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Benchmarks show that the M1 has better performance in only a few areas, and underperforms in others, and that's with Apple controlling literally every aspect of

Benchmarks show that the M1 has better performance in only a few areas, and underperforms in others, and that's with Apple controlling literally every aspect of the hardware and software stack. I haven't seen a review where it has underperformed any other comparable device. I've seen a lot of talk about how the Threadripper from AMD is faster… duh. Of course a 32- or 64-core processor that costs 2x-3x than a Mac mini and draws 280 watts is faster than an M1. The M1 peaks at 20-24 watts and doesn't even require a fan in the MacBook Air. It's graphic blows away all integrated graphics and is comparable to many discrete GPUs. On CPU benchmarks, it's faster than all but the latest Intel and AMD laptop CPUs, which are in laptops that run hotter, are louder and don't have 18-20 battery life doing real world things. x86 applications generally just work and often run faster on an M1 Mac than they did on Intel Macs. Considering the broad swaths of essential business software that is simply incompatible with Apple OS, that's not going to happen. Depends on what business you're in. If you're in the content creation business, you're good to go [1]. Microsoft Office is already in beta for running natively on M1 and so much other business software is web-based or Electron apps (like Slack) and those work fine. [1]: "Hollywood thinks new Mac mini 'could be huge' for video editors"—https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/11/12/hollywood-thinks-new-mac-mini-could-be-huge-for-video-editors https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/11/12/hollywood-thinks-...

gamblor956 6y ago
Depends on what business you're in. If you're in the content creation business, you're good to go [1]. I am definitely going to differ on that. My last job (until this summer) was in Hollywood for a content creation company (live broadcast + streaming) and I worked very heavily with the content creation guys and the digital production team (as a result of working on them for R&D tax credit documentation purposes. That means I not only saw every expense, I also documented the reasons for all of those expenses based on discussions with the teams). We switched off Apple software 4 years ago. They began the transition off Apple hardware 2 years ago. Apple was great for content creation a long time ago, but these days content creators use *nix based systems if they need performance and Windows-based systems if they care about costs. If you suggest using Apple to the content creation guys these days, they'll laugh your ass out of the room and tell you to go back to film school.
- alwillis 6y ago
  The exception doesn’t prove the rule.
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    It's not the exception, it's the rule. These guys didn't choose to switch away from Mac because they wanted to complicate their lives and have to learn a new OS; they did so because the switchover was industry-wide and and they'd already made the switch at their previous jobs. The studios got burned by Apple's lack of support for a decade, combined with the Mac's excessive costs and switched to nix and Windows (primarily nix) starting during the Great Recession. Generally, Windows is in the mix simply because a lot of the software that the (non-technical) artists use is stabler or easier to support on Windows than it is on nix, like Maya, 3DS, Premiere, etc., and running these on Windows is a quarter of the cost, or less, of running the same software on Mac.
    - alwillis 6y ago
      Maya, 3DS, Premiere, etc., and running these on Windows is a quarter of the cost, or less, of running the same software on Mac. I'd love to see a study on this; the total cost of ownership has always been far less for the Mac than Windows, especially when you factor in the amount of support Windows requires compared to the Mac. Casual googling confirms this: https://www.jamf.com/blog/total-cost-of-ownership-mac-versus-pc-in-the-enterprise/ https://www.jamf.com/blog/total-cost-of-ownership-mac-versus... https://www.endpointprotector.com/blog/why-macs-have-a-lower-tco-than-windows-computers/ https://www.endpointprotector.com/blog/why-macs-have-a-lower... https://www.computerworld.com/article/3452847/ibm-mac-users-are-happier-and-more-productive.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3452847/ibm-mac-users-... An M1 Mac mini starts at $699, so there's no excessive cost. As usual, Adobe doesn't have it apps ready for Apple's latest and greatest… but other vendors are on the case and it'll be just a matter of time before all major video apps are running natively on the M1. Of course, FinalCut Pro (and the rest of Apple's suite) is good to go; DaVinci Resolve (editing 4k, 6k and 8k RAW video) is also looking pretty great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxH3RabNWfE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxH3RabNWfE
neogodless 6y ago
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested/5 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste... In some of the benchmarks, the 15W Ryzen 7 4800U outperforms the Apple Silicon M1. There, now you have seen a review where the M1 underperformed a comparable device. (This is not to take away from the fact that the M1 is impressive, and is incredibly efficient, and much better for battery life. It's just a reminder that there are actual, real, worthwhile competitors.)
- spurgu 6y ago
  Underperforms on some metrics. Summary of article: > Overall, Apple doesn’t just deliver a viable silicon alternative to AMD and Intel, but actually something that’s well outperforms them both in absolute performance as well as power efficiency.
  - neogodless 6y ago
    Just to be clear, we want to ignore the benchmarks where AMD outperforms Apple, and then go on the wording of the summary to misconstrue reality. Yes, in some benchmarks, the M1 outperforms... in absolute performance but if you only look at that wording, you miss all the cases where the M1 competitors outperform it... in absolute performance. That's important, only because there seems to be a new commonly held belief by the faithful that "no CPUs compete with the M1 in any sense of the word." That's an inaccurate belief. Remember the original statement I responded to: > I haven't seen a review where it has underperformed any other comparable device.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  Also, a just-published database of gaming performance on the M1s confirms that the M1 is not the revolutionary chip that Apple claims it to be once you run it in uncontrolled (aka real-world) use cases. The M1 struggles to run 4-year old games that modern AMD and Intel chips breeze through. While the M1 appears to have good burst capabilities, its ability to handle extended processing loads for anything that isn't hardcoded into the chip (aka, anything other than video processing) is woefully deficient. Whether that's a function of the CPU design, or poor cooling, or both, is not yet clear.

