5 ms·

In 2006, computing was less generous. A music producer probably needed a Mac Pro for their workflow to be efficient. Since then, Intel has massively reduced the

In 2006, computing was less generous. A music producer probably needed a Mac Pro for their workflow to be efficient. Since then, Intel has massively reduced the delta between laptop and desktop chips. Coupled with the increase in computing ability of our processors while most tasks do not increase their needs (that music producer does not need more computing than in 2006) and desktops slowly faded to nothing but the most demanding tasks (ML, 8k video production, science, etc.) and Apple has gone upmarket with the Mac Pro to chase this market. With that change, laptops have become the computer market. Look at Apple's iMac offering; they no longer have multiple models and the insides are now laptop parts. The Mac Studio is simply the desktop computer that gets the Macbook Pro chips. Since they don't want to engineer a cooling solution behind a monitor every time, we get a simple box with a ginormous fan. The Mac Pro was supposed to be the computer with the truly desktop-only ARM chip. Even that seems cancelled now. I don't know what Apple is planning.

physPop 4y ago
That's an interesting point. Do you know a good reference comparing laptop vs desktop cpu performance? I'm always confused by comparisons that inevitablty are affected by other laptop specific components (differences in mgpu / motherboard chipsets etc).
- philistine 4y ago
  I guess you could look at the Mac Benchmarks of Geekbench: https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks Let's forget the whole Apple Silicon thing, and look at 2020. The difference in single core is minuscule, but the big difference is multicore. Unless you need those extra cores, those computers are equivalent. Now compare a 2010 Mac Pro and the 2010-2012 consumer laptops. Single core is 100%, multi-core is at least 400%. That's a big delta and that's only 2010. If you go back into the past, it would surely ebb and flow but surely stay in that zone. I'd expect a laptop to be half the speed of a big pro desktop all the way to the prehistoric times when all computers were beige and laptops charged extra to get rid of screen ghosting.
sylens 4y ago
That's a really good point. I think it would be far more likely to see that same freshman with a Mac Studio in their dorm now instead of a Mac Pro even if it was at a similar price point as the Studio - just smaller and more practical.
dhosek 4y ago
The MBP was plenty sufficient for most music production tasks even in 2004 when I got my first one. If I were running a pro studio with a 32+ channel mixing desk, I could see needing more, but I was able to manage 16 channels of live recording and at least 64 channels of live mix on my 2004 TiBook.
- prewett 4y ago
  Berklee College of Music [0] requires at MBP with 16 GB of memory, 512 GB or disk space, which I think has been available since at least 2007. [0] https://www.berklee.edu/sts/macbook-pro https://www.berklee.edu/sts/macbook-pro
- philistine 4y ago
  Of course my point is not super strict about dates, it's about trends. I'm sure you were fine in 2004, but the more you go back into the past, the more a desktop is required. And the more you move into the future the more a laptop is fine.
inkyoto 4y ago
> […] and the insides are now laptop parts. The Mac Studio is simply the desktop computer that gets the Macbook Pro chips. «Laptop parts» connect M1 CPU clusters to RAM via a 512-bit wide (M1 Max) and a 1024-bit wide (M1 Ultra) memory bus yielding 100 Gb/sec (per a CPU core), 200 Gb/sec (per a CPU cluster) and 400 (M1 Max)/800 (M1 Ultra) Gb/sec cumulative data transfer speeds. GPU and ANE cores access the main memory via the same wide memory bus. L1 caches (I+D) are 128kB+64 kb (efficiency cores) and 192+128 kb (performance); L2 caches are 24 Mb (M1 Max) and 48 Mb (M1 Ultra), and L3 cache is 48 Mb (Max) and 96 Mb (Ultra). Auxiliary tasks (disk encryption, video encoding/decoding etc) are off-loaded to dedicated processing units which is reminiscent to that a typical mainframe architecture with channel processors and channel programmes rather than that of a laptop. Most «hi-end» servers today do not come anywhere close to such configurations leave alone the form factor and the net system efficiency. 512-bit wide memory bus is currently only found inside hi-end GPU cards, and the compute off-loading / accelerating units are an add-on feature for a server that may or may not be available. Only POWER10 and Telum systems from IBM offer similar (albeit far more scalable and feature rich) designs and at a completely different price scale.
- wtallis 4y ago
  > 512-bit wide memory bus is currently only found inside hi-end GPU cards, AMD EPYC CPUs just went from 512-bit DDR4 to 768-bit DDR5, per socket.
  - inkyoto 4y ago
    … which is another testament to the fact that a wide memory bus is an attribute of server or hi-end components rather than «laptop parts» that one can throw into a bucket, stir vigorously, cook on a slow fire and get a M1 Ultra with a 1024-bit wide memory bus. I ought to have used «typically» rather than «currently» as wide memory buses were coming and going more mainstream in the server space, whilst not yet being widely available today. The hardware transition cycle will take a few years, and as of today «currently» still holds true, semantically and factually, as cloud platforms and data centres run nearly entirely exclusively on Xeon something Lake and EPYC 3rd Gen CPU's, and neither has such a wide memory bus. > … per socket. Does that mean that 2x socketable EPYC CPU's (say, 512-bit wide each) will be able to access RAM via a 1x 1024-bit wide memory bus? If yes, how will access to RAM work, i.e. access multiplexing – memory banks? time interleaved access? something else?

