Apple M1

Big news! Not an Apple fan myself, but I realize they are making progress.

Could push MS to go harder on ARM if they are successful.
 
jfreund said:
But is it MAGICAL!!?!!? Is that what the M stands for?

And why did they name their OS after a waterbed store?
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Apple's recent macOS releases are named after California landmarks. Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra/High Sierra, Catalina...
 
illli said:
$699 for that mini? :woot: They must be making a massive profit on those devices

lol and that $699 model only comes with 8Gb of ram and 256Gb ssd.
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For what the Mini's are generally used for that is plenty.
 
Lakados said:
For what the Mini's are generally used for that is plenty.
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I think that is in part the point, $700 USD for what those device are generally used for ? Sound like a lot.

That said I am sure their quite rich target audience I ready to pay for the ecosystem and is worth it for them and do not regret buying them instead of thinkering with a cheaper options.
 
Apple made some pretty grand claims, and it's good to take them with a grain of salt.

At the same time: let's not rag on them for the specs (at least, not yet). This is a fundamentally different approach to a PC processor, memory and GPU than an x86 processor, and it'd be foolish to presume to know what the performance will be like. There are hard limits, of course... if you need more than 16GB of RAM or a high-end GPU, you can't get an ARM Mac right now. But it's promising.

One likelihood is that Apple will stomp all over Windows laptops in battery life. When Apple claims 17 hours, it's not the usual Windows PC maker's "but halve that if you do anything with it" claim; it actually means 17 hours.
 
aokman said:
love all the trolls coming out right on schedule...

While I hate this new age marketing... this is something big. Everyone thinks ARM can’t compete with x86 because it hasn’t been done before. Whens the last time you saw something the size of a mac mini easily driving a 6k HDR display?

In regards to mobile devices... instant on and off, native support for iOS and Mac apps... more performance, more battery life, more security.

Tell you what lets place a bet if its hands down better than the Intel units... what you want to put on the line?
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I've avoided Mac hardware all my life, but I was in the room when Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone at WWDC 2007 and knew it was objectively a big deal; and seeing the announcements today it also feels like a major turning point -despite the protests of entrenched x86ers and PC gamers that think scoffing at it does anything.

Like it or not, the paradigm is shifting, these are only the beginning. I'll continue to run x86 for the foreseeable future, but I know change when I see it - and I'm not exactly a genius, it just happens to be hitting all of us right over the head.
 
LukeTbk said:
I think that is in part the point, $700 USD for what those device are generally used for ? Sound like a lot.

That said I am sure their quite rich target audience I ready to pay for the ecosystem and is worth it for them and do not regret buying them instead of thinkering with a cheaper options.
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Yes and no, but look at what PC's you could buy in that price range, and compare it to the mac mini. Then ask yourself, which would you rather troubleshoot with your mother/grandmother?
 
aokman said:
If you actually bothered to read the marketing claims, down the bottom it states what the compared systems were...

You are the stereotypical troll sorry, don’t want to discuss anything just come running here all guns blazing immediately claiming marketing BS.
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I WATCHED the presentation and they didn't name it. Did you watch it? Or did you just read it? Are you even looking what I'm looking at? Because not once in that video did any presenter state what they were comparing it to. Maybe I missed it...

Aokman.... you attack people without cause, and insult others. You acted like a wounded fanboy and made judgements against other members without knowing an . I would have absolutely loved to engage you in a tech discussion. However, now I'll just ignore you like all other who act like you.
 
Aurelius said:
Apple made some pretty grand claims, and it's good to take them with a grain of salt.

At the same time: let's not rag on them for the specs (at least, not yet). This is a fundamentally different approach to a PC processor, memory and GPU than an x86 processor, and it'd be foolish to presume to know what the performance will be like. There are hard limits, of course... if you need more than 16GB of RAM or a high-end GPU, you can't get an ARM Mac right now. But it's promising.

One likelihood is that Apple will stomp all over Windows laptops in battery life. When Apple claims 17 hours, it's not the usual Windows PC maker's "but halve that if you do anything with it" claim; it actually means 17 hours.
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Agreed but I think the x86 mindset also needs to cross over to RAM management also. iPad Pros have shown in the past that 6GB is more than enough with proper app management / background suspending tasks etc which is built into the SOC.. im expecting Big Sur will implement much of this from iOS..... hopefully...

Then again they are only entry level units also so maybe the specs fit in fine. I think the 16” Macbook Pro will step it up again.
 
aokman said:
If you actually bothered to read the marketing claims, down the bottom it states what the compared systems were...

