And yes, I do find M1 won't surpass the 16-inch in Cinebench slightly disappointing.
Most people are looking at these first Apple Silicon Macs wrong - these aren't Apple's powerhouse machines: they're simply the annual spec bump of the lowest end Apple computers with DCI-P3 displays, Wifi 6, and the new Apple Silicon M1 SoC.
They have the same limitations as the machines they replace - 16 GB RAM and two Thunderbolt ports.
These are the machines you give to a student or teacher or a lawyer or an accountant or a work-at-home information worker - folks who need a decently performing machine with decent build quality who don't want to lug around a huge powerhouse machine (or pay for one for that matter). They're still marketed at the same market segment, though they now have a vastly expanded compute power envelope.
The real powerhouses will probably come next year with the M1x (or whatever). Apple has yet to decide on an external memory interconnect and multichannel PCIe scheme, if they decide to move in that direction.
Other CPU and GPU vendors and OEM computer makers take notice - your businesses are now on limited life support. These new Apple Silicon models can compete speed-wise up through the mid-high tier of computer purchases, and if as I expect Apple sells a ton of these many will be to your bread and butter customers.
In fact, I suspect that Apple - once they recover their R&D costs - will be pushing the prices of these machines lower while still maintaining their margins - while competing computer makers will still have to pay Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and nVidea for their expensive processors, whereas Apple's cost goes down the more they manufacture. Competing computer makers may soon be squeezed by Apple Silicon price/performance on one side and high component prices on the other. Expect them to be demanding lower processor prices from the above manufacturers so they can more readily compete, and processor manufacturers may have to comply because if OEM computer manufacturers go under or stop making competing models, the processor makers will see a diminishing customer base.
I believe the biggest costs for a chip fab are startup costs - no matter what processor vendors would like you to believe. Design and fab startup are _expensive_ - but once you start getting decent yields, the additional costs are silicon wafers and QA. The more of these units Apple can move, the lower the per unit cost and the better the profits.
So ... who should buy these M1 Macs?
If you're in the target demographic - the student, teacher, lawyer, accountant, or work-at-home information worker - this is the Mac for you.
If you're a heavy computer user like a creative and don't simply want a light and cheap computer with some additional video and sound editing capability for use on the go - I'd wait for the M1x (or whatever) next year. You'll probably kick yourself next year when the machines targeted at _you_ finally appear.
Yeah, been watching it closely and I think you're right. It's an entry-level chip that surpassed other's premium offerings. Like C-Class Mercedes. The Air is not an ultrabook, that'll be the job of a 14-inch.
As for the performance, R23 isn't fully-optimized for the M1 yet.
Okay,I've been searching about benchmarks for the past week and I'm confused, numbers are all over the place.
First, there's no actual limit for Zen 2 APUs, it's all about how OEMs tune them. With a decent cooling, they'll reach ~50 watts and ~11000 in R23.
R23 also doesn't fully utilized the M1 yet as it only uses 15 watts out of 20~24. R20 uses AVX so x86 chips will hit their thermal celling. R23 won't be any different.
The only "fair" benchmark for now is SPEC17 but somehow Anandtech got their 4800U/4900HS lower than 3600. I'm worried it throttled way lower than 50 watts.
So it's a mess. I'm hoping Cinebench will catch up but for now scores doesn't really matter. All we know for sure, it can run without a fan & still beats Tiger Lake. Meanwhile, a thermal pad could solve the throttling issue on the Air.
And yes, I do find M1 won't surpass the 16-inch in Cinebench slightly disappointing.
Most people are looking at these first Apple Silicon Macs wrong - these aren't Apple's powerhouse machines: they're simply the annual spec bump of the lowest end Apple computers with DCI-P3 displays, Wifi 6, and the new Apple Silicon M1 SoC.
They have the same limitations as the machines they replace - 16 GB RAM and two Thunderbolt ports.
These are the machines you give to a student or teacher or a lawyer or an accountant or a work-at-home information worker - folks who need a decently performing machine with decent build quality who don't want to lug around a huge powerhouse machine (or pay for one for that matter). They're still marketed at the same market segment, though they now have a vastly expanded compute power envelope.
The real powerhouses will probably come next year with the M1x (or whatever). Apple has yet to decide on an external memory interconnect and multichannel PCIe scheme, if they decide to move in that direction.
Other CPU and GPU vendors and OEM computer makers take notice - your businesses are now on limited life support. These new Apple Silicon models can compete speed-wise up through the mid-high tier of computer purchases, and if as I expect Apple sells a ton of these many will be to your bread and butter customers.
