3 ms·
In sum, all as promised: - E cores can go slower, to save more energy - E cores can go faster, to reduce the need to move a workload to a P core - P cores go
by w10-1 3y ago
In sum, all as promised:
- E cores can go slower, to save more energy
- E cores can go faster, to reduce the need to move a workload to a P core
- P cores go faster overall, as expected for a new chip
Left untested is the real new feature in the M3 chips, dynamic memory resizing.
In earlier M chips, memory allocations were fixed per app, and now they can change. Net result should be slightly more overhead for dynamic indirection, but better usage of available memory (i.e., fewer stories about how many apps you have open when you compile). This is where user-level scenarios might be more illuminating than micro-benchmarks. Whether this stops people complaining about paying for more memory remains to be seen.
It's a real achievement that we're back to paying $2-3K for high-end machines for serious work.
- wtallis 3y agoI think the memory reallocation feature you're talking about is a GPU feature, not anything to do with the CPU cores. And probably not anything to do with DRAM at all but rather caches or registers within the GPU.
- dagmx 3y ago> In earlier M chips, memory allocations were fixed per app, and now they can change. This isn’t correct. You’re confusing the CPU and very specific GPU behaviour. Memory allocations on the CPU side have always been dynamic. Memory allocations on the GPU are also semi-dynamic even on earlier GPU generations. What is new, is the ability to 1. Dynamically adjust GPU memory caches to different purposes, whereas every other GPU (not just Apple) will have specific caches for different GPU functionality. 2. Dynamically adjust register usage on the GPU cores, whereas other GPUs will use the maximal number of registers a shader might need even if they go unused in a branch.
- hypercube33 3y agoI'm really hung up on why Apple won't do what Intel has done with their freaky Intel Radeon NUC or new Xeon chips which is to on package some high bandwidth ram and allow expansion to ddr5 as a slower ram tier. we are stuck on apple with apps that want 8gb plus like chrome and then they want to gpu accelerate which eats more of the ram and I don't get how you can buy anything configured like this with less than 32gb of memory and expect long life out of it.