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No matter whether you're a fan of ARM, amd64, or something else, this helps everyone. The leaps that Intel, AMD and NVIDIA will have to take to even just stay i

No matter whether you're a fan of ARM, amd64, or something else, this helps everyone. The leaps that Intel, AMD and NVIDIA will have to take to even just stay in the same range as Apple will help everyone. Competition is good!

amelius 5y ago
Yes. Until Intel, AMD, and NVidia start their own walled gardens.
- Spartan-S63 5y ago
  They’re all already there, to a certain extent. Intel with their opaque Management Engine, AMD with their PSP, and Nvidia with their refusal to contribute to open source or enable the development of open source Linux drivers without resorting to reverse-engineering. The biggest difference is that Apple owns the entire device and software stack. Everyone else is walled to a certain degree. To me, the distinction doesn’t exist.
- geraneum 5y ago
  Regarding Apple’s walled garden in macOS, I think this explanation from Asahi Linux sums the situation up to a good extent: > The line on Apple Silicon Macs is when the alternate kernel image is booted, while SEP firmware remains closed - which is quite similar to the line on standard PCs, where the UEFI firmware boots the OS loader, while the ME/PSP firmware remains closed. In fact, mainstream x86 platforms are arguably more intrusive because the proprietary UEFI firmware is allowed to steal the main CPU from the OS at any time via SMM interrupts, which is not the case on Apple Silicon Macs. https://asahilinux.org/about/ https://asahilinux.org/about/
akmittal 5y ago
I see Qualcomm to be a better competitor to Apple. They already have experience building custom cores and NUVIA acquisition should help with performance. x86(Even Ryzen) is hardly as power efficient as ARM.
- witweb 5y ago
  Is the efficiency really that depend on the architecture (x86 vs arm64)? I always thought Apples lead comes from things like the little big approach and the lower transistor size. Can someone elaborate?
  - knolan 5y ago
    A part comes from the dedicated units such as the hardware media and neural blocks. So you can export video in Apple’s ProRes in something like Final Cut at way better perf/W compared to doing some other codec blocks on a GPU in Premiere Pro. You also save a lot of time and power not having to move data between memory pools by having fast access to the unified memory. It seems that there’s no one thing that achieves the efficiency numbers we’re seeing. It’s excellent execution across the entire design.
  - akmittal 5y ago
    Yes it does, ARM provides great performance even at very low power consumption but x86 can't. That's the reason x86 failed for mobile devices.
traspler 5y ago
I wonder, is it actually competition? Apple will never sell any of their Chips to OEM partners so they will have to make do with whatever AMD, Intel, nVidia, Qualcomm, etc. sell. Will it actually lead to more people choosing a MacBook than any other Laptop? With these prices I‘m not so sure.
- D13Fd 5y ago
  Yes, it is competition. Whether people buy it immediately or not, the other CPU/GPU companies are going to take notice. Beyond that, the M1 directly replaced an Intel chip, and that Intel’s CEO has already said he wants to win back Apple’s business (as unlikely as that seems).
- ksec 5y ago
  >Will it actually lead to more people choosing a MacBook than any other Laptop? With these prices I‘m not so sure. Not MacBook Pro, but MacBook Air. The MacBook Air starts at $999. And if anyone has been paying a little more attention one may discover MBA discount is unusually high compared to previous Intel MBA. Education MBA M1 are going at $899 and in some cases $799. The lowest retail discount on MBA goes down to $800 on Amazon. Basically because the BOM cost advantage and margin on M1 MBA are higher. At this price M1 MBA are selling as fast as they could make them. And Apple could afford to lower the official price of MBA M1 to $899 once newer M2 MBA ( or MacBook ) are out. Compared to the PC industry, not only do they not have anything as fast, as good experience, their BOM cost are also higher due to Intel or AMD chip pricing. I think once the transition has settled, Apple will announce their 120M Mac active Mac user next year. While I made this predictions of BOM cost advantage way back in 2014, this actually makes me rather sad because PC has nothing left to fight the Mac. They have nothing on the roadmap. And Apple is no longer the same company as they were in 2014.
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    94% of people aren't current college enrollees and aren't paying educational prices they are paying the prices listed at store.apple.com. Looking at store.apple.com the 999 model is a dog nobody should buy because its forever locked in at 8GB of non replacable RAM and it comes with an anemic 256GB of storage. The minimum configuration anyone ought to buy in 2021 comes in at $1400 for 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage or $1600 if you want to bump it up to 1TB. Meanwhile the average PC is bought for between $600 and $700 meaning half of people actually pay less even than that. Here is an example of a typical PC one can find at Walmart where an average user buys their tires, green beans, and their computers. https://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-2021-New-Touchscreen-laptop-i3-1115G4-512GB-SSD-16GB-RAM-Multi-touch-enabled-UHD-Graphics-Type-C-USB-HDMI-Natural-silver-Windows-10-Pro/708897249 https://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-2021-New-Touchscreen-laptop-i3... It comes with 16GB of RAM and 512GB storage for $649 or 1TB for $719. I do not herein assert that it is an equivalent machine its not. However it is a very typical PC. Here is another with 16GB of RAM but only 256GB of storage but its also only $449 and you wont have to close some applications before opening others partying like its 1998 with your windows CE portable machine. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Gateway-15-6-FHD-Ultra-Slim-Notebook-GWTN156-1/309509930?athcpid=309509930&athpgid=AthenaItempage&athcgid=null&athznid=si&athieid=v0&athstid=CS004&athguid=7wY_8YaWaWPs7OBpqlP-zrmDuE6azzbV_tEf&athancid=null&athena=true&athbdg=L1600 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Gateway-15-6-FHD-Ultra-Slim-Noteb... Yes its a gateway. Gives you a warm fuzzy right. The point is for the majority of PC laptop buyers the M1 macs even the economical models aren't competitors anymore than a Tesla is really competing for the same buyer as KIA even though the goods are absolutely in the same category. PC's are a largely a huge mass of very cheap machines with a minority that compete directly with apple.

