6 ms·

I think what people are excited about is not the actual benchmark but the potential of the path we now are clearly on. When you see “M1 beats XXXXX at XXXXX ta

I think what people are excited about is not the actual benchmark but the potential of the path we now are clearly on. When you see “M1 beats XXXXX at XXXXX task” I don’t think anyone really cares that much about that task, but it usually makes you think, “crap, imagine what their proper MacBook Pro pro / Mac Pro chip is going to be able to do. Or what it will do in 3 years...? Also, everyone just loves watching Intel suffer.

ngold 5y ago
Also 5 or 10 watts versus 125 watt power draw. No matter how you slice it. The BBC acorn has grown up to be a monster.
- nr2x 5y ago
  Really one of my favorite examples of why public sector investment is a Good Thing.
  - ngold 5y ago
    I still love that movie with the hobbit guy about the BBC acorn. That was great.
    - aaronharder 5y ago
      Micro Men! Great little TV movie, and really interesting story of the rivalry between UK golden-age home computing giants Sinclair and Acorn (Acorn being the company behind the BBC micro, and also originally the "A" in "ARM").
      - dopidopHN 5y ago
        Oh thank you, I never heard those name before so I had a hard time following this part of the thread. ( do some more search, adding “micro” ) Ok, so it IS a British Broadcasting Corporation spawn. Ha. Excellent. I had no idea. Thanks for spelling it out, I was about to reject the idea as funny but unlikely.
        thedailymail 5y ago
        Me neither! Here's a link to the movie: https://archive.org/details/MicroMen720p2009 https://archive.org/details/MicroMen720p2009
  - dopidopHN 5y ago
    Wait wait wait… Gloating for no good reason about public investment is one of my favorite activities. I have a hard time following the connection with M1 processors?
    - 00jimbo 5y ago
      bbc contracted acorn to produce an educational computer to go hand-in-hand with a tv program. it was a smashing success and made them so much more money than anything else they'd been doing. they birthed arm.
      - dopidopHN 5y ago
        Ah thanks yeah I was researching that. I had absolutely no idea. And I’ve been using those nifty fuckers since a while now. Ha.
      - rasz 5y ago
        It made them the only money they ever made, but in the end they had to default on payback of 3mil pounds of royalties to BBC thanks to typical 80s mismanagement (oh hi Commodore).
- jetrink 5y ago
  Not unlike real acorns.
  - MengerSponge 5y ago
    Ohhhhhhh I think I'm getting it. Then they grow up into a big tree and that's where Apples come from?
    - eru 5y ago
      Well, apples don't come from oaks. Unless you count oak apples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_apple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_apple Though not sure how that would fit into the metaphor.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - dlgeek 5y ago
      No, acorns turn into oak trees. To get apple trees you need apple seeds. You get those from core dumps.
      - da_big_ghey 5y ago
        "RJ-45 ends are not "network seeds" and should not be scattered under floor tiles in an effort to cultivate a server farm." - https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2gt7x5/just_sysadmin_things_for_which_ive_been/ https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2gt7x5/just_sysad...
- nottorp 5y ago
  I believe a lot of people don't hear the fans because they're wearing headphones. For the rest of us that like a quiet room, the arm CPUs sound like a godsend. I say "sound" because I don't feel like an early adopter much; don't have one yet.
  - zimpenfish 5y ago
    > For the rest of us that like a quiet room, the arm CPUs sound like a godsend. Got an M1 Pro and normal daily use just doesn't trigger the fans. I can do it by, e.g., charging whilst playing Minecraft or running something that uses all 8 cores at full speed for more than two minutes-ish (`wireguard-vanity-address`, Blender render, etc.) but it's an oddity to hear them these days.
  - solarkraft 5y ago
    > I believe a lot of people don't hear the fans because they're wearing headphones. For the rest of us that like a quiet room You’re completely focusing on fan noise here, but of course it also enables tiny devices with great battery life and - this isn’t completely irrelevant when you run your computer for a significant part of the day - lowered electricity cost. Oh, and I believe these processors have quite some head room before they will reach the physical thermal limits others have already run into, so expect some more raw performance on better cooled systems.
    - nottorp 5y ago
      > You’re completely focusing on fan noise here, but of course it also enables tiny devices with great battery life You're optimistic there. Where's my iPhone with a 7 day battery? Last time i had a phone that lasted 7 days it was a Nokia 6210 with a b&w screen. > and - this isn’t completely irrelevant when you run your computer for a significant part of the day - lowered electricity cost. I care about that too, but prolly not worth mentioning on an US centric site.
      - deaddodo 5y ago
