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I usually avoid hype. But the M1 is just unreal. I was back in the office for the first time in months, and since getting my M1 MBP...my overclocked i5 hackinto
by qeternity 6y ago
I usually avoid hype. But the M1 is just unreal. I was back in the office for the first time in months, and since getting my M1 MBP...my overclocked i5 hackintosh with 4x RAM just disappointed. It didn’t feel slow, but it stopped feeling fast.
- pengaru 6y agoi5, so you're comparing to what, a 14nm processor? yawn.
- mberning 6y agoAnd the m1 is an entry level part used in some of their cheaper products. I can’t wait to see what M2 or M1x has in store. It’s gonna be bonkers.
- OkGoDoIt 6y agoI’m a bit worried every time I hear this. We are setting our expectations so high... doesn’t seem like it’s possible for the M2 to be as much of a leap over the M1 as the M1 was over the status quo. The M2 might be amazing, but now that we are all awake to what’s possible I doubt it’s going to blow our socks off quite as much as we hope. But the fact that we have anything to look forward to at all is awesome. These are super exciting times in the computing space. Processors have been boring for way too long.
- me551ah 6y agoUnless the M2 is a higher core version with 16-32 cores? M1 is already built on a 5nm process and you're right about the upgrades being incremental and small. But apple can bump up the core count significantly to make the m1x/m2 a big leap.
- skohan 6y agoHow much will the average user notice the difference between 4 and 23 high-performance cores? This will have a huge impact for highly parallel tasks like rendering, but isn't it still the case that most software still isn't designed to scale horizontally in a meaningful way?
- _ph_ 6y agoI think the M1 is so impressive because the normal user will mostly notice the single thread and the low thread count performance, so the 4+4 configuration of the M1 hits that sweet spot. The most obvious gain would be from all the multicore loads. But for more and more heavy computing tasks, those get more common too. And I would expect any variation of the M which is tweaked towards performance rather than low power as the M1 is, to also offer a little higher clock speeds. Considering the M1 runs at 3 GHz and the most recent x86 at up to 5, there should be quite some clockspeed headroom, if Apple chooses to use it.
- zimpenfish 6y ago> How much will the average user notice the difference between 4 and 23 high-performance cores? Instead of 4 cores shared between 8 apps, you could have the same 8 apps each with a dedicated core (or two, even.)
- hajile 6y agoA bigger battery means more room to boost clocks higher. A larger die means not just more CPU cores, but probably 2-4x the GPU performance.
- billti 6y ago
- m463 6y agoI think a mac pro level machine will be the interesting one. Put a bunch of these cpus in a system. I don't know if we can hope for expandability anymore, apple just might not do that anymore.
- Accujack 6y agoI'm going to make a prediction here: Including memory on a multi-chip module/building systems around an MCM SoC is going to become the standard for a large fraction of the personal computer market. The performance gain from doing so in CPU<->core memory and core memory<->GPU transfers is huge, and the manufacturer can match RAM timing and performance precisely to their processor or even implement non standard ram types as they like. There are other benefits too like simplified motherboard design. Now that Apple has taken the risk, other manufacturers will look at doing the same. Not all computers will use the SoC model, but for laptops and many desktops this will be a big win.
- rayiner 6y agoI don’t know how this “memory on the SOC” thing became a narrative. That isn’t responsible for any of the M1’s performance. Apple isn’t using anything fancy like HMC or HBM that can’t be done with off-package memory. It’s a regular 128 bit memory bus and standard LPDDR4x (at the top standard frequency), with slightly higher memory latency than Intel and AMD. Pretty much any HEDT x86 system has a more impressive memory system.
- random5634 6y agoIt memory on a SiP. Taking a quick look at an i9 9900 ($382 for chip alone) it supports DDR4-2666. i9-10900T runs at 2933 - $400 for chip alone. Apple is running their stuff at 4100 or something. So that looks faster. And the mac mini costs $700 including the insane apple margins? Can you spec out the $700 machine on pc parts picker that shows that the M1 is nothing special? One with faster or equivalent memory. Calling the M1 and $700 machine a HEDT?? Huh? Apple is going to sell these things by the truckload.
- runjake 6y agoMy RAM on my 8700K system is running at 3200 mhz (XMP I). I imagine the 9900 can do at least that.
