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

williamcll
By williamcll
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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
4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

The only processors that outperform the M1 have 6 or more cores.

Well, then the M1 is a very good processor.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

Well, then the M1 is a very good processor.

Yes it is.

One Firestorm (the core used in the M1) running at 3.1GHz offers ~90% of the performance a Zen3 core at 4.9GHz offers.

 

In order words, if Zen3 at 4.9GHz gets a score of 100 points in a benchmark, Apple's CPU gets a score of ~90 points running at 3.1GHz.

Apple's CPU at 3.1GHz even beats Intel's 10th gen CPU cores at 5.3GHz.

 

 

Since each core in the M1 is more powerful than each core in an Intel CPU, and possibly even AMD CPU, you need more cores to match the M1 in performance.

The M1 has 4 big cores, so logically, you need at least a 6 core to outperform it (since there are no 5 core CPUs) if you go with Intel or AMD.

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Posted
1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

Yes it is.

One Firestorm (the core used in the M1) running at 3.1GHz offers ~90% of the performance a Zen3 core at 4.9GHz offers.

 

In order words, if Zen3 at 4.9GHz gets a score of 100 points in a benchmark, Apple's CPU gets a score of ~90 points running at 3.1GHz.

Apple's CPU at 3.1GHz even beats Intel's 10th gen CPU cores at 5.3GHz.

 

 

Since each core in the M1 is more powerful than each core in an Intel CPU, and possibly even AMD CPU, you need more cores to match the M1 in performance.

The M1 has 4 big cores, so logically, you need at least a 6 core to outperform it (since there are no 5 core CPUs) if you go with Intel or AMD.

I am actually a bit hesistant to +1 this, sounds almost like it is too good to be true.

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Posted
1 hour ago, GDRRiley said:

being in IT and working on engineering projects 13in laptops are just too small to get work done. It also sucks for content creation, I've edited photos and videos on 13 and 15in macbook pros. I'll take a 15 every time.

14-16 is the sweet spot. (in 16x10 or 15x10:3/2) got to get those extra few inches vertical

I was not talking about content creation. Almost no one is using the 13" models for that.

 

"being in IT and working on engineering projects 13in laptops are just too small to get work done." - well, a ton of people seems to think other than you do, including myself. Maybe not CAD engineering, but that is just one aspect of engineering. You can do a lot with 13", especially if you don't use the ridiculous 150-200% scaling that Apple ships their devices with. The current screens are already 13.3", going another 0.7" to 14" is not exactly a game changer and changing "no work can be done" to "the sweet spot" as you claim..

 

Also: The mentioned user group usually anyway does not use a laptop as the primary work machine, more for doing work on the go/while travelling/commuting. For "real" work as you claim anyhow a laptop is usually a bad fit due to the inherent limitations by the form factor. Even if the performance of the bigger models is sufficient, no 16" or even 17" screen will. So you in any case have one (or multiple) stationary 24"-32" screen(s) that is/are either hooked up to a desktop machine or to which you dock your laptop to.

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Posted
10 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Yes it is.

One Firestorm (the core used in the M1) running at 3.1GHz offers ~90% of the performance a Zen3 core at 4.9GHz offers.

 

In order words, if Zen3 at 4.9GHz gets a score of 100 points in a benchmark, Apple's CPU gets a score of ~90 points running at 3.1GHz.

Apple's CPU at 3.1GHz even beats Intel's 10th gen CPU cores at 5.3GHz.

 

 

Since each core in the M1 is more powerful than each core in an Intel CPU, and possibly even AMD CPU, you need more cores to match the M1 in performance.

The M1 has 4 big cores, so logically, you need at least a 6 core to outperform it (since there are no 5 core CPUs) if you go with Intel or AMD.

I'm skeptical on these claims, I want to see how the M1 does in real world performance, not geekbench, apple probably won't be beating Intel 10th gen performance when running apps through the translation layer.

