6 ms·

Apple Silicon is low-power low-end laptop hardware. Of course their I/O capabilities are limited, because their users do not need lots of I/O. If you are lookin

by c00lio 3y ago

Apple Silicon is low-power low-end laptop hardware. Of course their I/O capabilities are limited, because their users do not need lots of I/O. If you are looking for stuff with lots of I/O capabilities you have to buy proper server hardware.

wkat4242 3y ago
Of course Apple positions this as a proper workstation.
- varispeed 3y ago
  I remember being downvoted for saying this is essentially a phone CPU and motherboard, just without consideration for constraints imposed by the phone's footprint. It means it can be designed with higher TDP in mind etc. and yet, Apple charges for it as if it was a real workstation equipment rather than a phone in a massive enclosure.
  - shoonmcgregor 3y ago
    [dead]
  - martini333 3y ago
    Do you think there is only phone CPU's and real workstation CPU's? Nothing in-between? If so, I get why you got downvoted.
  - daneel_w 3y ago
    Why is it "essentially" a phone CPU? Please don't say "because of the ISA". It has 24 CPU cores, 60+ GPU cores, an insanely fast memory bus and a purported 60 watt power envelope. There's nothing "phone" about it.
    - microtonal 3y ago
      And Thunderbolt. Show me all those phones with Thunderbolt :).
      - gumby 3y ago
        Maybe the “pro max” version of next September’s iphones. The iPad Pro versions have had TB3 for a while (though they ship with M2 CPUs, not the A series). Not really sure how many ppl would use this but if apple switches to Type C connectors they’re more likely to strut it at the high end than just just mention it in passing. The use case isn’t that clear to me. Perhaps a photographer, for a phone with a couple of TB of SSD.
        nordsieck 3y ago
        > The use case isn’t that clear to me. Perhaps a photographer, for a phone with a couple of TB of SSD. IMO, eventually, phones will replace low end desktop/laptop computers. Someone (probably Apple, since their CPUs are head and shoulders above the competition) will have to do the work of designing a mode switching UI, but once that's done, they'll really be able to cut into desktop volume. I'm sure the early devices will be... awkward to use - mostly limited to the browser[1]. But after a few iterations, I'm sure it'll mature into something that can stand on its own. No idea when it'll happen, but I do think that economics will push it into being sooner or later. --- 1. Presumably people would also be able to use other phone apps, but a lot of those look weird when scaled up. And transiting from touch to mouse/trackpad is not straightforward.
        gumby 3y ago
        I disagree … or maybe I don’t. The trivial way I disagree is that I believe people don’t want this: they want to be able to use their phone while “computing”. Perhaps AirPods are enough for that (use Siri to make a call while otherwise mousing) and thus I’m wrong. The big way I disagree is that the phone is already many people’s only internet terminal and and for most has taken over almost all uses of a “computer”. Even I use my bank’s phone app when sitting in front of my computer because it has features the web interface doesn’t.
    - ddalex 3y ago
      the 60W envelope is the phone part I mean you can't style yourself a workstation if the lights don't dim when turned on
    - dhruvdh 3y ago
      All fabs have libraries that their customers use to turn chip RTL to actual transistor layout to be fabbed. Apple silicon is made using mobile libraries, same as their iPhone and iPad chips. Even though they're made on these dense libraries, the chip is still very big, since they need to include CPUs, GPUs, NPUs, and all of their fixed function hardware. All of this puts a limit in terms of frequency and core count. You will find that other server hardware in this price range significantly outperforms Apple silicon , save for those video workloads they're missing fixed function hardware for. M2 Ultra has some 134B transistors, when you compare with an equivalent chip like MI300 (146B), you find that really, in terms of raw compute, there is no comparison. We will have more details on MI300 today, watch out for the news cycle. This is an excellent read in terms of what difference using dense vs performance libraries can make - https://www.semianalysis.com/p/zen-4c-amds-response-to-hyperscale https://www.semianalysis.com/p/zen-4c-amds-response-to-hyper...
      - daneel_w 3y ago
        > "All of this puts a limit in terms of frequency and core count. You will find that other server hardware in this price range significantly outperforms Apple silicon , save for those video workloads they're missing fixed function hardware for." I think the power envelope, not the price tag, is the better metric when comparing how server-y or phone-y the silicon it. > "M2 Ultra has some 134B transistors, when you compare with an equivalent chip like MI300 (146B), you find that really, in terms of raw compute, there is no comparison. We will have more details on MI300 today, watch out for the news cycle." And unsurprisingly it will certainly come with an incomparable TDP.
