New Apple M1 range

WiresDreamDisasters

Pablo said:

@WiresDreamDisasters ;

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested/2

Cinebench and Geekbench results with the 5950x included.

Cheers!

Jez6345789

I think this has been quite interesting to watch unfold as at launch just about every pundit jumped on Oh Apple are just comparing it to a 3 year old i3 blah blah. 

Now they have them, even the most die-hards are going "Oh that's good, Oh wow, "Oh Shit"

There are still Caveats for Pro users like ports etc but these are not yet pro-level machines. 

And if they are doing 16 cores on mbp then that's going to be a beast for production and editing

goldtop

I just picked up mine. (Entry level 8/256 MBA.)

With my cynical hat on, if I were Apple I'd have been subtly knobbling the Intel Mac performance for the year before introducing my own silicon. Just a few "if Intel CPU, twiddle thumbs for 1ms" loops here and there. Of course, I might call the 'twiddle thumbs' routine something like 'temperature-power conditioning'.

But there's absolutely no evidence Apple has ever been that tricksy. Is there?

octatonic

goldtop said:

I just picked up mine. (Entry level 8/256 MBA.)

With my cynical hat on, if I were Apple I'd have been subtly knobbling the Intel Mac performance for the year before introducing my own silicon. Just a few "if Intel CPU, twiddle thumbs for 1ms" loops here and there. Of course, I might call the 'twiddle thumbs' routine something like 'temperature-power conditioning'.

But there's absolutely no evidence Apple has ever been that tricksy. Is there?

Careful, this is how conspiracy theories start.

It is simply a clever new architecture.
I've cancelled my order for a 13".
I'm waiting for the 16".

goldtop

A 16" as a standalone machine would have definitely suited me better, just for screen size. But this MBA will be plugged into an external monitor anyway via USB-C for charging and as a hub for all of the old USB peripherals at work.

There's no way I need more horsepower. (I know, I know we all say that!)

Still not sure which interface to use with it. Only the Quantum 2626 seems to be affordable and TB3. So perhaps just RME via USB.

octatonic

goldtop said:

A 16" as a standalone machine would have definitely suited me better, just for screen size. But this MBA will be plugged into an external monitor anyway via USB-C for charging and as a hub for all of the old USB peripherals at work.

There's no way I need more horsepower. (I know, I know we all say that!)

Still not sure which interface to use with it. Only the Quantum 2626 seems to be affordable and TB3. So perhaps just RME via USB.

Yeah I don't have an immediate need to upgrade and it isn't my main machine so I am happy to wait.

I am looking forward to seeing what sort of crazy tower they build with it..
Some 32core monster with all the cooling in the world and a TB of RAM.
Maybe then I can finish my solo album?

RandallFlagg

I'm going for it. M1 Mac Mini 16GB, 2TB SSD storage, LG UltraFine 5K 27"monitor, Apple keyboard, mouse, trackpad & UA Apollo Solo

To replace a 2010 iMac 2.93GHz Intel i7 with 12 GB RAM 2TB storage.

Hopefully it'll tick the box for a few years until a new 27" redesigned Apple silicon iMac is released. Failing that I can swap out the M1 Mac Mini for the next gen version if required.

crunchman

goldtop said:

I just picked up mine. (Entry level 8/256 MBA.)

With my cynical hat on, if I were Apple I'd have been subtly knobbling the Intel Mac performance for the year before introducing my own silicon. Just a few "if Intel CPU, twiddle thumbs for 1ms" loops here and there. Of course, I might call the 'twiddle thumbs' routine something like 'temperature-power conditioning'.

But there's absolutely no evidence Apple has ever been that tricksy. Is there?

Given how far behind Intel chips are, they probably didn't need to hobble them.

monquixote

goldtop said:

I just picked up mine. (Entry level 8/256 MBA.)

With my cynical hat on, if I were Apple I'd have been subtly knobbling the Intel Mac performance for the year before introducing my own silicon. Just a few "if Intel CPU, twiddle thumbs for 1ms" loops here and there. Of course, I might call the 'twiddle thumbs' routine something like 'temperature-power conditioning'.

But there's absolutely no evidence Apple has ever been that tricksy. Is there?

That would be possible if it was only beating Intel Macs, but it's also giving most PCs a kicking in the benchmarks as well.

JezWynd

Jez6345789 said:

One of the things I think is also interesting is that in some ways Apple now has what it wanted all of its business life control over the whole machine from soup to nuts the ever closer integration and control of the whole system.

If only Steve Jobs was still here to point them in the right direction (and smack them round the head when they forsake ease of use).

octatonic

monquixote said:

goldtop said:

I just picked up mine. (Entry level 8/256 MBA.)

With my cynical hat on, if I were Apple I'd have been subtly knobbling the Intel Mac performance for the year before introducing my own silicon. Just a few "if Intel CPU, twiddle thumbs for 1ms" loops here and there. Of course, I might call the 'twiddle thumbs' routine something like 'temperature-power conditioning'.

But there's absolutely no evidence Apple has ever been that tricksy. Is there?

That would be possible if it was only beating Intel Macs, but it's also giving most PCs a kicking in the benchmarks as well.

and this is the entry level machine.

monquixote

Today's rumour is that the new Mac Pro (which is apparently not out until 2022) will have 32 high performance cores (vs 4 in the M1 machines).

That's going to be a BEAST!

RaymondLin

If 4 performance core can blow away current i9.....they could make it like 64cores and I bet the power usage will not be that much different to current Intel 16cores.

goldtop

monquixote said:

Today's rumour is that the new Mac Pro (which is apparently not out until 2022) will have 32 high performance cores (vs 4 in the M1 machines).

That's going to be a BEAST!

£10k at the top end? Comes with a JJ Abrams algo built into the ML cores, so as you type in some words, it renders a beautiful but WTF 4k movie in realtime.

"Siri, add some plot-holes to annoy the boomers."

WiresDreamDisasters

I'm still gonna build a Ryzen Zen3 5950X setup. Work might buy me a Mac Mini M1 in the new year too, it's been mentioned. Would be cool to have them side by side and LAN'd up for a small render farm!

monquixote

It's annoying because we need to buy 7 new macs at work and we can't get M1 macs as they don't work with Docker.

Axe_meister

The biggest challenge Apple are going to face is yields. As far as I can tell this is one large monolithic die. It will be hard to compete on price with AMD machines, especially as AMD is going 5nm next year with DDR5 memory. They so have an ARM chip in the wings with a similar chiplet architecture.
It's going to be an interesting next few years and it'll be hard for Intel to catch up.
Looks like RISC-V is also becoming competitive.

stratology

Axe_meister said:

The biggest challenge Apple are going to face is yields. 

You do realise that Apple has used Apple Silicon in iPhones and iPads for 10 years, and never had an issue with yields, even with producing chips for iPhones in significantly higher numbers than they will need for Macs.

Axe_meister said:

It will be hard to compete on price with AMD machines, especially as AMD is going 5nm next year with DDR5 memory. 

Current Apple Silicon already uses 5nm, so they already 'won' the competition with others who are still on 10+ nm...

Axe_meister

This is a much bigger die compared than in the past, especially phones.
And are on 7nm today, Intel are still struggling with 10nm are back porting to 14nm.
Apple are OK in yields today as they just don't have the volume AMD/Intel are producing at.
Current form factor with 5 core they are probably ok but once you scale up to 8+ cores and more memory on a monolithic die you run into problems.

RaymondLin

I’m pretty sure AMD Ryzen and 6800 etc are in 7nm and the M1 is 5nm. Intel can’t even do 10nm properly.