You are the stereotypical troll sorry, don’t want to discuss anything just come running here all guns blazing immediately claiming marketing BS.
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I'm looking and can't find the compared systems. What are they?
 
Shoganai said:
I'm looking and can't find the compared systems. What are they?
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  1. “World’s fastest CPU core in low-power silicon”: Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction 13-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 chip and 16GB of RAM measuring peak single thread performance of workloads taken from select industry standard benchmarks, commercial applications, and open source applications. Comparison made against the highest-performing CPUs for notebooks, commercially available at the time of testing. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro. “World’s best CPU performance per watt”:Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction 13-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 chip and 16GB of RAM. Performance per watt refers to the ratio of peak CPU performance to average power consumed using select industry standard benchmarks. Comparison made against high-performing CPUs for notebooks and desktops, commercially available at the time of testing. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro. “World’s fastest integrated graphics in a personal computer”: Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction 13-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 chip and 16GB of RAM using select industry standard benchmarks. Comparison made against the highest-performing integrated GPUs for notebooks and desktops, commercially available at the time of testing. Integrated GPU is defined as a GPU located on a monolithic silicon die along with a CPU and memory controller, behind a unified memory subsystem. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro.
  2. “World’s fastest browser”: Testing conducted by Apple in August and October 2020 using JetStream 2, MotionMark 1.1, and Speedometer 2.0 performance benchmarks on browsers that completed the test. Tested with prerelease Safari 14 and latest stable versions of Chrome, Firefox, and (Windows) Microsoft Edge at the time of testing, on Intel Core i5-based 13-inch MacBook Pro systems with prerelease macOS Big Sur and Windows 10 Home running in Boot Camp; 12.9-inch iPad Pro (4th generation) units with prerelease iPadOS 14 and Intel Core i7-based Microsoft Surface Pro 7 systems with Windows 10 Pro; and iPhone 11 Pro Max with prerelease iOS 14 and Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra with Android 10. Devices tested with a WPA2 Wi-Fi network connection. Performance will vary based on usage, system configuration, network connection, and other factors. “Up to 1.5x speedier at running JavaScript and nearly 2x more responsive”: Testing conducted by Apple in September and October 2020 using JetStream 2 and Speedometer 2.0 performance benchmarks. Tested on preproduction MacBook Air and Mac mini systems with Apple M1 chip and 8-core GPU, as well as production 1.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based 13-inch MacBook Air systems and 3.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i3-based Mac mini systems, all configured with 16GB RAM, 2TB SSD, and prerelease macOS Big Sur. Tested with prerelease Safari 14.0.1 and WPA2 Wi-Fi network connection. Performance will vary based on system configuration, network configuration, network connection, and other factors.
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Aurelius said:
Apple made some pretty grand claims, and it's good to take them with a grain of salt.

At the same time: let's not rag on them for the specs (at least, not yet). This is a fundamentally different approach to a PC processor, memory and GPU than an x86 processor, and it'd be foolish to presume to know what the performance will be like. There are hard limits, of course... if you need more than 16GB of RAM or a high-end GPU, you can't get an ARM Mac right now. But it's promising.

One likelihood is that Apple will stomp all over Windows laptops in battery life. When Apple claims 17 hours, it's not the usual Windows PC maker's "but halve that if you do anything with it" claim; it actually means 17 hours.
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Apple has always wanted end to end control over not just the UI experience but also the hardware experience. That of course can lead to some interesting products. I liken it quite a bit to the way that consoles are currently being designed, although the integrated RAM could act like a giant cache instead of more traditional RAM. I would be interested to see how that would perform in other more desktop oriented CPUs regardless of manufacture.

We can infer a few things though. This is based on the A14 which is a known quantity. We can extrapolate based on that a rough performance increase. I'm betting that a lot of their performance claims are related to memory speeds, and in reference to their own past products.

The tight integration of OS to hardware is hard to deny. Apple has shown that with their iPhone line. Clearly this is something that PCs and other mobiles will trail in.
 
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DPI said:
I've avoided Mac hardware all my life, but I was in the room when Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone at WWDC 2007 and knew it was objectively a big deal; and seeing the announcements today it also feels like a major turning point -despite the protests of entrenched x86ers and PC gamers that think scoffing at it does anything.

Like it or not, the paradigm is shifting, these are only the beginning. I'll continue to run x86 for the foreseeable future, but I know change when I see it - and I'm not exactly a genius, it just happens to be hitting all of us right over the head.
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That was a great even until the collective groan moment when Jobs said the price. If only that was still the price LOL.