      - threeseed 3y ago
        > save for those video workloads they're missing fixed function hardware You do know that the Mac Pro is targeted specifically at those workloads.
    - varispeed 3y ago
      > just without consideration for constraints imposed by the phone's footprint If you don't have those constraints it is easy to just "copy and paste" more cores and naturally this will have a higher power envelope, but in essence this is a phone tech that you pay extreme premium for.
    - unusualmonkey 3y ago
      The memory bus is overblown. M2 Ultra has 800GB/s, which sounds like a lot until you remember a Xbox Series X has 560GB/s and costs $499. Or spend $800 and get a 7900 XT which has 800GB/s. Think of the Ultra more of a GPU that happens to have CPU built in.
  - nordsieck 3y ago
    > I remember being downvoted for saying this is essentially a phone CPU and motherboard, just without consideration for constraints imposed by the phone's footprint. That's not really the pejorative that you think it is. Intel crushed the Unix workstations with volume - it was more economically efficient to make a workstation version of a desktop chip than to design one from scratch that wasn't supported by the desktop's volume. Well, Apple is doing to Intel what Intel did to HP, Sun, IBM, DEC, and SGI: using their phone (and watch, etc.) volume to compete with Intel. Perhaps Intel (and AMD) will stave them off. But if history is any guide, they'll be paddling upstream to do so.
  - matwood 3y ago
    > and yet, Apple charges for it as if it was a real workstation equipment rather than a phone in a massive enclosure. Ignoring the no true scotsman argument, I'm not sure this is even an insult. Apple improved their phone CPUs to the point where they compete very well in the desktop space and in some workstation (for any meaning of this term) environments. It's what Intel did to traditional workstation vendors long ago, and is classic Innovators Dilemma. Typically that happens from a small startup and not some industry leading company though. Shame on Intel and AMD for not seeing this coming, since it had been telegraphed for years.
- detourdog 3y ago
  Why wouldn't they? If a Sun Blade 100 is a workstation and I can do the same tasks faster on a Mac mini or Mac Pro why wouldn't they be workstations. Don't get too hung up on labels they can distract from what is front of you. If Apple Silicon actually is an entire motherboard shrunk to die size the shrunken die motherboard will be faster. Place that chip onto a larger motherboard and you get real efficiencies that are hard to compare. Why worry it someone calls it a workstation. That has to be one of the world's most boring technical arguments.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Well, workstation implies a lot. And the price. It's not just a marketing term. It implies more PCIe lanes than a normal desktop (which in this case is not being realised) and better graphics capability for intensive tasks. The latter is up for debate. I'd imagine a 4090 equipped HEDT still kicks its ass in most workstation-type workloads. The unified memory is great for LLM style tasks of course and it's one of the few ways to get a GPU setup with over 100GB for less than $100k. PS Not sure how the comparison with a 20 year old system applies though ;)
    - detourdog 3y ago
      I think you are making up your own yardstick and claiming it’s universally accepted. One instance is that PCI lanes didn't exist when the term was conjured up therefore can’t be part of inherent definition. The mac pro has 64 lanes acroos 6 slots. PCI-e external expansion is another 8 ports of expansion limited to 40 GB/s. Unfortunately the concept of lanes doesn't seem to exist for external PCI-e ports so its hard to judge if those would count as more lanes than a normal desktop. The 20 year old workstation is to demonstrate that the slab form factor has been called a workstation from the beginning.
      - wkat4242 3y ago
        It's because the term itself has changed. Not every PC is a workstation. These days we call it that if it has at least HEDT or server hardware. More PCIe lanes than desktops comes with that. Even Apple's previous Mac Pros have been matching that definition.
systemtest 3y ago
The new Mac Pro can be rack mounted. It has PCIe gen 4 for audio and video I/O, networking, and storage cards.
- c00lio 3y ago
