6 ms·

The M1 is really a beast though. I got an M1 Max in December, and the only times I've seen the beachball cursor it was due to an app doing something heavy on th

The M1 is really a beast though. I got an M1 Max in December, and the only times I've seen the beachball cursor it was due to an app doing something heavy on the UI thread. It also compiles Java so fast that milliseconds in gradle output are actually useful. Oh and it's able to play 4K 60 fps videos smoothly without even turning on the fans. This is truly madness. x86 is dead to me at this point. But then maybe anything is fast after using a 2012 retina MBP for almost 10 years.

exdsq 5y ago
I had a 16-core desktop and moved to the M1 Max and am just as happy - nothing kills it. PostgreSQL docker containers, intensive CPU scripts running, maybe a Minikube cluster, Slack, Chrome, RStudio, and I can still watch 4k video. It's awesome.
ben-schaaf 5y ago
Hardware decoding even at 8k is very common, intel has had 4k VP9 hardware decoders since 2016. Comparing the i7-3520M to something modern like an AMD 5800U the modern chip has ~2x single and ~4x multi-core performance, about the same compared to a M1 MB Air. Compared to 2012 they're all in the same ballpark.
- grishka 5y ago
  I thought Apple didn't embrace VPx codecs because they were made by Google? Last time I looked, VideoToolbox only supported hardware-accelerated H264 and H265. So I assumed that all VP9 decoding must happen in software.
- techie128 5y ago
  On my X1 Carbon with the 10th Gen Core i7 processor which also happen to have VP9 hardware decoders, the fans still spin up. They're not very audible but the machine gets warm to the touch. On my M1 MBP? 4K video playback does nothing to it. Absolutely dead quite, no fans spinning, cold to the touch all throughout.
pmontra 5y ago
Faster is better but I can give you a real world benchmark and impressions. My Ubuntu 32 GB i7-47xx SATA 2 laptop from 2014 upgraded with SSD runs a 500 spec Ruby on Rails test suite in 1 minute 15 seconds. My customer's M1 runs it in 50 seconds. The improvement is big but 25 seconds are not that long because we usually don't run the full test suite but only the tests of the code we're working on. Text editing, debugging etc would be fine also on a 2004 laptop. Of course if I had to run a 10x suite 250 seconds, 3 minutes, would be noticeable. Or if I worked with compiled languages and had to recompile large projects.
- lelanthran 5y ago
  > My Ubuntu 32 GB i7-47xx SATA 2 laptop from 2014 upgraded with SSD runs a 500 spec Ruby on Rails test suite in 1 minute 15 seconds. My customer's M1 runs it in 50 seconds. That hardly sounds like a fair comparison: a computer from eight years ago is going to be slower than one from last year, after all. The only fair comparison is between machines at the same or similar price points. What's the best intel/amd laptop you can buy for the M1 money, and how does that laptop compare?
  - 411111111111111 5y ago
    Hasn't there been enough coverage for this already? The M1 chip is ahead in the performance/wattage, which makes them a significant upgrade to most other laptops - as these are always constrained by power and cooling. Though Intel has since improved their mobile chips and the difference is likely to be much less with the new laptops this year.
    - lelanthran 5y ago
      > Hasn't there been enough coverage for this already? I don't think I've seen any bang-per-buck comparisons; of course I have not looked very hard, so there's something for me to do later :-) > The M1 chip is ahead in the performance/wattage, I don't care. OP posted about performance with no regard to power efficiency, so I was wondering about the performace with no regard to power efficiency. As long as the laptop lasts 3 hours or so it's enough. I'm not going to spend 8 hours huddled over a small screen that I am squinting into, using a reduced keyboard with limited navigation keys. I can't see myself spending even 3 hours doing that, TBH. My neck hurts after only an hour using a laptop without an external monitor or keyboard. Since the thing is going to be plugged in for 99.9% of its use, I'm more interested in what performance difference I expect by going with the M1 over a similarly-priced Intel/AMD setup.
rjzzleep 5y ago
On the other hand my wife has an M1 macbook air that I recommended she buys. And it's beachballing all the f*in time. I don't know if it's chrome or what, but it's odd to have both really fast build times in the CLI and the UI hanging constantly.
- omnimus 5y ago
  I just got cheapest M1 air and i was really surprised. It compiles faster than my semi recent Xeon desktop. Like i dont even know how it is so fast. Everything is so fast. The only bad thing is macos Monterey. It looks like some amateurs are in charge of design.
- methyl 5y ago
  Make sure you use native Chrome and not Rosetta emulated one, which can happen if you transfered data from another Mac.
  - newaccount74 5y ago
    That might cause minor performance degradations, but really shouldn't cause hangs.
    - methyl 5y ago
      It really does, not sure what’s the reason but the performance is much worse than just 20% hit Rosetta claims.
    - thebean11 5y ago
      It made a massive difference for me on an M1 Pro machine
- cassianoleal 5y ago
  I have an M1 Air and it very rarely beachballs. Music did that yesterday but I can't remember the last time I had one. Incidentally, I don't use Chrome and don't even have it installed. My main browser is Firefox (at any given time I have 2-3 Firefox profiles open with tens of tabs) and secondary browser is Safari.
solarkraft 5y ago
The M1 is pretty fast, but don't get fooled by the reviews claiming there to be no difference between the 8GB and 16GB models. When you run into forced swapping, the thing still grinds to a halt. Audio crackling is the least of your worries (happens when switching apps, for example), at worst the thing runs at 1 FPS for a minute.
- grishka 5y ago
  Yeah well I got the 64 GB model for this exact reason. One can't have too much RAM, right?

