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I just can't figure out what I'm missing on the "M1 is so fast" side of things. For years I worked* on an Ubuntu desktop machine I built myself. Early this year

I just can't figure out what I'm missing on the "M1 is so fast" side of things. For years I worked* on an Ubuntu desktop machine I built myself. Early this year I switched to a brand new M1 mini and this this is slower and less reliable than the thing I built myself that runs Ubuntu. My Ubuntu machine had a few little issues every no and then. My Mini has weird bugs all the time. e.g. Green Screen Crashes when I have a thumbdrive plugged in. Won't wake from sleep. Loses bluetooth randomly. Not at all what I'd expect from something built by the company with unlimited funds. I would expect those issues from the Ubuntu box, but the problems were small on that thing. *Work... Docker, Ansible, Rails apps, nothing that requires amazing super power. Everything just runs slower.

majormajor 5y ago
Running Docker on a Mac vs on Linux is going to be a subpar experience compared to a native x86 Linux box. It would take a LOT to magic around that.
dcolkitt 5y ago
MacOS just seems to have a lot of stability problems related to peripherals. I don’t think it’s specific to M1. Even on my late-era Intel MBP, Bluetooth and USB often triggers a kernel panic.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  When I got my first MacBook Pro, there was actually bug in iPhone USB Tethering that caused a guaranteed kernel panic if you tried to do it. Managed to crash my laptop a few times with my iPhone 3GS.
perryizgr8 5y ago
The Intel macs were extremely slow. Even a core i9 16 inch ran hot and noisy. A small xps 13 felt much faster in general use. I don't know if this was deliberate by Apple or just a side effect of the extremely anemic cooling. So all those people who had been using macbooks felt the speed when they used a decently fast laptop. Everybody else knows that M1 laptops are fast, like non-apple laptops have been for quite some time.
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
I thought native M1 Linux was still a work in progress (disclaimer: I’m not a Linux geek). Even if it’s out there, I suspect it’s not optimized. I think standard distros are running on Rosetta2, which is an (excellent, from all reports) X86 emulator.
- paulmd 5y ago
  linux is actually ported to the M1 at this point and you can run it normally (although of course there are likely still some bugs lurking), however the graphics drivers are still a work in progress although coming along very quickly. https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/06/asahi_linux_m1_progress_report/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/06/asahi_linux_m1_progre... I'm sure you're right that there are still optimizations to be done, but as you can see from Alyssa's tweet there, it is still a very fast piece of hardware for normal developer usage, as long as you don't fall into one of the scenarios that probably requires further tuning (x86 emulation probably being an obvious one, no idea if they've got Total Store Ordering working in KVM yet but that's obviously a key feature). mega kudos to the Asahi team, the progress has been really tremendous, it's been just about 6 months since kickoff and they've made progress that some people insisted would take multiple years/was impossible at all.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    So, for the most part, the lions’ share of distros still run emulated. In that case, running “only slightly faster” seems like win. I’m sure we’ll be fully native, soon enough. We’ve had native ARM Linux for years (Android). Should be fun.
Phylter 5y ago
My $1000 Windows laptop from two years ago kills my M1 MacBook Pro. Benchmarks aren't everything and there's more to speed than just raw calculations.
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  Doing what?
- badsimian 5y ago
  Wow, that would really be against the tide. Can you provide any more information like the specs, make and what you are doing?
- ausername42027 5y ago
  Is it 5 pounds and 2 inches thick? The fact is is that my M1 Macbook Air that was $1400 would cost at least $2000 from HP, Dell or Lenovo to even approach similar performance, and still have a worse screen, worse battery life, AND would still be slower. I have not seen a laptop chip from AMD or Intel in fanless, thin laptop like the Macbook Air that even gets close to the M1.
Aperocky 5y ago
> desktop I too have a $900 "Gaming" desktop setup from 2 years ago that should have no problem exceeding the newest M1 Max mac in terms of performance and graphics. But it consumes 250 watts on average.
jeswin 5y ago
People also overlook the fact that Geekbench has generally favored Apple A-series CPUs. When the original M1 came out they were faster than 4800u Ryzens on Geekbench, while being slower on Cinebench. 4800u consumes more power, but is also a node behind. Other benchmarks too have their biases. You can find plenty of discussion on this topic.
jurschreuder 5y ago
Even VIM is super slow on my mac book, this amazes me most hahaha
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
filmgirlcw 5y ago
The Docker situation on macOS for Apple Silicon is just really, really terrible. Docker on macOS was never particularly good (compared to Linux anyway), but on Apple Silicon it is just beyond bad. A combination of how Docker spins up a VM, the state of Linux on ARM (especially on the M1) and the complexities of when you need to compile stuff that doesn’t have native ARM versions is just a mess. If Apple cared about this segment, I'd think they would contribute some resources to either improving Docker or doing native macOS containers built with Unix, but I just don’t think they do. This is one reason I'm keeping my 2020 iMac (10-core i9, 128GB of RAM, AMD Radeon Pro 5700XT) around for a long time, even though I just ordered a 64GB 32-core GPU 14” MacBook Pro . (I have an AMD Ryzen 5900X with an Nvidia 3080 as my gaming PC too.) If your primary interface is containers, I don’t necessarily think the M1 series machines are the best. But for lots of other tasks, it’s really just astounding.
vegai_ 5y ago
>*Work... Docker, Ansible, Rails apps, nothing that requires amazing super power. Everything just runs slower. Docker does require amazing super power on anything except Linux since only on Linux it doesn't have to rely on emulation. The overhead is 0-1% on Linux, and something way more on alternative platforms. Besides Docker, what you're seeing is probably the fact that MacOS is way slower than Linux for almost all the things developers do in their daily lives. If the M1 port ever gets properly done, you're gonna see Linux fly on that.
concinds 5y ago
macOS has always been worse at animation performance, even after the Metal switch. My M1 is buttery smooth, but you always had dropped frames even on pretty recent Mac hardware. Your other issues seem like factory defects, I've never had them.
joconde 5y ago
> My Mini has weird bugs all the time. e.g. Green Screen Crashes when I have a thumbdrive plugged in. Won't wake from sleep. Loses bluetooth randomly. Either the Mini is much buggier than the MacBook Air by design, or you need to get it replaced under warranty. My MBA is the first laptop I've used for months with absolutely no hardware interaction issue.
YuukiRey 5y ago
My experience is the opposite. I love Linux, but my MacOS work laptop is just so much better. For as long as I've used Linux it freezes randomly. This happens on all hardware configurations I've ever owned. If I don't regularly save my work, I will end up losing it. These days I also can't leave my desktop PC suspended for too long. At some point the fans start spinning at max. No reason why. As for my 13 inch M1 laptop, I don't even know if it has fans. I've never heard them even if I'm in a zoom meeting, sharing my screen, while compiling half the world. Also in Linux I can't really use Zoom screen sharing. Seems to leek memory and after a while it crashes. Of course that's not Linux fault. On my Linux machine it takes significant effort to use my AirPod's microphone. And that's not even talking about battery life on Linux laptops. It's always interesting how we all have such completely different experiences with our hardware and software.
