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M4 Mac mini's efficiency

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#631
post #629
post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not? Having the specs and benchmark results for both CPUs in a table gives a good overview. What advantage would it bring to manually write such comparison tables?

Specifically, I don’t like them because they show really vague percentages or “scores” where it’s very unclear what specific benchmarks are being used. The benchmark bars for things like single and multi-core performance don’t break down different applications and use cases or even say which benchmarks they are referring to. This link in particular never goes deeper than Geekbench and has a bunch of comparisons to st…

> Specifically, I don’t like them because they show really vague percentages or “scores” where it’s very unclear what specific benchmarks are being used.

It think it's a good overview over various technical data and benchmark results. Benchmarks are linked.

> that shouldn’t guide purchase decisions like ... More modern manufacturing process – 3 versus 6 nanometers

Actually that's influencing buying decisions and gives an idea what kind of efficiency a CPU might be able to deliver. I have various M processor machines from Apple and a CPU on the recent 3 nanometer TSMC process has advantages over a 6 nm process. For example the newer M CPUs are more power efficient & smaller and some of that enables the M4 series of chips to be ahead of the rest in terms of efficiency. Over time other CPUs will move to such 3nm processes. I've seen that with the M4 in the iPad Pro and now with the M4 Pro in the new Macs.

> I much prefer the more in-depth tests

That serves a very different purpose. I like both in-depth tests and tabular comparisons between CPUs.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#632
post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pondering the down votes. My current theory is they are over this: > The M4 blows everything away, but isn't a general purpose machine. Perhaps that upset Apple fans. My definition of "general purpose machine" is one that I can realistically write software for. I written operating systems (with a custom network and GUI stack) in the past. Doing that requires hardware that isn't locked down, and somewhat less obvi…

I’m sorry but in what universe is writing operating systems “general purpose?” That’s about the most niche computing task I can think of.

> That’s about the most niche computing task I can think of.

You must run a lot of niche computers in that case, because every one of them has an OS, mostly specialised to their use case, written by people like me. I'd wager there are more OS's our there than paint programs. Every computing device you have runs one - watches, irrigation controllers, power box meters, high speed USB cables, modems, disk drives, USB sticks, washing machines, car ECU's (did you know your average car has over 100 computers, echo with their own OS)? Hell, even a modern super scalar CPU under the hood has a horde of smaller CPU's you aren't aware of doing their house keeping.

OS's are a bit like dirt. They are the foundation everything else stands on, but most people dismiss dirt as the thing that makes other things dirty, just as you are dismissing OS's. Just as there are almost unimaginable number of types of dirt, some that grow trees, so that can support dams, there are a huge number of OS's out there. Which means there almost certainly are far more OS programmers out there that write OS's than there are programmers who write paint programs, but it appears the paint programmers are the rock stars and we get to toil away in the dark.

You'll get no argument from me about the quality of Apple's hardware. It's stellar. The M series in particular is so good people are trying to put them to uses Apple didn't have in mind. But so far without much success, because unlike Intel's N100 it isn't designed to be a general purpose computing platform that can be put to any use you cam imagine. Instead Apple wants it's products to be locked into their ecosystem, and only put to uses they can imagine.

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