I've got no loyalty to X86. My qualm was with the marketing claims, and lack of expansion combined with Apple's history of recent behavior. I've got nothing against ARM or any other RISC chip. I've run Motorola CISC chips, X86, Power PC, and of course ARM. Not to mention that everyone has a Z80 story even if they don't know it. I'm genuinely excited to see ARM chips going to desktop PCs, and I'm looking forward to seeing some 8/16 Core ARM based CPUs going toe-to-toe with Intel/AMD.
 
aokman That doesn't say very much. They used some i-series Intel MacBooks, and a Surface with an i7. The description should be more descriptive.
 
pendragon1 said:
wheres the "best selling pc laptop" specs?
"industry standard benchmarks and apps" is also a little vague....
no its not in the list.
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Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro.

I thought I saw it somewhere but might be confused. Between this and the Peltier big day for tech news.
 
I look at the general info for the M1 and its design and my first thoughts are I wonder what a similar generic ARM-based design could do in the price range of a Celeron N4020 as the Chromebooks are doing just fine there performance-wise but this architecture could be a huge leap.
 
Lakados said:
I look at the general info for the M1 and its design and my first thoughts are I wonder what a similar generic ARM-based design could do in the price range of a Celeron N4020 as the Chromebooks are doing just fine there performance-wise but this architecture could be a huge leap.
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I don’t think you can really compare them to be honest, remember the M1 isn’t a CPU, it’s an SOC... That means no other seperate chips for chipset, thunderbolt, encryption, USB, graphics etc etc... its all built into one piece of silicon, aside from the RAM which is shared with between everything.

They had me sold on the security alone to be honest.
 
Shoganai said:
aokman That doesn't say very much. They used some i-series Intel MacBooks, and a Surface with an i7. The description should be more descriptive.
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Take the Macbook Pro / Air lines it replaces and extrapolate their performance and there is your valid comparison... they cant name specific brands / models due to various countries laws.
 
I sure as hell wouldn't be an early adopter, but it will be interesting to see where this goes.

I look forward to some reviews of these machines, especially when it comes to video work and gaming.
 
-Strelok- said:
You’ve seen zero benchmarks, but you already know the claims are BS?
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Well, They are already castrating the new Pro 13" with half the ram of the latest Ice Lake revision
But obviously, this is progress++++++

I'm just saying, with Tiger Lake already shipping, these laptops will have a lot of hype to live-up-to. While I trust Apple to give us accurate Battery Life numbers, the rest of that slide deck was chock-full of market-speak.
 
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I wonder how this will affect the game market? Macs have always had shit support for it in the past. Now with the entire Iphone gaming ecosystem moving over the desktop who knows?
 
aokman said:
I don’t think you can really compare them to be honest, remember the M1 isn’t a CPU, it’s an SOC... That means no other seperate chips for chipset, thunderbolt, encryption, USB, graphics etc etc... its all built into one piece of silicon, aside from the RAM which is shared with between everything.

They had me sold on the security alone to be honest.
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I get that but I am thinking specifically about the basic Chromebook design which hasn't really been updated in a long time and could do with a decent refresh. I bring them in by the hundreds each year and they run till they don't and they are all over the buildings and some go home so security features are a big win when dealing with what are lightly supervised devices in the hands of kids. I mean I do what I can to secure them with my limited budgets but I'll take any help I can get on that front.
 
Conman said:
I wonder how this will affect the game market? Macs have always had shit support for it in the past. Now with the entire Iphone gaming ecosystem moving over the desktop who knows?
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Only if you like mobile games.

They killed the large quantity of 32-bit only games, and within the next OS update, I would expect them to officially kill OpenGL support.

Apple wants you to buy your games through the App Store, and live with shittiy mobile games (with no depth). They have been doing everything in their power to kill Steam.
 
whateverer said:
Well, They are already castrating the new Pro 13" with half the ram of the latest Ice Lake revision
But obviously, this is progress++++++

I'm just saying, with Tiger Lake already shipping, these laptops will have a lot to live up to the hype. While I trust Apple to give us accurate Battery Life numbers, the rest of that slide deck was chock-full of market-speak.
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The RAM spec is the same as previous gen... they have only replaced 2 lower end lines of Macbooks, not the higher end spec that can be configured with 32GB RAM and seperate graphics...
 
Twisted Kidney said:
I sure as hell wouldn't be an early adopter, but it will be interesting to see where this goes.

I look forward to some reviews of these machines, especially when it comes to video work and gaming.
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Well in June when I replace 2 of my Apple content caching servers, I might as well replace it with these guys so I will gladly give you all an update as to how that goes, I have some of this years model that I can directly compare them against so that's a fair'ish comparison. Mac Mini 2019 vs 2020 at the base $700 config.
 
whateverer said:
Only if you like mobile games.