        > I care about that too, but prolly not worth mentioning on an US centric site. Always funny to see a European head to a "US-Centric" site just to constantly take jabs at the US, which your posting history confirms. But HN is more California (and Bay Area)-centric, if you're being technical; which is generally considered energy and eco-conscious: https://www.bobvila.com/slideshow/america-s-10-most-energy-efficient-states-578666 https://www.bobvila.com/slideshow/america-s-10-most-energy-e... For future reference, and to realign your stereotypes.
waheoo 5y ago
> Also, everyone just loves watching Intel suffer. This is such a weird fucking statement. Apple literally think they own your hardware after you buy it, and Intel are the evil ones? I don't really do fanboyism, currently own Mac, windows, Linux, Intel, amd, android, iPhone, switch and PlayStation. I just use what I use but I don't get so attached, apple has been lacking for years. M1 is ok but honestly it feels like they've only just caught up to everyone else.
- HKH2 5y ago
  Intel has played dirty for years, both with AMD and its own customers for years. It's not about Apple.
  - fomine3 5y ago
    That's legit reason for Intel to be blamed, but also I want to praise Intel for massive contributing for OSS. I wish AMD also increase contributes for OSS as increasing shares and profits.
- xoa 5y ago
  >This is such a weird fucking statement. Not if you've been in the industry for long enough. And it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Apple, the "everyone just loves watching Intel suffer" (or more charitably, "watching Intel get a bit of comeuppance and much needed kick in the arse") bit stands on its own no matter who is dishing out the suffering because Intel has been a big PITA for everybody since the late 90s/early 00s. Intel is pretty much single-handedly responsible for lack of widespread ECC memory for example. They've nickle and dimed everyone and feature gated important functionality for pricing power and basically just exploited the ever living shit out of their dominant CPU position. And the last time they were getting threatened in terms of that position, they bought themselves what they needed with illegal tactics denying AMD a chance to get the ball rolling, dooming us to another 10-12 years before they could go for it again. And Intel has been this way for ages and ages. People still remember everything that went down around Itanium and how it choked off promising alternatives. So yeah. Intel have indeed been the evil ones, and in a way that's been a lot harder to avoid than Apple which you might stop and recall has in fact always had only a tiny minority of the PC market. I mean, if you want to talk about Apple specifically: >Apple literally think they own your hardware after you buy it, and Intel are the evil ones? That's kind of amusing given the access Intel has given themselves at a deep level on every CPU. >M1 is ok but honestly it feels like they've only just caught up to everyone else This is just you being silly. "Only just caught up"? They were using Intel before so they were by definition the same as everyone else. What they've done in mobile CPU design has been genuinely remarkable. And that in turn is a genuinely good thing in general whether you use them or not, same as with AMD. We're already seeing Intel sluggishly but seriously start to respond and shift.
trimbo 5y ago
Despite all of the 14nm++++++ ridiculousness, 2020 was Intel's best year ever[1]. I think Intel has a huge challenge ahead but one thing that's helped them is that Skylake was competitive enough to get them through the process node mistakes (at least to this point). Maybe what we've learned is that fewer chip buyers care about performance and power tradeoffs than imagined (or at least, than I thought). [1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/263559/intels-net-revenue-since-1999 https://www.statista.com/statistics/263559/intels-net-revenu...
- rasz 5y ago
  My comment every time someone mentions Intel best year yet: Commodore reported 7-year record revenue with good profit 4 years before going bankrupt. https://dfarq.homeip.net/commodore-financial-history-1978-1994/ https://dfarq.homeip.net/commodore-financial-history-1978-19...
  - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    the historic revenue charts for the two companies are completely different though
  - trimbo 5y ago
    As did Blackberry! And countless other "innovators dilemma" examples. Intel's a little different though. It's not like consumer sentiment has changed like in the case of the C64->PC or BB->iPhone. AMD and ARM are strong competitors but Intel is in this position because they made a major technical misstep. Maybe more like Microsoft and the Longhorn/Vista debacle. I don't think we can conclusively say Intel or even x86 can't be competitive when they get their process figured out.
    - rasz 5y ago
      Commodore didnt go out of business because of C64, if anything C64 kept them afloat far longer than they should of lasted. They actually still sold ~150K C64 in 1994! Commodore went bankrupt because they kept selling 1981 released c64 and 1985 released Amigas all the way to 1994 with almost no upgrades. They did plenty of updates, like new C64 cases, or Amiga 600. A600 had same cpu, same mhz, same Dual Density floppy as 1985 A1000. Intel has been selling same 4 core CPUs for almost 10 years now, only last year finally releasing something able to compete with Ryzens on $/core count.