In fact, I suspect that Apple - once they recover their R&D costs - will be pushing the prices of these machines lower while still maintaining their margins - while competing computer makers will still have to pay Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and nVidea for their expensive processors, whereas Apple's cost goes down the more they manufacture. Competing computer makers may soon be squeezed by Apple Silicon price/performance on one side and high component prices on the other. Expect them to be demanding lower processor prices from the above manufacturers so they can more readily compete, and processor manufacturers may have to comply because if OEM computer manufacturers go under or stop making competing models, the processor makers will see a diminishing customer base.
I believe the biggest costs for a chip fab are startup costs - no matter what processor vendors would like you to believe. Design and fab startup are _expensive_ - but once you start getting decent yields, the additional costs are silicon wafers and QA. The more of these units Apple can move, the lower the per unit cost and the better the profits.
So ... who should buy these M1 Macs?
If you're in the target demographic - the student, teacher, lawyer, accountant, or work-at-home information worker - this is the Mac for you.
If you're a heavy computer user like a creative and don't simply want a light and cheap computer with some additional video and sound editing capability for use on the go - I'd wait for the M1x (or whatever) next year. You'll probably kick yourself next year when the machines targeted at _you_ finally appear.
Yeah, been watching it closely and I think you're right. It's an entry-level chip that surpassed other's premium offerings. Like C-Class Mercedes. The Air is not an ultrabook, that'll be the job of a 14-inch.
As for the performance, R23 isn't fully-optimized for the M1 yet.
Entry level SoC but the cores are not entry level. They are pretty much the fastest CPU cores available. This is a small, low end SoC with limited I/O but memory bandwidth is stellar and IPC in the cores is world leading. It's a nice hybrid that gives a pretty good indication of what is going to happen next.
And yes, I do find M1 won't surpass the 16-inch in Cinebench slightly disappointing.
Most people are looking at these first Apple Silicon Macs wrong - these aren't Apple's powerhouse machines: they're simply the annual spec bump of the lowest end Apple computers with DCI-P3 displays, Wifi 6, and the new Apple Silicon M1 SoC.
They have the same limitations as the machines they replace - 16 GB RAM and two Thunderbolt ports.
These are the machines you give to a student or teacher or a lawyer or an accountant or a work-at-home information worker - folks who need a decently performing machine with decent build quality who don't want to lug around a huge powerhouse machine (or pay for one for that matter). They're still marketed at the same market segment, though they now have a vastly expanded compute power envelope.
The real powerhouses will probably come next year with the M1x (or whatever). Apple has yet to decide on an external memory interconnect and multichannel PCIe scheme, if they decide to move in that direction.
Other CPU and GPU vendors and OEM computer makers take notice - your businesses are now on limited life support. These new Apple Silicon models can compete speed-wise up through the mid-high tier of computer purchases, and if as I expect Apple sells a ton of these many will be to your bread and butter customers.
In fact, I suspect that Apple - once they recover their R&D costs - will be pushing the prices of these machines lower while still maintaining their margins - while competing computer makers will still have to pay Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and nVidea for their expensive processors, whereas Apple's cost goes down the more they manufacture. Competing computer makers may soon be squeezed by Apple Silicon price/performance on one side and high component prices on the other. Expect them to be demanding lower processor prices from the above manufacturers so they can more readily compete, and processor manufacturers may have to comply because if OEM computer manufacturers go under or stop making competing models, the processor makers will see a diminishing customer base.
I believe the biggest costs for a chip fab are startup costs - no matter what processor vendors would like you to believe. Design and fab startup are _expensive_ - but once you start getting decent yields, the additional costs are silicon wafers and QA. The more of these units Apple can move, the lower the per unit cost and the better the profits.
So ... who should buy these M1 Macs?
If you're in the target demographic - the student, teacher, lawyer, accountant, or work-at-home information worker - this is the Mac for you.
If you're a heavy computer user like a creative and don't simply want a light and cheap computer with some additional video and sound editing capability for use on the go - I'd wait for the M1x (or whatever) next year. You'll probably kick yourself next year when the machines targeted at _you_ finally appear.
Yeah, been watching it closely and I think you're right. It's an entry-level chip that surpassed other's premium offerings. Like C-Class Mercedes. The Air is not an ultrabook, that'll be the job of a 14-inch.
As for the performance, R23 isn't fully-optimized for the M1 yet.
