danvm

danox said:

danvm said:

programmer said:

danvm said:

And I have work with some of those workstations, and the performance is not as pathetic as you mention.  Some of them have advantages over Apple Silicon, specially when comparing the GPU. 

You say "workstations" whereas what you quoted said "laptops".  Big difference.  Apple Silicon's performance really shines in power-constrained situations.  If you can run plugged into the wall and with big heat sinks, then the Intel/AMD CPUs and the nVidia/AMD GPUs can burn copious power to deliver serious performance.  They're still inefficient in terms of compute per watt, but you don't notice as watts are cheap in such a situation.

It would be interesting to see a large scale data centre built from ARM-based machines and compared to ones build from Intel/AMD-based machines, and compare the operating costs.  Some of the big cloud vendors offer lower cost ARM-based hosts just for this reason -- they greatly reduce energy and cooling costs in the data centre.  Not Apple's focus though, so we aren't likely to see Apple Silicon based data centres (except perhaps for Apple's own, but they are typically very secretive about that).

There is a group of laptops that are considered workstations (Dell Precision, HP Z mobile workstation, Lenovo ThinkPad P-series). The quality of componentes, warranty / service and specs are different from a notebook that you buy in a consumer retailer.  Also, they are certified for ISV's like Autodesk, Bentley Software, Siemens and others. That's the reason I used the term workstation and not laptops. 

I also know the benefits of Apple Intelligence and ARM in general, especially with power efficiency.  But there are cases where some specialized applications use CUDA / Optix, and you are required to use Nvidia adapters.  In datacenters is very difference, and even more with AI.  There are even rumors of Apple dealing with Nvidia for their datacenters.

Unlikely report claims Apple is buying 250 Nvidia servers for AI

Large cloud providers also have their own AI processors (Amazon Trainium2, Azure Maia and Google Axion).  Maybe these processors have advantages over ARM and Apple Silicon for AI tasks.  My point is that ARM and Apple Silicon is not the magic CPU that will solve all problems.  It has many advantages over Intel and AMD in some tasks.  But Intel, AMD and Nvidia have some advantages over ARM / Apple too. 

At the end, It's good to have competition working for us.  

The competition from Intel, AMD, and Nvidia is commendable in theory, but Apple boasts several in-house operating systems (ecosystems) that make direct competition with them impractical. I don’t believe any of these companies will be working for Apple again. Two out of the three had their chance, and like Samsung’s (chip division), they only caused trouble for Apple.

Apple Silicon isn’t magical, but the absence of an in-house OS prevents these companies from optimizing their hardware to an operating system, putting them behind Apple. This is also why Microsoft is frantically flailing around with Qualcomm, attempting to revive its failing and unprofitable Surface computer line.

programmer said:

danvm said:

And I have work with some of those workstations, and the performance is not as pathetic as you mention.  Some of them have advantages over Apple Silicon, specially when comparing the GPU. 

You say "workstations" whereas what you quoted said "laptops".  Big difference.  Apple Silicon's performance really shines in power-constrained situations.  If you can run plugged into the wall and with big heat sinks, then the Intel/AMD CPUs and the nVidia/AMD GPUs can burn copious power to deliver serious performance.  They're still inefficient in terms of compute per watt, but you don't notice as watts are cheap in such a situation.

It would be interesting to see a large scale data centre built from ARM-based machines and compared to ones build from Intel/AMD-based machines, and compare the operating costs.  Some of the big cloud vendors offer lower cost ARM-based hosts just for this reason -- they greatly reduce energy and cooling costs in the data centre.  Not Apple's focus though, so we aren't likely to see Apple Silicon based data centres (except perhaps for Apple's own, but they are typically very secretive about that).

