Jump to content

Another ARM(1) - Apple event introduces new low-end Macs as well as updated OS

williamcll
By williamcll
in Tech News
 Share
Go to solution Solved by LAwLz,

Apple's first silicon for PCs will be named "M1".

 

 

CPU:

  • 4 big cores that are, according to Apple, "the fastest core in the world", and I actually believe them. I would not be surprised if this CPU core performs better than Zen 3.
  • 4 small cores that are meant for power efficiency. Didn't quite hear what Apple said about performance but I do believe they said the quad core low power cores would offer performance better than the dual core Intel Mac. I am far more skeptical of that claim though, and they might be measuring at some specific power level that is optimal for the M1's small cores but not for whichever Intel CPU they are comparing it against.
  • At 10 watts of power limit (the MacBook Air limit) the M1 offers twice the performance of Intel's latest CPU.
  • 3 times higher performance per watt compared to Intel at other power budgets.

 

GPU:

  • 8 cores.
  • 128 execution units.
  • 2.6 TFLOPs of performance.
  • 82 gigatexels per second
  • 41 gigapixels per second.
  • Twice the performance per watt at 10 watts power envelop, but we have no idea which chip they are comparing against (probably the Intel chip in the latest Macbook).
  • "World's fastest integrated graphics".

 

 

Other:

  • 16-core Neural Engine with 11 trillion operations per second.
  • It's an SoC, so it as a lot of stuff built in. Basically everything is on a single chip just like in the iPhone and iPads.
  • It has a "unified memory architecture" which lets all SoC components (CPU, GPU and I presume NPU) access the same memory directly. So no need for the GPU to request resources from the CPU.
  • 16 billion 5nm transistors.
  • Secure enclave built in.
  • Very low power video playback.
  • Neural Engine.
  • PCIe 4.0 support
  • Thunderbolt and USB 4 support.
  • Very good image processing (probably the same as in the iPhone).
  • Crypt accelerator (although a lot of CPUs has this these days).
  • NVMe support
  • "Always-on processor" which probably refers to some very deep sleep state.

 

 

Software:

  • MacOS using M1 processors can directly run iPhone and iPad apps!
  • MacOS Big Sur has been optimized for the M1.
  • "iPhone-style instant-on" which to me mean you never really turn the computer off, you just lock it and it goes into sleep. This is really nice.
  • Safari is 1.9x as responsive on the M1 compared to some other Mac configuration. They don't specify what they are comparing against really.
  • "Universal apps" is Apple's name for packaging both ARM and x86 compatible apps into one program. So developers only have to release one version of their apps and it will be able to run on both ARM and x86. None of this "which version do you want to download ARM|x86" we have seen on Windows.
  • Rosetta 2 allows x86-only programs to run on Apple's ARM processor. According to Apple some programs even perform better on Rosetta 2 than on an x86 Mac. But that might just be some handful of apps and because the M1 is faster than the x86 processor. Performance remains to be seen.
Posted
13 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

Biggest concern is this brings proprietary-ness for computers to a whole new level as well. 

Everything will be tied to that SoC. There won't be replacing parts, just replacing entire motherboards. Unless they tied the rest of the chassis into the SoC too somehow (like the display). 

RIP repairability. That said I'm sure there will be plenty of alternatives in the years to come (if this ends up being good anyway)

I think that's how Macs since 2018 have been.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
Just now, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

"Fastest CPU core in the world"

 

...?

 

I'd love to see benchmark results. I have no doubt it will beat all of Intel's laptop offering, and probably the Ryzen U, but the Ryzen H? And then all the desktop CPUs? Really? I didn't see an asterisks on that slide so I guess so.

We will probably get benchmarks of the A14 later today from Anandtech.

Their analysis of the A13 already showed that it was very competitive with Zen 2 (per core).

 

SPECint:

Zen 2 (4.7GHz) - 50

A13 (2.65GHz)- 52.82

Zen 3 (4.9GHz) - 68.53

 

 

SPECfp:

A13 (2.65GHz)- 70.28

Zen 2 (4.7GHz) - 72.70

Zen 3 (4.9GHz) - 94.08

 

 

Increase the clock speed and some improvements to the architecture and it should match or exceed performance of Zen 3 on a core per core basis. AMD (and Intel) will still have more processor cores for desktops (since Apple only offers 4 big cores), but Apple will probably fix that with the M2 or M3 when they start replacing their high performance offerings.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
Just now, LAwLz said:

snip

Wow.