- account_b 5y ago
  Seems like you mostly have issues with Wayland. What distro are you running? For me Zoom screen sharing works fine with Wayland, if everything runs Wayland, including the browser. Xwayland apps can't "see" Wayland apps or the desktop. I assume the Zoom client may be Electron/Xwayland, correct? The X to Wayland transition is mostly over soon. Probably with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
ody4242 5y ago
As someone who has an Intel NUC w. Ubuntu, a Thinkpad with Windows 10, and a Macbook Pro 2015, I have a totally different experience. I spend like 5% of my total effort on OSX to make things working, the remaining 95% is spent to make things working on Windows and Ubuntu...
mikhailt 5y ago
Many folks are comparing it to previous Macs with macOS, not PCs nor other distros. If you have an Intel Mac next to it, there's a clear noticeable difference assuming macOS is on it. If you put W10 on the Intel Mac, it is much faster than macOS on it (from my own experience). If we could run W10 or Linux on M1, it will be much faster than Intel Mac. Another example, Windows 10/11 on ARM in Parallels on my MBA m1 is much faster than Surface Pro X, a MS-tuned/customized device.
- EugeneOZ 5y ago
  I’m comparing Windows PC (i7-6700k, nvme) with MBA m1 and MBA is noticeable faster in just everything. Compilation time of JS and Java code is literally 2 times faster on MBA M1 than on desktop i7 CPU.
  - jeppester 5y ago
    While the M1 is surely impressive I think you put too much weight on those JS compilation results. Windows is known to be really slow for this specific task since it has poor per-file IO performance - especially when Windows Defender is enabled. I do my daily work - involving lots of JS compilation - on a i5-4690 running ubuntu server, it's faster than any of my colleagues' much newer MacBook Pros (no M1's yet though). Our Windows laptops are so far behind that it's just awful to watch (3-5 times slower).
  - EugeneOZ 5y ago
    for those who downvote the facts they don't want to know about: https://twitter.com/eugeniyoz/status/1407518570888810497?s=21 https://twitter.com/eugeniyoz/status/1407518570888810497?s=2...
    - ry4nolson 5y ago
      nobody is arguing with your facts, just that your comparison is apples and oranges since the i7 6700k was released 5+ years ago.
  - munchbunny 5y ago
jokethrowaway 5y ago
This is easily explained. Linux distributions don't make money if you buy a new laptop.
jinto36 5y ago
Not particularly defending the M1, but it might be that much of what you're using so far isn't available native and is going through Rosetta2? The other issues could be OS issues, but maybe it would be worth doing a RAM test?
vineyardmike 5y ago
Disclaimer, I don't have an M1 Mac, but I do have a buggy ubuntu desktop and used Macs my whole technical life. It seems that you're heavily in the minority with this. Even the weird bugs you mention are very unexpected. I've used a Mac for 15 years and never heard of an issue related to thumb drives. You may just have a lemon. See if you can just replace it (warranty, etc, not just spending more money).
- katbyte 5y ago
  yep. if things don't work contact apple support they are actually pretty decent. i had a lemon mini, randomly would go into a bootloop after os updates - had a bad mainboard so apple replaced it and it's been fine since.
- jacurtis 5y ago
  I have both, and use both everyday. I use an M1 MacBook Pro (16Gb Ram) for personal projects and as my standard home/travel computer. It is amazing and fast. I use a Lenovo Carbon X1 Laptop with similar specs (i5, 16Gb Ram, m.2 ssd) for work that runs RHEL 8 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). It's insanely fast and stable. The overhead to run RHEL is so small it would blow your mind at the performance you get from almost nothing. Mac or Windows are crazy bloated by comparison. I know I am sparking an eternal debate by saying this, but I personally have never found Ubuntu to be as stable for a workstation (but ubuntu server is great) as RHEL is. With that being said, I still think the M1 mac is the best computer I have ever owned. While linux is great for work, I personally enjoy the polished and more joyful experience of Mac for personal use. There are a million quality of life improvements that Mac offers that you won't get in Linux. The app ecosystem on mac is incredible. When most people make comparisons for the M1 Mac, they are comparing windows PCs (generally Intel-based ones since Mac previously used Intel) and they compare intel-based Macs. I have never seen someone comparing it to linux performance. The speed of the M1 mac is far better than Windows and far better than old Macs. There is no question. Before my M1 mac I used a MacBook Pro with an i7, 16Gb RAM, and the upgraded dedicated graphics card. The little M1 MacBook outshines it at least 2 to 1. Best of all, the fans never turned on, and my old MacBook Pro had constant fan whine which drove me crazy. The other incredible feat of the M1 Mac is the battery life. I run my laptop nearly exclusively on battery power now. I treat it like an iPad. You plug it in when it gets low, but I can use it for about a week between charges (I use it for 2-3 hours each day). I don't turn the screen down or modify my performance. I keep the screen fairly bright and just cruise away. I love it. While Linux might be able to outshine on performance, it doesn't outperform with battery. My Lenovo laptop is worth about 2x my MacBook Pro. It is a premium laptop and yet running RHEL I will be lucky to get 6 hours. Compare that to ~20 hours of my MacBook.
lambdapsyc 5y ago
Easy, it is likely docker that is making your Mac mini slower than your old linux box? Docker on macOS is painfully slow, because it is implemented on macOS through what amounts to a sledgehammer to the problem. Docker depends on linux kernel features so on macOS it just starts a linux virtual machine and does other high overhead compatibility tricks to get it to work. Volumes are the biggest culprit. If you are running docker through rosetta... (don't know the state of docker on apple silicon) then that is a double whammy of compatibility layers. Regarding bugs, yeah probably teething issues because the M1 was/is such a large departure from the norm. They should really get those things fixed pronto.
- ArchOversight 5y ago
  Docker for Mac Desktop supports the M1 and uses an Linux VM that is ARM. It is not using Rosetta 2 at all.
  - johncolanduoni 5y ago
    But if you run x86 images, it will use qemu’s software emulation inside the Linux VM (which is quite slow).
    - Master_Odin 5y ago
      This has been the big slowdown for my org as a number of packages we rely on in docker on debian do not yet have an arm64 version, so have to emulate x86 and take the huge performance hit.
      - ArchOversight 5y ago
        May I introduce you to AWS/GCP/Azure where you can cheaply run legacy x86 systems and use them for development?
      - tcmart14 5y ago
        Yea, don't get the benefit of the hypervisor when constrained to x86 Vms.
plandis 5y ago
What are the specs on your Ubuntu machine?
dubcanada 5y ago
Seems like your computer may have issues, you shouldn't be crashing from USB devices. Sounds like you should go get it checked out tbh.
- Mindwipe 5y ago
  There are an awful lot of people with USB issues on the M1. Its clearly not as mature a platform as previously.
- thenthenthen 5y ago
  Well could just be a software issue, for example if you installed the wrong CH430x driver to run your faux arduino clones (that didnt pay debt to ftdi) you might run into this issue.
y4mi 5y ago