  I'd be sceptical about "can be rack mounted" in the context of Apple hardware. Remember those? https://www.sonnettech.com/product/legacyproducts/rackmacpro.html https://www.sonnettech.com/product/legacyproducts/rackmacpro... https://www.myelectronics.nl/us/mac-studio-empower-station-rack-mount-19-inch.html https://www.myelectronics.nl/us/mac-studio-empower-station-r... At least the new case is available with rails, but cooling and management are still crap.
  - systemtest 3y ago
    It appears to have three 160mm fans in the front, behind the grille. Should be enough for the M2 Ultra
  - lwkl 3y ago
    It isn’t made for a datacenter it’s made for a studio. Studio equipment is often rack mounted so being able to put the computer in there too is great. And the case isn’t new it’s the same as the 2019 Mac Pro.
  - phire 3y ago
    I don't think apple ever officially claimed the trashcan mac pro could be rack mounted, those are kits provided by 3rd parties. But the 2019 mac pro did have an official rack mount variant of the case.
- wongarsu 3y ago
  Rack-mounted Macs target the studio crowd who have rack-mounted audio equipment under their desk and love being able to put their mac in the same rack. Those are certainly users with I/O needs, but very different ones from the needs of a server.
danpalmer 3y ago
Not defending the Mac Pro's architecture here, I think there are issues, but calling Apple Silicon "low-end laptop hardware" is just false. The Max/Ultra chips easily outperform most server-grade CPUs, and are similar to top end Intel i9 chips. Then if you also take into account performance per watt, they're in a whole different league.
- adrian_b 3y ago
  Apple Silicon CPUs have been "in a whole different league" for performance per watt when compared with other laptop or desktop CPUs for 2 reasons, they where made using a newer CMOS process to which competitors did not have yet access and they were designed to have a higher IPC, so that they have the same speed as competing CPUs at much lower clock frequencies, which results in a lower power consumption. On the other hand the comparison between Apple Silicon CPUs and "server-grade CPUs" has always been much less favorable for Apple. The reason is that the higher IPC of Apple CPUs does not matter for server applications. The server CPUs use the same low clock frequency as the Apple CPUs, resulting in the same low power consumption. An Intel or AMD core is slower than an Apple core, but that is compensated by more cores, and more cores with lower IPC have a better performance per watt than fewer cores with higher IPC. Therefore, until recently the Apple Silicon CPUs had a single advantage vs. "server-grade CPUs": they were made in various "5 nm" process variants, while the best "server-grade CPUs" were made in various "7 nm" process variants. Since the end of last year, and especially after the launch of today of AMD Bergamo, the existing Apple Silicon CPUs do not have any advantage for server applications a.k.a. multithreaded applications. Only after the launch of the next Apple Silicon CPUs, made in a "3 nm" process, they would become competitive again. However that does not matter anyway, because Apple has abandoned a long time ago the idea of competing in server applications and for now they are not interested in such applications. Whenever the intention is to praise the good performance per watt of Apple Silicon CPUs, they should always be compared with laptop or desktop CPUs, never with "server-grade CPUs", because in the latter case the numbers are very different.
  - twoodfin 3y ago
    The reason is that the higher IPC of Apple CPUs does not matter for server applications. I’m not sure how to interpret this. Of course server applications care about IPC. Maybe moreso! The only difference I can imagine is that server applications are more likely to be memory-bandwidth bound, which does indeed make IPC irrelevant, but also plays in favor of the high bandwidth architecture of the M- series.
numpad0 3y ago
I wouldn't call M2 Ultra a low-end, but it certainly qualifies as regular desktop CPU, rather than a server or workstation CPU. Xeon, EPYC, Threadripper typically has 128 lanes. 16+8 is Core/Ryzen configuration with x8 for chipset and x16 for GPU. It is really starting to look like either COVID and new Campus architecture had seriously crippled engineering capabilities of Apple, or if not all the capabilities are redirected into futuristic projects such as cars and Vision VR goggles. They could have made Pro a cluster supercomputer on a backplane just as a flexing and a nod to NeXT, but didn't. They just spread out Studio motherboard into existing Pro case. Sony would do more.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > They could have made Pro a cluster supercomputer on a backplane just as a flexing and a nod to NeXT, but didn't. Apple is crippled because they didn’t prioritize a niche use for the sole purpose of “flexing”?
  - numpad0 3y ago
    Yes. See Mac Pro(2013), Mac Pro(2019), maybe Mac Pro(2009) and definitely Power Mac G5(2005).

