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16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

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Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#431

Post by JeremyNT »

rualca wrote: post #301
JeremyNT wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but chuckle whenever I read these comments on HN about how doomed Intel is. Intel just does this . Every now and then, they get so far ahead that the rest of the market just totally disintegrates, which allows them to screw around and juice up their margins while failing to actually innovate. Their brand is so strong it takes years for it to erode, even when they do suck, and when they have actual compet…

> Intel just does this. Every now and then, they get so far ahead that the rest of the market just totally disintegrates, (...) Past performance does not guarantee future results. Keep in mind you're trying to pin magical properties on a brand, and meanwhile people and technologies come and go.

> Keep in mind you're trying to pin magical properties on a brand, and meanwhile people and technologies come and go.

Sure, things change! But Intel is huge, and it's got a track record of repeatedly weathering setbacks and missteps only to come back with market dominance.

Maybe it's really going to be all about Apple and AMD while Intel plays catch-up for generations to come - I just feel like it's a bit premature to come to that conclusion.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#432

Post by andrekandre »

sudhirj wrote: post #214
aunetx wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may be wrong, but the ecosystem does not really change here right? I mean, memory management should be roughly the same between x86_64 and arm regarding the amount of ram used, so I guess 16gb of ram under old macbooks is the same as 16gb under the new ones

All else being equal, yes, but the memory is faster, closer to the chip, has less wiring to go through, and because of vertical integration they can pass by reference instead of copying values internally on the hardware. The last one is big - because all the parts of the SoC trust each other and work together they can share memory withing having to copy data over the bus. That coupled with superfast SSDs means that c…

> because of vertical integration they can pass by reference instead of copying values internally on the hardware.

got any links about that?

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#433

Post by bmurphy1976 »

JeremyNT wrote: post #269
phkahler wrote: post #9

The real competition is no longer Intel. Its AMD. Or if you're just buying Apple because you like them then there is no competition, you buy what they offer. I like fanless systems so I'll be watching Apple closely.

I can't help but chuckle whenever I read these comments on HN about how doomed Intel is. Intel just does this . Every now and then, they get so far ahead that the rest of the market just totally disintegrates, which allows them to screw around and juice up their margins while failing to actually innovate. Their brand is so strong it takes years for it to erode, even when they do suck, and when they have actual compet…

I don't know, this feels different. Intel's competition is bloodthirsty and attacking from all sides. Intel has nothing in the pipeline and just keeps dropping the ball (don't forget Intel's lack of penetration in the mobile market).

This feels more like Microsoft getting blindsided by Google, Apple and Amazon amongst others. Intel isn't going anywhere any time soon, but their reign as king of the mountain may very well be over.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#434

Post by threeseed »

Tagbert wrote: post #391
threeseed wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they didn't. There is simply too much complex, professional software that will take time to be ported to ARM versus the relative straightforward needs of entry-level users e.g. Go, Photoshop, Docker. And they need a large install base to push developers to invest the necessary resources.

Adobe has a native M1 Photoshop in beta now and plans to port Premiere after the first of the year. You may be overestimating the effort to “port” to M1. For most apps, it is just a new compile target and a bunch of regression testing.

Adobe is a top tier developer.

They get access to pre-release hardware, on-site Apple engineers and rapid fixes whenever something doesn't work.

Very different from all of the other third party developers.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#435

Post by closetohome »

danaris wrote: post #259
andrepew wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it could be a capabilities issue. An ARM equipped Mac is a non-starter for me because my workstation is driven with a dock that has 2x 4K displays connected to it, ethernet, USB hub, etc. I'm not willing to part ways with my 2nd external display and I'm sure a lot of professionals with my setup would also consider that a deal breaker. They probably wanted to get something public so developers could start cran…

You mean "the current M1-equipped Macs are a non-starter", then. I have no doubt that either the first or second generation of Apple's high-end chips will support 2 external displays.

The M1 Mac Mini also supports two displays, one of them just needs to be through HDMI.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#436

Post by [deleted] »

epistasis wrote: post #400
skrtskrt wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MS Office apps have always been (possibly intentionally?) horrifically bad on Mac. Not a great benchmark IMO. The average Joe user just uses a browser and something like Spotify. Even most word processing by college students is in Google Docs now - very few people I knew bought MS Office for their Macs when I was in college 5 years ago, even with a $99 student license through the school.

