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Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

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Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#541

Post by stouset »

pxmpxm wrote: post #441
stouset wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What even is "used memory" anyway? I'm sitting here on an M1 MacBook Pro with 64GB of memory. I'm running Chrome with a few dozen tabs open, Slack, VS Code, and Terminal. Apparently 32GB of memory is being "used". Do you believe I would experience noticeable performance loss if I was running 16GB of memory?

Well yeah - getting that extra 16gb to the CPU from your SSD would take you around 4.5 seconds, versus 250 milli from RAM. Not to mention random access latency, nanos vs mics.

It makes essentially no noticeable difference.

Over 22GB of that is cache. I’m sure some of that is useful but the overwhelming majority of it is just being used because the memory is freely available so why not? If it improves performance it’s not in anything I’ve ever managed to notice between my 16GB work machine and 64GB personal one (which are used for largely similar tasks, though I’d say the work one is a bit more heavily stressed).

Sure some cleanroom laboratory benchmark will say the 64GB version is faster. And for some workloads I’m sure it’s a bigger deal. But a human just isn’t going to perceive much practical benefit from a full Chrome restart being 5% faster or whatever.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#543

Post by senttoschool »

ungerik wrote: post #542

Awesome hardware and I will get one. But interesting that with the slight price increase there has been zero progress in performance per $ since 2 years. Shows how far ahead the M1 was.

If you account for inflation, the price is quite similar.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#544

Post by znpy »

antifa wrote: post #520
znpy wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a machine to handle emails, facebook, netflix, and maybe a bit of document editing, 8GB is totally fine for that kind of usage a $750 acer/asus laptop would probably be good too, however.

If you're OK with 30 minute battery life and your CPU fan running at max decibels when trying to open a single email...

For 1/3 of the price? Sure!

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#545

Post by coldtea »

pxmpxm wrote: post #370
coldtea wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any actual, professional use will put you way north of even 16gb. Well, I use my M1 (16 GB) for heavy video editing and music sessions, plus professional programming, with IDEA, VMs, and so on. And I don't seem to ever need even close to 16GB, much less "way north", or even saw it be slow. > As I sit here and type this, my 10.15.7 Catalina desktop is sitting at 12.25Gb of used memory with 2 Edge tabs and an open Ci…

> Maybe it's time to come over to M1 and 12.4? This is the very type of bamboozlement I was alluding to - instruction set and/or silicon architecture doesn't actually change the amount of data you use. Citrix will still need to buffer the same (compressed?) 4K worth of pixels and Edge will still to load up the full DOM, cache all the sources, stand up a sandbox with javascript virtual machine etc. There's nothing mag…

Yes, "a single frame of 16 bit 8K RAW" will be the same size expanded. But on M1 it can be shared more easily with different parts of the CPU, GPU and co-processors without copying.

Even more so for other pipelines, involving CPU+GPU.

MacOS also has memory compression, assisted by the CPU.

And there are other ways an OS can use to keep memory usage lower given a different CPU architecture...

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#546

Post by coldtea »

grumpyprole wrote: post #375
coldtea wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software has only been getting more and more complex and bloated over the last 10 years That's just some handwaving complain that doesn't mean much. > What good is 16GB of super fast RAM if the machine is swapping out to disk regularly? Try - opening 2 Linux/Windows VMs on that 2012 laptop - or opening a big Logic project with 100 tracks, convolution reverbs, high end AU/VSTs, and so on - or opening and editing sev…

I don't understand the point you are trying to make here. I wish you luck getting a 2022 Apple machine with 8GB of RAM to handle 2 VMs, IntelliJ, a logic project with 100 tracks or 4K video editing. These tasks are all limited by available RAM and the available RAM has not significantly increased since 2012 (my point).

I've handled all of these. With no issue. If you mean "simultaneously" thankfully I don't edit 8K video simultaneously with programming and recoding music. I don't know anyone who does either.

