4 ms·

If M1 is indeed this good at most tasks, it would be amazing if Apple were to release server grade Apple Silicon CPUs.... Imagine if we were able to run Linux

If M1 is indeed this good at most tasks, it would be amazing if Apple were to release server grade Apple Silicon CPUs.... Imagine if we were able to run Linux kernel on such CPUs that didn't care about putting in the low power cores or GPU cores and optimised even more for performance. One can only dream so wild. Some HPC shops would build racks and racks of those.

cntlzw 6y ago
AWS released ARM instances in 2018. It is already happening in the datacenter. Not an expert in HPC, but I think you gain the performance from distributing the data across a vast number of cpu instead of having great cpus to begin with.
littlestymaar 6y ago
There exists ARM CPUs designed for server workloads, but the design and trade-offs are really different than the ones you make when designing a laptop CPU, it would have little in common with the M1. Also, these results are OK, because it means new macbook performance won't be diminished because of the switch to ARM, but it's not that much of a perf improvement either: keep in mind this benchmark was run against a 2017 i5 CPU. It's not an anemic CPU, but it's not really hard to beat either.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >but it's not that much of a perf improvement either: keep in mind this benchmark was run against a 2017 i5 CPU We've seen 50% to 200% improvements over the latest i9 CPUs too...
  - littlestymaar 6y ago
    I haven't seen those do you have a link? Anyway, given the results in the benchmarks we're talking about, I'd be surprised if an M1 scored ahead of a current Ryzen on these.
goatinaboat 6y ago
If M1 is indeed this good at most tasks, it would be amazing if Apple were to release server grade Apple Silicon CPUs.... This is not going to happen, Apple exited that business in 2010 and have shown no signs of rekindling that interest. I agree with you that there could be a lot of potential in Apple Silicon in 1U rackmounts but I am not holding my breath. Apple is 100% focused on consumers, it is not interested at all in datacentres, it doesn't even run OSX in its own datacentres.

cntlzw 6y ago

AWS released ARM instances in 2018. It is already happening in the datacenter. Not an expert in HPC, but I think you gain the performance from distributing the data across a vast number of cpu instead of having great cpus to begin with.

littlestymaar 6y ago

There exists ARM CPUs designed for server workloads, but the design and trade-offs are really different than the ones you make when designing a laptop CPU, it would have little in common with the M1. Also, these results are OK, because it means new macbook performance won't be diminished because of the switch to ARM, but it's not that much of a perf improvement either: keep in mind this benchmark was run against a 2017 i5 CPU. It's not an anemic CPU, but it's not really hard to beat either.

coldtea 6y ago
>but it's not that much of a perf improvement either: keep in mind this benchmark was run against a 2017 i5 CPU We've seen 50% to 200% improvements over the latest i9 CPUs too...
- littlestymaar 6y ago
  I haven't seen those do you have a link? Anyway, given the results in the benchmarks we're talking about, I'd be surprised if an M1 scored ahead of a current Ryzen on these.

goatinaboat 6y ago

If M1 is indeed this good at most tasks, it would be amazing if Apple were to release server grade Apple Silicon CPUs.... This is not going to happen, Apple exited that business in 2010 and have shown no signs of rekindling that interest. I agree with you that there could be a lot of potential in Apple Silicon in 1U rackmounts but I am not holding my breath. Apple is 100% focused on consumers, it is not interested at all in datacentres, it doesn't even run OSX in its own datacentres.