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Apple introduces M4 chip

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Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#391

Post by adrian_b »

MBCook wrote: post #313
NorwegianDude wrote: post #264

> M4 has Apple’s fastest Neural Engine ever, capable of up to 38 trillion operations per second, which is faster than the neural processing unit of any AI PC today. I always wonder what crazy meds Apple employees are on. Two RTX 4090s is quite common for hobbyist use, and that is 1321 TOPS each, making two over 69 times more than what Apple claims to be the fastest in the world. That performance is literally less tha…

That’s not a neural processing unit. It’s a GPU. They said they had the fastest NPU in a PC. Not the fastest on earth (one of the nVidia cards, probably). Not the fastest way you could run something (probably a 4090 as you said). Just the fastest NPU shipping in a PC. Probably consumer PC. It’s marketing, but it seems like a reasonable line to draw to me. It’s not like when companies draw a line like “fastest car und…

Both Intel's and AMD's laptop CPUs include NPUs, and they are indeed slower than M4.

Nevertheless, Apple's bragging is a little weird, because both Intel and AMD have already announced that in a few months they will launch laptop CPUs with much faster NPUs than Apple M4 (e.g. 77 TOPS for AMD), so Apple will hold the first place for only a very short time.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#392

Post by [deleted] »

cs702 wrote: post #23
praseodym wrote: post #10

"With these improvements to the CPU and GPU, M4 maintains Apple silicon’s industry-leading performance per watt. M4 can deliver the same performance as M2 using just half the power. And compared with the latest PC chip in a thin and light laptop, M4 can deliver the same performance using just a fourth of the power." That's an incredible improvement in just a few years. I wonder how much of that is Apple engineering a…

Potentially > 2x greater battery life for the same amount of compute! That is pretty crazy. Or am I missing something?

[deleted]

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#393

Post by smrtinsert »

asow92 wrote: post #332

Why 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.

Yep I have also no use for a touch screen device of that size. Happy to get an m4 mac air or whatever it will be called but I'm done with pads.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#394

Post by moogly »

cletus wrote: post #227
izacus wrote: post #84

Earlier 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…

> IME Apple has always been the most honest when it makes performance claims.

I guess you weren't around during the PowerPC days... Because that's a laughable statement.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#395

Post by wheybags »

pantalaimon wrote: post #206
paulpan wrote: post #183

Earlier 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.

> RAM has been used as data cache to speed up data read/write performance until the actual SSD storage operation completes. I'm pretty sure that's what all modern operating systems are doing.

I'm writing this from memory, so some details may be wrong but: most high end ssds have dram caches on board, with a capacitor that maintains enough charge to flush the cache to flash in case of power failure. This operates below the system page cache that is standard for all disks and oses.

Apple doesn't do this, and use their tight integration to perform a similar function using system memory. So there is some technical justification, I think. They are 100% price gougers though.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#396

Post by MBCook »

adrian_b wrote: post #391
MBCook wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not a neural processing unit. It’s a GPU. They said they had the fastest NPU in a PC. Not the fastest on earth (one of the nVidia cards, probably). Not the fastest way you could run something (probably a 4090 as you said). Just the fastest NPU shipping in a PC. Probably consumer PC. It’s marketing, but it seems like a reasonable line to draw to me. It’s not like when companies draw a line like “fastest car und…

Both Intel's and AMD's laptop CPUs include NPUs, and they are indeed slower than M4. Nevertheless, Apple's bragging is a little weird, because both Intel and AMD have already announced that in a few months they will launch laptop CPUs with much faster NPUs than Apple M4 (e.g. 77 TOPS for AMD), so Apple will hold the first place for only a very short time.

But do you expect them to say it’s the “soon to be second fastest”?

It’s the fastest available today. And when they release something faster (M4 Pro or Mac or Ultra or whatever) they’ll call that the fastest.

Seems fair to me.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#397

Post by visarga »

bearjaws wrote: post #240
dhx wrote: post #158

M2'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...

We will have M4 laptops running 400B parameter models next year. Wild times.

And they will fit in the 8GB RAM with 0.02 bit quant

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#398

Post by 0x457 »

gruez wrote: post #341
paulpan wrote: post #183

Earlier 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.

How does that justify locking the 16GB option to 1TB/2TB options?

Since memory is on their SoC it makes it challenging to maintain multiple SKUs. This segmentation makes to me as a consumer.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#399

Post by elaus »

Aurornis wrote: post #342
KeplerBoy wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these things will ever get MacOS support it will be useless with 8 GB of Ram. Such a waste of nice components.

I have a minimum of 64GB on my all my main developer machines (home, work, laptop), but I have a spare laptop with only 8GB of RAM for lightweight travel. Despite the entire internet telling me it would be "unusable" and a disaster and a complete disaster, it's actually 100% perfectly fine. I can run IDEs, Slack, Discord, Chrome, and do dev work without a problem. I can't run a lot of VMs or compile giant projects wi…

But why did you configure 3 machines with 64+ GB, if 8 GB RAM are "100% perfectly fine" for typical work tasks?

For me personally 16 or 32 GB are perfectly fine, 8 GB was too little (even without VMs) and I've never needed 64 or more. So it's curious to see you are pretty much exactly the opposite.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#400

Post by andy_xor_andrew »

spenczar5 wrote: post #338
paulpan wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The iPad Pros, though?

I'm very curious how much iPad Pros sell. Out of all the products in Apple's lineup, the iPad Pro confuses me the most. You can tell what a PM inside Apple thinks the iPad Pro is for, based on the presentation: super powerful M4 chip! Use Final Cut Pro, or Garageband, or other desktop apps on the go! Etc etc.

But in reality, who actually buys them, instead of an iPad Air? Maybe some people with too much money who want the latest gadgets? Ever since they debuted, the general consensus from tech reviewers on the iPad Pro has been "It's an amazing device, but no reason to buy it if you can buy a MacBook or an iPad Air"

Apple really wants this "Pro" concept to exist for iPad Pro, like someone who uses it as their daily work surface. And maybe some people exist like that (artists? architects?) but most of the time when I see an iPad in a "pro" environment (like a pilot using it for nav, or a nurse using it for notes) they're using an old 2018 "regular" iPad.

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