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M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

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Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#711

Post by thewileyone »

The M1 sounds great and the fundamental changes in the architecture makes so much sense that you wonder why Intel and AMD didn't think of it.

However, only macos can run on the M1 because these fundamental changes require a huge OS overhaul. Yes, a lot of work like a hypervisor type layer must have been put in so that existing 3rd party apps can run. But the M1 is optimized to Apple's common denominator, not anyone else's.

Ultimately, the real question is whether the M1 will be opened for Windows or Linux to build on. I doubt it.

Intel and AMD will just have to build their own heterogeneous processor and Windows and Linux will have to build a hypervisor layer or just go native.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#712

Post by anta40 »

I mostly work on Android apps (and ocasionally backend). Just started learning iOS dev.

I think overall the responses from software developers about M1 is positive. Yes, I also have read steipete's post: https://steipete.com/posts/apple-silicon-m1-a-developer-pers...

Perhaps next year the ARM port of Android Studio is already available? :D

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#713

Post by threeseed »

sudosysgen wrote: post #706
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Exactly how is it much better? It's not the first chip with a 15-25W TDP. When compared to other chips with such a TDP, it's incrementally faster in single core and it trades blows in multicore. It does this at a process node ahead.* Ok. Where can I buy a laptop with similar performance, battery life and cooling then? Same arguments came out with the first iPhone. “It’s just a big screen! Other phones have a big sc…

Similar performance and cooling? Buy a Ryzen 4800U laptop. Similar battery life? A good part of it is down to the software, sadly. For the trade-off of 8 instead of 12 hours of battery life, you'll have a repairable and open computer. Seems competitive. You also get upgradeable RAM, a GPU that is actually useful because it has drivers for a useful API, and much more I/O.

1) M1 is significantly faster than 4800U at single-core.

2) M1 is up to 20 hours of battery life.

3) Not the software since the existing Intel based Macs share the same OS.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#714

Post by jessaustin »

YesThatTom2 wrote: post #615

Patrick Moorhead is a stock analyst for the chip industry. In Wall Street terms, he is aligned with Intel others who are shaking in their boots right now. He's not going to say that the M1 is great until Intel/NVidia/etc. allow him to. These pundits know which side of his bread is buttered. He knows that his clients were caught off-guard by the M1 announcement. He needs to give his clients enough time to sell their I…

Is that the same John C Dvorak who is the older and crotchetier of the "two crotchety old men" podcast who spend half of each show hyping their "Amway meets PBS meets LARPing" monetization scheme? That podcast would actually be listenable if they just ran some ads... Still, he has landed on his feet, even if he no longer claims any particular tech expertise.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#715

Post by stouset »

thayne wrote: post #682
mikepurvis wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It proves the viability of ARM for desktops, laptops, and probably eventually servers too. Intel having been humiliated by this will loosen their grip on OEMs who will now be under pressure in the inevitable rush to produce appealing, performance-oriented ARM laptops, as the current market has basically been Chromebooks and some half-hearted Windows ARM tablets, all based on chips adapted from phones. And of course t…

ARM is already pretty viable for servers. At least viable enough that most of the major cloud providers have arm64 based instances available.

I think there’s a qualitative difference here between viable (which is where we’re currently at) and utterly dominant (which is where I suspect we’ll be in five or so years).

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#716

Post by jessaustin »

thayne wrote: post #673
freeAgent wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s not true. Most people buy their computers because of the price, style, and easily observable features (not necessarily performance, certainly not the type of difference that only shows up in benchmarks). Hacker News commenters are far from your average PC buyer. I’m sure the M1 and future desktop Apple silicon will have an impact, but it’s far from a killing stroke. If people only cared about maximum perform…

And not all HN readers are won over either. I for one am not willing to switch to Apple's closed ecosystem for a chip that is a little faster. Or even a lot faster.

Eventually someone will build a laptop using chips like this and an acceptable OS.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#717

Post by ogre_codes »

the_af wrote: post #698
ogre_codes wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone needs to spend the time/ money to design this M1 killer CPU. There is very little money in delivering powerful Linux laptops. ARM based Linux server CPUs? Very likely. Low end/ Chromebook style laptop ARM CPUs, Already exist. Performant ARM CPUs designed for laptops? I expect you just gotta hope Windows on ARM takes off or start porting Linux to M1 Macs.

> Performant ARM CPUs designed for laptops? I expect you just gotta hope Windows on ARM takes off or start porting Linux to M1 Macs. What makes you think Windows won't take off on ARM? In any case, if it can be done -- i.e. if there aren't locked down specs -- you can bet Linux will be ported to M1 Macs.

> What makes you think Windows won't take off on ARM?

I have no idea if it will or not. Microsoft's current strategy on ARM seems pretty unlikely to succeed though.

> In any case, if it can be done -- i.e. if there aren't locked down specs -- you can bet Linux will be ported to M1 Macs.

I'm confident (and hopeful) we will see an M series Linux port. How good it will be without support from Apple is questionable. The current state of Linux on Mac doesn't exactly inspire hope.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#718

Post by ENOTTY »

sudosysgen wrote: post #708
coldtea wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exactly how is it much better? It's not the first chip with a 15-25W TDP. When compared to other chips with such a TDP, it's incrementally faster in single core and it trades blows in multicore. It does this at a process node ahead. Being a process node ahead is already "much better", and IS a feat. Where are the process node ahead chips from the competitors? On top of that, it's Apple's own SoC design, it has its…

> Being a process node ahead is already "much better", and IS a feat. Where are the process node ahead chips from the competitors? Not if you still don't beat them cleanly. The end result is what matters. Also, being able to pay more than other people isn't a technical feat. > On top of that, it's Apple's own SoC design, it has its own GPU design and co-processors, tons of work into making speed optimizations all aro…

> they still carry all the x86 baggage in microcode, since tons of bad decisions leading to things like Spectra. ARM doesn't

> AMD is not affected by Spectre

This is not true. AMD, ARM, Intel, and IBM are all affected by Spectre (Bounds Check Bypass) and that particular variant has not been fixed in hardware, and short of disabling speculative execution or radical changes to ISA or microarchitecture, is likely to never be fixed purely in hardware.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.05178.pdf

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#719

Post by war1025 »

thayne wrote: post #673
freeAgent wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s not true. Most people buy their computers because of the price, style, and easily observable features (not necessarily performance, certainly not the type of difference that only shows up in benchmarks). Hacker News commenters are far from your average PC buyer. I’m sure the M1 and future desktop Apple silicon will have an impact, but it’s far from a killing stroke. If people only cared about maximum perform…

And not all HN readers are won over either. I for one am not willing to switch to Apple's closed ecosystem for a chip that is a little faster. Or even a lot faster.

Up until two days ago, I was using a 6 year old laptop with a Celeron processor as my main home computer.

I think the whole Apple Silicon thing seems really interesting, but honestly, the only thing I do that is remotely taxing on decade-old hardware is load Facebook.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#720

Post by desmap »

A naïve question: Couldn't other ARM licensees just integrate RAM into the SoC like Apple did and come easily close to M1' performance? With easily I mean in a doable manner within 1-2 years. I know there are more tricks/magic involved but just to start somewhere.
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