docker is a second-class citizen on anything but linux. i'm especially amazed you bothered with the m1 mac mini if you wanted to use docker, considering how little memory it has. the memory overhead of having a VM running with only 8GB available is significant. yes, i know the docker on mac has "native" support for the m1 cpu, that doesn't mean its not running a VM.
- jacurtis 5y ago
  Yeah people forget that Docker is built to run on Linux. That is why it exists. You deploy your containers onto a Linux host that runs docker for containerization, that is the point. The reason we have Docker for Windows and Mac is so that developers can emulate the docker environment for testing and building purposes. But ultimately it is expected that you will take your container and eventually deploy it on Linux. So Docker will always be a second class citizen on these other OS's because it is just there for emulation purposes.
jiveturkey 5y ago
Probably more to do with bug sir than the hardware. Catalina is pretty solid.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  I hadn’t heard that one. I had some pain, but I can laugh now.
throwaway894345 5y ago
That's Docker for Mac versus native Docker. Docker only runs on Linux, so Docker for Mac spins up a linux VM to run your containers. When you mount your Ruby or Python projects into your containers, Docker for Mac marshals tons of filesystem events over the host/guest boundary which absolutely devastates your CPU. Docker for Mac is really just bad for your use case. No idea what's going on with the thumb drive, bluetooth, etc. Beyond that, it's a little silly to compare a desktop (presumably many times larger, ~500+W power supply, cooling system, etc) with a Mac mini (tiny, laptop chip, no fans, etc).
- saila 5y ago
  I used to run Docker on an older Intel Mini and it was fine--a little slow but usable. I've also used it on other Intel Macs without major issues, including running giant Java apps and SQL Server. On my M1 Mini, I found it unstable and incredibly slow (for Postgres at least, using stock images from Docker Hub) and mostly quit using it. I upgraded to the latest version recently and it was still too slow. For everything else, though, I find that the M1 Mini is significantly faster. E.g., compiling Python versions is way faster.
  - pxc 5y ago
    What's the CPU arch of the container images you're running?
    - saila 5y ago
      The postgres image (postgis/postgis:12-3.1-alpine) is linux/amd64. I see now that the official postgres images have other arch options compared to the postgis images, which are arm64 only. I wonder if that could make a difference... And now I see that Docker Desktop actually shows a warning about potentially poor performance when using an amd64 image: "Image may have poor performance, or fail, if run via emulation." This is good news, since I'd much rather use Docker to run postgres in dev.
      - saila 5y ago
chrisco255 5y ago
My AMD / Nvidia laptop running Ubuntu has had a number of issues from flash crashes to freeze ups to external monitor connectivity that have progressively gotten better as the drivers were updated. It is likely the drivers are buggy and will probably improve with time.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> I just can't figure out what I'm missing on the "M1 is so fast" side of things. Two reasons: 1. M1 is a super fast laptop chip. It provides mid-range desktop performance in a laptop form factor with mostly fanless operation. No matter how you look at it, that's impressive. 2. Apple really dragged their feet on updating the old Intel Macs before the transition. People in the Mac world (excluding hackintosh) were stuck on relatively outdated x86-64 CPUs. Compared to those older CPUs, the M1 Max is a huge leap forward. Compared to modern AMD mobile parts, it's still faster but not by leaps and bounds. But I agree that the M1 hype may be getting a little out of hand. It's fast and super power efficient, but it's mostly on par with mid-range 8-core AMD desktop CPUs from 2020. Even AMD's top mobile CPU isn't that far behind the M1 Max in Geekbench scores. I'm very excited to get my M1 Max in a few weeks. But if these early Geekbench results are accurate, it's going to be about half as fast as my AMD desktop in code compilation (see Clang results in the detailed score breakdown). That's still mightily impressive from a low-power laptop! But I think some of the rhetoric about the M1 Max blowing away desktop CPUs is getting a little ahead of the reality.
- nimchimpsky 5y ago
  Its literally the 25th fastest cpu available across all cpu's ? According to the geekbench scores. I'm not sure how you can say its not that fast. Its a laptop cpu, with very very low power draw and its the 25th fastest cpu ACROSS all cpus. Its the biggest generational leap in cpus for 20 years.
- hyperpallium2 5y ago
  > Apple really dragged their feet ... I wonder if this was deliberate theatre for dramatic contrast?
- qudat 5y ago
  For reference, I’m looking to purchase a framework laptop. If I’m lucky I’m going to get 8 hours of battery life. Real number for M1 mbp reach 16+ hours, doubling the laptop of my choice. That is crazy impressive and something that I wish I could get in the ultrabook form factor.
- drewpc 5y ago
spamizbad 5y ago
The answer is M1 is a great chip held back by a mediocre OS. Containers and certain other applications are just going to run faster on Linux, which has had a ton of performance tuning put into it relative to MacOS.
zitterbewegung 5y ago
I have had the opposite experience. Whenever a update to a kernel comes out for Ubuntu my machine apparently forgets which kernel to choose and boots up incorrectly. My M1 MacBook Air drives a Pro Display XDR without any hiccups. Its completely silent when I work with it. But, performance wise the M1 Pro and Max don't seem like they would be worth it for me to upgrade from the M1 at all. I just want a completely silent laptop and it makes a huge difference to me. But, my workflows and workloads are slowly changing from local compilation of code to one where I will probably just SSH and or possibly figure out how to configure RDP into my Threadripper when I do actual builds and have my Macbook Air M1 with 16GB of Ram and the synergy with other Apple devices is a huge plus. Have you talked with Apple to get a replacement?
jccalhoun 5y ago
I've never owned a mac and I've never used an M1 so take this with a heavy grain of salt. Everyone I've seen talk about how fast the M1 is were coming from 4-5+ year old macs not comparing them to intel/amd chips that came out last year in a similar price range.
- badsimian 5y ago
  Well I went from a 16" 32GB 6-core i7 2019 MBP to a 16GB M1 Macbook Air and it was night and day better. So much faster, silent, cool and snappier.
factorialboy 5y ago
M1 is, compared to precious editions of Macbooks, much better. My two year old Linux desktop is a beast compared to my M1 Macmini. But I love the Macmini compared to my 2019 MBP.
babypuncher 5y ago
The Mac Mini isn't super impressive, because you're comparing it to desktops where TDP is far less of a concern. The M1 is getting a lot of attention because it's Apple's first laptop chip, and it is the fastest chip in that category by a fairly significant margin. Chips from Intel and AMD only compete with it on performance when drawing considerably more power.
sliken 5y ago
Well switching hardware and OS makes it hard to tell what's responsible for the difference. I also suspect Docker and what's running in the containers might well be x86 code instead of native. I can tell you that I have a high end mbp 16" intel-i9 with 32GB ram and it feels much slower than a new mac M1 mini. My intel-i9 runs the fan card during backups (crashplan), video conferencing, and sometimes just because even just outlook. The M1 mini on the other hand has been silent, fast, and generally a pleasure to use. Doubling the number of fast cores, doubling (or quadrupling) the GPU and memory bandwidth should make the new MBP 14 and 16" even better.
- JiNCMG 5y ago
  I have a top of the line Windows 10 i7 laptop and Outlook will create more heat than any other process I am running. Now introduce Windows Modern Standby and we get a real SH*T SHOW.