It's a perfect benchmark because even 20 years later performance is only getting worse, rather than better. Developers will use all available resources until their is pressure to be more efficient. This is not a critique of developers, this is the nature of software. Unless critical development time is spent making sure that software is responsive, it will only ever have barely acceptable performance. Which is why ne…

[deleted]

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#437

Post by wtallis »

Symmetry wrote: post #416
wtallis wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's twice the speed of one module of high-speed DDR4 memory. Mainstream consumer PC platforms all support dual-channel memory. Dual-channel DDR4-4266 would provide the same theoretical bandwidth as the M1's 128-bit wide collection of LPDDR4X-4266. Intel's LPDDR support has been lagging far behind what mobile SoCs support (largely because of Intel's 10nm troubles), but their recently-launched Tiger Lake mobile proces…

Just to be pedantic DDR4-4266 is non-standard and so won't be found in any mainstream OEM's laptops. LPDDR4X-4266, soldered to the board instead of socketed and with a lower voltage, is indeed an official thing though.

Right, JEDEC standards for DDR4 only go up to 3200. But 4266 is within the range of overclocking on desktop systems and only a few percent faster than the fastest SODIMMs on the market, so it's at least somewhat useful as a point of comparison.

LPDDR memories are developed with more of a focus on per-pin bandwidth than standard DDR because mobile devices are more constrained on pin count and power. But Apple's now shipping an LPDDR interface that's just as wide as the standard for desktops, and reaping the benefits of the extra bandwidth.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#438

Post by manigandham »

reaperducer wrote: post #187
bmurphy1976 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally this wouldn't feel so ground breaking, but the stars are in alignment and all these improvements are hitting at the same time. We're seeing years of work and investment paying off (AMD, Apple, ARM, Nvidia, Amazon), new process nodes (TSMC), and new tech (Ray Tracing, DLSS, machine learning) all hitting at the same time. And that's the big stuff! There's also the steady incremental improvements such as batter…

Ray Tracing I'm not someone into the inner-working of chips much, but is "ray tracing" a new term used for something in microprocessors now? Or is this the same graphic "ray tracing" we were doing back in the 80's on Amigas and Atari STs?

It's the same graphical ray tracing, although with many modern improvements like path tracing for randomization of the ray bounces to efficiently approximate and converge on the correct lighting, and ML-powered denoising and upscaling algorithms that take low-resolution fast rendering and transform it to higher quality and detail.

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#439

Post by [deleted] »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #333
whalesalad wrote: post #48

I love everything about the move to Apple Silicon with the exception of the decision to put memory on-die or in-package (not sure how it is configured). They call it 'Unified Memory'. It makes a lot of sense but I don't know if they are going to be able to pack enough memory in there. A lot of folks are fixated on CPU performance lately (which is rad) but I think that there is a tendency to ignore memory. I have 32gb…

I'm afraid I lost the source, but this morning I was reading about some fairly in-depth Xcode benchmarks, the dev was saying that there was almost no hit in performance when it hit swap, and speculated that Apple might be getting ready to move past the concept of RAM altogether in a few years. Sounds a little bonkers to me, but the bus to the SSD is no joke

[deleted]

Re: 16-inch MBP 2x slower than M1 MacBook Air in a real-world Rust compile

#440

Post by Eric_WVGG »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #333
whalesalad wrote: post #48

I love everything about the move to Apple Silicon with the exception of the decision to put memory on-die or in-package (not sure how it is configured). They call it 'Unified Memory'. It makes a lot of sense but I don't know if they are going to be able to pack enough memory in there. A lot of folks are fixated on CPU performance lately (which is rad) but I think that there is a tendency to ignore memory. I have 32gb…

I'm afraid I lost the source, but this morning I was reading about some fairly in-depth Xcode benchmarks, the dev was saying that there was almost no hit in performance when it hit swap, and speculated that Apple might be getting ready to move past the concept of RAM altogether in a few years. Sounds a little bonkers to me, but the bus to the SSD is no joke

here's the source of that comment: https://twitter.com/panzer/status/1328708737482121217?s=21

I'm still a little unclear on whether he means "concept of RAM" in a marketing sense, discrete RAM, or a model closer to L3 cache. regardless, pure speculation

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