 

Back in June when they announced the transition, I didn't doubt it like a lot of others did. I knew that in this first part of this transition, they needed to go out 1000% on their CPUs and prove to the world that Intel was holding them back. And it looks like they did.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
1 minute ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

I mean they showed that at 10W they matched some of the best IGPUs that Intel and AMD have to offer. A MacBook Pro 16" uses a 45W chip, so they would have to scale it up. I think it will be able to rival at least the Radeon Pro of last year's MBP 16", maybe marginal improvements.

 

Integrated Graphics aren't a bad thing, the PS5 and XSX both have integrated graphics. It's just that because of power, CPU performance on a laptop is more favored than GPU performance. Alas, I think I heard it was Apple that pushed Intel to start taking the iGPU side seriously in like 2010.

I believe Apple's best selling laptops have mostly been with Intel's iGPU's so I'm not surprised if they were the ones to force Intel into getting their ass into gear. One of my work laptops is the base 2019 MacBook pro (1.4GHz(!) quad core and Iris 645 iGPU), and despite me needing lots of GPU processing it's been mostly fine for smaller tasks. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
2 minutes ago, Camoxide said:

The webcam is still 720P 

 

Bruh... 

Considering the vast majority of the world is stuck with at most ~10Mbps upload speeds, any higher resolution is useless for video calls

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
1 minute ago, m0ther said:

Considering the vast majority of the world is stuck with at most ~10Mbps upload speeds, any higher resolution is useless for video calls

It's not like it will be that bad, they hyped up their ISP (Image Signal Processor) so much instead of actually replacing the camera. So It will be shit but not look like shit, if that makes sense.

 

But then again so do all laptops so...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
3 minutes ago, m0ther said:

Considering the vast majority of the world is stuck with at most ~10Mbps upload speeds, any higher resolution is useless for video calls

You can upload 1080P video within 10Mbps. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted (edited)
14 minutes ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

I think that's how Macs since 2018 have been.

I'm looking forward to Louis Rossman's take on this. Apple authorised repairs will just be MoBo replacements at this point. 

 

I had to get the battery replaced on my 2019 MBP recently, and Apple would only do a full top case replacement (EVERYTHING except the SSD, display, and the bottom cover - seriously). Luckily I had warranty so it wasn't a big deal for me, but just seems like a massive waste.

 

Edit: 2019, not 2017

Edited by m0ther
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

I wonder ... How much hate I am going to get this for this??

Screenshot 2020-11-10 at 19.12.30.png

Main Machine:  16 inch MacBook Pro (2021), Apple M1 Pro (10 CPU, 16 GPU Core), 512GB SDD, 16GB RAM

Gaming Machine:  Acer Nitro 5, Core i7 10750H, RTX 3060 (L) 6GB, 1TB SSD (Boot), 2TB SSD (Storage), 32GB DDR4 RAM

Other Tech: iPhone 15 Pro Max, Series 6 Apple Watch (LTE), AirPods Max, PS4, Nintendo Switch, PS3, Xbox 360

Network Gear:  TP Link Gigabit 24 Port Switch, TP-Link Deco M4 Mesh Wi-Fi, M1 MacMini File & Media Server with 8TB of RAID 1 Storage

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
Just now, m0ther said:

I'm looking forward to Louis Rossman's take on this. Apple authorised repairs will just be MoBo replacements at this point. 

I think that's always what they've done. They only really "authorize" logic-board replacements.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
2 minutes ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

It's not like it will be that bad, they hyped up their ISP (Image Signal Processor) so much instead of actually replacing the camera. So It will be shit but not look like shit, if that makes sense.

 

But then again so do all laptops so...

In my experience, the microphone is way more important than video, and I think it's good that they put in the high-quality mic system from the bigger MBP 16". Would be nice to have better video, but I haven't heard anyone complain about video quality, regardless of computer. You could have an amazing camera, but if I can't hear what you're saying clearly then you might as well use ASL

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
Just now, Sousuke said:

I wonder ... How much hate I am going to get this for this??