Entry level SoC but the cores are not entry level. They are pretty much the fastest CPU cores available. This is a small, low end SoC with limited I/O but memory bandwidth is stellar and IPC in the cores is world leading. It's a nice hybrid that gives a pretty good indication of what is going to happen next.
That's what I just said. We're comparing it to some 50ish watts because that's the closest performance you can compare.
And this is the first iteration of Apple’s SOC. What lies ahead when the next generation arrives for the iMac and iMac Pro. As the trolls have been beating us over the head reminding us that Apple will never be the number one market leader in sales there is no doubt now that those same trolls have almost nothing left to denigrate Apple’s products. Performance metrics just proved that.
Indeed... I hope this Intel (and AMD, Qualcomm, etc) not only lights a fire on their backsides, but causes serious disruption... as that's what it will take and healthy competition is a *good thing*.
Having said that history shows that's not the case... and that (primarily Intel) CPU fanboys will continue this either "well look at..." some random individual metric or "wait until X nm ++++ version, or *Lake)... Apple has nothing but runway for the 20's and can continue the tight SW/HW integration... I'd say for the next 2-4 years it'll be a huge x86 spanking as you'll see the big hockey curve on both the CPU and GPU sides... with the slope leveling in the later half of the 20's.
Intel's ship can't steer in a new direction with products out until around '25... and with performance/watt it'll take longer (and likely a move to external foundries)... in the meantime Mac can increase marketshare (given now Apple represents great value), the Windows ecosystem will have strong ARM solutions to compete, and the data center will see the writing on the wall and migrate more solutions that way (actually that's already happening with larger players).
In the short term Intel can make announcements and in this current free money, no safe yield environment maintain (even increase) their market cap... even based on fundamentals they should get a good run until '25... but after that they'll need something close to a miracle (aka Job's like turnaround) to avoid getting Black-buried...
(Tangent: What kind of person is a CPU vendor fanboy? Seriously, WTF? I've been involved in CPU architecture design, but it would never occur to me to get emotionally tied to one or a vendor... maybe if my life savings were in there stock?).
(Tangent: What kind of person is a CPU vendor fanboy? Seriously, WTF? I've been involved in CPU architecture design, but it would never occur to me to get emotionally tied to one or a vendor... maybe if my life savings were in there stock?).
They are the computer equivalent of car guys that argue over which manufacturers v8s are best. Only a tiny fraction have ever compared the the objects of their passions side by side in the same chassis, and so just fall back on confirmation bias and dyno tests.
Comments
The Air is not an ultrabook, that'll be the job of a 14-inch.
As for the performance, R23 isn't fully-optimized for the M1 yet.
First, there's no actual limit for Zen 2 APUs, it's all about how OEMs tune them. With a decent cooling, they'll reach ~50 watts and ~11000 in R23.
R23 also doesn't fully utilized the M1 yet as it only uses 15 watts out of 20~24. R20 uses AVX so x86 chips will hit their thermal celling. R23 won't be any different.
The only "fair" benchmark for now is SPEC17 but somehow Anandtech got their 4800U/4900HS lower than 3600. I'm worried it throttled way lower than 50 watts.
So it's a mess. I'm hoping Cinebench will catch up but for now scores doesn't really matter. All we know for sure, it can run without a fan & still beats Tiger Lake. Meanwhile, a thermal pad could solve the throttling issue on the Air.
Having said that history shows that's not the case... and that (primarily Intel) CPU fanboys will continue this either "well look at..." some random individual metric or "wait until X nm ++++ version, or *Lake)... Apple has nothing but runway for the 20's and can continue the tight SW/HW integration... I'd say for the next 2-4 years it'll be a huge x86 spanking as you'll see the big hockey curve on both the CPU and GPU sides... with the slope leveling in the later half of the 20's.
Intel's ship can't steer in a new direction with products out until around '25... and with performance/watt it'll take longer (and likely a move to external foundries)... in the meantime Mac can increase marketshare (given now Apple represents great value), the Windows ecosystem will have strong ARM solutions to compete, and the data center will see the writing on the wall and migrate more solutions that way (actually that's already happening with larger players).
In the short term Intel can make announcements and in this current free money, no safe yield environment maintain (even increase) their market cap... even based on fundamentals they should get a good run until '25... but after that they'll need something close to a miracle (aka Job's like turnaround) to avoid getting Black-buried...
(Tangent: What kind of person is a CPU vendor fanboy? Seriously, WTF? I've been involved in CPU architecture design, but it would never occur to me to get emotionally tied to one or a vendor... maybe if my life savings were in there stock?).