merrvk 5y ago
Put the same thing in a fanless laptop, that seems to last forever on a charge, then you’ll understand
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
Meh. The M1 is a node ahead and memory is placed on package. I'm trying not to be dazzled by the tech when it comes at the price of freedom.
- outside1234 5y ago
  Ok - I get that comment for iPhone - but what is less free about the Mac vs. a PC?
  - claaams 5y ago
    No component is user upgradeable or repairable. You have to buy apple care or else.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - mixmastamyk 5y ago
    You have to use macos for now.
websap 5y ago
Currently typing this on an m1 laptop that I bought 2 weeks back. This machine blows my 16 inch Macbook out of the water. My 16 inch Macbook is pretty well spec'd, but this laptop is something else.
lewantmontreal 5y ago
Has there been any research to OS response times between Macos, Windows and Linux? Ive wanted to switch to Mac many times, most recently to M1 Mac Mini, but cant get over the frustrating slowness. Every action, like opening Finder, feels like it takes so long compared to Windows even with reduce animation on. I always end up returning the mac.
- filipo 5y ago
  Well thanks for mention it, I really feel the same. Stuff just does not open instant and perceived slowness on macOS is real. Just try simple stuff… Modern Windows just flies most of the time in comparison. Opening a file dialog in finder is a common scenario yet it is so slow and the system seems to appear limited by simple stuff like that. M1 surely improves things but the UI generally seems to prefer animation over raw speed. I really don‘t know what the reason is but I feel that a lot of people simply ignore this. I use all 3 major systems and I cannot overlook it anymore. Additionally, Docker is another real issue mentioned for the reasons already. Too bad that it is so common now and its slowness is a growing pain. I feel that WSL (WSLg) on Windows is huge, no comparison to run a traditional VM for the most part if you are not macOS only. Never thought I have to write this…
littlestymaar 5y ago
I share the same feeling, and I'm glad to learn I'm not alone: earlier this year I worked for a (really) sort time with a company who gave me a Macbook M1, which I was pretty excited about. Over the course of the two weeks I worked there, I faced: - frequent glitches when unplugging the HDMI adaptor (an Apple one, which costed an arm and a leg). - non-compatible software (Docker, Sublimetext) - and even a Kernel Panic while resuming from hibernation It was like working with Linux in the 2000's, but at least with Linux I knew it was gonna be a bit rough on the edges. Given the hype found online, I wasn't at all prepared for such an experience.
- bschwindHN 5y ago
  > non-compatible software (Docker, Sublimetext) What was the issue with Sublime? I use it on an M1 every day without issue.
  - littlestymaar 5y ago
    I don't remember exactly, but I couldn't use it. Keep in mind this was in Jan/Feb 2021, so I'd expect software compatibility with the new chip to have improved dramatically.
    - pkilgore 5y ago
      Docker is now faster than on my work Intel MBP, fwiw. If was pretty bad in winter 21 though.
alwillis 5y ago
Let’s review: “Black. Magic. Fuckery.”—https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25202147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25202147
markdown 5y ago
M1 is hardware. Ubuntu is software. Your comparison makes no sense.
pgib 5y ago
I went from a 2016 top-of-the-line MacBook Pro to an M1 Mac mini, and I can't believe how much faster things are–including Docker with Rails, PostgreSQL, etc. Out of curiosity, are you running native (arm64) containers? Aside from an issue now and then with my secondary HDMI display, my machine has continued to blow me away. My development environment is almost on par with our production environment, which is a nice change.
localhost 5y ago
I have a three-year old hand-built 16-core ThreadRipper 1950X machine here with 64GB 4-channel RAM. I have a 14" MBP M1 Max on order. I just checked the Geekbench scores between these two machines: M1 Max: 1783 single-core | 12693 multi-core 1950X: 901 single-core | 7409 multi-core That's a big difference that I'm looking forward to. Also, just checked memory bandwidth. I have 80GB/s memory bandwidth [1] on my 1950X. The MBP has 400GB/s memory bandwidth. 5x(!) [1] https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/ryzen_threadripper/1950x https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/ryzen_threadripper/1950x *EDIT adding memory bandwidth.
- jeswin 5y ago
  1. M1 Max has 50+ billion transistors (only a part of that count is CPU, so adjust the number downwards), 1950X (first gen 14-nm Ryzen) has 10 billion. 2. Multicore Cinebench R23 for M1 Max: 14970; Ryzen 1950X: 18780 Geekbench tests in short bursts, not taxing the CPU thermals. Cinebench is the opposite. In short, CPUs do well on some benchmarks and not so well on others.
  - localhost 5y ago
    The Cinebench R23 results for 1950x[1] and M1Max[2], including single and multi-core: single multi M1Max: 1562 14970 1950X: 1035 18780 Remember that the M1 Max has 8 high performance and 2 efficiency cores vs. the 16 cores of the 1950x. Again, this is a pretty convincing victory - 1.5x single core perf in a laptop - this is not a HEDT part. [1] https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu-amd_ryzen_threadripper_1950x-756 https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu-amd_ryzen_threadripper_195... [2] https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu-apple_m1_max https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu-apple_m1_max
- postalrat 5y ago
  So you are comparing a laptop that is just coming out to something 4 years old.
  - paulmd 5y ago
    a 4 year old workstation/HEDT that was widely viewed as being an out-of-band excellent performer for its time, and the laptop is outperforming it in multithreaded performance by almost a factor of 2, with half the (performance) cores, with no SMT. yeah, that actually is fairly wild. Granted, there are good technical reasons there (lower memory bandwidth, the 1950X having a NUMA/NUCA arrangement that often hampers the ability to bring all the cores to bear on a single task, Zen1 having extremely high memory latency and cross-CCX latency in general, etc) but it still actually is a very impressive feat.
alienalp 5y ago
Actually there is nothing to figure out. If limitations of macos and arm cpu is not issue for you and you want a lightweight laptop then you buy a m1 macbook. m1 macbook air first Apple product i bought and i also had latest gen ryzen laptop at that time (which was superior to intel). Simply there is nothing to compare. It is not an alternative to m1 cpu. At least 5 years behind it. Actually it looks like it will never possible for that architecture to catch up with arm for low tdp siutations. If you ever used last gen windows laptop you will know there are always bugs. And installing ubuntu on a latest gen machine. LOL. That won't make you happy even if it is possible. I also had an issue with bluetooth mouse being laggy. It seems like patched now. Bugs were really an issue with m1 cpu but i assume there shouldn't be much issues now.
jaimex2 5y ago
You more or less described how Apple hype works. The M1 is fast like a Ferrari, it's expensive and nice in the brochure but you can't take it many places in real life let alone use more than 20% of its potential.
mrighele 5y ago
M1 is fast for being a laptop CPU. This means that maybe it is not the fastest CPU in absolute terms, but if you consider performance per Watt, it is really a beast. Although my main workstation is an Intel Ubuntu-based PC, I have also a M1 Macbook Air that I use when I travel, or when I am laying on the couch in the evening after work. That piece of hardware never gets hot, and the battery seems to last forever. Meanwhile it does whatever I throw at it; if else the limiting factor is the amount of RAM installed on the laptop.

