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2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

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Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#381

Post by GiorgioG »

aero-glide wrote: post #105
matvore wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get why this idea of becoming iOS-like is uncomfortable for a lot of people, but will they take away the POSIX-ness of the OS? What about all the people that spend all their time in Vim, TMUX, Emacs, and/or zsh? I think these people will continue to be pretty happy on macOS if they already are. In my experience, installing alternate OS's on Mac hardware has never been frictionless or satisfying anyway.

>In my experience, installing alternate OS's on Mac hardware has never been frictionless or satisfying anyway. It would be if they take some effort to support it.

Bootcamp has always run fine for me. I've never tried to install Linux on my Macs.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#382

Post by bartread »

These are impressive performance stats and, given that I'm working from home all the time nowadays and with much less of a need for a laptop, the Mac Mini is actually a fairly attractive option.

Except for one thing: it's maxxed out at 16GB of unified RAM. 16GB. In 2020 (nearly 2021). FFS.

Come on Apple: get your act together. The 16GB limit was frustrating as hell when I bought my last MBP in 2015: now it's absolutely unforgiveable.

(The iMac obviously goes way beyond 16GB but isn't yet available with Apple silicon, and obviously the attraction with the Mini is the relatively ludicrous performance of that Apple silicon.)

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#383

Post by coldtea »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #373
jb1991 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because it is locked down, why is that the same as "renting"? Those are two very different concepts.

Because you are not the ultimate decider of what to do with the machine. If you owned it, you could do anything outside of harm.

The whole concept of the machine is to be bought and optimized for running macOS.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#384

Post by StreamBright »

JAlexoid wrote: post #289
tonyhb wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is insane perf/watt. x86 backwards compatibility may have gotten us to where we are, but it's certainly holding it back. Arm is looking great, and maybe it's time for x86 to die.

It's time for Intel and x86 to die. But I would also be a little wary, because ARM systems are way more locked down than x86 systems today.

Absolutely not. We need more competition because the #1 reason we got to this situation is mono culture and a single platform (x86). We need Apple to succeed of creating an alternative ARM based desktop/laptop platform and for more competition we could add in Mips64 from China to the mix. I am really hoping that by 2025 we are going to have 3 major platforms available for end customers, so that there is real competition.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#385

Post by GiorgioG »

electriclove wrote: post #374
GiorgioG wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do believe that this is a minority position. Most people don't care about closed ecosystems You're absolutely right. I bought my first MacBook Pro (17") in 2007 (and it's still running at my parents' house!) Over time all the machines in the house save my work/gaming rig have been replaced by Macs (iMacs, MBP, 12" MB, etc.) Now I plan on reversing course. I'll keep my iPhone for now because everyone in the family…

Re: Reversing course.. what will you replace your Macs with?

The iMac will be replaced with a custom-built PC.

The MacBook Pros are another story. I don't know. I can't see me buying any new Intel Macs since they'll be phased out at some point.

I've never had much luck with the Dell XPSes. I may give ThinkPads a look (I have a P50 at my current job which has been fine (if not for all the corporate antimalware slowing it to a crawl.))

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#386

Post by ashtonkem »

comeonseriously wrote: post #363
JAlexoid wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's time for Intel and x86 to die. But I would also be a little wary, because ARM systems are way more locked down than x86 systems today.

Why does Intel need to die? Sure they're not exactly the company they used to be, but would it be enough for them to just move away from x86? I'm just thinking I don't want just one or two or three companies doing procs.

They don't need to die, but if they don't begin to compete they simple will die.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#387

Post by Wowfunhappy »

romanoderoma wrote: post #378
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that backwards compatibility may not even be necessary, given Rosetta's performance. Sure Apple is using lots of tricks, but if Microsoft or any Linux project could get even somewhat close...

Just as testimony, it probably doesn't mean much, but bakcwards compatibility you either have it or you don't, there's no middle ground Apple is one of the most capitalistic companies out there, they want you to buy new stuff and they'll try everything they can to force users to upgrade sooner or later The story is this: a friend of mine is a well respected illustrator and he has been a long time Mac user (at least s…

I've used Photoshop CS6 on both Sierra and High Sierra. It's ever-so-slightly more crash-prone than on older OS's, but totally usable.

It launches on Mojave as well, so I'm pretty sure it works, but I haven't personally used it for any length of time. Catalina is what killed it.

IMO, backwards compatibility in OSX/macOS was perfectly decent for a long time. Most software compiled for Intel that wasn't doing something weird continued to chug on, frequently with significant glitches but not to the point where the software was unusable. Then in Catalina Apple just gave up or something.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#388

Post by ashtonkem »

runeks wrote: post #201
heipei wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched and read multiple reviews and Dave2D seems to be the only one who tried to quantify the throttling to some extent, all the others only had useless statements like "The Pro will probably be able to sustain unthrottled workloads for longer thanks to it's active cooling" - No shit, sherlock. For me the fact that it only throttles after 8-9 minutes (!) of heavy use is going to be the deciding factor that will a…

Couldn't the Pro just turn on its fans after 8-9 minutes (to avoid throttling), thus giving the best of both worlds?

That's exactly what it does.

But 8-9 minutes of full 100% CPU is a relatively rare occurrence for the vast majority of users. Developers might occasionally do that, but it will be very language and project dependent.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#389

Post by anoncow »

Can AMD/Intel pivot to ARM and provide the efficiency benefits to the non-Apole ecosystem?

Can Apple's M1X/M2 outperform desktop CPUs?

Qualcomm tried their hand at desktop CPUs with Microsoft a few years back. Is it time they tried again?

How comparable is a Surface Go with the performance/efficiency of M1?

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#390

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

gayprogrammer wrote: post #331
lukeramsden wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First generation of MacOS on Apple Silicon?

iOS has always used the same kernel as macOS.

Sure, it's all Darwin, but userspace matters a lot - you can do lots of things on MacOS that you can't do on iOS (JIT, arbitrary web engines, assorted emulators, pop a root shell and load arbitrary kernel modules)
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