exdsq 5y ago

I had a 16-core desktop and moved to the M1 Max and am just as happy - nothing kills it. PostgreSQL docker containers, intensive CPU scripts running, maybe a Minikube cluster, Slack, Chrome, RStudio, and I can still watch 4k video. It's awesome.

ben-schaaf 5y ago

Hardware decoding even at 8k is very common, intel has had 4k VP9 hardware decoders since 2016. Comparing the i7-3520M to something modern like an AMD 5800U the modern chip has ~2x single and ~4x multi-core performance, about the same compared to a M1 MB Air. Compared to 2012 they're all in the same ballpark.

grishka 5y ago
I thought Apple didn't embrace VPx codecs because they were made by Google? Last time I looked, VideoToolbox only supported hardware-accelerated H264 and H265. So I assumed that all VP9 decoding must happen in software.
techie128 5y ago
On my X1 Carbon with the 10th Gen Core i7 processor which also happen to have VP9 hardware decoders, the fans still spin up. They're not very audible but the machine gets warm to the touch. On my M1 MBP? 4K video playback does nothing to it. Absolutely dead quite, no fans spinning, cold to the touch all throughout.

pmontra 5y ago

Faster is better but I can give you a real world benchmark and impressions. My Ubuntu 32 GB i7-47xx SATA 2 laptop from 2014 upgraded with SSD runs a 500 spec Ruby on Rails test suite in 1 minute 15 seconds. My customer's M1 runs it in 50 seconds. The improvement is big but 25 seconds are not that long because we usually don't run the full test suite but only the tests of the code we're working on. Text editing, debugging etc would be fine also on a 2004 laptop. Of course if I had to run a 10x suite 250 seconds, 3 minutes, would be noticeable. Or if I worked with compiled languages and had to recompile large projects.

lelanthran 5y ago
> My Ubuntu 32 GB i7-47xx SATA 2 laptop from 2014 upgraded with SSD runs a 500 spec Ruby on Rails test suite in 1 minute 15 seconds. My customer's M1 runs it in 50 seconds. That hardly sounds like a fair comparison: a computer from eight years ago is going to be slower than one from last year, after all. The only fair comparison is between machines at the same or similar price points. What's the best intel/amd laptop you can buy for the M1 money, and how does that laptop compare?
- 411111111111111 5y ago
  Hasn't there been enough coverage for this already? The M1 chip is ahead in the performance/wattage, which makes them a significant upgrade to most other laptops - as these are always constrained by power and cooling. Though Intel has since improved their mobile chips and the difference is likely to be much less with the new laptops this year.
  - lelanthran 5y ago
    > Hasn't there been enough coverage for this already? I don't think I've seen any bang-per-buck comparisons; of course I have not looked very hard, so there's something for me to do later :-) > The M1 chip is ahead in the performance/wattage, I don't care. OP posted about performance with no regard to power efficiency, so I was wondering about the performace with no regard to power efficiency. As long as the laptop lasts 3 hours or so it's enough. I'm not going to spend 8 hours huddled over a small screen that I am squinting into, using a reduced keyboard with limited navigation keys. I can't see myself spending even 3 hours doing that, TBH. My neck hurts after only an hour using a laptop without an external monitor or keyboard. Since the thing is going to be plugged in for 99.9% of its use, I'm more interested in what performance difference I expect by going with the M1 over a similarly-priced Intel/AMD setup.

rjzzleep 5y ago

On the other hand my wife has an M1 macbook air that I recommended she buys. And it's beachballing all the f*in time. I don't know if it's chrome or what, but it's odd to have both really fast build times in the CLI and the UI hanging constantly.

omnimus 5y ago
I just got cheapest M1 air and i was really surprised. It compiles faster than my semi recent Xeon desktop. Like i dont even know how it is so fast. Everything is so fast. The only bad thing is macos Monterey. It looks like some amateurs are in charge of design.
methyl 5y ago
Make sure you use native Chrome and not Rosetta emulated one, which can happen if you transfered data from another Mac.
- newaccount74 5y ago
  That might cause minor performance degradations, but really shouldn't cause hangs.
  - methyl 5y ago
    It really does, not sure what’s the reason but the performance is much worse than just 20% hit Rosetta claims.
  - thebean11 5y ago
    It made a massive difference for me on an M1 Pro machine
cassianoleal 5y ago
I have an M1 Air and it very rarely beachballs. Music did that yesterday but I can't remember the last time I had one. Incidentally, I don't use Chrome and don't even have it installed. My main browser is Firefox (at any given time I have 2-3 Firefox profiles open with tens of tabs) and secondary browser is Safari.

solarkraft 5y ago

The M1 is pretty fast, but don't get fooled by the reviews claiming there to be no difference between the 8GB and 16GB models. When you run into forced swapping, the thing still grinds to a halt. Audio crackling is the least of your worries (happens when switching apps, for example), at worst the thing runs at 1 FPS for a minute.

grishka 5y ago
Yeah well I got the 64 GB model for this exact reason. One can't have too much RAM, right?