A full function row! No Magic bar! Hallelujah!
Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip
501–510 of 593 posts
Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a poor understanding of computers would be to think that speed is all that matters. > What good is 16GB of super fast RAM if the machine is swapping out to disk regularly? If the swapping is fast enough not to be noticeable, then speed is all that matters. In fact, if SSDs were about as fast as RAM, we wouldn't need RAM at all! The whole reason why we have all these layers of memory (disk, RAM, L3, L2 and L1 cache,…
You’re describing your results on an Intel Mac. They aren’t relevant to this particular bit of the discussion. And, owning two different M1 laptops, I concur that the relationship between the RAM and SSD and M1 SoC yields fundamentally different results from prior hardware. The result is stunning.
What does the OS do if the application demands more than 8gb of memory? I have use cases in the 14gb memory range for a single threaded application. Would the application crash since its not built to anticipate swapping?
Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip
#503Earlier quoted context omitted.
I own a 12" Retina MacBook and I am sad that none of the new laptops can really replace it. They're all significantly larger and heavier. The new MacBook Air is a replacement for the old MacBook Air, not the MacBook. It's a shame Apple have given up on the ultra-ultra-lightweight MacBook concept, considering that the M1 would be perfect for it.
To be honest I don’t think the Mx platform in the 12 inch form factor will be good enough to be in an ultra lightweight class. I also own a 12 inch retina and while I really like that it is slient and very lightweight we probably need another generation to get that far to have good passive cooling and performance given that the form factor will have to put the battery and motherboard on top of each other. A bezel shr…
Given that the M1 doesn't throttle in a 10 inch ipad with passive cooling I think Apple absolutely could build a M1/M2 11 inch air or 12 inch macbook. They either haven't gotten to it or are deliberately avoiding going down into ipad size territory with macbooks.
Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip
#504Almost 10 years ago we purchased a MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD for approx 2K UK pounds. It's really surprising and disappointing that a decade later these same specs essentially cost the same!
I see your point. Essentially, you get a fast computer for contemporary, real world use, for the same price as 10 years ago. Though if you ignore the specs, the M2 air (for 1500 so you get the same storage space), is probably equivalent – 8GB unified RAM and fast SSD seems equivalent to 16GB ram from decade ago. Together with the improved software capabilities, I think the overall "experience" is "better" and you get…
How is 8gb of ram equivocal to 16gb of ram? You can hold fewer things in memory. Certain programs respond to that by crashing to desktop. Frankly the speed of memory is a lot less relevant to most users compared to how much crap you can shovel into memory and not start to see programs crash to desktop.
Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
What relationship would that be? The DDR4x ram in the M1 can hit 70gb/sec, compared to 7gb/sec and ~3.5gb/sec average for the NVME. There's no amount of magic to get around those facts.
I'm a professional systems programmer. I agree with everything you're saying, in principle. Except I have two M1 MacBook Pros (one 16GB, one 64GB). I frankly don't notice the difference between the two on any workload. This involves compiling multiple projects, running multiple docker containers locally in virtual machines, running VS Code, Slack, Chrome, and other productivity tools. These machines frankly feel like…
The RTX 3080 is a massive power hog. All that energy has to be dissipated somehow.
It's really impressive what Apple has managed to do with the M1 and M2 chips. If an Apple M chip ever offers comparable performance on AAA games, I'll get rid of my desktop computer.
Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
My spinning-rust 24” iMac from 2011 mostly manages to trundle along with Linux Mint on it for my partner to use. LibreOffice and Firefox for web browsing, mostly. Anything more than that and it chokes. Too many tabs, it chokes. Too many software updates, woo boy does she choke. That poor machine!
I replaced the HD on my 2009 24" iMac with an SSD some years ago and upped it from 4GB to 8GB. A great performance boost. Old OS but it still works well for me.
I'd love to do the 4GB to 8GB upgrade too, though I've no idea how feasible it even is to find RAM that old in 2022!
Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be honest I don’t think the Mx platform in the 12 inch form factor will be good enough to be in an ultra lightweight class. I also own a 12 inch retina and while I really like that it is slient and very lightweight we probably need another generation to get that far to have good passive cooling and performance given that the form factor will have to put the battery and motherboard on top of each other. A bezel shr…
Given that the M1 doesn't throttle in a 10 inch ipad with passive cooling I think Apple absolutely could build a M1/M2 11 inch air or 12 inch macbook. They either haven't gotten to it or are deliberately avoiding going down into ipad size territory with macbooks.
Or they just found that there's no enough market for lightweight Macbook, similar story as iPhone mini series. It's sad.
Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t really see a difference in trackpads anymore. It used to be a huge deal. The old windows laptops were garbage. Now it’s more or less the same. People keep talking about the apple ones but side by side it’s the same same for general use.
Haptic touchpads vs a hinge click is a big deal. I switched to a magic trackpad 2 because of RSI in my right hand and no other trackpad is close. Side note, massive praise to anyone who has contributed to the windows drivers for the apple trackpads. They are amazing. https://github.com/imbushuo/mac-precision-touchpad
I really want laptop manufacturers to copy Apple's "click-everywhere" feature (called Force Touch). Maybe patented?
Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably because a 32gb limit would cannibalize the MacBook Pro with M1 pro/max.
I think it's 3 memory buses because it's rated at 50% more memory bandwidth than the M1.
50% improvement should be by adopting LPDDR5 that they announced. I suspect they switched from 64Gb to 96Gb DRAM chip stack.
Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip
#510Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can run my Samsung CRG9 (a 49” UW monitor) with one of my M1 machines (an original 13” Pro w/ M1) at 120hz with no issues, FWIW. I suspect it would probably have issues running 4K @120hz however.
Regular 4k@120hz is totally doable on M1 Max MBP, can confirm that myself. Hard to answer the question regarding 4k+ ultrawides @120hz though, primarily because i dont think there is a display like that in existence yet (googling didn't net much success there for me). The only ultrawide 4k+ display i found that is above 60hz is the LG 5k ultrawide with thunderbolt 4 support, and it maxes out at 70hz (and M1 Max MBP s…
IIRC M1 don't support DisplayPort DSC that is needed to handle 4K+ AND 120HZ+. I wish M2 supports DSC to handle this.