They killed the large quantity of 32-bit only games, and within the next OS update, I would expect them to officially kill OpenGL support.

Apple wants you to buy your games through the App Store, and live with shittiy mobile games (with no depth).
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It always seemed like catch 22. Developers ignored the Mac because it didn't have a userbase and gamers ignored it for lack of games. Now with this foot in the door kickstart I wonder if that may change in time?
 
whateverer said:
Only if you like mobile games.

They killed the large quantity of 32-bit only games, and within the next OS update, I would expect them to officially kill OpenGL support.

Apple wants you to buy your games through the App Store, and live with shittiy mobile games (with no depth). They have been doing everything in their power to kill Steam.
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They killed OpenGL support a long time ago when they moved to Metal, there is the MoltenGL API which does a VERY good job at translating between the two, and the overhead is shown to be less than 2% and very easy to implement.
 
Conman said:
I wonder how this will affect the game market? Macs have always had shit support for it in the past. Now with the entire Iphone gaming ecosystem moving over the desktop who knows?
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It'll be pretty awesome having all those pay-to-win ad-supported garbage pachinko games now on desktop!
 
kirbyrj said:
Actually, I was thinking how long is it going to take aokman to come out and try to defend Apple in the face of legitimate criticism using personal attacks...

7 posts in...must not have been paying attention.
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Quality post contributing useful information to discussions as always mate, keep it up.

Calling someone a Troll is a personal attack :ROFLMAO:
 
These are competing with "Ultrabooks", not gaming laptops. Who actually uses more than 16GB (heck 8GB?) in normal day to day usage? Obviously it would be better to have more, but for their intended usage I really don't see the problem. Most windows based laptops in this category are just as expensive and limiting btw.
 
I remember Power PC and the big RISC move. There were substantial claims about performance, some true. I still have an original mac m in power pc in a box somewhere. In the end it couldn't keep up with x86/x64.

Would be nice to see some verifiable benchmarks covering multiple use types. Until then my salt shaker will be handy.
 
Elf_Boy said:
I remember Power PC and the big RISC move. There were substantial claims about performance, some true. I still have an original mac m in power pc in a box somewhere. In the end it couldn't keep up with x86/x64.

Would be nice to see some verifiable benchmarks covering multiple use types. Until then my salt shaker will be handy.
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I think the PPC architecture was similar to x86 in that it was an OTS part though (IIRC). With the M1 (and the A series arm chips) its a custom design by apple.

Given their ability to tune iOS to their own A series chips I’m willing to bet these new macs will be fairly healthy machines
 
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whateverer said:
Says the fool who keeps unconditionally following The Ghost of Steve Jobs

https://wccftech.com/2020-13-inch-macbook-pro-first-ever-32gb-ram-support/

Care to explain why the ARM crapbook Pro 13" takes a step backward on ram to 16GB?

Oh, but obviously, this must be powered by some magical RamDoubler?
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As I already said the base model Macbook Pro was internal graphics and 2 ports / 16GB RAM... this is the replacement for it. The other model was discontinued because of poor sales. The reality is there are very few (if any) power users actually requiring 32GB ram in a 13” Macbook Pro. As said above, these are Ultrabook form factor.
 
Oh boy, Apple fan time!

In all seriousness, I am sure these will be fine, but largely a nothing product for those not already entrenched in apple ecosystem.

My gripe with Apple will be intensified, as my main issues is the increasely limited access to the system, both hardware and software side. Its fine for a phone where I just use it for calls, photos, and some light work/emails, but I truly hate their desktop experience. Its just so... limited.
 
Aireoth said:
Oh boy, Apple fan time!

In all seriousness, I am sure these will be fine, but largely a nothing product for those not already entrenched in apple ecosystem.

My gripe with Apple will be intensified, as my main issues is the increasely limited access to the system, both hardware and software side. Its fine for a phone where I just use it for calls, photos, and some light work/emails, but I truly hate their desktop experience. Its just so... limited.
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I mostly agree - and I think they will be exactly what they are: essentially, an iPad Pro without a screen. That's actually not a bad thing, I say that as someone who uses an iPad as a laptop for a large number of hours of the day (writing papers, responding to emails, making fun Funny Pictures). That's what "most" people do with computers. Yes, I have a few burly "real" PCs for heavy lifting and gaming.

I would not buy one of these thinking it was a "desktop" (my definition), and I suspect Apple wouldn't argue too strongly. It's a computing appliance, and if your needs align with what they designed it to do - it might be pretty nice. If not, that's fine. Different strokes, and all that.
 
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