zimmie

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zimmie
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  • Apple releases watchOS 8.5 with under-the-hood improvements

    zimmiezimmie
    Just updated, and the passcode entry now has a certain number of blanks, telling you how long the person's passcode is. Don't like that one little bit, and there doesn't seem to be a way to turn it back to the previous behavior.
    caladanian

  • Apple Silicon Mac Pro could combine two M1 Ultra chips for speed

    zimmiezimmie
    My guess is that the Mac Pro will use the same M1 Ultra as the Mac Studio does.  The difference will be in the system around the SoC.  With a larger form factor, they have more cooling potential and could bump up the clock rates a little... but really, the M1 Ultra is a monster as it is (both in terms of size and performance).  I would just take what Turnes said at face value, this is already the last of the M1 series.  And I think we will see a Mac Pro that uses it.

    So what could differentiate the Mac Pro?  In a word:  expandability.

    1) PCIe slots.  The M1 Ultra seems to have plenty of I/O potential, and a fast PCIe bridge chip would easily enable a lot of expansion potential.

    2) Drive bays.  The Mac Pro would have the same built-in super fast SSD, but in a large case a whole lot of additional storage can be accommodated.

    3) RAM.  This is where it gets tricky.  The Apple Silicon approach is to use in-package memory, and there are real constraints on how much can be put into a single package.  Some Pros just need more than can be fit into a single package, or more than is worth building in the TSMC production run.  So conventional DIMMs are needed to supplement the super fast in-package memory.  The question is, how does OSX use it?  Apple seems to want to keep the programming model simple (i.e. CPU/GPU shared memory with a flat/uniform 64-bit virtual address space), so having some fast vs slow areas of memory doesn't seem like the direction they want to go in (although they could and just rely on the M1 Ultra's ENORMOUS caches).  They are already doing virtual memory paging to flash, however... so why not do virtual memory paging to the DIMMs instead?  Big DMA data transfers between in-package and on-DIMM memory across the very fast PCIe 5.0 lanes would ensure that the available bandwidth is used as efficiently as possible, and the latency is masked by the big (page-sized) transfers.  A 128GB working memory (the in-package RAM) is huge, so doing VMM to get to the expanded pool is not as bad as you might think.  Such a memory scheme may even just sit on PCIe cards so buyers only need to pay for the DIMM slots if they really need it.  Such "RAM disk" cards have been around for ages, but are usually hampered by lack of direct OS support... and issue Apple could fix easily in their kernel.
    On the topic of RAM, there's nothing inherent in the M1's design which precludes off-package RAM. They have a RAM controller on the chips, and the RAM controller is shared between CPU and GPU cores, but there's no fundamental reason the RAM couldn't be in DIMMs. Apple just hasn't chosen to do that. They might do so with the Mac Pro, or they might not. I don't see them doing a tiered memory structure, though. They just went to significant lengths to do away with NUMA concerns on the M1 Ultra.

    With the introduction of the Mac Studio, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Mac Pro go primarily rackmount. Very few people need more computing power than the Mac Studio offers at their desks. Almost everyone who does need more computing power is in an environment where they can rack the computer in a closet. For example, recording studios, film studios, scientific labs, and so on all have 19" rack space for other equipment, so putting specialist workstations in there isn't a stretch. That said, rackmount would mostly be relevant for a box with several full-height, full-length PCIe slots (e.g., to add hardwired audio and video inputs), and I'm not yet convinced Apple is interested in that at all. They might say the future is a rackmount interface which connects to the system via Thunderbolt. I'd be curious to know what they have seen the current rackmount Mac Pro doing.

    Called the idea of using one high-end die in the laptops, then multiple high-end dies in the high-performance desktops, but I expected it to be the M1 Max Duo or something rather than a whole new name. I did get the dGPU very wrong, though. I didn't quite understand at that time just how powerful Apple's GPU cores are.
    williamlondonrundhvidwatto_cobraFileMakerFeller

  • Apple launches the 27-inch Apple Studio Display with 5K, speakers, camera

    zimmiezimmie
    crowley said:
    The stand options are a bit bizarre.  Why not use the same connector as the XDR?

    The VESA mount looks sketchy.


    I assume the actual mount attachment point is where the cross-bar on the VSEA points sits. The VESA adapter extends a little below to reduce the lever effect from the far mount points. Should be great mechanically, but yes, it's more than a little weird aesthetically.

    The XDR connector is probably too expensive for the price target. The height-and-tilt stand for this is $400 more, but the same stand (presumably with stiffer springs and clutches) is $1k for the XDR. That suggests to me the connector on the stand side is a significant cost. Not $600, but also not $50. To use it here probably would have pushed the display's cost up $100 or more and opened them to people joking about using their $1700 screen with a $1000 stand.
    watto_cobra

  • Apple launches the 27-inch Apple Studio Display with 5K, speakers, camera

    zimmiezimmie
    shareef777 said:
    KBuffett said:
    Does anyone know if this can be used with a PC?
    This is the LG 5K in an aluminum shell.
    Which is the 5K iMac minus the Mac in a plastic shell.

    One interesting quirk: the stands are not officially swappable. You have to select the stand or VESA mount when you buy it, and only the VESA mount points support portrait orientation.
    shareef777forgot usernameelijahgwatto_cobra

  • NFTs worth $1.7M stolen via OpenSea phishing attack

    zimmiezimmie
    They can't be stolen. They were transferred via a legitimate transaction recorded immutably on the blockchain, which everybody has been telling me is the only thing trustworthy enough to build the future of the economy!
    watto_cobra