6 ms·

I was a little surprised that it seems to outperform the M1 chip. This M1 chip has been an absolute joy to use since the moment I started using the Mac Mini. Af

I was a little surprised that it seems to outperform the M1 chip. This M1 chip has been an absolute joy to use since the moment I started using the Mac Mini. After 5 mins I decided that I am totally willing to burn the bridges. Lets drop x86 as the legacy arch that it is and don't look back. M1 Mac Mini was so snappy that I was taken back to the mid 2000s when new computers were extremely exciting again. It provided so much delight and joy. To think they are just casually outperforming their desktop chip in the benchmarks. Man I can't wait for the next M1X/M2 or whatever they call it.

ohgodplsno 5y ago
"Give up replaceable components and buy entire SoCs for all of your upgrades. Also forget about incremental upgrades" No, thank you, I'll keep a flawed x86 architecture. We could also stop writing shit software.
- danudey 5y ago
  For what it's worth, all of the systems that Apple has shipped with the M1 are replacing systems which also did not have replaceable components and could not manage incremental updates. The main difference that I see is that the M1 chip is much faster and more power efficient than the systems it replaced (as well as much more expensive systems, for that matter; see M1 Air vs. Macbook Pro). I suspect that means that people who buy the M1 systems that Apple is selling won't replace their laptops as soon as people who bought x86 versions. Your point is taken, but this is a trend that Apple has been moving towards regardless; it's not something that's new to the M1 Macs. You haven't ever been able to swap out your motherboard or processor in a Macintosh with very few exceptions (including the Xeon Mac Pros), and we've yet to see what an M1 (or M2 or whatever) Mac Pro would look like, expandability-wise, anyway.
  - posguy 5y ago
    Its almost like Apple stuck with a CPU vendor that was trapped at 14nm while they were able to buy access to TSMC 5nm, a full 3 generations ahead of what was in older Macs, with each generation providing significant double digit improvements in density and power usage reduction.
    - fomine3 5y ago
      Their last MacBook Air uses Ice Lake so it's jump from Intel 10nm, so about 1.5-2 generation jump?
  - nebula8804 5y ago
    Ah yes, I forgot to mention in my original comment that I also have a Core i9 Macbook Pro and it seems more slow than the M1 mac. I cannot even believe it but I love to use the ~700$ Mac Mini and the $2800 laptop stays in the bag.
    - arvinsim 5y ago
      The moment I bought the M1 MBA 3 months ago is when I knew I fucked up purchasing the i9 MBP last 2020 mid year.
- EricE 5y ago
  >"Give up replaceable components and buy entire SoCs for all of your upgrades. Also forget about incremental upgrades" I used to think like that - until I analyzed all my PC builds over the last 12 years and realized with Intel changing sockets every generation the whole incremental upgrade thing was fond memories from the 80's, 90's and early 2000's. Once I realized incremental upgrades wasn't a hill worth dying on my choices increased and I've never been happier with the size/weight/speed/battery life that previous dogma prevented me from even evaluating. >We could also stop writing shit software. We could but people don't. Sentiments often don't survive contact with reality :p
  - nebula8804 5y ago
    My thoughts exactly. I don't know if this person has actually experienced the M1 in a thorough sense but my suspicion is probably no. To this day there still exists a cadre who think Apple users are idiots for spending so much money on a computer. Many of them have not seriously taken a look at what the platform offers and they do not fully comprehend why people choose this platform over others. Regarding the "We could also stop writing shit software." quote, it seems as if there has been a wave of optimization over the last decade just out of necessity. (electron notwithstanding) It is not enough, components that are written in fast languages