8 ms·

It's worrying that they are shying away from specifying generational improvements or at least comparing to it's competitors. The "fastest Intel MacBook" is not

by jchw 4y ago

It's worrying that they are shying away from specifying generational improvements or at least comparing to it's competitors. The "fastest Intel MacBook" is not really the competitor for an M2 MacBook Pro, it's a predecessor. But I'd rather hear about generational improvements from M1, especially because both Intel and AMD seem to be making great strides in the low power space lately.

JoshTko 4y ago
If Apple's main target customers are Intel macbook owners using these stats would make sense.
- nvrspyx 4y ago
  They could include both the improvement from the last Intel model and the previous Apple Silicon model, no? EDIT: I see they actually do just that for some specific applications.
  - JoshTko 4y ago
    Less is more. I'm guessing the % of M2 customers that are upgrading from an M1 is less than 10%. If ~75% (my guess) of target customers for M2 are Intel mac owners, Apple should focus on them first. They can then do more targeted ads w/ relevant stats to win each subgroup in the remaining 25%
    - ricardobayes 4y ago
      That's a tough cookie, some can't switch due to software constraints (e.g. CAD engineers using solidworks etc)
nawgz 4y ago
As an M1 owner, it's the opposite of a worry for my wallet :)
Waterluvian 4y ago
Edit: I no-longer hold this opinion as I missed that there's already been an M1 MacBook Pro and it should be comparing to that. For as long as I can remember, Apple has compared new products to the previous product. And it is a more sensible approach than picking some arbitrary competitor from a huge collection of possible options, because it gives a fixed frame of reference, one of which many of the target audience are aware of. 6x faster than the previous model is very good marketing.
- nsriv 4y ago
  It's not the previous model though, it's 2 generations prior. Commenter is asking for a comparison to the M1 MacBook Pro.
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    Oh right. Yeah, that should 100% be the comparison provided. I missed that there's already been an M1 MacBook Pro. Yep, my opinion on the matter has changed to the GP comment's.
singhrac 4y ago
Honestly, I think this is also partly them patting themselves (or their silicon team) on the back for a job well done. And as everyone else has said, their competitor is the fastest Intel/AMD chips if they're trying to win market share.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
nicoburns 4y ago
It's no secret that Apple's M2 series processors are a pretty minor improvement over the M1 series. Expect much bigger improvements in the M3 series which will likely be using TSMC's 3nm process (and then probably only minor improvements again for the M4 series). It seems that Apple's ridiculously impressive consistent year-on-year gains up the M1 were in large part possible because they were behind the state of the art. Now that they've caught up with Intel and AMD we should probably expect the same slower more gradual improvements from Apple that we see from the other companies.
- sod 4y ago
  Yes, the year over year improvements were 90% just the tsmc node changes. But the ridiculous (and IMO amazing) performance per watt is a mix of iOS/macOS and their chip design. Those efficiency cores are unmatched, paired with the right scheduling from the OS. The M2 is underwhelming as its the same 5nm as the M1 was. But rumors say the M2 pro and max are on the 3nm node. And it took so long for the release, as 3nm was delayed. Apple has a monopoly right now on 3nm, which is a shame. But if we only got tsmc to fire on all cylinders because apple stuffed them with money, then so be it.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - cassianoleal 4y ago
    > But the ridiculous (and IMO amazing) performance per watt is a mix of iOS/macOS and their chip design. Not disputing this, but even Asahi Linux without GPU acceleration has pretty much whole-day battery life on an M1 Air. I'm not sure how well their kernel manages scheduling on the different cores but I suspect the vast majority of the perf/Watt is on the actual hardware.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    It's worth noting that TSMC is looking to exploit Apple's demand for the hottest silicon. The latest reports suggest that they'll cut the prices to lure in others, so Apple will be forced to ante-up or stay on an old process: https://www.techspot.com/news/97269-tsmc-may-cut-3nm-wafer-prices-entice-amd.html https://www.techspot.com/news/97269-tsmc-may-cut-3nm-wafer-p... It's fascinating to think about. If the Mac is currently a low-margin product, Apple might be forced to stay on one node until the better silicon becomes cheap enough to use in production. If Apple doesn't play their cards right, TSMC could shanghai Apple in the exact same way Intel got stranded in the sea of process enhancement.