But comparing the M1 to AMD Zen 3 or Intel 10th gen is apples to oranges as the M1 has a co-processor.

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Posted
12 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

I am actually a bit hesistant to +1 this, sounds almost like it is too good to be true.

I know it's hard to believe but it is true.

Apple isn't investing a small fortune of R&D into this transition just for fun. They are doing it because they believe (and it seems to be true) that they are better at making processors than Intel is, and by extent AMD too.

 

 

4 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

I'm skeptical on these claims, I want to see how the M1 does in real world performance, not geekbench, apple probably won't be beating Intel 10th gen performance when running apps through the translation layer.

But comparing the M1 to AMD Zen 3 or Intel 10th gen is apples to oranges as the M1 has a co-processor.

1) The results aren't from GeekBench. They are from SPEC.

2) GeekBench isn't a bad benchmark if you use it as a CPU benchmark.

3) None of the co-processors are used for SPEC results. It is pure CPU and memory.

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Posted
16 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

I'm skeptical on these claims, I want to see how the M1 does in real world performance, not geekbench, apple probably won't be beating Intel 10th gen performance when running apps through the translation layer.

But comparing the M1 to AMD Zen 3 or Intel 10th gen is apples to oranges as the M1 has a co-processor.

All first party Apple software should run as indicated on the M1, Apple is simply going to tailor their software to the hardware as they already do in general, just more so now. It's a situation that is likely to continue, Apple putting in dedicated functions in to their hardware to assist their software and it'll become increasingly difficult to compare to Intel/AMD CPUs and will turn more in to evaluating the difference in software and platforms and how you can get a task done quicker on one or the other.

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Posted

I have been waiting for some time now for a laptop with no fan that can handle simple Photoshop editing, web browsing et.c with great battery life.

This could be it.

If it ain´t broke don't try to break it.

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Posted
3 hours ago, TheReal1980 said:

I have been waiting for some time now for a laptop with no fan that can handle simple Photoshop editing, web browsing et.c with great battery life.

This could be it.

Just remember that there won't be an ARM version of Photoshop until "early next year". So it's probably a good idea to wait a while if that's what you are aiming to do with your computer. You can run the programs in Rosetta Stone 2, but we don't know what kind of performance impact that will have yet.

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Posted

Well, the fully custom core and the complete SoC package is rather interesting to see. The tighter sw/hw integration and optimization along is what helps a lot too.

I'm not going to buy Apple products but I'm fairly interested to see comparisons. As well as how future hardware approach will be for desktop. Like from AMD since they do both CPU and GPU and already have custom chips experience. The future SoC approach for like laptops for example will be exciting to see. Really also in general for future CPU design eventually going wider and such, while not ARM based still can't wait to see a bigger shift in the future in general.

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Posted
6 hours ago, leadeater said:

Can you make your mind up? Also Windows 7 is even more popular then XP was.

I did say that their software used to be good and now it's crap. When I initially made the statement of always bad, I'm generally talking about last decade, not when Windows started. But even then, we are all trying to remember stability of an operating system way back in the day. Perhaps it was as bad as today, but at the time taht was normal. What stands as a fact is Windows 10 is a mess.

 

Also, I think I've told you this before. Try quoting everything I said and then reply to it, instead of cherry picking the lines you only have comebacks too

6 hours ago, leadeater said:

I also think you seem to forget a lot of pre-2000 software were overall badly designed and made when evaluating with todays standards. Microsoft Office is also another standout good software they make that is the standard in the office productivity sector, so much so Microsoft has been through various lawsuits about it and their file format.

Okay, I think we're agreeing on the same thing here

6 hours ago, leadeater said:

Sort of relevant but may I ask when you started using computers? It matters because some of us, potentially you, lived through pre-2000 personal computing with significant usage of them. I get the impression your experience of that pre-2000 period is limited.

My pre 2000s use of computer experiance is indeed limited. I've used XP a lot, but I dont remeber it well enough

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Posted
3 hours ago, TheReal1980 said:

I have been waiting for some time now for a laptop with no fan that can handle simple Photoshop editing, web browsing et.c with great battery life.