majormajor 5y ago

Running Docker on a Mac vs on Linux is going to be a subpar experience compared to a native x86 Linux box. It would take a LOT to magic around that.

dcolkitt 5y ago

MacOS just seems to have a lot of stability problems related to peripherals. I don’t think it’s specific to M1. Even on my late-era Intel MBP, Bluetooth and USB often triggers a kernel panic.

Hamuko 5y ago
When I got my first MacBook Pro, there was actually bug in iPhone USB Tethering that caused a guaranteed kernel panic if you tried to do it. Managed to crash my laptop a few times with my iPhone 3GS.

perryizgr8 5y ago

The Intel macs were extremely slow. Even a core i9 16 inch ran hot and noisy. A small xps 13 felt much faster in general use. I don't know if this was deliberate by Apple or just a side effect of the extremely anemic cooling. So all those people who had been using macbooks felt the speed when they used a decently fast laptop. Everybody else knows that M1 laptops are fast, like non-apple laptops have been for quite some time.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

I thought native M1 Linux was still a work in progress (disclaimer: I’m not a Linux geek). Even if it’s out there, I suspect it’s not optimized. I think standard distros are running on Rosetta2, which is an (excellent, from all reports) X86 emulator.

paulmd 5y ago
linux is actually ported to the M1 at this point and you can run it normally (although of course there are likely still some bugs lurking), however the graphics drivers are still a work in progress although coming along very quickly. https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/06/asahi_linux_m1_progress_report/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/06/asahi_linux_m1_progre... I'm sure you're right that there are still optimizations to be done, but as you can see from Alyssa's tweet there, it is still a very fast piece of hardware for normal developer usage, as long as you don't fall into one of the scenarios that probably requires further tuning (x86 emulation probably being an obvious one, no idea if they've got Total Store Ordering working in KVM yet but that's obviously a key feature). mega kudos to the Asahi team, the progress has been really tremendous, it's been just about 6 months since kickoff and they've made progress that some people insisted would take multiple years/was impossible at all.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  So, for the most part, the lions’ share of distros still run emulated. In that case, running “only slightly faster” seems like win. I’m sure we’ll be fully native, soon enough. We’ve had native ARM Linux for years (Android). Should be fun.

Phylter 5y ago

My $1000 Windows laptop from two years ago kills my M1 MacBook Pro. Benchmarks aren't everything and there's more to speed than just raw calculations.

mixmastamyk 5y ago
Doing what?
badsimian 5y ago
Wow, that would really be against the tide. Can you provide any more information like the specs, make and what you are doing?
ausername42027 5y ago
Is it 5 pounds and 2 inches thick? The fact is is that my M1 Macbook Air that was $1400 would cost at least $2000 from HP, Dell or Lenovo to even approach similar performance, and still have a worse screen, worse battery life, AND would still be slower. I have not seen a laptop chip from AMD or Intel in fanless, thin laptop like the Macbook Air that even gets close to the M1.

Aperocky 5y ago

> desktop I too have a $900 "Gaming" desktop setup from 2 years ago that should have no problem exceeding the newest M1 Max mac in terms of performance and graphics. But it consumes 250 watts on average.

jeswin 5y ago

People also overlook the fact that Geekbench has generally favored Apple A-series CPUs. When the original M1 came out they were faster than 4800u Ryzens on Geekbench, while being slower on Cinebench. 4800u consumes more power, but is also a node behind. Other benchmarks too have their biases. You can find plenty of discussion on this topic.

jurschreuder 5y ago

Even VIM is super slow on my mac book, this amazes me most hahaha

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

filmgirlcw 5y ago

The Docker situation on macOS for Apple Silicon is just really, really terrible. Docker on macOS was never particularly good (compared to Linux anyway), but on Apple Silicon it is just beyond bad. A combination of how Docker spins up a VM, the state of Linux on ARM (especially on the M1) and the complexities of when you need to compile stuff that doesn’t have native ARM versions is just a mess. If Apple cared about this segment, I'd think they would contribute some resources to either improving Docker or doing native macOS containers built with Unix, but I just don’t think they do. This is one reason I'm keeping my 2020 iMac (10-core i9, 128GB of RAM, AMD Radeon Pro 5700XT) around for a long time, even though I just ordered a 64GB 32-core GPU 14” MacBook Pro . (I have an AMD Ryzen 5900X with an Nvidia 3080 as my gaming PC too.) If your primary interface is containers, I don’t necessarily think the M1 series machines are the best. But for lots of other tasks, it’s really just astounding.

vegai_ 5y ago

>*Work... Docker, Ansible, Rails apps, nothing that requires amazing super power. Everything just runs slower. Docker does require amazing super power on anything except Linux since only on Linux it doesn't have to rely on emulation. The overhead is 0-1% on Linux, and something way more on alternative platforms. Besides Docker, what you're seeing is probably the fact that MacOS is way slower than Linux for almost all the things developers do in their daily lives. If the M1 port ever gets properly done, you're gonna see Linux fly on that.

concinds 5y ago

macOS has always been worse at animation performance, even after the Metal switch. My M1 is buttery smooth, but you always had dropped frames even on pretty recent Mac hardware. Your other issues seem like factory defects, I've never had them.

joconde 5y ago

> My Mini has weird bugs all the time. e.g. Green Screen Crashes when I have a thumbdrive plugged in. Won't wake from sleep. Loses bluetooth randomly. Either the Mini is much buggier than the MacBook Air by design, or you need to get it replaced under warranty. My MBA is the first laptop I've used for months with absolutely no hardware interaction issue.

YuukiRey 5y ago

My experience is the opposite. I love Linux, but my MacOS work laptop is just so much better. For as long as I've used Linux it freezes randomly. This happens on all hardware configurations I've ever owned. If I don't regularly save my work, I will end up losing it. These days I also can't leave my desktop PC suspended for too long. At some point the fans start spinning at max. No reason why. As for my 13 inch M1 laptop, I don't even know if it has fans. I've never heard them even if I'm in a zoom meeting, sharing my screen, while compiling half the world. Also in Linux I can't really use Zoom screen sharing. Seems to leek memory and after a while it crashes. Of course that's not Linux fault. On my Linux machine it takes significant effort to use my AirPod's microphone. And that's not even talking about battery life on Linux laptops. It's always interesting how we all have such completely different experiences with our hardware and software.

account_b 5y ago
Seems like you mostly have issues with Wayland. What distro are you running? For me Zoom screen sharing works fine with Wayland, if everything runs Wayland, including the browser. Xwayland apps can't "see" Wayland apps or the desktop. I assume the Zoom client may be Electron/Xwayland, correct? The X to Wayland transition is mostly over soon. Probably with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

ody4242 5y ago

As someone who has an Intel NUC w. Ubuntu, a Thinkpad with Windows 10, and a Macbook Pro 2015, I have a totally different experience. I spend like 5% of my total effort on OSX to make things working, the remaining 95% is spent to make things working on Windows and Ubuntu...

mikhailt 5y ago

Many folks are comparing it to previous Macs with macOS, not PCs nor other distros. If you have an Intel Mac next to it, there's a clear noticeable difference assuming macOS is on it. If you put W10 on the Intel Mac, it is much faster than macOS on it (from my own experience). If we could run W10 or Linux on M1, it will be much faster than Intel Mac. Another example, Windows 10/11 on ARM in Parallels on my MBA m1 is much faster than Surface Pro X, a MS-tuned/customized device.

