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2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

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Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#741

Post by whywhywhywhy »

FreakyT wrote: post #304
nsxwolf wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why they would do this. If they just want to sell iPads, they could do that tomorrow. Just release XCode for Linux and Windows so that devs can create iOS apps and call it a day. Obviously they still intend for the Mac to remain a general purpose computer or they wouldn't be putting this much effort into it.

Exactly. They still need something to develop iOS and MacOS themselves on, so unless they want to move all their internal lower-level development over to Windows or Linux (which, IMO, doesn't seem like something Apple would do), they'll need to continue producing something resembling a general purpose computer.

Why do you think Xcode won’t ever make it to iOS?

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#742

Post by marmaduke »

mlyle wrote: post #565
marmaduke wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm my experience was that compiling C on arm was always super fast compared to x86, because the latter had much more work to do.

This doesn't align with my experience. Clang is about the same, but GCC often seems much slower emitting cross-ARM code. jar% time x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc --std=c99 -O3 -c insgps14state.c -I inc -I ../../shared/api x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc --std=c99 -O3 -c insgps14state.c -I inc -I 0.97s user 0.02s system 99% cpu 0.992 total jar% time x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc --std=c99 -O3 -c insgps14state.c -I inc -I ../../shared/api x86_64-li…

That’s interesting. I was not cross compiling so maybe the arm system I was using was just faster.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#743

Post by dolmen »

wildrhythms wrote: post #557
aculver wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Yes, it does. I use AdBlock Pro. 2. Yes, it does. I've been using Safari as my primary browser as a Rails developer for at least the past decade and have always found the developer tools at least adequate. I don't use the developer tools on other browsers heavily, so I don't know if I might be missing something.

[Edit] I'm wrong about this- "Adblock Pro no longer exists for Safari (in the form of an "official" extension)." It still exists, as "AdBlock Pro for Safari" developed by Crypto, Inc. but was not listed on Apple's extension site for some strange reason: https://apps.apple.com/us/story/id1377753262 The listed adblocker is: "AdBlock for Safari" developed by BETAFISH INC, which offers in-app purchases including "Gold Up…

I have no trust in an ad blocker extension (which has access to any site you visit) published by an entity that is in the domain of crypto currencies. An adblocker is the best way to hide malware that steals money.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#744

Post by lhl »

saagarjha wrote: post #718
lhl wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. You're not going to get 20 hours of battery life. Sorry to burst your bubble, but you're not going to get 20 hours of battery life in real world usage on the M1 either. The early tests show about 10-12h, which is the same as my (and many other) laptops under regular usage. > 2. Don't forget it's not just the M1—it's the unified memory, the 8 GPU cores and the 16-core Neural Engine. Most CPU and GPU-intensive app…

> The early tests show about 10-12h, which is the same as my (and many other) laptops under regular usage. Yeah, laptops that look like bricks. > Can you tell me what "unified memory" even is exactly? GPU shares memory with the AP > Is it LPDDR4 on a pop package On SoC, no PoP > I'm limited 16GB of memory Wait for new hardware > which I regularly go over - I am using 19GB of RAM right now just with browser tabs open…

> Yeah, laptops that look like bricks.

Eh, the laptop I'm using at the moment has a 15.6" display and 91Wh battery and is less than 100g heavier and about 1mm thicker than the 13" MBP. It's also 500g lighter than the 16" MBP. Lots of other properly tuned modern x86 laptops can perform similarly. For example the 14" 1.48kg 18mm 56Wh battery HP EliteBook 845 G7 manages >12h on NBC's wifi websurfing test: https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-EliteBook-845-G7-review-AMD...

> This isn’t how memory works :/

Fair point that free might not be the best way to measure things, I have more tabs open now but still not doing work (obviously), so let's compare:

                total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
  Mem:       65328424    26679236    31393956     1165140     7255232    36284812
  Swap:      67108860     3197072    63911788
With totaling per-process shared/private memory (I uses memstat.sh for this). And the total I get is: 18.37 GiB - lower, but actually not so far off.

This is only with a two browsers (a few hundred tabs) and some resident electron apps open, mind you. Before upgrading (w/ 16GB memory) I was often hitting swap, and now I'm not. But if you don't ever need >16GB of RAM, lucky for you I guess.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#745

Post by totalZero »

munificent wrote: post #342
xuki wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is the kind of company that will choose to slim down the laptop instead of making it 2 day battery life.

I think that's the right call, honestly. I need to recharge my own wetware at least once a day. So there is a nearly guaranteed several hour idle period where I'm not using any technology and where laptops and phones can be recharging too. I don't see much end user value in not taking advantage of that. It's like if you parked your car literally at a gas station every night anyway. Would you really care about a fuel…

Aside from being more attentive with charge, another consequence of smaller battery is that you get more cycles per a given amount of total battery usage, and shallower cycles per a fixed interval of battery usage. All else being equal, a larger battery may be able to live longer.

