Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

M4 MacBook Pro

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

971–980 of 1001 posts

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#971

Post by chipdart »

bluSCALE4 wrote: post #661
the_king wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly my point. Saying something is the fastest ever is marketing code (at least to me) for minor improvement over the previous generation. If you're 30% faster than the previous generation, I'd rather see that because my assumption is it's 5%.

Yeah, better than the glaring, 10x better than i7 Intel Mac. Like that's even a valid point of reference.

> Yeah, better than the glaring, 10x better than i7 Intel Mac. Like that's even a valid point of reference.

The last Intel macbook pros were released 4 years ago. Their owners are starting to shop around for replacements. Their question will be "will the expense be worth it?"

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#972

Post by chipdart »

zamadatix wrote: post #914
KeplerBoy wrote: post #853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how reliable geekbench tests are. Afaik it's the most common benchmark run on apple devices, so apple has a great interest in making sure their newest chips perform great on the test. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the geekbench developers are heavily supported by apple's own performance engineers and that testing might not be as objective or indicative of real world perf as one would hope.

Wouldn't it be more surprising to you Apple has been selling 4 generations of the M series to great acclaim on the performance but it all turned out to be a smoke and mirrors show because the hardware is optimized for one particular benchmark they didn't even reference in their comparisons? From the data side: the M4 hasn't made it to the charts yet but the M3 already holds the 4th place in PassMark's single thread c…

> (...) but it all turned out to be a smoke and mirrors show because the hardware is optimized for one particular benchmark they didn't even reference in their comparisons?

I know iOS developers who recently upgraded their MacBooks and they claim they now feel more sluggish. I wouldn't be surprised if it was due to RAM constraints instead of CPU though.

So, take those artificial bencmarks with a grain of salt. They are so optimized that they are optimized out of the real world.

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#973

Post by grecy »

chipdart wrote: post #970
grecy wrote: post #860

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying Apple added something to the design to make it do things faster...which is literally the definition of improvement. When a company adds a supercharger to a car does it not count as faster? When I add more solar panels to my roof does it not count as more power? Surely doing this kind of thing is exactly what we want companies to be doing to make their products faster/better.

> So you're saying Apple added something to the design to make it do things faster... I think the whole point is that microbenchmarks provide no data in overall performance. They just test very specific and by no means common use case.

Yes, that’s always been the case, and would be regardless of apple (or any other manufacturer) adding new features

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#974

Post by doublebind »

iluvcommunism wrote: post #145

I have an m3 ultra. I don’t think I need to upgrade. I also find it amusing they’re comparing the m4 to the m1 and i7 processors.

Apple knows an M4 is a hard sell for M2/3 owners. Except if you have specific workflows that can take advantage of the newer silicon, you'll spend a lot of money on something you probably don't need. I have an M1 32GB with multiple software packages running, and I see no reason to replace this machine.

This is why Apple is comparing against M1: M1 owners are the potential buyers for this computer. (And yes, the marketing folks know the performance comparison graphs look nicer as well :)

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#975

Post by WithinReason »

toxicdevil wrote: post #814
the_king wrote: post #593

The single core performance looks really fast. Chip | Geekbench Score (Process) ---- | ------------------------ M1 | 2,419 (5nm) M2 | 2,658 (5nm) M3 | 3,076 (3nm) M4* | 3,810 (3nm) In my experience, single-core CPU is the best all-around indicator of how "fast" a machine feels. I feel like Apple kind of buried this in their press release. M4 benchmark source: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/8171874

These numbers are misleading (as in not apples to apples comparison). M4 has a matrix multiply hardware extension which can accelerate code written (or compiled) specifically for this extension. Also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40339248

Technically it is Apples to Apples

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#976

Post by zuhsetaqi »

aorth wrote: post #942
BossingAround wrote: post #926

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel's Core 5/Core 7/Core 9 are an answer.

I dunno. Four years ago the MacBook M1 Pro was able to compile WebKit nearly as fast as the Mac Pro, and nearly twice as fast as the Intel-based MacBook Pro, and still had 91% battery versus 24% in the Intel-based MacBook Pro. Incredible. https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/17/yeah-apples-m1-macbook-pro...

But now its four years later

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#977

Post by tucosan »

preisschild wrote: post #948
aorth wrote: post #886

Four generations into the new platform and there is no answer from anyone else in the industry. Incredible.

I switched my work M1 Max with an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS Framework 16 running Linux and am happier since. I guess it depends on the person which computer is better for them.

Why are you happier exactly?

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#978

Post by theshrike79 »

amelius wrote: post #887
theshrike79 wrote: post #861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh? https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/25/apple_private_cloud_c... > "Today we’re making these resources publicly available to invite all security and privacy researchers – or anyone with interest and a technical curiosity – to learn more about PCC and perform their own independent verification of our claims." https://security.apple.com/documentation/private-cloud-compu... There are also a million dollars of bountie…

They mean that security researchers can look at the code, not the hardware at the transistor level.

They did say that people can come look at the hardware too, but we can all understand why that's not a fully open competition for logistical reasons if nothing else.

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#979

Post by zamadatix »

chipdart wrote: post #972
zamadatix wrote: post #914

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be more surprising to you Apple has been selling 4 generations of the M series to great acclaim on the performance but it all turned out to be a smoke and mirrors show because the hardware is optimized for one particular benchmark they didn't even reference in their comparisons? From the data side: the M4 hasn't made it to the charts yet but the M3 already holds the 4th place in PassMark's single thread c…

> (...) but it all turned out to be a smoke and mirrors show because the hardware is optimized for one particular benchmark they didn't even reference in their comparisons? I know iOS developers who recently upgraded their MacBooks and they claim they now feel more sluggish. I wouldn't be surprised if it was due to RAM constraints instead of CPU though. So, take those artificial bencmarks with a grain of salt. They a…

Always look the benches of the actual workload types you'll be using. Some of the above, e.g. cinebench, are actually production rendering programs. Doesn't mean dick if you aren't going to use it that way.

Re: M4 MacBook Pro

#980

Post by jrochkind1 »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #245
carlgreene wrote: post #94

What’s amazing is that in the past I’ve felt the need to upgrade within a few years. New video format or more demanding music software is released that slows the machine down, or battery life craters. Well, I haven’t had even a tinge of feeling that I need to upgrade after getting my M1 Pro MBP. I can’t remember it ever skipping a beat running a serious Ableton project, or editing in Resolve. Can stuff be faster? Tec…

I bought my M1 Pro MBP in 2021. Gave it 16G of RAM and a 1TB HD. I plan to keep it until circa 2031.

Ironically, the day after I posted that my trackpad on my 2021 M1 Pro MBP stopped working. Doh!
Post reply on HN