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Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

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Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#901

Post by ohgodplsno »

simonh wrote: post #507
lisper wrote: post #105

"Apple’s Commitment to the Environment" > Today, Apple is carbon neutral for global corporate operations, and by 2030, plans to have net-zero climate impact across the entire business, which includes manufacturing supply chains and all product life cycles. This also means that every chip Apple creates, from design to manufacturing, will be 100 percent carbon neutral. But what they won't do is put the chip in an expan…

>so that you don't have to discard and replace it every few years Except you and I surely must know that's not true, that their machines have industry leading service lifetimes, and correspondingly high resale values as a result. Yes some pro users replace their machines regularly but those machines generally go on to have long productive lifetimes. Many of these models are also designed to be highly recyclable when…

> their machines have industry leading service lifetimes

Please stop copying marketing content, it really doesn't help your argument.

Additionally, macbooks have high failure rates, especially with keyboards in the previous generations, but also overheating because of their dreadful airflow. Time will tell what happens to the M1, but Apple's hardware is just as (un)reliable as say, Dell's.

No, personal experience isn't data.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#902

Post by davedx »

RantyDave wrote: post #893
ed_elliott_asc wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely the shared ram between cpu and gpu is the killer feature - zero copy and up to 64gb ram available for the gpu!

Yes, but it's a double edged sword. It means you're using relatively slow ram for the GPU, and that the GPU takes memory bandwidth away from the CPU as well. Traditionally we've ended up with something that looks like Intel's kinda crappy integrated video. The copying process was never that much of a big deal, but paying for 8GB of graphics ram really is.

> The copying process was never that much of a big deal

I don't know about that? Texture memory management in games can be quite painful. You have to consider different hardware setups and being able to keep the textures you need for a certain scene in memory (or not, in which case, texture thrashing).

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#903

Post by kergonath »

viktorcode wrote: post #771
zaptrem wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we can get an actual Windows on ARM ecosystem started things will get really exciting really quickly.

There still will be a question of porting the bulk of Windows software to Arm.

If Apple can implement Rosetta 2, then surely Microsoft can do it as well (they’ve actually done it, just with terrible performances).

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#904

Post by jinto36 »

growt wrote: post #832
ashtonkem wrote: post #801

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm still a bit sad that the era of "general purpose computing" where CPU can do all workloads is coming to an end. You'd have to be extremely old to remember that era. Lots of stuff important to making computers work got split off into separate chips away from the CPU pretty early into mass computing, such as sound, graphics, and networking. We've also been sending a lot of compute from the CPU into the GPU as lat…

Does an Intel 286 without coprocessor count? C64? I remember those, but I wouldn't say I'm extremely old (just regular old).

The C64 had the famous SID chip (MOS 6581) for sound. Famous in the chiptune scene at any rate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_6581

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#905

Post by pier25 »

noahtallen wrote: post #746
pier25 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All good points but: 1) In the pro market (audio, video, 3d, etc) performance is very relevant. 2) Battery time is important to all types of laptop users. 3) Apple is certainly working on more desktop alternatives. 4) You don't need move all your devices into the closed ecosystem just because you use a Mac. Also, some people just don't want to use macOS on principle, but I'm guessing this is a minority. > AMD's produ…

My counterpoint is that for the pro market, portability and power efficiency are not always that important. Yes, for plenty of people. But many pros are sitting at a desk all day and don’t need to move their computer around. For these users, you’re not comparing M1 max to laptop CPUs/GPUs, but to the flagship AMD/Intel CPUs. Based on early results from the M1 max on geekbench, the 11900K and 5950X are still better. A…

True, but there are plenty of pros that need mobility (eg: photographers, musicians, designers, etc).

Also there are many pros (most?) that do not have super high performance requirements and would rather use a laptop they can also use for casual use.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#906

Post by pier25 »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #843
pier25 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All good points but: 1) In the pro market (audio, video, 3d, etc) performance is very relevant. 2) Battery time is important to all types of laptop users. 3) Apple is certainly working on more desktop alternatives. 4) You don't need move all your devices into the closed ecosystem just because you use a Mac. Also, some people just don't want to use macOS on principle, but I'm guessing this is a minority. > AMD's produ…

> My desktop Windows PC has a 3700X which was very impressive at the time, but it is roughly similar in perf to the "low end" M1 aimed at casual users. Still, your desktop can play AAA games at 120Hz with an appropriate GPU attached. No M1 device can do that. So once more, performance doesn't mean anything if you can't do what you want with it.