This could be it.

Seems a bit overkill for photoshop with the annoyed specs but more than you need is better than not enough 

Dirty Windows Peasants :P ?

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Posted
11 hours ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

I was expecting an OK Boomer. :(

what year is it ok boomer was like 10 months ago

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Posted

I can't believe apple thinks their chip is going to be faster than zen 3 lol we'll have to see and if its true people are going to rip the m1 chip out of a air or something and put it in their pcs

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1 hour ago, progamer21 said:

I can't believe apple thinks their chip is going to be faster than zen 3 lol we'll have to see and if its true people are going to rip the m1 chip out of a air or something and put it in their pcs

Apple didn't say its chip would be better than Zen 3, 'just' that it's better than other chips in comparable Windows PCs. That's still a bold claim, but a lot of the "it's faster than Ryzen!" talk is based on unofficial, limited benchmarks. I suspect the reality is somewhere in between the nothing-beats-x86 curmudgeons and the wild-eyed optimists.

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Posted
3 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Try quoting everything I said and then reply to it

No because I'll quote what is relevant to the reply I am making, if it's not included it's not relevant to what is being said. Zero need to waste post and screen space on the unnecessary.

 

3 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

What stands as a fact is Windows 10 is a mess

Well I simply don't think it's as bad as you or many others make out. There's a big difference been not liking something, which is opinion based, and something actually being bad on a technical level. Windows 10 isn't short of issues but neither has any past version or other OS for that matter.

 

MacOS X 10.7 was a giant mess, so were early versions of 10.8. Both in large part were fine for most users but they really do not care about the issues with those operating systems, but for some reason exempt from criticism, not unsurprising at it is simply used by less people.

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Posted
10 hours ago, Dracarris said:

I was not talking about content creation. Almost no one is using the 13" models for that.

 

"being in IT and working on engineering projects 13in laptops are just too small to get work done." - well, a ton of people seems to think other than you do, including myself. Maybe not CAD engineering, but that is just one aspect of engineering. You can do a lot with 13", especially if you don't use the ridiculous 150-200% scaling that Apple ships their devices with. The current screens are already 13.3", going another 0.7" to 14" is not exactly a game changer and changing "no work can be done" to "the sweet spot" as you claim..

 

Also: The mentioned user group usually anyway does not use a laptop as the primary work machine, more for doing work on the go/while travelling/commuting. For "real" work as you claim anyhow a laptop is usually a bad fit due to the inherent limitations by the form factor. Even if the performance of the bigger models is sufficient, no 16" or even 17" screen will. So you in any case have one (or multiple) stationary 24"-32" screen(s) that is/are either hooked up to a desktop machine or to which you dock your laptop to.

lots of people use it for that and I laugh when they do.

 

I run native res 0 scaling. it does make a difference. I used a 2015 13in macbookpro daily as a 2nd machine for a year. I use a 11.6in laptop for some offline windows work, the jump to a 14-16in helps

 

I can dock sure but that doesn't work well while being on the data center floor. I can't exactly drag a dual or quad monitor array around with me.

If I need power I'll just set a job up on a VM or on the supercomputer (only 1 right now but soon we will be back to 2).

Good luck, Have fun, Build PC, and have a last gen console for use once a year. I should answer most of the time between 9 to 3 PST

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Posted

I didn't expect them to name their mac soc series M

Hi

 

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hi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted

10 pages, I’m late to the party,

 

Super excited, and these are the lowest end AS Macs that will ever exist.

 

Imagine an ecosystem with this kind of baseline, in terms of CPU, GPU, storage speed, unified memory speed, ML accelerators and Neural Engine. 

 

Also, Baldur’s Gate 3 at 1080p Ultra settings on the M1. 

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Posted
22 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Soldered RAM, soldered storage, soldered CPU, overpriced, proprietary everything. I hope it doesn't work out as they want it to.