EugeneOZ 5y ago
I’m comparing Windows PC (i7-6700k, nvme) with MBA m1 and MBA is noticeable faster in just everything. Compilation time of JS and Java code is literally 2 times faster on MBA M1 than on desktop i7 CPU.
- jeppester 5y ago
  While the M1 is surely impressive I think you put too much weight on those JS compilation results. Windows is known to be really slow for this specific task since it has poor per-file IO performance - especially when Windows Defender is enabled. I do my daily work - involving lots of JS compilation - on a i5-4690 running ubuntu server, it's faster than any of my colleagues' much newer MacBook Pros (no M1's yet though). Our Windows laptops are so far behind that it's just awful to watch (3-5 times slower).
- EugeneOZ 5y ago
  for those who downvote the facts they don't want to know about: https://twitter.com/eugeniyoz/status/1407518570888810497?s=21 https://twitter.com/eugeniyoz/status/1407518570888810497?s=2...
  - ry4nolson 5y ago
    nobody is arguing with your facts, just that your comparison is apples and oranges since the i7 6700k was released 5+ years ago.
- munchbunny 5y ago

jokethrowaway 5y ago

This is easily explained. Linux distributions don't make money if you buy a new laptop.

jinto36 5y ago

Not particularly defending the M1, but it might be that much of what you're using so far isn't available native and is going through Rosetta2? The other issues could be OS issues, but maybe it would be worth doing a RAM test?

vineyardmike 5y ago

Disclaimer, I don't have an M1 Mac, but I do have a buggy ubuntu desktop and used Macs my whole technical life. It seems that you're heavily in the minority with this. Even the weird bugs you mention are very unexpected. I've used a Mac for 15 years and never heard of an issue related to thumb drives. You may just have a lemon. See if you can just replace it (warranty, etc, not just spending more money).

katbyte 5y ago
yep. if things don't work contact apple support they are actually pretty decent. i had a lemon mini, randomly would go into a bootloop after os updates - had a bad mainboard so apple replaced it and it's been fine since.
jacurtis 5y ago
I have both, and use both everyday. I use an M1 MacBook Pro (16Gb Ram) for personal projects and as my standard home/travel computer. It is amazing and fast. I use a Lenovo Carbon X1 Laptop with similar specs (i5, 16Gb Ram, m.2 ssd) for work that runs RHEL 8 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). It's insanely fast and stable. The overhead to run RHEL is so small it would blow your mind at the performance you get from almost nothing. Mac or Windows are crazy bloated by comparison. I know I am sparking an eternal debate by saying this, but I personally have never found Ubuntu to be as stable for a workstation (but ubuntu server is great) as RHEL is. With that being said, I still think the M1 mac is the best computer I have ever owned. While linux is great for work, I personally enjoy the polished and more joyful experience of Mac for personal use. There are a million quality of life improvements that Mac offers that you won't get in Linux. The app ecosystem on mac is incredible. When most people make comparisons for the M1 Mac, they are comparing windows PCs (generally Intel-based ones since Mac previously used Intel) and they compare intel-based Macs. I have never seen someone comparing it to linux performance. The speed of the M1 mac is far better than Windows and far better than old Macs. There is no question. Before my M1 mac I used a MacBook Pro with an i7, 16Gb RAM, and the upgraded dedicated graphics card. The little M1 MacBook outshines it at least 2 to 1. Best of all, the fans never turned on, and my old MacBook Pro had constant fan whine which drove me crazy. The other incredible feat of the M1 Mac is the battery life. I run my laptop nearly exclusively on battery power now. I treat it like an iPad. You plug it in when it gets low, but I can use it for about a week between charges (I use it for 2-3 hours each day). I don't turn the screen down or modify my performance. I keep the screen fairly bright and just cruise away. I love it. While Linux might be able to outshine on performance, it doesn't outperform with battery. My Lenovo laptop is worth about 2x my MacBook Pro. It is a premium laptop and yet running RHEL I will be lucky to get 6 hours. Compare that to ~20 hours of my MacBook.

lambdapsyc 5y ago

Easy, it is likely docker that is making your Mac mini slower than your old linux box? Docker on macOS is painfully slow, because it is implemented on macOS through what amounts to a sledgehammer to the problem. Docker depends on linux kernel features so on macOS it just starts a linux virtual machine and does other high overhead compatibility tricks to get it to work. Volumes are the biggest culprit. If you are running docker through rosetta... (don't know the state of docker on apple silicon) then that is a double whammy of compatibility layers. Regarding bugs, yeah probably teething issues because the M1 was/is such a large departure from the norm. They should really get those things fixed pronto.

ArchOversight 5y ago
Docker for Mac Desktop supports the M1 and uses an Linux VM that is ARM. It is not using Rosetta 2 at all.
- johncolanduoni 5y ago
  But if you run x86 images, it will use qemu’s software emulation inside the Linux VM (which is quite slow).
  - Master_Odin 5y ago
    This has been the big slowdown for my org as a number of packages we rely on in docker on debian do not yet have an arm64 version, so have to emulate x86 and take the huge performance hit.
    - ArchOversight 5y ago
      May I introduce you to AWS/GCP/Azure where you can cheaply run legacy x86 systems and use them for development?
    - tcmart14 5y ago
      Yea, don't get the benefit of the hypervisor when constrained to x86 Vms.

plandis 5y ago

What are the specs on your Ubuntu machine?

dubcanada 5y ago

Seems like your computer may have issues, you shouldn't be crashing from USB devices. Sounds like you should go get it checked out tbh.

