It’ll be interesting to see how quickly this chip becomes available in the MacBook Air and Mac mini. So far those still have the previous M4 only.
If it doesn’t happen later this week, how long would the wait be? A few months? More?
Apple M5 chip
851–860 of 1001 posts
Re: Apple M5 chip
#852Base models only: - M1 | 5 nm | 8 (4P+4E) | GPU 7–8 | 16-core Neural | Memory Bandwidth: 68.25 GB/s | Unified Memory: 16 GB | Geekbench6 ~2346 / 8346 - M2 | 5 nm (G2) | 8 (4P+4E) | GPU 8–10 | 16-core Neural | Memory Bandwidth: 100 GB/s | Unified Memory: 24 GB | Geekbench6 ~2586 / 9672 - M3 | 3 nm (first-gen) | 8 (4P+4E) | GPU 8–10 | 16-core Neural | Memory Bandwidth: 100 GB/s | Unified Memory: 24 GB | Geekbench6 ~296…
The step down from 32GB to 24GB of unified memory is interesting. Theories? Perhaps they decided M4 allowed too much memory in the standard chip and they want to create a larger differential with Pro/Max chips? Update: I am thinking the 24GB for M5 is a typo. I see on Apple's site the 14 inch MBP can be configured optionally with 32GB of RAM.
I could be wrong about this but, if I had a guess, I'd say the 24GB M5 chips/systems exist due to binning.
Apple is designing and manufacturing a chip/chipset/system with 32GB with integrated memory. During QA, parts that have one non-conformant 8GB internal module out of the four are reused in a cheaper (but still functional) 24GB product line rather than thrown away.
Market segmentation also has its hand in how the final products are priced and sold, but my strong guess is that, if Apple could produce 32GB systems with perfect yield, they would, and the 24GB system would not exist.
Re: Apple M5 chip
#853I keep seeing all those crazy screenshots from games on Mac, and yet there are barely any big releases for this platform. I guess it benefits a whole range of software, not just games, but still that's a pity.
[deleted]
Re: Apple M5 chip
#854The M5 MacBook Pro still gets the Broadcom WiFi chip but the M5 iPad Pros get the N1 and C1X (Sweet). All in all, apple is doing some incredible things with hardware. Software teams at apple really need to get their act together. The M1 itself is so powerful that nobody really needs to upgrade that for most things most people do on their computers. Tahoe however makes my M1 Air feel sluggish doing the exact same task…
The reason for better hardware is so software can lag more.
Re: Apple M5 chip
#855Earlier quoted context omitted.
The step down from 32GB to 24GB of unified memory is interesting. Theories? Perhaps they decided M4 allowed too much memory in the standard chip and they want to create a larger differential with Pro/Max chips? Update: I am thinking the 24GB for M5 is a typo. I see on Apple's site the 14 inch MBP can be configured optionally with 32GB of RAM.
I could be wrong about this but, if I had a guess, I'd say the 24GB M5 chips/systems exist due to binning. Apple is designing and manufacturing a chip/chipset/system with 32GB with integrated memory. During QA, parts that have one non-conformant 8GB internal module out of the four are reused in a cheaper (but still functional) 24GB product line rather than thrown away. Market segmentation also has its hand in how the…
The memory is not on-die, it’s separate (completely standard) memory chips, either DDR4 or DDR5 depending on which M-series CPU you’re looking at. So binning doesn’t really apply.
Re: Apple M5 chip
#856Apple is binning the iPad Pro chips: Storage CPU ≤ 512GB 3 P-cores (and 6 E-cores) 1TB+ 4 P-cores (and 6 E-cores) https://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/specs/
The sales volumes of the 1TB+ models has got to be fairly low, which makes this fascinating. Since they are being somewhat quiet about it (rather than trumpeting "the 1TB+ models are even faster!") it suggests the P-cores don't yield well enough to support 4 P-cores in the 256GB and 512GB SKUs.
Re: Apple M5 chip
#857Earlier quoted context omitted.