I wouldn't look forward to proprietary everything, it's definitely a downside for prosumers on Apple that need to run x86 applications without an emulation layer, anything that needs Windows, or need a dedicated AMD GPU.

Maybe some cheaper ARM notebooks may be popular for basic use, but I doubt most people will be ditching their Intel laptops for serious tasks.

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Posted
44 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Soldered RAM, soldered storage, soldered CPU, overpriced, proprietary everything. I hope it doesn't work out as they want it to.

Just because on paper the raw perf/$ is lower and you consider this to be most important does not mean they are overpriced. A laptop has many more characteristics/aspects than raw perf that as well cost a lot of money in both R&D as well as in production and the buyers of Apple products usually care at least as much about those. IMHO the only laptops that could ever compete with the MBP lineup are the most recent XPS and the Lenovo X1. And I invite you to have a sharp look at the price points of those.

 

The RAM is not soldered but included in the M1 package which allows for much more energy-efficient memory access. The soldered storage is a bit of a bummer as it has been for years, I guess we'll have to learn to live with that and make regular backups.

 

Since there currently is no industry standard for this type of systems, it inherently is proprietary.

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Posted
38 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Soldered RAM, soldered storage, soldered CPU, overpriced, proprietary everything. I hope it doesn't work out as they want it to.

Have you got any data supporting the idea a lot of regular people nowadays upgrades any of the components you mentioned during the lifetime of a PC? 

Also we’ve only seen laptops and a SFF desktop.

There’s a rumor about a tower desktop half the size of the current MacPro.

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Posted

That said, it’s obvious these are proprietary consoles. Like a PS2 or PS3.

Just not gaming consoles, but Personal Computing consoles.

 

Who said there’s anything wrong with that.

It must be weighted against some huge perks this affords.

 

Probably some after-the-fact customization will be possible on the iMac (ram) and Mac Pro (ram, pcie storage, pcie daughterboards), but that’s it. (the ship of upgrading ram/ssd on apple laptops has sailed years ago, it’s not like it’s anything new)

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Posted
11 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Yeah, overheating in order to remain silent, broken noisy keyboard that doesn't have any travel, short screen cables that break by opening and closing the screen, etc, etc.

Literally every single one of them has been fixed in recent versions. You sound like a broken record.

 

So the Butterfly was a failure since it breaks easily - but otherwise whether one likes it or not is a question of personal taste and not up to you to decide. How much travel is right for you is a completely personal question. And regarding the noise? I don't know what you are talking about, the Butterfly was far from being a noisy laptop keyboard and no comparison to the (IMHO) BS click-clack ultra-loud mechanical keycaps that a lot of people intentionally buy. I wish being ultra-silent was a key feature for keyboards but as it seems a lot of people seem to prefer the opposite and to annoy the hell out of me in the office.

11 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Nonsense. It depends on what you want to do with the computer.

You obviously haven't understood what I meant with non-spec related aspects. Lets just reside to overall build quality and the trackpad for now. Those are just two of what the target audience considers very important, and then my statement holds completely true. Apart from the listed, as well very pricey models, nothing comes even close. You can also see this discussed in recent ShortCircuit Macbook reviews by Alex.

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Posted
25 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

If there was no market for that, laptop memory sticks and slim drives would not be a thing.

Even on phones, it made some sense to be disposable since tech was evolving insanely fast, but now it has slowed down quite drastically.
Do you want stuff that costs that much and will last for 4-5 years not to be repairable? Even though components are super cheap and made unavailable by the OEM itself?

Both things could be true.

Yes there’s a market for that.

Yes a lot of people will never upgrade a thing and just get rid of the whole machine.

The limitations you mention are accepted as a fact of life for smartphones, tablets, TVs, game consoles, are you consistent enough to only use non-proprietary fully-modular fully-repairable versions of those too? You boycott all closed systems?

These Macs are just more similar than before to ipads or game consoles.

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