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> After 2021's mind-blowing release of Apple M1 Silicon [sic], we're left a little bit underwhelmed with this year's nominal performance bump in the M2 Pro and

• ajconway 4y ago
  But M1 did provide fundamental increase in performance. It had only 4 performance cores, yet it could build my code 1.5 times faster than the mightiest i9 of the time.
  • merb 4y ago
    tbf the mightiest i9 mobile chip at the time was pretty bad, thermal wise and throttled extremly fast, besides that it was basically offered for ultrabooks... I mean the m1 did draw only half or even less power than the mightiest i9 mobile chip at the time (and still does lol)
  • ohgodplsno 4y ago
    The M1 is fast for a few reasons: * It uses a fabrication process that noone has gotten their hands on yet. These have always been massive jumps, and giving access to that node to AMD and Intel gets them to similar performance (actually, they already are at similar performance with the same gen). * You're buying an un-upgradeable SoC. Soldered on everything means fast interconnect, while others have to play ball with standards that allow me to change components whenever I want. * It's a pretty damn good CPU. So, out of these three, Apple is responsible for 1/3. Dump an i9 on a SoC with a 3nm process and it'll eat the M1 alive. There's no "fundamental" increase.
    • seniorivn 4y ago
      the fab process is their for grabs not by accident, they made the right call to invest in a longterm relationship with tsmc long time ago, so they have dibs on all cutting edge tech. un-upgradable SoC is a strategic design choice so which is basically part of the third reason which is their responsibility as you pointed out. So basically their success with m1,m2, etc is a well done implementation of a very ambitious strategy to disrupt the market. I don't see why it should be disputed.
    • hedgehog 4y ago
      I'm not sure this is true, looking at say the i7-1260P in the XPS 13 it appears to turn in performance similar to the base M2 and half the battery life. M2 Max is twice as fast as the i7 and still 2x-3x the battery life, though also twice as expensive. I don't see any case that Intel's designs are somehow better than anyone else's let alone enough to "eat alive" any competitor design on equal process.
    • brookst 4y ago
      I think you’re saying I shouldn’t be impressed that my M1 machine is much faster than my previous Intel machine, while having 3x the battery life, because Apple cheated or something. I don’t care. I’m impressed.
      • mwint 4y ago
        Yep. A lot of this thread feels like I’m being gaslit into believing the M1 machines were not the ridiculously huge jumps we all knew they were at the time. I don’t really care about benchmarks, these things have allowed me to do twice the work with half as much pain. That’s not incremental. Maybe they’re not great processors and it’s just Apple cheating in software/process-node/whatever. Great! Let me know when other manufacturers figure out how to cheat in software/process-node/whatever and I’ll consider them.
        • Funnyduck99 4y ago
          i think some people exaggerate their performance gains but the battery life they provide is ridiculous
  • Maursault 4y ago
    > But M1 did provide fundamental increase in performance. No it didn't. Look at the Mac mini benchmarks.[0] It is a smooth curve of increasing performance from the oldest models up to the M1. Performance is increasing faster, as should be expected, but the increases in performance from model to model are incremental, always resulting in "experts" being surprised and disappointed. M1 Mac mini is not ten or five times faster than the 2018 Mac mini, and not even twice as fast. It is 26% faster in multicore performance and 36% faster in single core performance. These are increments, not massive leaps in performance. [0] https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/mac-mini-late-2020 https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/mac-mini-late-2020
    • ericmay 4y ago
      I'm not sure if this changes anything here but when I think about performance at least for laptops but even for other products I think not just actual CPU operations but energy efficiency as well. I do agree that Apple's CPU releases are incremental updates (and mostly always have been), but when I used an M-series Mac for the first time it was a step grade upgrade from the previous gen even if it's somehow not accounted for in CPU performance metrics (though I think it will be if you account for energy as well).
      • Maursault 4y ago
        > I think not just actual CPU operations but energy efficiency as well. Since when? Seriously. Since the first Apple Silicon release, undoubtedly.
        • 2fast4you 4y ago
          Yup. Apple really set the bar. I’ve never expected battery life like this from my laptop. Now that I know I can get the same(or better) performance with much higher efficiency, I’m never going back. My laptop doesn’t heat up anymore. It doesn’t die. If it has fans, they’re absolutely silent. All this, and I haven’t had to change my workload at all.