My point is rather, "16GB in 2012, 16GB in 2022, no difference". And I say: try doing any of those things on your 2012 machine and a 16GB M1, and you'll immediately see the difference.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#547

Post by arvinsim »

copperx wrote: post #80
exhilaration wrote: post #30

And for the first time, MacBook Air supports fast charge for charging up to 50 percent in just 30 minutes with an optional 67W USB-C power adapter. Anybody know if the 67W USB-C power adapter is finally stock? Edit: Nope, still gotta wait a month: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MKU63AM/A/67w-usb-c-power... Other (bigger) chargers are a 2 month wait. Looks like Apple is still suffering from supply chain issues.

Is there a third-party charger that can deliver that wattage?

I have a Ugreen 4-port GaN charger(3 usb-c, 1 usb-a) that's able to provide 90w if you only use the top usb-c port.

It's cheaper than the 96w charger that came with my Macbook.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#548

Post by cassianoleal »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #536
Schiendelman wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It says “configure yours on the next step.”

Not in German, no. And even then, how would you know that ram is confugurable?

True, in the German store it says "Wähle deine Konfiguration beim nächsten Schritt."

> how would you know that ram is confugurable?

2 options:

- Scroll down a little, and under "Gemeinsamer Arbeitsspeicher" it says:

"Der M2 hat einen schnelleren Arbeits­speicher als der M1, mit 50 Prozent mehr Speicher­bandbreite. Er kann mit bis zu 24 GB konfiguriert werden – 8 GB mehr als beim M1 – für flüssigeres Multitasking und einfaches Arbeiten mit großen Dateien."

- Click on the "Wählen" button under the chosen model. It's very obvious in the next screen that you can configure RAM.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#549

Post by raihansaputra »

biztos wrote: post #525
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #473

Oh my god, that midnight colour. I just bought an M1 and knew this would be coming soon. I didn’t expect a new colour that looks so amazing though, haha. I guess I’m selling my brand new M1.

I have a friend who as of 2019 was still running her black plastic MacBook for music production. (Probably still is.) Every time I saw it I felt a little pain -- why did I buy the white one? (Which turned half yellow with time.) I guess it made it easier to give away when it got too slow for coding. I have the M1 Air and my two complaints are: no MagSafe, no SD Card. Otherwise, I love it, even though it crashes every…

man that's amazing. i revived my black macbook a few years ago but it's slow even for browsing (and outdated os).

on the new m2: i have no complaints with my current m1 (i don't miss magsafe that much?), and the increased price makes the new gen meh for me. good if you're upgrading from intel, but i'll still recommend the m1 air for the foreseeable future.

i'll say this once again: i want a 15"/16" macbook air.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#550

Post by diffeomorphism »

cassianoleal wrote: post #548
diffeomorphism wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in German, no. And even then, how would you know that ram is confugurable?

True, in the German store it says "Wähle deine Konfiguration beim nächsten Schritt." > how would you know that ram is confugurable? 2 options: - Scroll down a little, and under "Gemeinsamer Arbeitsspeicher" it says: "Der M2 hat einen schnelleren Arbeits­speicher als der M1, mit 50 Prozent mehr Speicher­bandbreite. Er kann mit bis zu 24 GB konfiguriert werden – 8 GB mehr als beim M1 – für flüssigeres Multitasking und…

> It's very obvious in the NEXT screen that you can configure RAM.

That is the whole point and I said that already...

If you look through this thread you see quite a few peopke thinking you can only get 8gb of ram because the only two models shown feature 8gb and no text next to that indicating otherwise. Only if you think that apple might be lying, you go to the next page and see that they offer more than 8.

> Scroll down a little, and...

No, scroll down a lot and then it is hidden in the fluff text. Great, doesn't change that it is missing in the central place people actually look at.

All the "well technically you can find out by jumping through these hoops" does not change that this is bad UX.

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