by c00lio 3y ago

wkat4242 3y ago

Of course Apple positions this as a proper workstation.

varispeed 3y ago
I remember being downvoted for saying this is essentially a phone CPU and motherboard, just without consideration for constraints imposed by the phone's footprint. It means it can be designed with higher TDP in mind etc. and yet, Apple charges for it as if it was a real workstation equipment rather than a phone in a massive enclosure.
- shoonmcgregor 3y ago
  [dead]
- martini333 3y ago
  Do you think there is only phone CPU's and real workstation CPU's? Nothing in-between? If so, I get why you got downvoted.
- daneel_w 3y ago
  Why is it "essentially" a phone CPU? Please don't say "because of the ISA". It has 24 CPU cores, 60+ GPU cores, an insanely fast memory bus and a purported 60 watt power envelope. There's nothing "phone" about it.
  - microtonal 3y ago
    And Thunderbolt. Show me all those phones with Thunderbolt :).
    - gumby 3y ago
      Maybe the “pro max” version of next September’s iphones. The iPad Pro versions have had TB3 for a while (though they ship with M2 CPUs, not the A series). Not really sure how many ppl would use this but if apple switches to Type C connectors they’re more likely to strut it at the high end than just just mention it in passing. The use case isn’t that clear to me. Perhaps a photographer, for a phone with a couple of TB of SSD.
      - nordsieck 3y ago
        > The use case isn’t that clear to me. Perhaps a photographer, for a phone with a couple of TB of SSD. IMO, eventually, phones will replace low end desktop/laptop computers. Someone (probably Apple, since their CPUs are head and shoulders above the competition) will have to do the work of designing a mode switching UI, but once that's done, they'll really be able to cut into desktop volume. I'm sure the early devices will be... awkward to use - mostly limited to the browser[1]. But after a few iterations, I'm sure it'll mature into something that can stand on its own. No idea when it'll happen, but I do think that economics will push it into being sooner or later. --- 1. Presumably people would also be able to use other phone apps, but a lot of those look weird when scaled up. And transiting from touch to mouse/trackpad is not straightforward.
        gumby 3y ago
        I disagree … or maybe I don’t. The trivial way I disagree is that I believe people don’t want this: they want to be able to use their phone while “computing”. Perhaps AirPods are enough for that (use Siri to make a call while otherwise mousing) and thus I’m wrong. The big way I disagree is that the phone is already many people’s only internet terminal and and for most has taken over almost all uses of a “computer”. Even I use my bank’s phone app when sitting in front of my computer because it has features the web interface doesn’t.
  - ddalex 3y ago
    the 60W envelope is the phone part I mean you can't style yourself a workstation if the lights don't dim when turned on
  - dhruvdh 3y ago
    All fabs have libraries that their customers use to turn chip RTL to actual transistor layout to be fabbed. Apple silicon is made using mobile libraries, same as their iPhone and iPad chips. Even though they're made on these dense libraries, the chip is still very big, since they need to include CPUs, GPUs, NPUs, and all of their fixed function hardware. All of this puts a limit in terms of frequency and core count. You will find that other server hardware in this price range significantly outperforms Apple silicon , save for those video workloads they're missing fixed function hardware for. M2 Ultra has some 134B transistors, when you compare with an equivalent chip like MI300 (146B), you find that really, in terms of raw compute, there is no comparison. We will have more details on MI300 today, watch out for the news cycle. This is an excellent read in terms of what difference using dense vs performance libraries can make - https://www.semianalysis.com/p/zen-4c-amds-response-to-hyperscale https://www.semianalysis.com/p/zen-4c-amds-response-to-hyper...
    - daneel_w 3y ago
      > "All of this puts a limit in terms of frequency and core count. You will find that other server hardware in this price range significantly outperforms Apple silicon , save for those video workloads they're missing fixed function hardware for." I think the power envelope, not the price tag, is the better metric when comparing how server-y or phone-y the silicon it. > "M2 Ultra has some 134B transistors, when you compare with an equivalent chip like MI300 (146B), you find that really, in terms of raw compute, there is no comparison. We will have more details on MI300 today, watch out for the news cycle." And unsurprisingly it will certainly come with an incomparable TDP.