Mindwipe 5y ago
There are an awful lot of people with USB issues on the M1. Its clearly not as mature a platform as previously.
thenthenthen 5y ago
Well could just be a software issue, for example if you installed the wrong CH430x driver to run your faux arduino clones (that didnt pay debt to ftdi) you might run into this issue.

y4mi 5y ago

docker is a second-class citizen on anything but linux. i'm especially amazed you bothered with the m1 mac mini if you wanted to use docker, considering how little memory it has. the memory overhead of having a VM running with only 8GB available is significant. yes, i know the docker on mac has "native" support for the m1 cpu, that doesn't mean its not running a VM.

jacurtis 5y ago
Yeah people forget that Docker is built to run on Linux. That is why it exists. You deploy your containers onto a Linux host that runs docker for containerization, that is the point. The reason we have Docker for Windows and Mac is so that developers can emulate the docker environment for testing and building purposes. But ultimately it is expected that you will take your container and eventually deploy it on Linux. So Docker will always be a second class citizen on these other OS's because it is just there for emulation purposes.

jiveturkey 5y ago

Probably more to do with bug sir than the hardware. Catalina is pretty solid.

lostlogin 5y ago
I hadn’t heard that one. I had some pain, but I can laugh now.

throwaway894345 5y ago

That's Docker for Mac versus native Docker. Docker only runs on Linux, so Docker for Mac spins up a linux VM to run your containers. When you mount your Ruby or Python projects into your containers, Docker for Mac marshals tons of filesystem events over the host/guest boundary which absolutely devastates your CPU. Docker for Mac is really just bad for your use case. No idea what's going on with the thumb drive, bluetooth, etc. Beyond that, it's a little silly to compare a desktop (presumably many times larger, ~500+W power supply, cooling system, etc) with a Mac mini (tiny, laptop chip, no fans, etc).

saila 5y ago
I used to run Docker on an older Intel Mini and it was fine--a little slow but usable. I've also used it on other Intel Macs without major issues, including running giant Java apps and SQL Server. On my M1 Mini, I found it unstable and incredibly slow (for Postgres at least, using stock images from Docker Hub) and mostly quit using it. I upgraded to the latest version recently and it was still too slow. For everything else, though, I find that the M1 Mini is significantly faster. E.g., compiling Python versions is way faster.
- pxc 5y ago
  What's the CPU arch of the container images you're running?
  - saila 5y ago
    The postgres image (postgis/postgis:12-3.1-alpine) is linux/amd64. I see now that the official postgres images have other arch options compared to the postgis images, which are arm64 only. I wonder if that could make a difference... And now I see that Docker Desktop actually shows a warning about potentially poor performance when using an amd64 image: "Image may have poor performance, or fail, if run via emulation." This is good news, since I'd much rather use Docker to run postgres in dev.
    - saila 5y ago

chrisco255 5y ago

My AMD / Nvidia laptop running Ubuntu has had a number of issues from flash crashes to freeze ups to external monitor connectivity that have progressively gotten better as the drivers were updated. It is likely the drivers are buggy and will probably improve with time.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> I just can't figure out what I'm missing on the "M1 is so fast" side of things. Two reasons: 1. M1 is a super fast laptop chip. It provides mid-range desktop performance in a laptop form factor with mostly fanless operation. No matter how you look at it, that's impressive. 2. Apple really dragged their feet on updating the old Intel Macs before the transition. People in the Mac world (excluding hackintosh) were stuck on relatively outdated x86-64 CPUs. Compared to those older CPUs, the M1 Max is a huge leap forward. Compared to modern AMD mobile parts, it's still faster but not by leaps and bounds. But I agree that the M1 hype may be getting a little out of hand. It's fast and super power efficient, but it's mostly on par with mid-range 8-core AMD desktop CPUs from 2020. Even AMD's top mobile CPU isn't that far behind the M1 Max in Geekbench scores. I'm very excited to get my M1 Max in a few weeks. But if these early Geekbench results are accurate, it's going to be about half as fast as my AMD desktop in code compilation (see Clang results in the detailed score breakdown). That's still mightily impressive from a low-power laptop! But I think some of the rhetoric about the M1 Max blowing away desktop CPUs is getting a little ahead of the reality.

nimchimpsky 5y ago
Its literally the 25th fastest cpu available across all cpu's ? According to the geekbench scores. I'm not sure how you can say its not that fast. Its a laptop cpu, with very very low power draw and its the 25th fastest cpu ACROSS all cpus. Its the biggest generational leap in cpus for 20 years.
hyperpallium2 5y ago
> Apple really dragged their feet ... I wonder if this was deliberate theatre for dramatic contrast?
qudat 5y ago
For reference, I’m looking to purchase a framework laptop. If I’m lucky I’m going to get 8 hours of battery life. Real number for M1 mbp reach 16+ hours, doubling the laptop of my choice. That is crazy impressive and something that I wish I could get in the ultrabook form factor.
drewpc 5y ago

spamizbad 5y ago

The answer is M1 is a great chip held back by a mediocre OS. Containers and certain other applications are just going to run faster on Linux, which has had a ton of performance tuning put into it relative to MacOS.

zitterbewegung 5y ago

I have had the opposite experience. Whenever a update to a kernel comes out for Ubuntu my machine apparently forgets which kernel to choose and boots up incorrectly. My M1 MacBook Air drives a Pro Display XDR without any hiccups. Its completely silent when I work with it. But, performance wise the M1 Pro and Max don't seem like they would be worth it for me to upgrade from the M1 at all. I just want a completely silent laptop and it makes a huge difference to me. But, my workflows and workloads are slowly changing from local compilation of code to one where I will probably just SSH and or possibly figure out how to configure RDP into my Threadripper when I do actual builds and have my Macbook Air M1 with 16GB of Ram and the synergy with other Apple devices is a huge plus. Have you talked with Apple to get a replacement?

jccalhoun 5y ago

I've never owned a mac and I've never used an M1 so take this with a heavy grain of salt. Everyone I've seen talk about how fast the M1 is were coming from 4-5+ year old macs not comparing them to intel/amd chips that came out last year in a similar price range.

badsimian 5y ago
Well I went from a 16" 32GB 6-core i7 2019 MBP to a 16GB M1 Macbook Air and it was night and day better. So much faster, silent, cool and snappier.

factorialboy 5y ago

M1 is, compared to precious editions of Macbooks, much better. My two year old Linux desktop is a beast compared to my M1 Macmini. But I love the Macmini compared to my 2019 MBP.

babypuncher 5y ago

The Mac Mini isn't super impressive, because you're comparing it to desktops where TDP is far less of a concern. The M1 is getting a lot of attention because it's Apple's first laptop chip, and it is the fastest chip in that category by a fairly significant margin. Chips from Intel and AMD only compete with it on performance when drawing considerably more power.

sliken 5y ago

Well switching hardware and OS makes it hard to tell what's responsible for the difference. I also suspect Docker and what's running in the containers might well be x86 code instead of native. I can tell you that I have a high end mbp 16" intel-i9 with 32GB ram and it feels much slower than a new mac M1 mini. My intel-i9 runs the fan card during backups (crashplan), video conferencing, and sometimes just because even just outlook. The M1 mini on the other hand has been silent, fast, and generally a pleasure to use. Doubling the number of fast cores, doubling (or quadrupling) the GPU and memory bandwidth should make the new MBP 14 and 16" even better.

