over again. The Apple silicon parts are fast and low power indeed, but they've made ridiculous claims like comparing their chips to an nVidia RTX 3090 with completely misleading graphs
Even the Mac sites have admitted that the nVidia 3090 comparison was completely wrong and designed to be misleading: https://9to5mac.com/2022/03/31/m1-ultra-gpu-comparison-with-...
This is why you have to take everything they say with a huge grain of salt. Their chip may be "twice" as power efficient in some carefully chosen unique scenario that only exists in an artificial setting, but how does it fare in the real world? That's the question that matters, and you're not going to get an honest answer from Apple's marketing team.
Re: Apple introduces M4 chip
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it's strictly for price gouging/segmentation purposes. On the Macbooks (running MacOS), RAM has been used as data cache to speed up data read/write performance until the actual SSD storage operation completes. It makes sense for Apple to account for with higher RAM spec for the 1TB/2TB configurations.
That is called a buffer/page cache and has existed in operating systems since the 1980s.
With hardware where power-off is only controlled by software, battery life is predictable, and large amounts of data like raw video are being persisted, they might have a very aggressive version of page caching, and a large amount of storage may imply that a scale-up of RAM would be necessary to keep all the data juggling on a happy path. That said, there’s no non-business reasons why they couldn’t extend that large RAM to smaller storage systems as well.
Re: Apple introduces M4 chip
#338M2's Neural Engine had 15TOPS, M3's 18TOPS (+20%) vs. M4's 38TOPS (+111%). In transistor counts, M2 had 20BTr, M3 25BTr (+25%) and M4 has 28BTr (+12%). M2 used TSMC N5P (138MTr/mm2), M3 used TSMC N3 (197MTr/mm2, +43%) and M4 uses TSMC N3E (215MTr/mm2, +9%).[1][2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nm_process#%225_nm%22_proces... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_nm_process#%223_nm%22_proces...
The fact that TSMC publishes their own metrics and target goals for each node makes it straightforward to compare the transistor density, power efficiency, etc. The most interesting aspect of the M4 is simply it's debuting on the iPad lineup, whereas historically it's always been on the iPhone (for A-series) and Macbook (for M-series). Makes sense given low expected yielded for the newest node for one of Apple's lowe…
iPads are actually much higher volume than Macs. Apple sells about 2x to 3x as many tablets as laptops.
Of course, phones dwarf both.
Re: Apple introduces M4 chip
#339The 256gb and 512gb models have 8gb of ram. The 1tb and 2tb models have 16gb. Not a fan of tying ram to storage. https://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/specs/
It's fairly absurd that they're still selling a 256gb "Pro" machine in the first place. That said, Apple's policy toward SKUs is pretty consistent: you pay more money and you get more machine, and vice versa. The MacBooks are the only product which has separately configurable memory / storage / chip, and even there some combinations aren't manufactured.
I have a 256G iPhone. I think I’m using like 160G. Most stuff is just in the cloud. For an iPad it wouldn’t be any different, modulo media cached for flights. I could see some cases like people working on audio to want a bunch stored locally, but it’s probably in some kind of compressed format such that it wouldn’t matter too much.
What is your concern?
Re: Apple introduces M4 chip
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
An NVIDIA RTX 4090 generates 73 TFLOPS. This iPad gives you nearly half that. The memory bandwidth of 120 GBps is roughly 1/10th of the NVIDIA hardware, but who’s counting!
The 4090 costs ~$1800 and doesn't have dual OLED screens, doesn't have a battery, doesn't weigh less than a pound, and doesn't actually do anything unless it is plugged into a larger motherboard, either.
From Geekbench: https://browser.geekbench.com/opencl-benchmarks
Apple M3: 29685
RTX 4090: 320220
When you line it up like that it's kinda surprising the 4090 is just $1800. They could sell it for $5,000 a pop and it would still be better value than the highest end Apple Silicon.