ngold 5y ago

Also 5 or 10 watts versus 125 watt power draw. No matter how you slice it. The BBC acorn has grown up to be a monster.

nr2x 5y ago
Really one of my favorite examples of why public sector investment is a Good Thing.
- ngold 5y ago
  I still love that movie with the hobbit guy about the BBC acorn. That was great.
  - aaronharder 5y ago
    Micro Men! Great little TV movie, and really interesting story of the rivalry between UK golden-age home computing giants Sinclair and Acorn (Acorn being the company behind the BBC micro, and also originally the "A" in "ARM").
    - dopidopHN 5y ago
      Oh thank you, I never heard those name before so I had a hard time following this part of the thread. ( do some more search, adding “micro” ) Ok, so it IS a British Broadcasting Corporation spawn. Ha. Excellent. I had no idea. Thanks for spelling it out, I was about to reject the idea as funny but unlikely.
      - thedailymail 5y ago
        Me neither! Here's a link to the movie: https://archive.org/details/MicroMen720p2009 https://archive.org/details/MicroMen720p2009
- dopidopHN 5y ago
  Wait wait wait… Gloating for no good reason about public investment is one of my favorite activities. I have a hard time following the connection with M1 processors?
  - 00jimbo 5y ago
    bbc contracted acorn to produce an educational computer to go hand-in-hand with a tv program. it was a smashing success and made them so much more money than anything else they'd been doing. they birthed arm.
    - dopidopHN 5y ago
      Ah thanks yeah I was researching that. I had absolutely no idea. And I’ve been using those nifty fuckers since a while now. Ha.
    - rasz 5y ago
      It made them the only money they ever made, but in the end they had to default on payback of 3mil pounds of royalties to BBC thanks to typical 80s mismanagement (oh hi Commodore).
jetrink 5y ago
Not unlike real acorns.
- MengerSponge 5y ago
  Ohhhhhhh I think I'm getting it. Then they grow up into a big tree and that's where Apples come from?
  - eru 5y ago
    Well, apples don't come from oaks. Unless you count oak apples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_apple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_apple Though not sure how that would fit into the metaphor.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - dlgeek 5y ago
    No, acorns turn into oak trees. To get apple trees you need apple seeds. You get those from core dumps.
    - da_big_ghey 5y ago
      "RJ-45 ends are not "network seeds" and should not be scattered under floor tiles in an effort to cultivate a server farm." - https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2gt7x5/just_sysadmin_things_for_which_ive_been/ https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2gt7x5/just_sysad...
nottorp 5y ago
I believe a lot of people don't hear the fans because they're wearing headphones. For the rest of us that like a quiet room, the arm CPUs sound like a godsend. I say "sound" because I don't feel like an early adopter much; don't have one yet.
- zimpenfish 5y ago
  > For the rest of us that like a quiet room, the arm CPUs sound like a godsend. Got an M1 Pro and normal daily use just doesn't trigger the fans. I can do it by, e.g., charging whilst playing Minecraft or running something that uses all 8 cores at full speed for more than two minutes-ish (`wireguard-vanity-address`, Blender render, etc.) but it's an oddity to hear them these days.
- solarkraft 5y ago
  > I believe a lot of people don't hear the fans because they're wearing headphones. For the rest of us that like a quiet room You’re completely focusing on fan noise here, but of course it also enables tiny devices with great battery life and - this isn’t completely irrelevant when you run your computer for a significant part of the day - lowered electricity cost. Oh, and I believe these processors have quite some head room before they will reach the physical thermal limits others have already run into, so expect some more raw performance on better cooled systems.
  - nottorp 5y ago
    > You’re completely focusing on fan noise here, but of course it also enables tiny devices with great battery life You're optimistic there. Where's my iPhone with a 7 day battery? Last time i had a phone that lasted 7 days it was a Nokia 6210 with a b&w screen. > and - this isn’t completely irrelevant when you run your computer for a significant part of the day - lowered electricity cost. I care about that too, but prolly not worth mentioning on an US centric site.
    - deaddodo 5y ago
      > I care about that too, but prolly not worth mentioning on an US centric site. Always funny to see a European head to a "US-Centric" site just to constantly take jabs at the US, which your posting history confirms. But HN is more California (and Bay Area)-centric, if you're being technical; which is generally considered energy and eco-conscious: https://www.bobvila.com/slideshow/america-s-10-most-energy-efficient-states-578666 https://www.bobvila.com/slideshow/america-s-10-most-energy-e... For future reference, and to realign your stereotypes.