Personally I would like a larger battery because that means i can leave my charger at home, or even use a weaker USB-C PD on the go just to reduce the drain rate.

The problem with the fuel tank analogy is that liquid gasoline is really heavy and your energy efficiency would drop dramatically, due to lugging around an extra 80 gallons of gasoline. That's not necessarily the case with a larger battery. You still have to carry the additional battery material, but the marginal costs IMO are nowhere near as high.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#746

Post by totalZero »

jonfromsf wrote: post #667
SulfurHexaFluri wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with multi day battery life is you never get in to a routine and you get caught out every time. I had a pebble watch which had a 10 day battery life and almost every 10th day it would go flat on me mid day or I'd get a warning about low battery while I'm outside and then forget about it when I get home. Now I have an Apple Watch that lasts almost but not quite 2 days, I charge it every night and it has ne…

Kindles suffer this problem. The battery lasts forever so you never get in the habit of charging them. Then you get caught out and it's at 0% and you can't read your book. Too much battery capacity is surprisingly harmful.

This is precisely why Kindles and similar devices should (a) use battery chemistries that are power dense so that they can charge quickly, and (b) come with a wireless charging mat that you can set up on an end table wherever you like to read (or where you put all your stuff when you walk in the door).

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#747

Post by totalZero »

SulfurHexaFluri wrote: post #670
jonfromsf wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kindles suffer this problem. The battery lasts forever so you never get in the habit of charging them. Then you get caught out and it's at 0% and you can't read your book. Too much battery capacity is surprisingly harmful.

The only device that I don't have this issue with is my logitech mouse which gets 70 days on a single charge. It shows a red light on the side when its at about 2 days charge left and I usually remember to plug it in when I leave for lunch.

If your mouse is compatible with the Logitech powerplay charging mousepad, you never need to plug it in again.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#748

Post by totalZero »

JAlexoid wrote: post #289
tonyhb wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is insane perf/watt. x86 backwards compatibility may have gotten us to where we are, but it's certainly holding it back. Arm is looking great, and maybe it's time for x86 to die.

It's time for Intel and x86 to die. But I would also be a little wary, because ARM systems are way more locked down than x86 systems today.

It's time for tick-tock to die and Moore's Law to stop being the guiding light of Intel management.

Instead, they should set up two groups: one to generate new architectures for desktop and server, and another to take the best features of those architectures and make them thermally efficient for use in laptops. The development of these two products should be unconstrained by time, because as we have seen, impossible deadlines delay the possible.

In the past 10 years, most of the chips that amaze me have simply done what was already possible, just with enough thermal efficiency that they can be placed in mobile devices.

Intel dying would be horrible for the world. They have so much institutional knowledge...

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#749

Post by totalZero »

StreamBright wrote: post #384
JAlexoid wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's time for Intel and x86 to die. But I would also be a little wary, because ARM systems are way more locked down than x86 systems today.

Absolutely not. We need more competition because the #1 reason we got to this situation is mono culture and a single platform (x86). We need Apple to succeed of creating an alternative ARM based desktop/laptop platform and for more competition we could add in Mips64 from China to the mix. I am really hoping that by 2025 we are going to have 3 major platforms available for end customers, so that there is real competit…

How much innovation actually comes from China, versus just being stolen by China?

The lithography companies actually have to talk about the measures they take to stop China from stealing their IP on their earnings calls.

China is a manufacturing hub, but its (often government backed) chip companies run low-margin businesses that don't make enough money to invest heavily in R&D. Go look at Apple or Qualcomm's gross margins and compare them to Huawei or Xiaomi.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#750

Post by totalZero »

sudosysgen wrote: post #525
JAlexoid wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And where are those chips going to be made? The issue with Intel's dominance is it's complete dominance on the supply side as well. You fail to realize that this isn't like 3D printing, or other low volume manufacturing. You can't just setup a 100nm Si lithography lab in your spare room and churn out RISC-V chips. In 5 years - realistically we will have a few high performance(non-mobile) ARM chips manufactured at eco…

China already has 14nm online, and should have 7nm in a year or two, so that means that we will probably see some real RISC-V chips from there soon, if sanctions continue. So I think that we will have a four way competition between Intel, AMD, Apple, and Chinese RISC-V chips. That being said, I don't see x86 dying, I think AMD and eventually Intel when they wake up will be competitive.

When you say they "should have 7nm in a year or two," are you just banking on them copying or stealing a European-made EUV machine?

China cannot be competitive at the razor's edge if its semiconductor companies depend on promptly copying/stealing technology that European, Taiwanese, and American companies bring to market.

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