physPop 4y ago

That's an interesting point. Do you know a good reference comparing laptop vs desktop cpu performance? I'm always confused by comparisons that inevitablty are affected by other laptop specific components (differences in mgpu / motherboard chipsets etc).

philistine 4y ago
I guess you could look at the Mac Benchmarks of Geekbench: https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks Let's forget the whole Apple Silicon thing, and look at 2020. The difference in single core is minuscule, but the big difference is multicore. Unless you need those extra cores, those computers are equivalent. Now compare a 2010 Mac Pro and the 2010-2012 consumer laptops. Single core is 100%, multi-core is at least 400%. That's a big delta and that's only 2010. If you go back into the past, it would surely ebb and flow but surely stay in that zone. I'd expect a laptop to be half the speed of a big pro desktop all the way to the prehistoric times when all computers were beige and laptops charged extra to get rid of screen ghosting.

sylens 4y ago

That's a really good point. I think it would be far more likely to see that same freshman with a Mac Studio in their dorm now instead of a Mac Pro even if it was at a similar price point as the Studio - just smaller and more practical.

dhosek 4y ago

The MBP was plenty sufficient for most music production tasks even in 2004 when I got my first one. If I were running a pro studio with a 32+ channel mixing desk, I could see needing more, but I was able to manage 16 channels of live recording and at least 64 channels of live mix on my 2004 TiBook.

prewett 4y ago
Berklee College of Music [0] requires at MBP with 16 GB of memory, 512 GB or disk space, which I think has been available since at least 2007. [0] https://www.berklee.edu/sts/macbook-pro https://www.berklee.edu/sts/macbook-pro
philistine 4y ago
Of course my point is not super strict about dates, it's about trends. I'm sure you were fine in 2004, but the more you go back into the past, the more a desktop is required. And the more you move into the future the more a laptop is fine.

inkyoto 4y ago

> […] and the insides are now laptop parts. The Mac Studio is simply the desktop computer that gets the Macbook Pro chips. «Laptop parts» connect M1 CPU clusters to RAM via a 512-bit wide (M1 Max) and a 1024-bit wide (M1 Ultra) memory bus yielding 100 Gb/sec (per a CPU core), 200 Gb/sec (per a CPU cluster) and 400 (M1 Max)/800 (M1 Ultra) Gb/sec cumulative data transfer speeds. GPU and ANE cores access the main memory via the same wide memory bus. L1 caches (I+D) are 128kB+64 kb (efficiency cores) and 192+128 kb (performance); L2 caches are 24 Mb (M1 Max) and 48 Mb (M1 Ultra), and L3 cache is 48 Mb (Max) and 96 Mb (Ultra). Auxiliary tasks (disk encryption, video encoding/decoding etc) are off-loaded to dedicated processing units which is reminiscent to that a typical mainframe architecture with channel processors and channel programmes rather than that of a laptop. Most «hi-end» servers today do not come anywhere close to such configurations leave alone the form factor and the net system efficiency. 512-bit wide memory bus is currently only found inside hi-end GPU cards, and the compute off-loading / accelerating units are an add-on feature for a server that may or may not be available. Only POWER10 and Telum systems from IBM offer similar (albeit far more scalable and feature rich) designs and at a completely different price scale.

wtallis 4y ago
> 512-bit wide memory bus is currently only found inside hi-end GPU cards, AMD EPYC CPUs just went from 512-bit DDR4 to 768-bit DDR5, per socket.
- inkyoto 4y ago
  … which is another testament to the fact that a wide memory bus is an attribute of server or hi-end components rather than «laptop parts» that one can throw into a bucket, stir vigorously, cook on a slow fire and get a M1 Ultra with a 1024-bit wide memory bus. I ought to have used «typically» rather than «currently» as wide memory buses were coming and going more mainstream in the server space, whilst not yet being widely available today. The hardware transition cycle will take a few years, and as of today «currently» still holds true, semantically and factually, as cloud platforms and data centres run nearly entirely exclusively on Xeon something Lake and EPYC 3rd Gen CPU's, and neither has such a wide memory bus. > … per socket. Does that mean that 2x socketable EPYC CPU's (say, 512-bit wide each) will be able to access RAM via a 1x 1024-bit wide memory bus? If yes, how will access to RAM work, i.e. access multiplexing – memory banks? time interleaved access? something else?