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> The CPU innovation stagnation between 2012-2017 has resulted in 4 cores still being an acceptable low-end CPU in early 2022 I recently got M1 Max MacBook, an

by bungle 5y ago

> The CPU innovation stagnation between 2012-2017 has resulted in 4 cores still being an acceptable low-end CPU in early 2022 I recently got M1 Max MacBook, and I was expecting a huge jump from my 2010 Mac Pro, but on my day-to-day work. It is barely noticeable, despite the raving reviews of M1. Perhaps for me it is not about things getting obsolete, but more of that my own needs on CPU/GPU performance were pretty much fulfilled in 2010. I am a programmer, so my needs are not that high. Or perhaps it is that after 12 years, the laptops are now on bar with desktops. I think the biggest improvements for me in last 20 years have been the SSDs and then the NVMe.

alcasa 5y ago
If you mean Mac Pro and not Macbook Pro I wouldn't be that suprised. Single thread performance is mainly dominated by clock speed and possibly instruction set improvements. Having a much higher TDP there isn't much magic you can work to make a Laptop faster than a recentish desktop system.
maccard 5y ago
> I am a programmer, so my needs are not that high This isn't true for all programmers. I'm a programmer, and until 3 years ago a good chunk of my day was spent waiting for compiles to finish. > Or perhaps it is that after 12 years, the laptops are now on bar with desktops. I think the biggest improvements for me in last 20 years have been the SSDs and then the NVMe. Not even remotely close. I have an AMD threadripper [0] in a desktop PC under my desk that I use for development. This is a mainstream, readily available x64 processor with 32 cores (and hyperthreading) that can sustain just 3.8GHz for at least 30 minutes (I've not pushed it any farther than that because I've needed to). Based on PassMark benchmarks [1], the threadripper is substantially quicker than the M1 Max. [0] https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-threadripper-3970x https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-threadripper-3... [1] https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-3970X-vs-Apple-M1-Max-10-Core-3200-MHz/3623vs4585 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-...
- openplatypus 5y ago
  Oh, can you share more? What is your programming environment? I am debating a move to desktop/workstation with desktop CPU to support smoother Scala/lots-of-containers development experience. Pandemic made laptops less appealing. With digital nomadism being a question mark for some. Yes, I do know some still continue to practice this lifestyle. I can be only jealous :)
  - maccard 5y ago
    > Oh, can you share more? What is your programming environment? I work in games and write C++. Compile times are long, and we deal with large amounts of assets (current project is ~50GB of textures, models, animations, sound. This is small. Last project was >500GB). > With digital nomadism being a question mark for some. Sure, if you want portability or being able to move around this sort of machine won't work for you, but I live with my partner in a nice city, work remotely and have a separate home office. I have almost 0 need for the portability of a laptop.
  - archi42 5y ago
    Depending on your needs(!), you can just use the laptop as a frontend for a much more powerful machine. I did that for a while with a Sandy Bridge (core i7-2xxx gen) dual socket server in the basement, and it did work quite well. No matter if I was at home or somewhere else - but for dev work ssh into the Linux host OS was enough for me, with an occasional RDP into a Windows VM.