          • 4y ago
• bangonkeyboard 4y ago
  > From time immemorial...only ever had...always been this way...don't understand why anyone expects...that has never ever happened...should know better... iPad 2 a year after iPad 1 had 2x faster CPU, 9x faster GPU, 2x RAM, weighed 15% less, was up to 33% thinner in every dimension, and had longer battery life.
  • Maursault 4y ago
    iPad is not a Mac, and you're massively exaggerating. The iPad had a single core CPU, iPad 2 a dual core. Mystery solved there. The GPU was not 9 times faster![1] DDR2 RAM, released 8 years before the iPad 2, is twice as fast as DDR. You should be complaining about the iPad not having DDR2 rather than being amazed at the performance leap between subsequent generations, which, btw, was indeed incremental. [1] https://www.notebookcheck.net/SGX535-vs-SGX543MP2_2376_2572.247598.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/SGX535-vs-SGX543MP2_2376_2572....
    • wtallis 4y ago
      Am I missing something, or is there literally nothing in your link that actually provides a performance comparison between those two GPUs? Also, how does the stuff about DDR vs DDR2 RAM fit into this conversation at all? What you're responding to seems to be a claim about RAM capacity rather than speed.
    • hajile 4y ago
      Apple switched from ARM Cortex A8 to A9. There were a lot of improvements. The change from in order to out of order was huge. L2 cache doubled to 1MB. Memory bandwidth doubled. The FPU got properly pipelined too. RAM also doubled to 512MB. In combination, this translates into 20% better integer performance and double the FPU performance. This is pretty close to what other chips saw moving to A9. For stuff like web browsing, that FPU update basically doubled performance and made the iPad 2 much more useful to consumers. On the GPU front, Apple themselves made the 9x claim, but Anandtech showed closer to 6x. That’s still a massive improvement. If something was limited by the previous 256MB RAM, that 9x number becomes very believable.
• dbspin 4y ago
  This is inaccurate, the performance gains over intel 9 Macbook Pro on the higher end Mac Pro's (Max and Ultra) are not incremental. Depending on the task it can be twice as fast (e.g.: real time video editing of heigh bit depth, high resolution video). But a general boost in overall performance is visible in even synthetic benchmarks - e.g.: from 1250 to 1745 in Geekbench. A 43% increase. Moreover a perceived boost to performance was notable to even the most casual users in boot time, general OS responsiveness and file copying between the intel and M1 generations. I agree that it's not reasonable to expect this to continue as M1 develops. https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks
  • Maursault 4y ago
    > This is inaccurate, the performance gains over intel 9 Macbook Pro on the higher end Mac Pro's (Max and Ultra) are not incremental. You are comparing apples and oranges. Within specific model releases, MacBook Pro vs next MacBook Pro, Mac Pro vs. next Mac Pro, and every single other Apple model release compared to it's previous and subsequent releases, the performance gains have always been incremental. I don't understand how anyone could expect it to be otherwise.
    • ddulaney 4y ago
      If you say that Intel MacBook Pro is a different product category from Arm MacBook Pro, then yes, gains are incremental within a product category. The parent is arguing that really, these are the same product category. If you bought, say, a middle-of-the-road MacBook Pro every time a new one was announced, you’d see a huge jump in performance (more than just incremental) when moving from Intel to M1, then a return to incremental improvement from M1 to M2. I’m pretty convinced by them. I think that Apple has done such a good job of compatibility that all MacBook Pros are essentially the same product category. And the M1 performance improvement really was a step change over Intel.
      • Maursault 4y ago
        No, that's not what I am saying. > gains over intel 9 Macbook Pro on the higher end Mac Pro's I'm saying you can't compare a MBP to a Mac Pro, like you tried to do, because that wasn't my claim. My claim is that the first Apple Silicon MBP was only an incremental increase in performance from the last Intel MBP. And I am saying this is true, within specific model lines, for everything Apple ever released. And I don’t have specific knowledge of this, but I would assume it is true for every other computer and platform, that each subsequent generation of model is a little faster than the last, and not twice as fast or even 50% faster.
• scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
  You’re looking in the wrong place. Time immemorial this is has been how tech journalism and marketing works. In other words, drumming up excitement/disappointment is a feature, not a bug. (Otherwise factually I agree with everything you said)
  • Maursault 4y ago
    Apple picks and chooses what it wants to showcase, but their marketing is reasonably honest in the details. The problem comes from misinterpretation of what they are showcasing, "30 times faster performance in some Photoshop filter," doesn't say anything about whether the machine is faster overall at everything than some bizarre whitebox someone built that is missing expensive Mac features. But, in general, at release, more often than not Macs have been the fastest performing machine at that moment, though within a few months they're no longer faster than such and such PC, and Macs have a long wait between in-model releases. There were 4 years between the 2014 Mac mini and 2018 model, and 6 years between the 2013 Mac Pro and the 2019 Mac Pro. That's a lot of time for the competition.
• jcadam 4y ago
  So, no reason not to pickup a refurb/clearance M1 MBP and save some money :)
  • Maursault 4y ago
    That's why there's a market for old Macs. I acquired two quad-core 2012 Mac minis in 2021, which is quite the upgrade from my 2010 MacBook Pro. But the low-end Apple Silicon minis are so cheap I don't know how I can avoid owning one within the next year.
    • Funnyduck99 4y ago
      why get a very slow mac mini and 2 of them
• crazygringo 4y ago
  > What is causing this?! Pundits criticize, that's what they do. It's impossible for anything to ever be "perfect". If a product is simple then it can be criticized for not having enough features, if it's full of features it can be criticized for not being simple enough. And when everything's pretty much fine, the standard criticism is "the new version hasn't changed/improved enough". (While when lots of things change/improve, it becomes "but is it too different/incompatible for people used to the old version?!") The job of a pundit isn't to try to provide any kind of objective or even consistent truth. It's just to provide talking points than turn into headlines that drive clicks. The pundits, as people, absolutely know better. But that's not their job as a paid pundit. Their job is to drive clicks and comments and engagement.
  • brookst 4y ago
    Yes, and most pundits can’t think about target markets. How often have you read a review of a luxury car / computer / resort from someone who works hard to make $50k/year, and their complaint is that the product is too expensive? We all have different financial situations. Tell me what’s good and bad about a product and let me decide if it’s “worth it” for the price point.
• smoldesu 4y ago
  I don't understand why we should be impressed when GPU, single-core and multi-core power consumption has gone up. Apple cut off Intel and AMD so they could stop bumping the wattage for marginal performance increases. Ironically, now Apple is the one stranded on a unique manufacturing process, and AMD/Intel are the ones reducing their wattage. It's not disappointing, but it's hardly impressive. Once again; this is the world's largest company, and we're freaking out over TDP trades for performance. It reminds me of the people in the 90s who would shill Disney's theme park tech; maybe it's cool on a technical level, but these people have billions of dollars. What's impressive is running Linux on unsupported hardware or single-handedly getting a copy of the no-fly list. I can't be bothered to give a fuck about Apple spending 18 months to make a 40% faster GPU that consumes 20% more power.
  • Maursault 4y ago
    > Ironically, now Apple is the one stranded on a unique manufacturing process, and AMD/Intel are the ones reducing their wattage. That's not irony. Irony is that, right now, no other hw manufacturer can compete with Apple. I don't think Intel or AMD will ever be able to compete again until they abandon x86/amd64 and release their own ARM chip. Apple will not sweat before that happens.
    • smoldesu 4y ago
      AMD does just fine competing with Apple, they had chips competing with the M1 on 7nm silicon, 18 months before the M1 hit shelves. Intel is shaken, but their roadmap is starting to look competitive again for the first time since Skylake. Apple's only defense was their control over the 5nm node, which is gone now. We have 4nm GPUs that make Apple's offerings look like toys, and the 5nm AMD APUs are highly competitive with even Apple's highest-end chip. Apple made the right choice abandoning Intel on the 10nm node, but they don't have a roadmap from here besides "get better silicon". The competition is hot, and I don't think either my next laptop or desktop will be ARM based (unless someone out-performs Apple).
      • Maursault 4y ago
• jayd16 4y ago
  What a silly hill to die on. Some releases are certainly more exciting perf wise than others. Usually excitement is tied to some technology upgrade like SSD or new ram or some such thing. This is a boring upgrade.
  • Maursault 4y ago
    I didn't die on this hill, I pioneered it and conquered it. I'm developing it. See the difference? What is silly is expecting an exponential increase in performance from one generation model to the next. That never happens, not at Apple, not anywhere.
    • kingboss 4y ago
      Do you even know what exponential means? 10% YoY is exponential.