    - threeseed 3y ago
      > save for those video workloads they're missing fixed function hardware You do know that the Mac Pro is targeted specifically at those workloads.
  - varispeed 3y ago
    > just without consideration for constraints imposed by the phone's footprint If you don't have those constraints it is easy to just "copy and paste" more cores and naturally this will have a higher power envelope, but in essence this is a phone tech that you pay extreme premium for.
  - unusualmonkey 3y ago
    The memory bus is overblown. M2 Ultra has 800GB/s, which sounds like a lot until you remember a Xbox Series X has 560GB/s and costs $499. Or spend $800 and get a 7900 XT which has 800GB/s. Think of the Ultra more of a GPU that happens to have CPU built in.
- nordsieck 3y ago
  > I remember being downvoted for saying this is essentially a phone CPU and motherboard, just without consideration for constraints imposed by the phone's footprint. That's not really the pejorative that you think it is. Intel crushed the Unix workstations with volume - it was more economically efficient to make a workstation version of a desktop chip than to design one from scratch that wasn't supported by the desktop's volume. Well, Apple is doing to Intel what Intel did to HP, Sun, IBM, DEC, and SGI: using their phone (and watch, etc.) volume to compete with Intel. Perhaps Intel (and AMD) will stave them off. But if history is any guide, they'll be paddling upstream to do so.
- matwood 3y ago
  > and yet, Apple charges for it as if it was a real workstation equipment rather than a phone in a massive enclosure. Ignoring the no true scotsman argument, I'm not sure this is even an insult. Apple improved their phone CPUs to the point where they compete very well in the desktop space and in some workstation (for any meaning of this term) environments. It's what Intel did to traditional workstation vendors long ago, and is classic Innovators Dilemma. Typically that happens from a small startup and not some industry leading company though. Shame on Intel and AMD for not seeing this coming, since it had been telegraphed for years.
detourdog 3y ago
Why wouldn't they? If a Sun Blade 100 is a workstation and I can do the same tasks faster on a Mac mini or Mac Pro why wouldn't they be workstations. Don't get too hung up on labels they can distract from what is front of you. If Apple Silicon actually is an entire motherboard shrunk to die size the shrunken die motherboard will be faster. Place that chip onto a larger motherboard and you get real efficiencies that are hard to compare. Why worry it someone calls it a workstation. That has to be one of the world's most boring technical arguments.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Well, workstation implies a lot. And the price. It's not just a marketing term. It implies more PCIe lanes than a normal desktop (which in this case is not being realised) and better graphics capability for intensive tasks. The latter is up for debate. I'd imagine a 4090 equipped HEDT still kicks its ass in most workstation-type workloads. The unified memory is great for LLM style tasks of course and it's one of the few ways to get a GPU setup with over 100GB for less than $100k. PS Not sure how the comparison with a 20 year old system applies though ;)
  - detourdog 3y ago
    I think you are making up your own yardstick and claiming it’s universally accepted. One instance is that PCI lanes didn't exist when the term was conjured up therefore can’t be part of inherent definition. The mac pro has 64 lanes acroos 6 slots. PCI-e external expansion is another 8 ports of expansion limited to 40 GB/s. Unfortunately the concept of lanes doesn't seem to exist for external PCI-e ports so its hard to judge if those would count as more lanes than a normal desktop. The 20 year old workstation is to demonstrate that the slab form factor has been called a workstation from the beginning.
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      It's because the term itself has changed. Not every PC is a workstation. These days we call it that if it has at least HEDT or server hardware. More PCIe lanes than desktops comes with that. Even Apple's previous Mac Pros have been matching that definition.