    - openplatypus 5y ago
      I considered this option with NoMachine and in-house power-machine or cloud workstation. In a way make sense, but ultimately, I decided against because: Security – having open port to workstation makes me scared; bugs/0-days are discovered every day; Quality Internet Connection – less tricky as most access would be local LAN, but I am certain that few times I need it remotely to fix a production issue, something will go wrong; Maintenance vs Cost – in-house machine would be cheaper but will require remote power on/off capability vs in cloud server being rather pricey But yes, in general, I agree. Having a light, portable device with long battery life and connecting to a remote, beefy machine would be a dream. And I am not imagining it, as this was my workflow back in 2013 when I was working for a bank. If it was possible then, it definitely is possible today. Have high hopes for https://shadow.tech/ https://shadow.tech/
fhe 5y ago
I use the M1 Mac Air for office work. It replaced my 2017 MBP, and the difference is very noticeable -- with some 3 dozen tabs open on my browser (not the best of browsing habit) the M1 can take it without breaking a sweat. Yet for entertainment and hobby programming I revert back to my (really) old 2011 iMac that runs High Sierra -- I have invested much time fine-tuning that machine. I tried to migrate the setup to the M1, but a bunch of dependencies were broken. I'd stay with the iMac for as long as the hardware can hold out.
glogla 5y ago
I think comparing old desktop with new laptop is going to give you different experience than comparing old laptop with new laptop. I got M1 Air and not only is it a huge difference from my previous 2017 MPB 13" (which I gave to my mother who spilled coffee into her previous laptop), it is much better than my work provided 2019 MBP 16". "Snappiness" is subjective and hard to measure, but the thermals are huge difference. My work MBP is sitting at 63°C with just Firefox pointed at HN. On both my old MBP and the work one, playing 1440p video (native screen resolution) would make it loud, and playing 4k video on 4k monitor would turn it into a vacuum cleaner. The Air is completely silent at all times (it has no fan) and sits at 32°C while playing 1440p and maybe 40°C when playing 4k content. It is of course possible, that this is all because the previous Macbooks were so bad (and due to hw decoding for common video formats) but I had similar "Jesus this is such a loud, overheating mess" experience with other laptops as well. But desktops have much better thermals already - so for you, the biggest difference would be the mobility I guess.
kalleboo 5y ago
I had a similar experience to the OP with my previous Intel laptops - they've quickly get too hot and throttle and that would kill the performance. When they weren't throttling, performance was fine. For me the big win with the M1 Pro was that I could work flat out and not worry about it overheating and giving up. It's a lot easier for desktops to have adequate cooling and power.
lowbloodsugar 5y ago
I had a dual CPU nehalem around 2010 under my desk. It was a beast. 8 cores, 16 HT. Now I have an M1 Max and I have yet to get it to spin its fans up. So I don't know what your day-to-day work is, but is it possible it's just not CPU bound?
deepsun 5y ago
Agree for laptops, but assembling proper desktop gave me a noticeable bump in "smoothness" on pretty much everything, from mouse movements, code navigation, windows resizing, browsing, to, obviously, graphics. Seems like thermal constraints slow down laptops pretty noticeably.