florakel 4y ago
“ MacBook Pro with M2 Pro features a 10- or 12-core CPU with up to eight high-performance and four high-efficiency cores for up to 20 percent greater performance over M1 Pro.”
ribit 4y ago
Performance will be comparable to top Zen4 mobile CPUs at 45W TDP, just that Apple will use 50-60% less power in single-core and 20-30% power in multi core. That’s about it.
ribit 4y ago
They did say 20% faster CPU and 30% faster GPU than M1 series in the same thermal envelope. Intel doesn’t really seem to make any strides in low-power designs, they just throw more mid-power cores at the problem to achieve better multi core efficiency as well as manipulate power brackets. Shirt-time (benchmark-relevant) consumption of Intel chips is insane and their published TDP figures are utterly meaningless. AMD has very scalable cores and Zen4 performs admirably at low power, but AMD too falls victim to power inflation to keep pace with Intel.
rsynnott 4y ago
They do give some numbers vs M1s, but most people actually considering buying this will be coming from the Intel ones (no-one replaces their laptop every year) so it makes sense to labour those in the marketing material.
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  Traditionally Apple's marketing compared against the previous generation, not multiple generations old hardware. It seems tacky to me because the M2's competition isn't really 2019 Intel MBPs- it's laptops using modern Intel/AMD CPUs (the M2 may still be better than those, but if that's the case those are the benchmarks they should be giving us)
  - guax 4y ago
    They did. 20% improvement in cpu and 30% ish in GPU.
    - Rebelgecko 4y ago
      Vs Raptor Lake or Ryzen?
      - guax 4y ago
        Versus the previous generation (m1) as mentioned by the comment this respond to.
  - tcmart14 4y ago
    I think the reason for the big push is to get people to switch over. At this point, they are still supporting some Intel macs and needing to try to keep some parity with previous macs is probably just a cost sink now with how their future trajectory is going. Get all the people off the intel macs ASAP so they can drown intel support in the bathtub. Granted, I don't think they will 100% kill intel. My guess is, it just won't be public. They will keep a few internal machines that MacOS is minimally functional on so if they ever want to switch back, they already have a base. Would be my guess.
gwbas1c 4y ago
I didn't buy an M1 because I didn't want the "first" Apple processor. Maybe it's just my bias from seeing lots of Intel competitors come-and-go? I don't really care about specific improvements, I just want all the minor things that the engineers didn't get to finish the first time around. In my case, living in the US, we all do our taxes in the first three-ish months of the year. Last year Turbo Tax told me they wouldn't support my 2013 MBP this tax season, so I decided to wait until fall 2022 and get whatever Apple released. Fall 2022 came without a release, so I've been biting my nails: Turbo Tax won't run on my MBP, and I don't want to upgrade to an "outdated" M1. (As you can infer, I'm planning on using my next MBP for ~10 years.)
- mikedelago 4y ago
  I know it's already purchased so not a big deal, but if anyone is in a similar situation, there are other free and/or well-featured tax processing tools. I use FreeTaxUsa, which is entirely online and free for your federal return. I think it may be $15 or so for state returns, but I live in Florida so it's not really something I think about.
- TingPing 4y ago
  To state the obvious, Turbo Taxes website works on any device. No idea what an app would be needed for.
  - 988747 4y ago
    It's crazy that you basically cannot do your taxes in the US without purchasing commercial app...
    - johncalvinyoung 4y ago
      Oh you can. It's just a lot more work. You can do it with paper forms, a calculator, checks, and stamps, pretty much. You just are unlikely to know/find the rules for optimal results, and the process will take a lot longer. Not a fan of turbotax, but it's not _necessary_.
zamalek 4y ago
> fastest Intel MacBook It's also 4 years old at this point. Where is the comparison to current-gen Intel/AMD?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by jchw 4y ago

