JustSomeGuy1

AppleInsider said:

In single-core Geekbench 5 testing, the M2 chip received a score of 1919. The same chip got a multi-core Geekbench score of 8928. For comparison, a late 2020 MacBook Pro with an M1 chip received a single-core score of 1749 and a multi-core score of 7719.
[...]
Per the Geekbench 5 comparison, the M2 chip is 11.6% faster than the M1 in single-core scoring and 19.5% faster in multi-core scoring.

appleinsideruser said:

JustSomeGuy1 said:

appleinsideruser said:

The issue for me is trusting a dialog box on a website that’s asks for my Mac password. The Apple UI doesn’t make it clear that this info stays on my device and isn’t sent to the server as is normal. This paaswordless stuff will suffer the same issue and I will struggle to trust where my data goes.

This is an excellent point, and one I'm really surprised Apple hasn't addressed yet. But it's difficult - not technically, but in terms of training users how to behave.

So far the only entities I've seen addressing this issue are some banks, and not even most of them - I think they feel the ROI isn't worth it.

The obvious way to do it is to allow the user to select an image which is proof that the system is talking, and not the app. The image is protected and inaccessible to all apps. Then when you get a dialog asking for a password or other sensitive info, the system displays this image along with the request. The presence of the image authenticates the request.

There are other similar schemes (text or sound instead of an image). In general, you have to have a token signifying legitimacy (not a physical one, unless you intend to put a little LED on the phone just to signal "system interaction", and Apple would never do something so ugly). Implementing this is not in the least bit challenging.

The big problem is teaching users to pay attention and understand the significance of the token. People understand the idea of "password" - it means "way to prove I'm really me". They *don't* generally understand the concept of "way for the OS to prove it's really the OS (and not malware spoofing the OS)", and they have no simple word for that like "password". This won't be an easy battle to fight and I guess Apple isn't willing to take it on yet. :-(

On réflection i think Apple has already done this. Visit say iCloud.com and the modal dialog, that asks for my Mac password, disables the window’s close button. I have to use the awkward Cancel button to get the regular authentication that ironically I trust. I guess this is the ‘image’ you mention…

imergingenious said:

benracicot said:

JustSomeGuy1 said:

I'm sorry, but this article is a serious failure due to ignorance of some of the basic underlying technologies.

For example, the guesses about memory are completely off base. There is literally no chance at all that they're even close, based on the article's assumptions.

The M1 has a bandwidth of ~68GB/s because it has a 128-bit memory bus and uses LPDDR4 memory at 4.266GT/s. The M1 Pro has higher bandwidth of ~200GB/s because it uses LPDDR5 memory at 6.4GT/s, and ALSO because it uses a double-wide bus (256 bits).

The M2 has the same memory bus size (128 bits) as the M1, but it's already using LPDDR5 at 6.4GT/s. If there's an M2 Pro based on the same doubling as the M1 Pro was, it won't get any further benefit from the LPDDR5 (since the M2 already has that). It will have the same ~200GB/s bandwidth as the M1 Pro.

Of course this all depends on timing - if the M2 Pro came out a year from now, higher-performance LPDDR5 might be common/cheap enough for the M2 Pro to use it, in which case you'd see additional benefits from that. But it DEFINITELY wouldn't get you to 300GB/s. LPDDR5 will never be that fast (that would require 9.6GT/s, which is not happening in the DDR5 timeframe - unless DDR6 is horribly delayed, years from now).

You're also assuming Apple won't go with HBM, which is not at all a safe assumption. If they do they might well do better than 300GB/s for the "M2 Pro", if such a thing were built.

Your entire article could have been written something like this:

M1 Ultra = 2x M1 Max = 4x M1 Pro ~= 6x-8x M1, so expect the same with the M2 series.

It's a really bad bet though.

There are much more interesting things to speculate about! What are they doing for an interconnect between CPU cores, GPU cores, Neural Engine, etc? Improvements there are *critical* to better performance - the Pro, Max, and Ultra are great at some things but extremely disappointing at others, and that's mostly down to the interconnect- though software may also play some part in it (especially with the GPU).

Similarly, the chip-to-chip interconnect for the Ultra is a *huge* advance in the state of the art, unmatched by any other vendor right now... and yet it's not delivering the expected performance in some (many) cases. What have they learned from this, what can they do better, and when will they do it?

(Edit to add) Most of all, will desktop versions of the M2 run at significantly higher clocks? I speculated about this here when the A15 came out - that core looked a lot like something built to run at higher clocks than earlier Ax cores. I'd like to think that I was right, and that that's been their game all along. But... Apple's performance chart (from the keynote) for the M2, if accurate, suggests that I was wrong and that they don't scale clocks any better than the M1 did. That might still be down to the interconnect, though it seems unlikely. It's also possible that they're holding back on purpose, underestimating performance at the highest clocks, though that too seems unlikely (why would they?).

For this reason, I suspect that the M2 is a short-lived interim architecture, as someone else already guessed. Though in terms of branding, they may retain the "M2" name even if they improve the cores further for the "M2 Pro" or whatever. That would go against all past behavior, but they don't seem terribly bound by tradition.

This comment contains many of my thoughts as well!
if you were to “extrapolate” that’s pretty boring actually. Yeah a linear-scaled guess is barely an article. You could do this for the M4, M5, M10 etc. it’s kind of useless and didn’t even go that far.

at the same time the article ignores the most exciting questions like mentioned above. What can Apple and TSMC do to improve bandwidth on ArmV9? Fabric stacking? HBM over LPDDR5? 

Also, at 3nm the next Pro and Max chips are not the linear improvement the article suggests. Why was it written like that? 

I concur the memory bandwidth projection is a blunder, and the article puts a lot of words together to explain what could be explained more concisely, but the speculation that Apple may do things with their desktop class chips to further differentiate them from mobile chips is just that-pure speculation. The near  future is likely a lot more boring, with M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips being largely as described in the article. Apple probably won’t sink that level of silicon engineering investment for such a small market. Taking existing IP developed for iPhones, bumping the clock a little, and adding cores, chiplets, and a couple extra features is unfortunately the name of the game. The next Pro and Max chips will not be 3nm, there is no evidence for that, but there is a chance Apple incorporates 5nm++ and A16 cores in the M2 Pro and Max after the iPhone 14 comes out. Even if that’s the case, A16 cores are likely to bring the smallest performance jump ever, so the general scaling idea won’t be that far off. The only major thing really wide open for speculation is the next MacPro, but that’s going to start at $$$$ and very few people will need/buy it. M2 series will roll out over the next year at least, no M3 series chips until the end of 2023 and that will include 3nm.

appleinsideruser said:

The issue for me is trusting a dialog box on a website that’s asks for my Mac password. The Apple UI doesn’t make it clear that this info stays on my device and isn’t sent to the server as is normal. This paaswordless stuff will suffer the same issue and I will struggle to trust where my data goes.