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Apple introduces M4 chip

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Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#431

Post by ProllyInfamous »

phren0logy wrote: post #349
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…

I have a MacBook M2 and a PC with a 4090 ("just" one of them) - the VRAM barrier is usually what gets me with the 4090 when I try to run local LLMs (not train them). For a lot of things, my MacBook is fast enough, and with more RAM, I can run bigger models easily. And, it's portable and sips battery. The marketing hype is overblown, but for many (most? almost all?) people, the MacBook is a much more useful choice.

Expanding on this, I have an M2Pro (mini) & a tower w/GPU... but for daily driving the M2Pro idles at 15-35W whereas the tower idles at 160W.

Under full throttle/load, even though the M2Pro is rated as less-performant, it is only using 105W — the tower/GPU are >450W!

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#432

Post by metaltyphoon »

downrightmike wrote: post #196
grzeshru wrote: post #105

Are these M-class chips available to be purchased on Digi-Key and Mouser? Do they have data sheets and recommended circuitry? I’d love to play with one just to see how difficult it is to integrate compared to, say, an stm8/32 or something.

lol

Legit made me chuckle

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#433

Post by jacurtis »

mcv wrote: post #420
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) ?

I don't know, but the M3 MBP I got from work already gives the impression of using barely any power at all. I'm really impressed by Apple Silicon, and I'm seriously reconsidering my decision from years ago to never ever buy Apple again. Why doesn't everybody else use chips like these?

I have an M3 for my personal laptop and an M2 for my work laptop. I get ~8 hours if I'm lucky on my work laptop, but I have attributed most of that battery loss to all the "protection" software they put on my work laptop that is always showing up under the "Apps Using Significant Power" category in the battery dropdown.

I can have my laptop with nothing on screen, and the battery still points to TrendMicro and others as the cause of heavy battery drain while my laptop seemingly idles.

I recently upgraded my personal laptop to the M3 MacBook pro and the difference is astonishing. I almost never use it plugged in because I genuinely get close to that 20 hour reported battery life. Last weekend I played a AAA Video Game through Xbox Cloud Gaming (awesome for mac gamers btw) and with essentially max graphics (rendered elsewhere and streamed to me of course), I got sucked into a game for like 5 hours and lost only 8% of my battery during that time, while playing a top tier video game! It really blew my mind. I also use GoLand IDE on there and have managed to get a full day of development done using only about 25-30% battery.

So yeah, whatever Apple is doing, they are doing it right. Performance without all the spyware that your work gives you makes a huge difference too.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#434

Post by kjkjadksj »

slashdev wrote: post #72

I've got a Mac Pro paperweight because the motherboard went. It's going to the landfill. I can't even sell it for parts because I can't erase the SSD. If they didn't solder everything to the board you could actually repair it. When I replace my current Dell laptop, it will be with a repairable framework laptop.

Even repairable only buys you a few years repairability that actually makes sense. For example something similar happened to me, lost the mac mobo on a pre solder addiction model. Only thing is guess how much a used mobo is for an old mac: nearly as much as the entire old mac in working shape. It makes no sense to repair it once the computer hits a certain age between the prices of oem parts and the depreciation of computers.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#436

Post by jhickok »

mcv wrote: post #420
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) ?

I don't know, but the M3 MBP I got from work already gives the impression of using barely any power at all. I'm really impressed by Apple Silicon, and I'm seriously reconsidering my decision from years ago to never ever buy Apple again. Why doesn't everybody else use chips like these?

I think the market will move to using chips like this, or at least have additional options. The new Snapdragon SOC is interesting, and I would suspect we could see Google and Microsoft play in this space at some point soon.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#437

Post by ilikehurdles »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #13

The 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/

The iPod classic had 160 GB of storage fifteen years ago.

No device should be measuring storage in the gigabytes in 2024. Let alone starting at $1000 offering only 256GB. What ridiculousness.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#438

Post by kjkjadksj »

stonemetal12 wrote: post #209
Lalabadie wrote: post #22

Key values in the press release: - Up to 1.5x the CPU speed of iPad Pro's previous M2 chip - Octane gets up to 4x the speed compared to M2 - At comparable performance, M4 consumes half the power of M2 - High-performance AI engine, that claims 60x the speed of Apple's first engine (A11 Bionic)

Apple claimed M3 was 1.35 the speed of the M2. So the M3 vs M4 comparison isn't that impressive. Certainly not bad by any means, just pointing out why it is compared to the M2 here.

People make this comment after every single m series release. Its true for intel too, worse even. Changes between like 8th and 9th and 10th gen were like nill, small clock bump same igpu even.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#440

Post by e44858 »

_akhe wrote: post #376
marinhero wrote: post #318

I get frustrated seeing this go into the iPad and knowing that we can't get a shell, and run our own binaries there. Not even as a VM like [UserLAnd]( https://userland.tech ). I could effectively travel with one device less in my backpack but instead I have to carry two M chips, two displays, batteries, and so on... It's great to see this tech moving forward but it's frustrating to not see it translate into a more si…

Think the play is "consumer AI". Would you really write code on an iPad? And if you do, do you use an external keyboard?

Tablets are the perfect form factor for coding because you can easily mount them in an ergonomic position like this: https://mgsloan.com/posts/comfortable-airplane-computing/

Most laptops have terrible keyboards so I'd be using an external one either way.

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