by bungle 5y ago

alcasa 5y ago

If you mean Mac Pro and not Macbook Pro I wouldn't be that suprised. Single thread performance is mainly dominated by clock speed and possibly instruction set improvements. Having a much higher TDP there isn't much magic you can work to make a Laptop faster than a recentish desktop system.

maccard 5y ago

> I am a programmer, so my needs are not that high This isn't true for all programmers. I'm a programmer, and until 3 years ago a good chunk of my day was spent waiting for compiles to finish. > Or perhaps it is that after 12 years, the laptops are now on bar with desktops. I think the biggest improvements for me in last 20 years have been the SSDs and then the NVMe. Not even remotely close. I have an AMD threadripper [0] in a desktop PC under my desk that I use for development. This is a mainstream, readily available x64 processor with 32 cores (and hyperthreading) that can sustain just 3.8GHz for at least 30 minutes (I've not pushed it any farther than that because I've needed to). Based on PassMark benchmarks [1], the threadripper is substantially quicker than the M1 Max. [0] https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-threadripper-3970x https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-threadripper-3... [1] https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-3970X-vs-Apple-M1-Max-10-Core-3200-MHz/3623vs4585 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-...

openplatypus 5y ago
Oh, can you share more? What is your programming environment? I am debating a move to desktop/workstation with desktop CPU to support smoother Scala/lots-of-containers development experience. Pandemic made laptops less appealing. With digital nomadism being a question mark for some. Yes, I do know some still continue to practice this lifestyle. I can be only jealous :)
- maccard 5y ago
  > Oh, can you share more? What is your programming environment? I work in games and write C++. Compile times are long, and we deal with large amounts of assets (current project is ~50GB of textures, models, animations, sound. This is small. Last project was >500GB). > With digital nomadism being a question mark for some. Sure, if you want portability or being able to move around this sort of machine won't work for you, but I live with my partner in a nice city, work remotely and have a separate home office. I have almost 0 need for the portability of a laptop.
- archi42 5y ago
  Depending on your needs(!), you can just use the laptop as a frontend for a much more powerful machine. I did that for a while with a Sandy Bridge (core i7-2xxx gen) dual socket server in the basement, and it did work quite well. No matter if I was at home or somewhere else - but for dev work ssh into the Linux host OS was enough for me, with an occasional RDP into a Windows VM.
  - openplatypus 5y ago
    I considered this option with NoMachine and in-house power-machine or cloud workstation. In a way make sense, but ultimately, I decided against because: Security – having open port to workstation makes me scared; bugs/0-days are discovered every day; Quality Internet Connection – less tricky as most access would be local LAN, but I am certain that few times I need it remotely to fix a production issue, something will go wrong; Maintenance vs Cost – in-house machine would be cheaper but will require remote power on/off capability vs in cloud server being rather pricey But yes, in general, I agree. Having a light, portable device with long battery life and connecting to a remote, beefy machine would be a dream. And I am not imagining it, as this was my workflow back in 2013 when I was working for a bank. If it was possible then, it definitely is possible today. Have high hopes for https://shadow.tech/ https://shadow.tech/

fhe 5y ago

I use the M1 Mac Air for office work. It replaced my 2017 MBP, and the difference is very noticeable -- with some 3 dozen tabs open on my browser (not the best of browsing habit) the M1 can take it without breaking a sweat. Yet for entertainment and hobby programming I revert back to my (really) old 2011 iMac that runs High Sierra -- I have invested much time fine-tuning that machine. I tried to migrate the setup to the M1, but a bunch of dependencies were broken. I'd stay with the iMac for as long as the hardware can hold out.

glogla 5y ago

I think comparing old desktop with new laptop is going to give you different experience than comparing old laptop with new laptop. I got M1 Air and not only is it a huge difference from my previous 2017 MPB 13" (which I gave to my mother who spilled coffee into her previous laptop), it is much better than my work provided 2019 MBP 16". "Snappiness" is subjective and hard to measure, but the thermals are huge difference. My work MBP is sitting at 63°C with just Firefox pointed at HN. On both my old MBP and the work one, playing 1440p video (native screen resolution) would make it loud, and playing 4k video on 4k monitor would turn it into a vacuum cleaner. The Air is completely silent at all times (it has no fan) and sits at 32°C while playing 1440p and maybe 40°C when playing 4k content. It is of course possible, that this is all because the previous Macbooks were so bad (and due to hw decoding for common video formats) but I had similar "Jesus this is such a loud, overheating mess" experience with other laptops as well. But desktops have much better thermals already - so for you, the biggest difference would be the mobility I guess.

kalleboo 5y ago

I had a similar experience to the OP with my previous Intel laptops - they've quickly get too hot and throttle and that would kill the performance. When they weren't throttling, performance was fine. For me the big win with the M1 Pro was that I could work flat out and not worry about it overheating and giving up. It's a lot easier for desktops to have adequate cooling and power.

lowbloodsugar 5y ago

I had a dual CPU nehalem around 2010 under my desk. It was a beast. 8 cores, 16 HT. Now I have an M1 Max and I have yet to get it to spin its fans up. So I don't know what your day-to-day work is, but is it possible it's just not CPU bound?

deepsun 5y ago

Agree for laptops, but assembling proper desktop gave me a noticeable bump in "smoothness" on pretty much everything, from mouse movements, code navigation, windows resizing, browsing, to, obviously, graphics. Seems like thermal constraints slow down laptops pretty noticeably.