JoshTko 4y ago

If Apple's main target customers are Intel macbook owners using these stats would make sense.

nvrspyx 4y ago
They could include both the improvement from the last Intel model and the previous Apple Silicon model, no? EDIT: I see they actually do just that for some specific applications.
- JoshTko 4y ago
  Less is more. I'm guessing the % of M2 customers that are upgrading from an M1 is less than 10%. If ~75% (my guess) of target customers for M2 are Intel mac owners, Apple should focus on them first. They can then do more targeted ads w/ relevant stats to win each subgroup in the remaining 25%
  - ricardobayes 4y ago
    That's a tough cookie, some can't switch due to software constraints (e.g. CAD engineers using solidworks etc)

nawgz 4y ago

As an M1 owner, it's the opposite of a worry for my wallet :)

Waterluvian 4y ago

Edit: I no-longer hold this opinion as I missed that there's already been an M1 MacBook Pro and it should be comparing to that. For as long as I can remember, Apple has compared new products to the previous product. And it is a more sensible approach than picking some arbitrary competitor from a huge collection of possible options, because it gives a fixed frame of reference, one of which many of the target audience are aware of. 6x faster than the previous model is very good marketing.

nsriv 4y ago
It's not the previous model though, it's 2 generations prior. Commenter is asking for a comparison to the M1 MacBook Pro.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  Oh right. Yeah, that should 100% be the comparison provided. I missed that there's already been an M1 MacBook Pro. Yep, my opinion on the matter has changed to the GP comment's.

singhrac 4y ago

Honestly, I think this is also partly them patting themselves (or their silicon team) on the back for a job well done. And as everyone else has said, their competitor is the fastest Intel/AMD chips if they're trying to win market share.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

nicoburns 4y ago

It's no secret that Apple's M2 series processors are a pretty minor improvement over the M1 series. Expect much bigger improvements in the M3 series which will likely be using TSMC's 3nm process (and then probably only minor improvements again for the M4 series). It seems that Apple's ridiculously impressive consistent year-on-year gains up the M1 were in large part possible because they were behind the state of the art. Now that they've caught up with Intel and AMD we should probably expect the same slower more gradual improvements from Apple that we see from the other companies.

sod 4y ago
Yes, the year over year improvements were 90% just the tsmc node changes. But the ridiculous (and IMO amazing) performance per watt is a mix of iOS/macOS and their chip design. Those efficiency cores are unmatched, paired with the right scheduling from the OS. The M2 is underwhelming as its the same 5nm as the M1 was. But rumors say the M2 pro and max are on the 3nm node. And it took so long for the release, as 3nm was delayed. Apple has a monopoly right now on 3nm, which is a shame. But if we only got tsmc to fire on all cylinders because apple stuffed them with money, then so be it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- cassianoleal 4y ago
  > But the ridiculous (and IMO amazing) performance per watt is a mix of iOS/macOS and their chip design. Not disputing this, but even Asahi Linux without GPU acceleration has pretty much whole-day battery life on an M1 Air. I'm not sure how well their kernel manages scheduling on the different cores but I suspect the vast majority of the perf/Watt is on the actual hardware.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  It's worth noting that TSMC is looking to exploit Apple's demand for the hottest silicon. The latest reports suggest that they'll cut the prices to lure in others, so Apple will be forced to ante-up or stay on an old process: https://www.techspot.com/news/97269-tsmc-may-cut-3nm-wafer-prices-entice-amd.html https://www.techspot.com/news/97269-tsmc-may-cut-3nm-wafer-p... It's fascinating to think about. If the Mac is currently a low-margin product, Apple might be forced to stay on one node until the better silicon becomes cheap enough to use in production. If Apple doesn't play their cards right, TSMC could shanghai Apple in the exact same way Intel got stranded in the sea of process enhancement.