such as the OS have generally gotten slower. We are forced to upgrade due to security and I don't see any incentive for companies to improve this part of the software stack. You can use other desktop apps that are faster but you only really have 2-3 choices in OS and that dictates everything else you can do with your computer. Was running Windows 11 on the Parallels Desktop on M1 and it seems snappy but not as snappy as MacOS. I noticed this same behavior on Windows 10 running on a core i7. It seems as if the design of the OS has some bloat that I cannot explain clearly but can definitely feel. We should consider that maybe Apple has been also optimizing software to be more performant.
    - novok 5y ago
      M1 snappiness partly comes from the efficiency cores and a better QoS algo. x86 could start adding effiency cores and do similar kinds of scheduling to get some of the benefits.
- nightski 5y ago
  Surprised to see you down-voted, I fully agree. I regularly update components in my systems each year including RAM, GPU, SSDs, WiFi (just upgraded to 6e), and more depending on needs. Processors/Motherboards not as much, maybe once every 5 years or so. Apple really seems all about throw away culture.
  - s3r3nity 5y ago
    >...I regularly update components in my systems each year including RAM, GPU, SSDs, WiFi... Then go for it - you have choices, and no one is forcing you to buy a Mac. I personally got shit to do and have no interest in replacing all of that at that type of frequency.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - shadilay 5y ago
      You might not but someone else will thereby preventing your computer from becoming e-waste. The only way your non upgradeable computer won't become e-waste is if you commit to using it for as long as an upgradeable computer would be used for. Lets say 10 years. Will you commit to not contributing to ewaste by using your non upgradeable computer for the next 10 years?
      - sixstringtheory 5y ago
        I buy Apple computers precisely because I want a machine I can use for that long. I used my last Macbook Air for 11 years without having to replace anything, so was less wasteful than a person swapping out components every year. Its screen is toast so it's a headless server now.
        shadilay 5y ago
        If everyone were like you then I would have no qualms about Apple's anti environmentalism. Personally I upgraded a garbage 2011 MBP from an unusable state with a SSD (came with HDD)and ram extending it's life. I find it ridiculous that I can upgrade an ancient MBP's ram to more than comes with the current base spec.
cma 5y ago
M1 is hobbled by having to have circuitry devoted to supporting the stricter x64 memory consistency model (they toggle it on only when emulating x64, but it is still there taking up die space when not). The A chips can be relaxed consistency only. A15 is also on a newer process node (TSMC 5nm gen2) and has 2x the L2 cache it looks like.
- nebula8804 5y ago
  Well lets see what M1X/M2 bring. They will probably retake the performance crown by squeezing even more onto the die. Given Apple's history, I wonder if like 10 years from now they just drop this additional bloat. In that case we really didn't lose the performance just gave it up temporarily. :)
  - cma 5y ago
    I would expect so, they dropped 32-bit x86 support.
- lostgame 5y ago
  I prefer x86 compatibility over improved M1 speeds.
  - EricE 5y ago
    Why not both? I was shocked at what I could get to run on my M1 Macbook Air - a lot more than I expected! The Windows 10 ARM beta also did a shockingly good job of running X86 code in Parallels too. Way faster than one would assume is reasonable for what was going on under the hood!
- saagarjha 5y ago
  It is very likely that the A-cores also include TSO.
johnwalkr 5y ago
I agree, it’s been a pleasure to use my m1 MacBook. I got the minimum storage (256GB) a made a workstation/file server for the first time in ages. That’s proven way more useful than more local storage (accessing a bit more of my files locally wherever I am vs accessing all of my files at a slower speed).