• duxup 4y ago
  I have an allergic reaction to what I think of as constant editorializing on everything these days. Feels like everything has to have a label as underwhelming or amazing. There was an iFixit video a bit ago where they made a weird comment "oh no where is the heat spreader!?!?" like it was missing or amazing ... they were holding it. Not that those comments can't be on point, but it feels like everything now has something like that. And yeah efficiency is the impressive part of those chips.
  • xctr94 4y ago
    Thanks for saying this. It’s a bit toxic if reviewers are constantly demanding immense change, immense improvements. Small incremental gains are great. We’re mired in spectacular technology. If anything, software practices and efficiency are the parts that most need to catch up.
• highwaylights 4y ago
  Lack of domain knowledge. Reviewers online aren’t particularly well informed. They think they are because many of them sort-of-kinda understand the devices they’re talking about at a high level, but they’re not really familiar with how it works and what the constraints are. M2 has very predictable performance, on a line with all other CPU gains in recent years. M1 had a lot of low hanging fruit to reach for that standardised architectures aren’t able to mimic for fear of breaking things (co-located memory, purpose-built buses, function-specific co-processing). And then they got on a node no-one else could get on due to their backlog.
  • Maursault 4y ago
    I'm starting to see it. Just look at this thread and how insistent many comments are.
    • highwaylights 4y ago
      Yep. I watched that kinda cringe LTT mea culpa video over the PS5 storage architecture a while back and I was a little taken aback at how much of the basics he didn’t really seem to understand, even in his apology video. These very bespoke systems can take some really innovative steps with custom compression hardware and expanded bus space. It’s not Intel or AMD that can’t keep up with Apple, it’s the standards they build their hardware on.
      • Maursault 4y ago
        Right now, Intel and AMD are having trouble. AMD is comparing their new Ryzen processor to last year's M1 Pro. I think this might become ordinary unless Intel and AMD abandon x86/amd64, users of 30yo software be damned, and release their own ARM chips. Then Apple will sweat.
        • hedgehog 4y ago
          I'm not sure what's up here but I think the points you're making in this thread are mostly opposite reality. Each of the M1 products has been a big step up from the preceding versions in almost every respect and especially performance. If there is a respect in which the M1 is derivative and predictable it's that it is a fairly incremental step from the A12X, which itself was a very strong performer. It's been fairly obvious since the A7 that Apple was lining up to do a chip for Macs, just a question of when. Intel's designs are ok but not great, they have been struggling with execution problems including on the fab side for years going back to around 2016. AMD's chips are pretty good now and their lack of mobile and desktop market share has nothing to do with technology. ARM architecture by itself is not significant performance advantage or competitive advantage at all, and there's no real secret sauce in Apple's chip program other than tight focus, a long time horizon, and massive amounts of cash. And CPU performance growth is slower than it once was as anyone who remembers the road from the 286 to the Pentium Pro can attest. I'll leave a quantitative comment about yearly perf growth in one of those threads. Edit: And efficiency and performance are essentially the same thing in laptops where getting rid of heat is the biggest limit on sustaining throughput for multiple minutes.
• whoami_nr 4y ago
  Wouldn't you consider FaceID to be a step jump in tech? I didn't know IR scanning was a feasible consumer tech before that. Even M1 was the same, right?
  • robin_reala 4y ago
    FaceID is basically a miniaturised Xbox Kinect (which also does face tracking), and is firmly consumer tech.
• tambourine_man 4y ago
  That quote seems to have been removed from the site. It's not there as of this writing.
• s3p 4y ago
  This is not even remotely true. The increase between performance in A5 vs A6 was greater than 100%. Or the 41% increase in Geekbench multi from the A10 to the A11. Versus the 14% increase in multi-core from last year's iPhone to the current one. The performance has never increased by the same amount year over year. It improves drastically in some years, and modestly in others. People get disappointed when Apple fails to deliver the performance gains they have in years past. Edit: Also the [sic] is unnecessary. Just say you don't like the publication if you disagree with their writing that much.
• NovaPenguin 4y ago
  Immediately I think of the jump from iPad to iPad 2. That was a night and day experience because of the memory and processor jump. But that kind of leap was a one time thing that is the exception.
• theshrike79 4y ago
  Reviewers are reviewing devices for the mythical "buys a new device every year" -person who are a clear minority. Year over year is never a huge bump, not in features or power. But if you're upgrading a 5 year old device, the bump is unbelievable.