systemtest 3y ago

The new Mac Pro can be rack mounted. It has PCIe gen 4 for audio and video I/O, networking, and storage cards.

c00lio 3y ago
I'd be sceptical about "can be rack mounted" in the context of Apple hardware. Remember those? https://www.sonnettech.com/product/legacyproducts/rackmacpro.html https://www.sonnettech.com/product/legacyproducts/rackmacpro... https://www.myelectronics.nl/us/mac-studio-empower-station-rack-mount-19-inch.html https://www.myelectronics.nl/us/mac-studio-empower-station-r... At least the new case is available with rails, but cooling and management are still crap.
- systemtest 3y ago
  It appears to have three 160mm fans in the front, behind the grille. Should be enough for the M2 Ultra
- lwkl 3y ago
  It isn’t made for a datacenter it’s made for a studio. Studio equipment is often rack mounted so being able to put the computer in there too is great. And the case isn’t new it’s the same as the 2019 Mac Pro.
- phire 3y ago
  I don't think apple ever officially claimed the trashcan mac pro could be rack mounted, those are kits provided by 3rd parties. But the 2019 mac pro did have an official rack mount variant of the case.
wongarsu 3y ago
Rack-mounted Macs target the studio crowd who have rack-mounted audio equipment under their desk and love being able to put their mac in the same rack. Those are certainly users with I/O needs, but very different ones from the needs of a server.

danpalmer 3y ago

Not defending the Mac Pro's architecture here, I think there are issues, but calling Apple Silicon "low-end laptop hardware" is just false. The Max/Ultra chips easily outperform most server-grade CPUs, and are similar to top end Intel i9 chips. Then if you also take into account performance per watt, they're in a whole different league.

adrian_b 3y ago
Apple Silicon CPUs have been "in a whole different league" for performance per watt when compared with other laptop or desktop CPUs for 2 reasons, they where made using a newer CMOS process to which competitors did not have yet access and they were designed to have a higher IPC, so that they have the same speed as competing CPUs at much lower clock frequencies, which results in a lower power consumption. On the other hand the comparison between Apple Silicon CPUs and "server-grade CPUs" has always been much less favorable for Apple. The reason is that the higher IPC of Apple CPUs does not matter for server applications. The server CPUs use the same low clock frequency as the Apple CPUs, resulting in the same low power consumption. An Intel or AMD core is slower than an Apple core, but that is compensated by more cores, and more cores with lower IPC have a better performance per watt than fewer cores with higher IPC. Therefore, until recently the Apple Silicon CPUs had a single advantage vs. "server-grade CPUs": they were made in various "5 nm" process variants, while the best "server-grade CPUs" were made in various "7 nm" process variants. Since the end of last year, and especially after the launch of today of AMD Bergamo, the existing Apple Silicon CPUs do not have any advantage for server applications a.k.a. multithreaded applications. Only after the launch of the next Apple Silicon CPUs, made in a "3 nm" process, they would become competitive again. However that does not matter anyway, because Apple has abandoned a long time ago the idea of competing in server applications and for now they are not interested in such applications. Whenever the intention is to praise the good performance per watt of Apple Silicon CPUs, they should always be compared with laptop or desktop CPUs, never with "server-grade CPUs", because in the latter case the numbers are very different.
- twoodfin 3y ago
  The reason is that the higher IPC of Apple CPUs does not matter for server applications. I’m not sure how to interpret this. Of course server applications care about IPC. Maybe moreso! The only difference I can imagine is that server applications are more likely to be memory-bandwidth bound, which does indeed make IPC irrelevant, but also plays in favor of the high bandwidth architecture of the M- series.

numpad0 3y ago

I wouldn't call M2 Ultra a low-end, but it certainly qualifies as regular desktop CPU, rather than a server or workstation CPU. Xeon, EPYC, Threadripper typically has 128 lanes. 16+8 is Core/Ryzen configuration with x8 for chipset and x16 for GPU. It is really starting to look like either COVID and new Campus architecture had seriously crippled engineering capabilities of Apple, or if not all the capabilities are redirected into futuristic projects such as cars and Vision VR goggles. They could have made Pro a cluster supercomputer on a backplane just as a flexing and a nod to NeXT, but didn't. They just spread out Studio motherboard into existing Pro case. Sony would do more.

ceejayoz 3y ago
> They could have made Pro a cluster supercomputer on a backplane just as a flexing and a nod to NeXT, but didn't. Apple is crippled because they didn’t prioritize a niche use for the sole purpose of “flexing”?
- numpad0 3y ago
  Yes. See Mac Pro(2013), Mac Pro(2019), maybe Mac Pro(2009) and definitely Power Mac G5(2005).