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However, the sentiment that the M1 chip obliterates any and every desktop part on the market is getting kind of silly at this point. 1. Nobody ever stated that
by alwillis 6y ago
However, the sentiment that the M1 chip obliterates any and every desktop part on the market is getting kind of silly at this point.
1. Nobody ever stated that. If anything, it was all of the Intel and AMD users who created that straw man. "See, it's slower than a 64-core Threadripper at 280 watts". No kidding.
2. The M1 is clearly not a desktop-class SoC nor was it intended to be. However, it's more than competitive with many desktop x86 processors that run faster and hotter while consuming much more power.
3. As a first attempt, the M1’s performance per watt is very impressive. Obviously the 5nm process helps but it's never one thing with Apple: it's the unified memory, the 8 instruction decoders (AMD and Intel max out at 4), and the integration of the 16-core Neural Engine, among other features.
- ComputerGuru 6y ago> the unified memory Castrated by a paltry 8GB of RAM in stock configuration!
- alwillis 6y agoCastrated by a paltry 8GB of RAM in stock configuration! Probably not. macOS has had RAM compression since 2009; by now, it's probably implemented in the M1 SoC, so it's really really fast. 8 GB on an M1 is closer to 16 GB on most other processor/operating system combinations.
- tartrate 6y agoThat's amazing. I usually read in 16 GB of image data into memory for analysis. I'm guessing that will work fine on the 8GB ram macbook then. /s
- gambiting 6y agoLook, it doesn't have to work for everyone. Of course there are workloads where it's not going to be enough. That's fine. My personal workload requires 128GB of ram but I don't go around telling people 8GB laptops are pointless.
- kbenson 6y agoI don't think that's the point they were trying to make. I think they were saying that just because the OS has RAM compression doesn't mean it's like doubling the RAM on other operating systems, and that's even before you consider that those other operating systems have RAM compression too. Saying something is like having 16 GB of RAM when you can't actually use it as 16 GB of RAM deserves to be called out.
- Dylan16807 6y agoLinux and Windows have ram compression too. It's helpful, but it's nowhere near doubling your memory. Especially when you have an SSD to swap inactive data to, the benefit of compression is equivalent to adding something like 0-2GB of RAM.
- ksec 6y ago>1. Nobody ever stated that. Oh hell no. If you read through 10K comments sine M1 launch on HN alone, majority of them are stating exactly that. ( Which is rather annoying ) That why you see quite a few of these new benchmarks blog post trying to provide a balanced view.