ohgodplsno 5y ago

"Give up replaceable components and buy entire SoCs for all of your upgrades. Also forget about incremental upgrades" No, thank you, I'll keep a flawed x86 architecture. We could also stop writing shit software.

danudey 5y ago
For what it's worth, all of the systems that Apple has shipped with the M1 are replacing systems which also did not have replaceable components and could not manage incremental updates. The main difference that I see is that the M1 chip is much faster and more power efficient than the systems it replaced (as well as much more expensive systems, for that matter; see M1 Air vs. Macbook Pro). I suspect that means that people who buy the M1 systems that Apple is selling won't replace their laptops as soon as people who bought x86 versions. Your point is taken, but this is a trend that Apple has been moving towards regardless; it's not something that's new to the M1 Macs. You haven't ever been able to swap out your motherboard or processor in a Macintosh with very few exceptions (including the Xeon Mac Pros), and we've yet to see what an M1 (or M2 or whatever) Mac Pro would look like, expandability-wise, anyway.
- posguy 5y ago
  Its almost like Apple stuck with a CPU vendor that was trapped at 14nm while they were able to buy access to TSMC 5nm, a full 3 generations ahead of what was in older Macs, with each generation providing significant double digit improvements in density and power usage reduction.
  - fomine3 5y ago
    Their last MacBook Air uses Ice Lake so it's jump from Intel 10nm, so about 1.5-2 generation jump?
- nebula8804 5y ago
  Ah yes, I forgot to mention in my original comment that I also have a Core i9 Macbook Pro and it seems more slow than the M1 mac. I cannot even believe it but I love to use the ~700$ Mac Mini and the $2800 laptop stays in the bag.
  - arvinsim 5y ago
    The moment I bought the M1 MBA 3 months ago is when I knew I fucked up purchasing the i9 MBP last 2020 mid year.
EricE 5y ago
>"Give up replaceable components and buy entire SoCs for all of your upgrades. Also forget about incremental upgrades" I used to think like that - until I analyzed all my PC builds over the last 12 years and realized with Intel changing sockets every generation the whole incremental upgrade thing was fond memories from the 80's, 90's and early 2000's. Once I realized incremental upgrades wasn't a hill worth dying on my choices increased and I've never been happier with the size/weight/speed/battery life that previous dogma prevented me from even evaluating. >We could also stop writing shit software. We could but people don't. Sentiments often don't survive contact with reality :p
- nebula8804 5y ago
  My thoughts exactly. I don't know if this person has actually experienced the M1 in a thorough sense but my suspicion is probably no. To this day there still exists a cadre who think Apple users are idiots for spending so much money on a computer. Many of them have not seriously taken a look at what the platform offers and they do not fully comprehend why people choose this platform over others. Regarding the "We could also stop writing shit software." quote, it seems as if there has been a wave of optimization over the last decade just out of necessity. (electron notwithstanding) It is not enough, components that are written in fast languages such as the OS have generally gotten slower. We are forced to upgrade due to security and I don't see any incentive for companies to improve this part of the software stack. You can use other desktop apps that are faster but you only really have 2-3 choices in OS and that dictates everything else you can do with your computer. Was running Windows 11 on the Parallels Desktop on M1 and it seems snappy but not as snappy as MacOS. I noticed this same behavior on Windows 10 running on a core i7. It seems as if the design of the OS has some bloat that I cannot explain clearly but can definitely feel. We should consider that maybe Apple has been also optimizing software to be more performant.
  - novok 5y ago
    M1 snappiness partly comes from the efficiency cores and a better QoS algo. x86 could start adding effiency cores and do similar kinds of scheduling to get some of the benefits.
nightski 5y ago
Surprised to see you down-voted, I fully agree. I regularly update components in my systems each year including RAM, GPU, SSDs, WiFi (just upgraded to 6e), and more depending on needs. Processors/Motherboards not as much, maybe once every 5 years or so. Apple really seems all about throw away culture.
- s3r3nity 5y ago
  >...I regularly update components in my systems each year including RAM, GPU, SSDs, WiFi... Then go for it - you have choices, and no one is forcing you to buy a Mac. I personally got shit to do and have no interest in replacing all of that at that type of frequency.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - shadilay 5y ago
    You might not but someone else will thereby preventing your computer from becoming e-waste. The only way your non upgradeable computer won't become e-waste is if you commit to using it for as long as an upgradeable computer would be used for. Lets say 10 years. Will you commit to not contributing to ewaste by using your non upgradeable computer for the next 10 years?
    - sixstringtheory 5y ago
      I buy Apple computers precisely because I want a machine I can use for that long. I used my last Macbook Air for 11 years without having to replace anything, so was less wasteful than a person swapping out components every year. Its screen is toast so it's a headless server now.
      - shadilay 5y ago
        If everyone were like you then I would have no qualms about Apple's anti environmentalism. Personally I upgraded a garbage 2011 MBP from an unusable state with a SSD (came with HDD)and ram extending it's life. I find it ridiculous that I can upgrade an ancient MBP's ram to more than comes with the current base spec.

cma 5y ago

M1 is hobbled by having to have circuitry devoted to supporting the stricter x64 memory consistency model (they toggle it on only when emulating x64, but it is still there taking up die space when not). The A chips can be relaxed consistency only. A15 is also on a newer process node (TSMC 5nm gen2) and has 2x the L2 cache it looks like.

nebula8804 5y ago
Well lets see what M1X/M2 bring. They will probably retake the performance crown by squeezing even more onto the die. Given Apple's history, I wonder if like 10 years from now they just drop this additional bloat. In that case we really didn't lose the performance just gave it up temporarily. :)
- cma 5y ago
  I would expect so, they dropped 32-bit x86 support.
lostgame 5y ago
I prefer x86 compatibility over improved M1 speeds.
- EricE 5y ago
  Why not both? I was shocked at what I could get to run on my M1 Macbook Air - a lot more than I expected! The Windows 10 ARM beta also did a shockingly good job of running X86 code in Parallels too. Way faster than one would assume is reasonable for what was going on under the hood!
saagarjha 5y ago
It is very likely that the A-cores also include TSO.

johnwalkr 5y ago

I agree, it’s been a pleasure to use my m1 MacBook. I got the minimum storage (256GB) a made a workstation/file server for the first time in ages. That’s proven way more useful than more local storage (accessing a bit more of my files locally wherever I am vs accessing all of my files at a slower speed).