The single thread performance for modern high performance CPUs are all very close to each other. Apple's latest usually has a small advantage because they're the first to use TSMC's latest nodes, which is good for something like 15-20%. The fastest multicore CPUs are the ones with a lot of cores, e.g. 64+ core Threadrippers. These have approximately the same single-core performance as everything else from the same ge…
That article points out that GB5 and GB6 test multi-core differently. The author notes that GB6 is supposed to approach performance the way most consumer programs actually work. GB5 is better suited for testing things like servers where every core is running independent tasks. The only “evidence” they give that GB6 is “trash” is that it doesn’t show increasing performance with more and more cores with certain tests.…
> The only “evidence” they give that GB6 is “trash” is that it doesn’t show increasing performance with more and more cores with certain tests. The obvious rejoinder is that GB6 is working perfectly well in testing that use case and those high core processors do not provide any benefit in that scenario.
The problem with this rejoinder is, of course, that you are then testing applications that don't use more cores while calling it a "multi-core" test. That's the purpose of the single core test.
Meanwhile "most consumer programs" do use multiple cores, especially the ones you'd actually be waiting on. 7zip, encryption, Blender, video and photo editing, code compiles, etc. all use many cores. Even the demon scourge JavaScript has had thread pools for a while now and on top of that browsers give each tab its own process.
It also ignores how people actually use computers. You're listening to music with 30 browser tabs open while playing a video game and the OS is doing updates in the background. Even if the game would only use 6 cores by itself, that's not what's happening.
Re: Apple M5 chip
#858A lot of Apple hardware is impressive on paper, but I will never buy a Mac that can't run Linux. I simply don't want to live in Apple's walled garden. Then there is the whole ARM vs x86 issue. Even if a compatible Linux distro were made, I expect to run all kinds of software on my desktop rig including games, and ARM is still a dead end for that. For laptops, it's probably a sensible choice now, but we're still far f…
Meanwhile I finally bought into apple after my nth unsuccessful attempt to break into linux. I just want a linux-like system that is not mainful to use and apple's is the closest thing that worked for me without resorting to last ditch efforts like sacrificing virgin maidens or newborn kittens on top of my Dell machine... and Apple provides one that just works ... reliably
Ha, I came crawling back to macOS after a couple of years' dalliance with Windows. It was not a good experience.
Re: Apple M5 chip
#859Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does AI performance even mean for intel based mac systems.. The last one was like 5 years ago?
Check all the comparisons on their website. They're not comparing their products to the previous gen, they're comparing them to years-old system. They could sell you a downgrade and still stay 2x M1 Pro performance (it was 4x from last year) Apple is a marketing company made to sell stuff.
> Apple is a marketing company made to sell stuff.
That's like... every company? Are you saying they don't have good tech?
Re: Apple M5 chip
#860The M5 MacBook Pro still gets the Broadcom WiFi chip but the M5 iPad Pros get the N1 and C1X (Sweet). All in all, apple is doing some incredible things with hardware. Software teams at apple really need to get their act together. The M1 itself is so powerful that nobody really needs to upgrade that for most things most people do on their computers. Tahoe however makes my M1 Air feel sluggish doing the exact same task…
Before the whole "batterygate" thing[1], there were forums and discussions on macrumors and similar inquiring about the feasibility of inserting no-op codes deep below the kernel that would kick in under certain conditions. Post-batterygate, you can't find anything NOT about batterygate when searching.
1] Which I still firmly believe WAS indeed a power-supply design failure that would have forced a massive hardware recall had they not done something (slowing down the os). I believe it encompassed everything from inaccurate CPU power estimates to something actually incorrect with the PCB design, causing brown outs - and not merely a battery-aging red herring as is the reported scandalous reason they were "caught". In fact, I think Apple is GLAD that all it amounted to was some philosophical hullabaloo about protecting your poor aging battery.
To clarify, I suspect the "aging battery" merely exposed the real issue - the incorrect PS design - which Apple successfully covered up.