M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores • Hacker News Board

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#81

Post by user_7832 » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

datpiff wrote: post #77

user_7832 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While some engineering compromises I can understand, most appear to simply be anti-consumer/cash-grabs. Need more than 8gb ram? Hope you've got sufficient money. Want a high refresh rate screen present in cheap android phones? Sorry not for our base models.

> Want a high refresh rate screen present in cheap android phones? What is this for? Games? I avoided this to save money the last time I bought a phone. I honestly can't think of use case where a phone display needs to update higher than 60 Hz

High refresh rates aren't just for games, they make the entire interface smoother. Things like frame rate or latency are quality of life things that you don't need, but once you upgrade, the difference becomes clear. Sort of like going from a slowly accelerating station wagon to a Porsche/sports car even when (capped by the speed limit) if you've experienced that. Hopefully someone else has a better analogy.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#82

Post by euazOn » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 4:47 PM UTC

asylteltine wrote: post #67

And yet the air can’t support more than one monitor. I know Apple is a small company with only a few engineers so it must have been too hard. Sarcasm obviously. As an Apple enthusiast it’s so annoying how they sniff farts.

It sucks but at least DisplayLink works well enough. Driving 4 monitors this way with my M1 Mac Air with no issues.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#83

Post by kylec » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 4:49 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #71

asylteltine wrote: post #67

And yet the air can’t support more than one monitor. I know Apple is a small company with only a few engineers so it must have been too hard. Sarcasm obviously. As an Apple enthusiast it’s so annoying how they sniff farts.

The Air is not the computer for people who use a lot of external monitors. 99.9%+ of MBAir users will never connect even one external monitor. They make a small MacBook Pro that is suited for that task.

You need to spend a minimum of $2000 though, the new $1600 MacBook Pro also only supports one external display.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#84

Post by user_7832 » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 4:49 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #76

Detrytus wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet it's a dick move from Apple to artificially limit number of external screens supported.

Lots of compromises are made to get the Air to the size, weight, and most importantly, price point (ie sub-$1k) that it is. It is Apple’s best selling computer by quite a bit. They sell metric assloads of the $999 base model each fall when school starts. IMO the $999 one (or $899 with education discount) is literally the best price:perf ratio of any computer available today or at any time in my recent memory. It’s as…

> Lots of compromises are made to get the Air to the size, weight, and most importantly, price point (ie sub-$1k) that it is.

> IMO the $999 one (or $899 with education discount) is literally the best price:perf ratio of any computer available today or at any time in my recent memory. It’s astounding how good it is for that price.

It is possible for your comment to be correct while the poster above is also correct. The M chips are amazing, but let's not pretend that Apple doesn't knowingly gimp the hardware to upsell the more expensive versions.

"But that would make it more expensive."

Yes it would... by pennies. It is a bit ridiculous to sell a phone as expensive as the current iphones and limit them to USB 2.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#85

Post by varispeed » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 4:50 PM UTC

user_7832 wrote: post #72

asylteltine wrote: post #67

And yet the air can’t support more than one monitor. I know Apple is a small company with only a few engineers so it must have been too hard. Sarcasm obviously. As an Apple enthusiast it’s so annoying how they sniff farts.

While some engineering compromises I can understand, most appear to simply be anti-consumer/cash-grabs. Need more than 8gb ram? Hope you've got sufficient money. Want a high refresh rate screen present in cheap android phones? Sorry not for our base models.

Even the lowest tier models probably beat any PC laptop when it comes to usability and comfort though.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#86

Post by Keyframe » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 4:50 PM UTC

cubefox wrote: post #3

This seems to be a lot of effort to rationalize the surprisingly small performance increase from M2 to M3. Initially the assumption was that M2 to M3 would be a bigger step than M1 to M2, not a smaller one. Perhaps TSMC 3nm is showing the limits of scaling?

Everytime Apple oversells there are apologists putting a spin on it. Nothing new to see.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#87

Post by masklinn » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 4:51 PM UTC

user_7832 wrote: post #81

datpiff wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Want a high refresh rate screen present in cheap android phones? What is this for? Games? I avoided this to save money the last time I bought a phone. I honestly can't think of use case where a phone display needs to update higher than 60 Hz

High refresh rates aren't just for games, they make the entire interface smoother. Things like frame rate or latency are quality of life things that you don't need , but once you upgrade, the difference becomes clear. Sort of like going from a slowly accelerating station wagon to a Porsche/sports car even when (capped by the speed limit) if you've experienced that. Hopefully someone else has a better analogy.

More importantly VFR is not useful for just high refresh rates. I would argue that for most people on a phone it's the least useful part of the thing.

Instead VFR allows saving battery by slowing down the refresh rates, down to as low as 1FPS for static or high latency content. That's part of why always on display is only available on the 15 Pro: at 60Hz it's a battery killer.

> Sort of like going from a slowly accelerating station wagon to a Porsche/sports car even when (capped by the speed limit) if you've experienced that.

So... functionally useless.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#88

Post by varispeed » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 4:51 PM UTC

datpiff wrote: post #77

user_7832 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While some engineering compromises I can understand, most appear to simply be anti-consumer/cash-grabs. Need more than 8gb ram? Hope you've got sufficient money. Want a high refresh rate screen present in cheap android phones? Sorry not for our base models.

> Want a high refresh rate screen present in cheap android phones? What is this for? Games? I avoided this to save money the last time I bought a phone. I honestly can't think of use case where a phone display needs to update higher than 60 Hz

I can certainly see a difference between 60Hz and say 120Hz. The latter is way easier on the eye.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#89

Post by Ographer » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 4:51 PM UTC

euazOn wrote: post #82

asylteltine wrote: post #67

And yet the air can’t support more than one monitor. I know Apple is a small company with only a few engineers so it must have been too hard. Sarcasm obviously. As an Apple enthusiast it’s so annoying how they sniff farts.

It sucks but at least DisplayLink works well enough. Driving 4 monitors this way with my M1 Mac Air with no issues.

Can you name or link any specific hardware or software you're using? Last time I looked into how to run 2 monitors on my M1 Air I gave up after seeing $400 docks that seemed to have performance issues for some people.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#90

Post by sneak » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 4:51 PM UTC

user_7832 wrote: post #84

sneak wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of compromises are made to get the Air to the size, weight, and most importantly, price point (ie sub-$1k) that it is. It is Apple’s best selling computer by quite a bit. They sell metric assloads of the $999 base model each fall when school starts. IMO the $999 one (or $899 with education discount) is literally the best price:perf ratio of any computer available today or at any time in my recent memory. It’s as…

> Lots of compromises are made to get the Air to the size, weight, and most importantly, price point (ie sub-$1k) that it is. > IMO the $999 one (or $899 with education discount) is literally the best price:perf ratio of any computer available today or at any time in my recent memory. It’s astounding how good it is for that price. It is possible for your comment to be correct while the poster above is also correct. T…

Generally speaking, people don’t use the port on an iPhone for anything other than charging. The fact that it supports USB v-anything is mostly unnecessary cost.

If you are thinking in any way whatsoever about the non-wireless data transfer speeds on your phone, you are not the market or user it was designed for. Same goes for external monitors on an MBA.