{flex}

14" MBP rumored to come in March with smaller bezels. But this is a MacBook Air so I don't think you'd probably care. I'd still wait a few months myself for them to work of Big Sur kinks, but if you have the money why not.

 

I assume that's base? The base model only has a 7-Core GPU. I don't know what difference it will make to the 8-Core one, but we'll see in a week I guess.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
2 minutes ago, Sousuke said:

I wonder ... How much hate I am going to get this for this??

 

Good buy ! On paper the perf/value ratio is very high ! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
4 minutes ago, Sousuke said:

I wonder ... How much hate I am going to get this for this??

 

How did you get the price down to £749?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
1 minute ago, Belzebuth said:

Good buy ! On paper the perf/value ratio is very high ! 

I like how overnight the MacBook Air goes from the worst-value laptop to one of the best...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
Just now, Camoxide said:

How did you get the price down to £749?

Looks like a 25% staff discount

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
1 minute ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

14" MBP rumored to come in March with smaller bezels. But this is a MacBook Air so I don't think you'd probably care. I'd still wait a few months myself for them to work of Big Sur kinks, but if you have the money why not.

 

I assume that's base? The base model only has a 7-Core GPU. I don't know what difference it will make to the 8-Core one, but we'll see in a week I guess.

Yeah I was wondering that but I currently use my current MacBook Air mostly in college!

Main Machine:  16 inch MacBook Pro (2021), Apple M1 Pro (10 CPU, 16 GPU Core), 512GB SDD, 16GB RAM

Gaming Machine:  Acer Nitro 5, Core i7 10750H, RTX 3060 (L) 6GB, 1TB SSD (Boot), 2TB SSD (Storage), 32GB DDR4 RAM

Other Tech: iPhone 15 Pro Max, Series 6 Apple Watch (LTE), AirPods Max, PS4, Nintendo Switch, PS3, Xbox 360

Network Gear:  TP Link Gigabit 24 Port Switch, TP-Link Deco M4 Mesh Wi-Fi, M1 MacMini File & Media Server with 8TB of RAID 1 Storage

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
1 minute ago, Camoxide said:

How did you get the price down to £749?

I assume the education discount. In America, anyways, it drops the price $100, and you don't really need any verification. It's just a $100 free discount...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
Just now, m0ther said:

Looks like a 25% staff discount

Nope I'm a student! 

 

2 minutes ago, Camoxide said:

How did you get the price down to £749?

Was £898.80 with VAT. 

Main Machine:  16 inch MacBook Pro (2021), Apple M1 Pro (10 CPU, 16 GPU Core), 512GB SDD, 16GB RAM

Gaming Machine:  Acer Nitro 5, Core i7 10750H, RTX 3060 (L) 6GB, 1TB SSD (Boot), 2TB SSD (Storage), 32GB DDR4 RAM

Other Tech: iPhone 15 Pro Max, Series 6 Apple Watch (LTE), AirPods Max, PS4, Nintendo Switch, PS3, Xbox 360

Network Gear:  TP Link Gigabit 24 Port Switch, TP-Link Deco M4 Mesh Wi-Fi, M1 MacMini File & Media Server with 8TB of RAID 1 Storage

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
Just now, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

I assume the education discount. In America, anyways, it drops the price $100, and you don't really need any verification. It's just a $100 free discount...

£898 with Eduction discount in the UK. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
1 minute ago, Sousuke said:

Nope I'm a student! 

 

Was £898.80 with VAT. 

Aahh. Odd of them to show the excluding VAT price! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
Just now, Sousuke said:

Nope I'm a student! 

 

Was £898.80 with VAT. 

Ah that makes sense

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
Just now, Camoxide said:

Aahh. Odd of them to show the excluding VAT price! 

Very American thing to do, and a super sleazy thing to do in Europe. Just show me how much money will be taken off my card, damnit

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
1 minute ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

I like how overnight the MacBook Air goes from the worst-value laptop to one of the best...

If you wan't macOS, a good display, class leading battery life, ... It really is a good purchase. I don't own a mac but I might buy one if bench are good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing Tech News

×