- 6y ago
- laurent92 6y agoWe all were complaining about the lack of innovation with iMacs, barely upgraded, MacBooks with its superficial gadget “emoji bar” as the sole innovation (and the butterfly keyboard), felt insulted with iMac Pro because it feels like “You want better? Here, pay.” It felt like a decade of maintenance, milking the cow. All along, half of the headquarters must have been secretly working on the M1...
- skohan 6y agoWhen they released the M1 macs without a design change, my initial take was that it was a cowardly move: they didn't want to attach a big design change and risk calling a lot of attention to what might be a flop. But I actually think it was more of a boast: showing exactly how changing only the processor changes everything in a clear A/B test scenario.
- laurent92 6y agoIt won’t be a flop. It will be a teraflop. More seriously, by the way, do we have comparison between the black iMac Pros and the M1? It would be ironic if iMac Pros were surpassed by the 1/4th-prices M1...
- kube-system 6y agoThe M1 wins in single core performance and power consumption, in everything else, the pro wins.
- firecall 6y agoThere was talk that it was because Apple didnt want to alert Intel as to the massive leap the M1 would be!
- skohan 6y agoHow would a design change have clued them in about the performance difference?
- deergomoo 6y agoI just got rid of a 10 month old 16" MacBook Pro for an M1 Air. I wasn't unhappy with the performance of the 16", but the heat and noise were just misery inducing. The thing was unusable on my lap. After 30 minutes or so just coding, it would get so hot I had to put something between it and my legs. My partner could hear the fans from the next room. And to cap it off, since Big Sur I've been unable to get more than 4 hours off the battery—usually more like 3. Compare that to the Air: I'm losing two USB ports which is annoying, the speakers are nowhere near as good, I miss the bigger screen, and I'm down 16GB RAM (although in retrospect, I never needed 32GB for my workloads anyway). But in return, I get almost no heat, zero noise, nuts performance (my test suites run 2x faster on average, despite running on two fewer cores), and so far 10-12 hours off a charge easy. And I get real function keys instead of the Touch Bar. Happiest I've been with a computer in a long long time.
- eru 6y agoMy machine says `MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)`. It doesn't get too hot from just coding for me. What are you doing? (It does get hot when watching the highest resolutions youtube has to offer these days, though.)
- netcraft 6y agoMy same model does when coding running docker, any video 720p or above, or zoom calls.
- chin7an 6y agoDocker for mac is ridiculously bad to use. We use build containers at work, and Big Sur definitely gets mad at the VM activity & the high disk activity. My 2019 15" i9 MBP sounds like a jet engine half the time.
- matwood 6y agoYou have what many would consider the last 'good' mbp. After that one, Apple pushed to make them thinner and try to make them faster, but really went too far with the thermal envelop. It's 100% Apple's fault for the thinness, but Intel didn't do them any favors with their delays either.
- tomaskafka 6y agoSame here - my beast hackintosh has now turned back into a barely used gaming PC, because Air is faster and more convenient.
- deagle50 6y agoIt's a beast and it's also mega efficient. Right now on my MBA I'm running 2 displays (one external at 3008x1253 HiDPI 120hz), several apps open including VS Code and 3 browsers, playing a 4k vp9 YouTube video in Firefox, and the passively cooled M1 never crosses 40C. My other Macbook would be at 70C with the fan screaming.
- ubermonkey 6y agoMy daily driver is a 2019 rMBP -- the last 15" model, with the upgraded keyboard. I am SO TEMPTED by the M1 upgrade, especially given the trade-in valuation on my machine right now. However, it would be inconvenient to give up ports, and right NOW I still do some Windows virtualization, so I'm holding off. But it's still SUPER TEMPTING.
- pocketgrok 6y agoIf the current rumors about the upcoming MBPs are true you really might want to wait for them.
- ubermonkey 6y agoThat's where I am.
- kcartlidge 6y agoMay be worth noting that the battery life is much better on my M1 MBA than Intel devices, so you don't necessarily need to sacrifice one of the two ports for charging during the day. It depends upon your use profile, but for me it leaves both available ports for peripherals not just the one that you might expect.
- ubermonkey 6y agoAs is, I'm feeding power and my Tbolt display on one side, and use the side facing me to (occasionally) juice up my keyboard or iPad. I'm not really interested in juggling plugs during the day.