gamblor956 6y ago

Depends on what business you're in. If you're in the content creation business, you're good to go [1]. I am definitely going to differ on that. My last job (until this summer) was in Hollywood for a content creation company (live broadcast + streaming) and I worked very heavily with the content creation guys and the digital production team (as a result of working on them for R&D tax credit documentation purposes. That means I not only saw every expense, I also documented the reasons for all of those expenses based on discussions with the teams). We switched off Apple software 4 years ago. They began the transition off Apple hardware 2 years ago. Apple was great for content creation a long time ago, but these days content creators use *nix based systems if they need performance and Windows-based systems if they care about costs. If you suggest using Apple to the content creation guys these days, they'll laugh your ass out of the room and tell you to go back to film school.

alwillis 6y ago
The exception doesn’t prove the rule.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  It's not the exception, it's the rule. These guys didn't choose to switch away from Mac because they wanted to complicate their lives and have to learn a new OS; they did so because the switchover was industry-wide and and they'd already made the switch at their previous jobs. The studios got burned by Apple's lack of support for a decade, combined with the Mac's excessive costs and switched to nix and Windows (primarily nix) starting during the Great Recession. Generally, Windows is in the mix simply because a lot of the software that the (non-technical) artists use is stabler or easier to support on Windows than it is on nix, like Maya, 3DS, Premiere, etc., and running these on Windows is a quarter of the cost, or less, of running the same software on Mac.
  - alwillis 6y ago
    Maya, 3DS, Premiere, etc., and running these on Windows is a quarter of the cost, or less, of running the same software on Mac. I'd love to see a study on this; the total cost of ownership has always been far less for the Mac than Windows, especially when you factor in the amount of support Windows requires compared to the Mac. Casual googling confirms this: https://www.jamf.com/blog/total-cost-of-ownership-mac-versus-pc-in-the-enterprise/ https://www.jamf.com/blog/total-cost-of-ownership-mac-versus... https://www.endpointprotector.com/blog/why-macs-have-a-lower-tco-than-windows-computers/ https://www.endpointprotector.com/blog/why-macs-have-a-lower... https://www.computerworld.com/article/3452847/ibm-mac-users-are-happier-and-more-productive.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3452847/ibm-mac-users-... An M1 Mac mini starts at $699, so there's no excessive cost. As usual, Adobe doesn't have it apps ready for Apple's latest and greatest… but other vendors are on the case and it'll be just a matter of time before all major video apps are running natively on the M1. Of course, FinalCut Pro (and the rest of Apple's suite) is good to go; DaVinci Resolve (editing 4k, 6k and 8k RAW video) is also looking pretty great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxH3RabNWfE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxH3RabNWfE

neogodless 6y ago

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested/5 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste... In some of the benchmarks, the 15W Ryzen 7 4800U outperforms the Apple Silicon M1. There, now you have seen a review where the M1 underperformed a comparable device. (This is not to take away from the fact that the M1 is impressive, and is incredibly efficient, and much better for battery life. It's just a reminder that there are actual, real, worthwhile competitors.)

spurgu 6y ago
Underperforms on some metrics. Summary of article: > Overall, Apple doesn’t just deliver a viable silicon alternative to AMD and Intel, but actually something that’s well outperforms them both in absolute performance as well as power efficiency.
- neogodless 6y ago
  Just to be clear, we want to ignore the benchmarks where AMD outperforms Apple, and then go on the wording of the summary to misconstrue reality. Yes, in some benchmarks, the M1 outperforms... in absolute performance but if you only look at that wording, you miss all the cases where the M1 competitors outperform it... in absolute performance. That's important, only because there seems to be a new commonly held belief by the faithful that "no CPUs compete with the M1 in any sense of the word." That's an inaccurate belief. Remember the original statement I responded to: > I haven't seen a review where it has underperformed any other comparable device.
gamblor956 6y ago
Also, a just-published database of gaming performance on the M1s confirms that the M1 is not the revolutionary chip that Apple claims it to be once you run it in uncontrolled (aka real-world) use cases. The M1 struggles to run 4-year old games that modern AMD and Intel chips breeze through. While the M1 appears to have good burst capabilities, its ability to handle extended processing loads for anything that isn't hardcoded into the chip (aka, anything other than video processing) is woefully deficient. Whether that's a function of the CPU design, or poor cooling, or both, is not yet clear.