JiNCMG 5y ago
I have a top of the line Windows 10 i7 laptop and Outlook will create more heat than any other process I am running. Now introduce Windows Modern Standby and we get a real SH*T SHOW.

merrvk 5y ago

Put the same thing in a fanless laptop, that seems to last forever on a charge, then you’ll understand

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

Meh. The M1 is a node ahead and memory is placed on package. I'm trying not to be dazzled by the tech when it comes at the price of freedom.

outside1234 5y ago
Ok - I get that comment for iPhone - but what is less free about the Mac vs. a PC?
- claaams 5y ago
  No component is user upgradeable or repairable. You have to buy apple care or else.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  You have to use macos for now.

websap 5y ago

Currently typing this on an m1 laptop that I bought 2 weeks back. This machine blows my 16 inch Macbook out of the water. My 16 inch Macbook is pretty well spec'd, but this laptop is something else.

lewantmontreal 5y ago

Has there been any research to OS response times between Macos, Windows and Linux? Ive wanted to switch to Mac many times, most recently to M1 Mac Mini, but cant get over the frustrating slowness. Every action, like opening Finder, feels like it takes so long compared to Windows even with reduce animation on. I always end up returning the mac.

filipo 5y ago
Well thanks for mention it, I really feel the same. Stuff just does not open instant and perceived slowness on macOS is real. Just try simple stuff… Modern Windows just flies most of the time in comparison. Opening a file dialog in finder is a common scenario yet it is so slow and the system seems to appear limited by simple stuff like that. M1 surely improves things but the UI generally seems to prefer animation over raw speed. I really don‘t know what the reason is but I feel that a lot of people simply ignore this. I use all 3 major systems and I cannot overlook it anymore. Additionally, Docker is another real issue mentioned for the reasons already. Too bad that it is so common now and its slowness is a growing pain. I feel that WSL (WSLg) on Windows is huge, no comparison to run a traditional VM for the most part if you are not macOS only. Never thought I have to write this…

littlestymaar 5y ago

I share the same feeling, and I'm glad to learn I'm not alone: earlier this year I worked for a (really) sort time with a company who gave me a Macbook M1, which I was pretty excited about. Over the course of the two weeks I worked there, I faced: - frequent glitches when unplugging the HDMI adaptor (an Apple one, which costed an arm and a leg). - non-compatible software (Docker, Sublimetext) - and even a Kernel Panic while resuming from hibernation It was like working with Linux in the 2000's, but at least with Linux I knew it was gonna be a bit rough on the edges. Given the hype found online, I wasn't at all prepared for such an experience.

bschwindHN 5y ago
> non-compatible software (Docker, Sublimetext) What was the issue with Sublime? I use it on an M1 every day without issue.
- littlestymaar 5y ago
  I don't remember exactly, but I couldn't use it. Keep in mind this was in Jan/Feb 2021, so I'd expect software compatibility with the new chip to have improved dramatically.
  - pkilgore 5y ago
    Docker is now faster than on my work Intel MBP, fwiw. If was pretty bad in winter 21 though.

alwillis 5y ago

Let’s review: “Black. Magic. Fuckery.”—https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25202147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25202147

markdown 5y ago

M1 is hardware. Ubuntu is software. Your comparison makes no sense.

pgib 5y ago

I went from a 2016 top-of-the-line MacBook Pro to an M1 Mac mini, and I can't believe how much faster things are–including Docker with Rails, PostgreSQL, etc. Out of curiosity, are you running native (arm64) containers? Aside from an issue now and then with my secondary HDMI display, my machine has continued to blow me away. My development environment is almost on par with our production environment, which is a nice change.

localhost 5y ago

I have a three-year old hand-built 16-core ThreadRipper 1950X machine here with 64GB 4-channel RAM. I have a 14" MBP M1 Max on order. I just checked the Geekbench scores between these two machines: M1 Max: 1783 single-core | 12693 multi-core 1950X: 901 single-core | 7409 multi-core That's a big difference that I'm looking forward to. Also, just checked memory bandwidth. I have 80GB/s memory bandwidth [1] on my 1950X. The MBP has 400GB/s memory bandwidth. 5x(!) [1] https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/ryzen_threadripper/1950x https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/ryzen_threadripper/1950x *EDIT adding memory bandwidth.

jeswin 5y ago
1. M1 Max has 50+ billion transistors (only a part of that count is CPU, so adjust the number downwards), 1950X (first gen 14-nm Ryzen) has 10 billion. 2. Multicore Cinebench R23 for M1 Max: 14970; Ryzen 1950X: 18780 Geekbench tests in short bursts, not taxing the CPU thermals. Cinebench is the opposite. In short, CPUs do well on some benchmarks and not so well on others.
- localhost 5y ago
  The Cinebench R23 results for 1950x[1] and M1Max[2], including single and multi-core: single multi M1Max: 1562 14970 1950X: 1035 18780 Remember that the M1 Max has 8 high performance and 2 efficiency cores vs. the 16 cores of the 1950x. Again, this is a pretty convincing victory - 1.5x single core perf in a laptop - this is not a HEDT part. [1] https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu-amd_ryzen_threadripper_1950x-756 https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu-amd_ryzen_threadripper_195... [2] https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu-apple_m1_max https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu-apple_m1_max
postalrat 5y ago
So you are comparing a laptop that is just coming out to something 4 years old.
- paulmd 5y ago
  a 4 year old workstation/HEDT that was widely viewed as being an out-of-band excellent performer for its time, and the laptop is outperforming it in multithreaded performance by almost a factor of 2, with half the (performance) cores, with no SMT. yeah, that actually is fairly wild. Granted, there are good technical reasons there (lower memory bandwidth, the 1950X having a NUMA/NUCA arrangement that often hampers the ability to bring all the cores to bear on a single task, Zen1 having extremely high memory latency and cross-CCX latency in general, etc) but it still actually is a very impressive feat.

alienalp 5y ago

Actually there is nothing to figure out. If limitations of macos and arm cpu is not issue for you and you want a lightweight laptop then you buy a m1 macbook. m1 macbook air first Apple product i bought and i also had latest gen ryzen laptop at that time (which was superior to intel). Simply there is nothing to compare. It is not an alternative to m1 cpu. At least 5 years behind it. Actually it looks like it will never possible for that architecture to catch up with arm for low tdp siutations. If you ever used last gen windows laptop you will know there are always bugs. And installing ubuntu on a latest gen machine. LOL. That won't make you happy even if it is possible. I also had an issue with bluetooth mouse being laggy. It seems like patched now. Bugs were really an issue with m1 cpu but i assume there shouldn't be much issues now.

jaimex2 5y ago

You more or less described how Apple hype works. The M1 is fast like a Ferrari, it's expensive and nice in the brochure but you can't take it many places in real life let alone use more than 20% of its potential.

mrighele 5y ago

M1 is fast for being a laptop CPU. This means that maybe it is not the fastest CPU in absolute terms, but if you consider performance per Watt, it is really a beast. Although my main workstation is an Intel Ubuntu-based PC, I have also a M1 Macbook Air that I use when I travel, or when I am laying on the couch in the evening after work. That piece of hardware never gets hot, and the battery seems to last forever. Meanwhile it does whatever I throw at it; if else the limiting factor is the amount of RAM installed on the laptop.