amelius 5y ago

Yes. Until Intel, AMD, and NVidia start their own walled gardens.

Spartan-S63 5y ago
They’re all already there, to a certain extent. Intel with their opaque Management Engine, AMD with their PSP, and Nvidia with their refusal to contribute to open source or enable the development of open source Linux drivers without resorting to reverse-engineering. The biggest difference is that Apple owns the entire device and software stack. Everyone else is walled to a certain degree. To me, the distinction doesn’t exist.
geraneum 5y ago
Regarding Apple’s walled garden in macOS, I think this explanation from Asahi Linux sums the situation up to a good extent: > The line on Apple Silicon Macs is when the alternate kernel image is booted, while SEP firmware remains closed - which is quite similar to the line on standard PCs, where the UEFI firmware boots the OS loader, while the ME/PSP firmware remains closed. In fact, mainstream x86 platforms are arguably more intrusive because the proprietary UEFI firmware is allowed to steal the main CPU from the OS at any time via SMM interrupts, which is not the case on Apple Silicon Macs. https://asahilinux.org/about/ https://asahilinux.org/about/

akmittal 5y ago

I see Qualcomm to be a better competitor to Apple. They already have experience building custom cores and NUVIA acquisition should help with performance. x86(Even Ryzen) is hardly as power efficient as ARM.

witweb 5y ago
Is the efficiency really that depend on the architecture (x86 vs arm64)? I always thought Apples lead comes from things like the little big approach and the lower transistor size. Can someone elaborate?
- knolan 5y ago
  A part comes from the dedicated units such as the hardware media and neural blocks. So you can export video in Apple’s ProRes in something like Final Cut at way better perf/W compared to doing some other codec blocks on a GPU in Premiere Pro. You also save a lot of time and power not having to move data between memory pools by having fast access to the unified memory. It seems that there’s no one thing that achieves the efficiency numbers we’re seeing. It’s excellent execution across the entire design.
- akmittal 5y ago
  Yes it does, ARM provides great performance even at very low power consumption but x86 can't. That's the reason x86 failed for mobile devices.