Xed said:

danvm said:

Xed said:

danox said:

mebbert said:

sconosciuto said:

Teams is a hot mess. Zoom is vastly superior in every way.

and yet… the IT people at my very large institution have guzzled the Redmond Flavr-Aid and are doing all they can to kill use of Zoom and cram Teams down everyone’s throats. They seem to think Zoom and Teams are interchangeable videoconferencing solutions which is hilarious coming from people who are paid to understand technology. They actually consider Zoom to be a toy and Teams to be a professional solution ߙ䰟鄰ߙ䰟鄰ߙ䰟䣰藍ߤ㰟䣰藍

Very fortunately our c-suite people love Zoom.

I don’t understand why so many people dislike Teams. I think it works great on many levels. Video calls work great. I especially value integration with Office. 

Integration is what makes ecosystems valuable. 

The company I work for used teams and it was junk. Never worked right always had little glitches just like Windows, but the IT guys loved it because it made them feel needed.

I’ve never experienced that. I will say that MS offers job security, but I’ve never enjoyed working on Windows because it made me feel needed. In fact, people whose WinPCs I’ve worked on pro bono back in the aughts I’ve td them that if their next PC isn’t a Mac I will not be helping them with it. Windows is just too much of a time suck to do for free.

You could also tell your pro bono customers to avoid cheap Windows PCs. Most of my customers use high-quality PCs, and they rarely have any issues, even after several years. Some of these PCs are over 8 years old and still running smoothly. So, maybe Windows isn't as bad as you think. Just make sure it's running on quality hardware, and you'll likely see a big improvement in your experience.

Good job making silly assumptions about "cheap PCs" and "customers".
 
These are friends and family, hence pro bono. Additionally, this rarely ever had to do with the HW so the notion that it's due to low-quality HW is silly. It's all about the time to deal with Window's internet issues, which can be mitigated with faster HW, but that is not the primary issue with Windows as an OS compared to macOS. Have you ever tried to remove programs from Windows? In nearly every case you have to click many times to initiate an uninstall, and then you have to wait for it to completely finish before uninstalling the next one and sometimes this also requires a restart. With macOS you simply delete all the ones you want at once... but usually never have to do that because Macs don't come preloaded with crapware and have a lot more built into the OS that makes having to search for paid 3rd-party SW less of an issue. This is the way Windows has always been and I don't see that changing. It's a time suck for any similar task on macOS and more often than not compared to Windows it just works.

Xed said:

danox said:

mebbert said:

sconosciuto said:

Teams is a hot mess. Zoom is vastly superior in every way.

and yet… the IT people at my very large institution have guzzled the Redmond Flavr-Aid and are doing all they can to kill use of Zoom and cram Teams down everyone’s throats. They seem to think Zoom and Teams are interchangeable videoconferencing solutions which is hilarious coming from people who are paid to understand technology. They actually consider Zoom to be a toy and Teams to be a professional solution 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Very fortunately our c-suite people love Zoom.

I don’t understand why so many people dislike Teams. I think it works great on many levels. Video calls work great. I especially value integration with Office. 

Integration is what makes ecosystems valuable. 

The company I work for used teams and it was junk. Never worked right always had little glitches just like Windows, but the IT guys loved it because it made them feel needed.

I’ve never experienced that. I will say that MS offers job security, but I’ve never enjoyed working on Windows because it made me feel needed. In fact, people whose WinPCs I’ve worked on pro bono back in the aughts I’ve td them that if their next PC isn’t a Mac I will not be helping them with it. Windows is just too much of a time suck to do for free.

You could also tell your pro bono customers to avoid cheap Windows PCs. Most of my customers use high-quality PCs, and they rarely have any issues, even after several years. Some of these PCs are over 8 years old and still running smoothly. So, maybe Windows isn't as bad as you think. Just make sure it's running on quality hardware, and you'll likely see a big improvement in your experience.

danox said:

Apple designs an engineers, both hardware and software in house. They have always been able to do more with less tech bureaucracy hanging about particularly with the introduction of the M1 Mac’s with Apple Silicon an advantage which will continue into to the future…..