waheoo 5y ago

> Also, everyone just loves watching Intel suffer. This is such a weird fucking statement. Apple literally think they own your hardware after you buy it, and Intel are the evil ones? I don't really do fanboyism, currently own Mac, windows, Linux, Intel, amd, android, iPhone, switch and PlayStation. I just use what I use but I don't get so attached, apple has been lacking for years. M1 is ok but honestly it feels like they've only just caught up to everyone else.

HKH2 5y ago
Intel has played dirty for years, both with AMD and its own customers for years. It's not about Apple.
- fomine3 5y ago
  That's legit reason for Intel to be blamed, but also I want to praise Intel for massive contributing for OSS. I wish AMD also increase contributes for OSS as increasing shares and profits.
xoa 5y ago
>This is such a weird fucking statement. Not if you've been in the industry for long enough. And it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Apple, the "everyone just loves watching Intel suffer" (or more charitably, "watching Intel get a bit of comeuppance and much needed kick in the arse") bit stands on its own no matter who is dishing out the suffering because Intel has been a big PITA for everybody since the late 90s/early 00s. Intel is pretty much single-handedly responsible for lack of widespread ECC memory for example. They've nickle and dimed everyone and feature gated important functionality for pricing power and basically just exploited the ever living shit out of their dominant CPU position. And the last time they were getting threatened in terms of that position, they bought themselves what they needed with illegal tactics denying AMD a chance to get the ball rolling, dooming us to another 10-12 years before they could go for it again. And Intel has been this way for ages and ages. People still remember everything that went down around Itanium and how it choked off promising alternatives. So yeah. Intel have indeed been the evil ones, and in a way that's been a lot harder to avoid than Apple which you might stop and recall has in fact always had only a tiny minority of the PC market. I mean, if you want to talk about Apple specifically: >Apple literally think they own your hardware after you buy it, and Intel are the evil ones? That's kind of amusing given the access Intel has given themselves at a deep level on every CPU. >M1 is ok but honestly it feels like they've only just caught up to everyone else This is just you being silly. "Only just caught up"? They were using Intel before so they were by definition the same as everyone else. What they've done in mobile CPU design has been genuinely remarkable. And that in turn is a genuinely good thing in general whether you use them or not, same as with AMD. We're already seeing Intel sluggishly but seriously start to respond and shift.

trimbo 5y ago

Despite all of the 14nm++++++ ridiculousness, 2020 was Intel's best year ever[1]. I think Intel has a huge challenge ahead but one thing that's helped them is that Skylake was competitive enough to get them through the process node mistakes (at least to this point). Maybe what we've learned is that fewer chip buyers care about performance and power tradeoffs than imagined (or at least, than I thought). [1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/263559/intels-net-revenue-since-1999 https://www.statista.com/statistics/263559/intels-net-revenu...

rasz 5y ago
My comment every time someone mentions Intel best year yet: Commodore reported 7-year record revenue with good profit 4 years before going bankrupt. https://dfarq.homeip.net/commodore-financial-history-1978-1994/ https://dfarq.homeip.net/commodore-financial-history-1978-19...
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  the historic revenue charts for the two companies are completely different though
- trimbo 5y ago
  As did Blackberry! And countless other "innovators dilemma" examples. Intel's a little different though. It's not like consumer sentiment has changed like in the case of the C64->PC or BB->iPhone. AMD and ARM are strong competitors but Intel is in this position because they made a major technical misstep. Maybe more like Microsoft and the Longhorn/Vista debacle. I don't think we can conclusively say Intel or even x86 can't be competitive when they get their process figured out.
  - rasz 5y ago
    Commodore didnt go out of business because of C64, if anything C64 kept them afloat far longer than they should of lasted. They actually still sold ~150K C64 in 1994! Commodore went bankrupt because they kept selling 1981 released c64 and 1985 released Amigas all the way to 1994 with almost no upgrades. They did plenty of updates, like new C64 cases, or Amiga 600. A600 had same cpu, same mhz, same Dual Density floppy as 1985 A1000. Intel has been selling same 4 core CPUs for almost 10 years now, only last year finally releasing something able to compete with Ryzens on $/core count.