Exactly, but the Ryzen machine I use mostly for music production.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#907

Post by GeekyBear »

jsjohnst wrote: post #870
wlesieutre wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Single connector, the 3.1 spec goes up to 5A at 48V. You need new cables with support for the higher voltages, but your "multiple plugs for more power" laptop is exactly the sort of device it's designed for. It was announced earlier this year, so not in wide use yet. PDF warning: https://usb.org/sites/default/files/2021-05/USB%20PG%20USB%2...

I’ve not seen any manufacturer even announce they were going to make a supported cable yet, let alone seen one that does. I might’ve missed it though. This will only make the hell of USB-C cabling worse imho.

The USB Implementers Forum announced a new set of cable markings for USB 4 certified cables that will combine information on the maximum supported data rate and maximum power delivery for a given cable.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#908

Post by neogodless »

6a74 wrote: post #790
neogodless wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The M1 Max starts at $2700 for the 16" 10-core CPU, 24-core GPU. The comparison to higher end graphics uses the M1 Max 32-core GPU which starts at $3500. I'm not seeing a way for a Mac Mini to have the M1 Max, and still be priced below $1000.

While not that big of difference, the 14" is a little cheaper: * The 14" MBP with M1 Max 10-core CPU, 24-core GPU, 32gb memory is $2,900 * The 14" MBP with M1 Max 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 32gb memory is $3,100. The Mac mini with the Max variant chip will certainly be more than $1,000. But I expect it will be more reasonable than the MBPs, maybe $2,100 for the 32-core GPU version with 32gb of memory. That's how much…

The point being that the cheapest 32-core GPU is $3,100, for competing with an RTX 3080 mobile that's constrained to about 105W (before it starts to pull ahead of the 32-core GPU in the M1 Max).

Overall it's just a silly premise that a sub-$1000 Mac Mini "would end up being the best gaming PC you could buy." That comment speaks to either not knowing the pricing structure here, or misunderstanding the performance comparisons.

A mid-to-low end desktop GPU pulls closer to 150-200W, and is not part of the comparisons here. And as Apple increases the performance of their chips, they also increase the price. So unless they start having 3 chips with the cheapest one being less than $1000 and massively ahead of desktop GPUs while pulling less than 50W, it's not going to happen. I don't see it happening in the next 5 years, and meanwhile Nvidia and AMD will continue their roadmap of releasing more powerful GPUs.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#909

Post by piva00 »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #901
simonh wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>so that you don't have to discard and replace it every few years Except you and I surely must know that's not true, that their machines have industry leading service lifetimes, and correspondingly high resale values as a result. Yes some pro users replace their machines regularly but those machines generally go on to have long productive lifetimes. Many of these models are also designed to be highly recyclable when…

> their machines have industry leading service lifetimes Please stop copying marketing content, it really doesn't help your argument. Additionally, macbooks have high failure rates, especially with keyboards in the previous generations, but also overheating because of their dreadful airflow. Time will tell what happens to the M1, but Apple's hardware is just as (un)reliable as say, Dell's. No, personal experience isn…

> No, personal experience isn't data.

Do you have data to support your statement?

> Apple's hardware is just as (un)reliable as say, Dell's.

When I had access to reports from IT on a previous job (5k+ employees, most on MacBooks) Apple was definitely much more reliable than the Dell Windows machines in use. More reliable than the ThinkPads as well but this is data from one company, unsure how it compares to other large orgs.

Not only more reliable but customer service was much faster and better with Apple computers than Dell's.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#910

Post by halo37253 »

kmeisthax wrote: post #607
hatsubai wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another anecdote from someone who is also in the music production scene - 32GB tended to be the "sweet spot" in my personal case for the longest time, but I'm finding myself hitting the limits more and more as I continue to add more orchestral tracks which span well over 100 tracks total in my workflows. I'm finding I need to commit and print a lot of these. Logic's little checker in the upper right showing RAM, Disk…

I know the main reason why the Mac Pro has options for LRDIMMs for terabytes of RAM is specifically for audio production, where people are basically using their system memory as cache for their entire instrument library. I have to wonder how Apple plans to replace the Mac Pro - the whole benefit of M1 is that gluing the memory to the chip (in a user-hostile way) provides significant performance benefits; but I don't…

I think we'd probably see apple use the fast and slow ram method that old computers used back in the 90's.

16-32GB of RAM on the SOC, with DRAM sockets for usage past the built in amount.

Though by the time we see an ARM MacPro they might move to stacked DRAM on the SOC. But i'd really think two tier memory system would be apple's method of choice.

I'd also expect a dual SOC setup.

So I don't expect to see that anytime soon.

I'd love to get my hands on a Mac Mini with the M1 Max.

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