traspler 5y ago

I wonder, is it actually competition? Apple will never sell any of their Chips to OEM partners so they will have to make do with whatever AMD, Intel, nVidia, Qualcomm, etc. sell. Will it actually lead to more people choosing a MacBook than any other Laptop? With these prices I‘m not so sure.

D13Fd 5y ago
Yes, it is competition. Whether people buy it immediately or not, the other CPU/GPU companies are going to take notice. Beyond that, the M1 directly replaced an Intel chip, and that Intel’s CEO has already said he wants to win back Apple’s business (as unlikely as that seems).
ksec 5y ago
>Will it actually lead to more people choosing a MacBook than any other Laptop? With these prices I‘m not so sure. Not MacBook Pro, but MacBook Air. The MacBook Air starts at $999. And if anyone has been paying a little more attention one may discover MBA discount is unusually high compared to previous Intel MBA. Education MBA M1 are going at $899 and in some cases $799. The lowest retail discount on MBA goes down to $800 on Amazon. Basically because the BOM cost advantage and margin on M1 MBA are higher. At this price M1 MBA are selling as fast as they could make them. And Apple could afford to lower the official price of MBA M1 to $899 once newer M2 MBA ( or MacBook ) are out. Compared to the PC industry, not only do they not have anything as fast, as good experience, their BOM cost are also higher due to Intel or AMD chip pricing. I think once the transition has settled, Apple will announce their 120M Mac active Mac user next year. While I made this predictions of BOM cost advantage way back in 2014, this actually makes me rather sad because PC has nothing left to fight the Mac. They have nothing on the roadmap. And Apple is no longer the same company as they were in 2014.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  94% of people aren't current college enrollees and aren't paying educational prices they are paying the prices listed at store.apple.com. Looking at store.apple.com the 999 model is a dog nobody should buy because its forever locked in at 8GB of non replacable RAM and it comes with an anemic 256GB of storage. The minimum configuration anyone ought to buy in 2021 comes in at $1400 for 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage or $1600 if you want to bump it up to 1TB. Meanwhile the average PC is bought for between $600 and $700 meaning half of people actually pay less even than that. Here is an example of a typical PC one can find at Walmart where an average user buys their tires, green beans, and their computers. https://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-2021-New-Touchscreen-laptop-i3-1115G4-512GB-SSD-16GB-RAM-Multi-touch-enabled-UHD-Graphics-Type-C-USB-HDMI-Natural-silver-Windows-10-Pro/708897249 https://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-2021-New-Touchscreen-laptop-i3... It comes with 16GB of RAM and 512GB storage for $649 or 1TB for $719. I do not herein assert that it is an equivalent machine its not. However it is a very typical PC. Here is another with 16GB of RAM but only 256GB of storage but its also only $449 and you wont have to close some applications before opening others partying like its 1998 with your windows CE portable machine. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Gateway-15-6-FHD-Ultra-Slim-Notebook-GWTN156-1/309509930?athcpid=309509930&athpgid=AthenaItempage&athcgid=null&athznid=si&athieid=v0&athstid=CS004&athguid=7wY_8YaWaWPs7OBpqlP-zrmDuE6azzbV_tEf&athancid=null&athena=true&athbdg=L1600 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Gateway-15-6-FHD-Ultra-Slim-Noteb... Yes its a gateway. Gives you a warm fuzzy right. The point is for the majority of PC laptop buyers the M1 macs even the economical models aren't competitors anymore than a Tesla is really competing for the same buyer as KIA even though the goods are absolutely in the same category. PC's are a largely a huge mass of very cheap machines with a minority that compete directly with apple.