florakel 4y ago

“ MacBook Pro with M2 Pro features a 10- or 12-core CPU with up to eight high-performance and four high-efficiency cores for up to 20 percent greater performance over M1 Pro.”

ribit 4y ago

Performance will be comparable to top Zen4 mobile CPUs at 45W TDP, just that Apple will use 50-60% less power in single-core and 20-30% power in multi core. That’s about it.

ribit 4y ago

They did say 20% faster CPU and 30% faster GPU than M1 series in the same thermal envelope. Intel doesn’t really seem to make any strides in low-power designs, they just throw more mid-power cores at the problem to achieve better multi core efficiency as well as manipulate power brackets. Shirt-time (benchmark-relevant) consumption of Intel chips is insane and their published TDP figures are utterly meaningless. AMD has very scalable cores and Zen4 performs admirably at low power, but AMD too falls victim to power inflation to keep pace with Intel.

rsynnott 4y ago

They do give some numbers vs M1s, but most people actually considering buying this will be coming from the Intel ones (no-one replaces their laptop every year) so it makes sense to labour those in the marketing material.

Rebelgecko 4y ago
Traditionally Apple's marketing compared against the previous generation, not multiple generations old hardware. It seems tacky to me because the M2's competition isn't really 2019 Intel MBPs- it's laptops using modern Intel/AMD CPUs (the M2 may still be better than those, but if that's the case those are the benchmarks they should be giving us)
- guax 4y ago
  They did. 20% improvement in cpu and 30% ish in GPU.
  - Rebelgecko 4y ago
    Vs Raptor Lake or Ryzen?
    - guax 4y ago
      Versus the previous generation (m1) as mentioned by the comment this respond to.
- tcmart14 4y ago
  I think the reason for the big push is to get people to switch over. At this point, they are still supporting some Intel macs and needing to try to keep some parity with previous macs is probably just a cost sink now with how their future trajectory is going. Get all the people off the intel macs ASAP so they can drown intel support in the bathtub. Granted, I don't think they will 100% kill intel. My guess is, it just won't be public. They will keep a few internal machines that MacOS is minimally functional on so if they ever want to switch back, they already have a base. Would be my guess.

gwbas1c 4y ago

I didn't buy an M1 because I didn't want the "first" Apple processor. Maybe it's just my bias from seeing lots of Intel competitors come-and-go? I don't really care about specific improvements, I just want all the minor things that the engineers didn't get to finish the first time around. In my case, living in the US, we all do our taxes in the first three-ish months of the year. Last year Turbo Tax told me they wouldn't support my 2013 MBP this tax season, so I decided to wait until fall 2022 and get whatever Apple released. Fall 2022 came without a release, so I've been biting my nails: Turbo Tax won't run on my MBP, and I don't want to upgrade to an "outdated" M1. (As you can infer, I'm planning on using my next MBP for ~10 years.)

mikedelago 4y ago
I know it's already purchased so not a big deal, but if anyone is in a similar situation, there are other free and/or well-featured tax processing tools. I use FreeTaxUsa, which is entirely online and free for your federal return. I think it may be $15 or so for state returns, but I live in Florida so it's not really something I think about.
TingPing 4y ago
To state the obvious, Turbo Taxes website works on any device. No idea what an app would be needed for.
- 988747 4y ago
  It's crazy that you basically cannot do your taxes in the US without purchasing commercial app...
  - johncalvinyoung 4y ago
    Oh you can. It's just a lot more work. You can do it with paper forms, a calculator, checks, and stamps, pretty much. You just are unlikely to know/find the rules for optimal results, and the process will take a lot longer. Not a fan of turbotax, but it's not _necessary_.

zamalek 4y ago

> fastest Intel MacBook It's also 4 years old at this point. Where is the comparison to current-gen Intel/AMD?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]