JustSomeGuy1
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New MacBook Pro driven by M1 Pro & M1 Max processors
As noted in other threads, while the performance gains are massive (and larger than widely appreciated - AI got it wrong at least once already), there's a lot we really don't know yet.- Clock speed: how much higher is it? (My guess: minimal)- Why is the 32-core gpu said by apple to be only 60% faster than the 16-core gpu? (See slide where they are respectively 400% and 250% speed of the 5600M)- What are the cores? (Most people seem to think they're the same as the M1s, but from GPU perf alone, those cores are likely the same gen as the A15. No clue about the CPU cores, but you'd think they'd be same-gen.)- How big is the SLC? (My guess: 24/48MB for Pro/Max)- How fast is the LPDDR5? (Probably LPDDR5-6400)- >7GB/s reads of the SSD are great, but what about writes?Also some non-performance questions, like can we run 4x 4k displays on the Pro? (Probably not.)
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Apple's M1 Max is 1.5x faster than M1 in supposed benchmark
These numbers are suspect. As I pointed out in the article about the GPU performance, GPU perf went up way more than 2x with 2x GPU cores, according to Apple's numbers (which, historically, they have not inflated). That strongly suggests that the cores are NOT M1 cores, but at least equivalent of the A15 cores.It would be absolutely astonishing for the single-core score not to go up at all. In fact I'd say it was totally impossible. If nothing else, the new memory controller, bigger SLC, and LPDDR5 memory will all increase the single-core score. Probably by not all that much, but claiming no change at all is a huge stretch. (And that assumes no clock bump over the M1.)The 150% bump for multicore might actually make sense with the 8-core version of the CPU (6P + 2E cores). It too seems way too low for the 10-core version of the M1 Pro.We'll know soon enough though. -
Compared: 14-inch MacBook Pro vs. 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro vs. Intel 13-inch MacBook Pro
From the article: "[M1 Pro] GPU performance is twice as fast as before. Then there's the M1 Max processor. Apple says it provides up to four times faster GPU performance than the M1."That's not even close to correct. Apple is making a MUCH STRONGER claim. They claimed 2x and 3.5x faster... but faster than what?Apple's comparison was not against an M1, but rather against the top-upgrade 5600m from the previous intel 16". That GPU is generally a LOT faster than the M1's- ranging from 40% to over 150% faster. Metal scores are, IIRC, about 100% faster. If you go with a (very!) conservative 50% faster, then you get the M1 Pro being 3x faster than the M1, not 2x. And you get the M1 Max being 5.25x faster than the M1.This is interesting, because among other things it tells us that the cores in the M1Pro/Max are almost certainly NOT the same cores as in the M1, since performance vs. M1 is scaling better than linearly with core count. They are, as expected, the cores from the A15. In other words, the M1 Pro/Max is really what we were all thinking of as an M2.The performance can't be coming just from higher clock speed, given the power envelope. It's conceivable it could be coming from slightly higher clocks plus better non-core logic but that seems... extremely far-fetched. Even taking into account the SLC, which would be in this context function equivalently to AMD's "Infinity cache".We'll have somewhat better answers when the first units are benched. And much better answers when Andrei F. publishes his analysis, though that will likely be a month from now.
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Compared: 2021 New 16-inch MacBook Pro vs. 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro
You're really missed the entire point of what they did with the camera. There is no notch.That is, the old laptop has a 16x10 screen. The new one has a 16x10 screen (with no notch). And then, on top of that, they stuck a camera and some extra screen space, which can be used to hold a menu bar. I expect that some enterprising developer will shortly release a little utility that blacks out that extra space, moving the menu bar down, and then you can just use it like the older version, with a perfectly rectangular display area.Put another way, this model doesn't come with a notch cut out of the screen. It comes with tabs *added* to the screen, on either side of the camera.(Oh, and if you're wondering, full screen apps display with no cutout because they exist entirely below the camera. Like I said, it's not a notch, it's bonus tabs.)
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Report suggests Apple's A15 Bionic lacks significant CPU upgrades due to chip team brain d...
(Posted this on another article, but it belongs here.)[...] it seems likely that CPU performance is not significantly improved - lacking more facts, my money is on Andrei's analysis (in AnandTech), maybe 5-6%. But there are two wildly divergent ways to look at this.It is possible that this is simply the result of a brain drain. That's a popular take in the press, right now. It's not clear how that analysis lines up with other known facts, like the massively improved NPU.There is another possibility though. Apple is now designing a pair of cores for use not just in the phone, but also in the Mac. What are the needs of those two devices?- For the phone, the biggest need is NOT more CPU performance. It's lower power use, which leads to greater sustained performance or longer battery life.- For the Mac, it *is* more performance. But Macs are very different from phones, even the laptops. They can afford to burn more power on increased clock speed, unlike phones... IF the chip has the ability to run at higher clocks. It seems likely that the A14/M1 does NOT have that ability, simply based on the MBPs not clocking past 3.2GHz even when on wall current. (This is normal - every chip design has a maximum beyond which it can't go, no matter how much power you throw at it.)The A-series chips have sped up from ~2.3GHz to ~3GHz over the last five years, since the iPhone 7, but most of the performance has come from widening the cores. But this leaves a ton of performance on the table- they should be able to get at least 4GHz, and possibly close to 5GHz, out of the process node they're using now, with a newer design. (Power requirements prevent that in the phone, of course.)Now... what would such a redesign look like? Really, you'd want to try to preserve the IPC of your existing design while allowing for higher clocks. And you'd probably also want to increase your caches to compensate for the fact that every cache miss is going to cost more cycles (as each cycle is quicker). Once that design is done, if you don't need the max performance out of that chip in one situation, you'd run it slower and pocket the power savings.This looks like it might be what Apple has done. They're claiming better battery life, despite a high-refresh-rate screen, a brighter screen, and a doubled system cache. And oh yeah, that doubled cache seems telling.So, I think we can't really know what's going on at Apple until the new Macs ship. And maybe not until a new desktop (27" imac and/or Pro, not so much the mini) ship. If my guess is right, what we're seeing is Apple being very smart about maximizing the RoI on a single pair of core designs (high-perf & high-efficiency). They get better power efficiency in the A15, which is their primary design goal this time around, while being able to drive the cores much faster (4-4.5GHz, maybe?) in the M2 Macs. That would give the cores +25%-+40% performance PER CORE from clockspeed. You'd lose some performance due to longer pipelines, cache misses, etc, probably made up for by the larger cache (which might be where the +6% is coming from in the A14).Next month will be *fascinating*.
