Marvin

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Marvin
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  • MacBook Air doubles base memory to 16GB for same $999

    mpantone said:
    Dead_Pool said:
    But I thought Macs were so efficient that they needed only 8 GBs?
    It was pre-Apple Intelligence.

    Many closely watching Apple’s AI efforts expect their LLM to take up around 6GB of RAM leaving little for applications. Increasing RAM to 16GB provides far more headroom which will be crucial if the user enables Apple Intelligence.

    This has been heavily covered by tech media despite the fact AppleInsider failed to mention it in this particular article.
     So we actually need 24GB now with AI?  
    AI needs as much as possible. 6GB is just for a small LLM, image generation and larger models use more. Stable Diffusion uses around 20GB of memory and goes into swap on a 32GB Mac.

    16GB is a good baseline for most people though and a nice upgrade. They pretty much discounted every Mac by $200.
    Fidonet127jas99williamlondonronn
  • New MacBook Pro arrives with M4 Pro, M4 Max, and a black colorway

    Galfan said:
    Is it just me or does the M4 Max feels like a less improvement. Maybe it's because M4 Pro took such a leap I was expecting M4 max to become a 16 and 18 CPU with maybe 32 and 42 GPU cores but it remains the same on core counts as M3 Max......I think I got my hopes up a bit too much
    Apple has comparisons to M3 Max on their site, under the 'go deeper' link at the bottom of the popup. Divide M4 amount by M3 amount to get the relative difference:

    https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/

    M4 Max has about 15% improvement over M3 Max but there are a couple of areas where it's as much as 30%. M4-series uses Armv9 so has faster vector computing. They also have 2nd-gen raytracing cores.

    As usual, it's not worth upgrading for a single generation but there's a large jump every 3-4 generations. M4 is 2-3x M1 so people with M1 Max could comfortably move to M4 Pro to get the same performance at lower power and lower price.
    Alex1Nronnwilliamlondon
  • Apple's new M4 Mac mini announcement video shows off Apple TV-like design

    You know what else is nowhere to be found? Where to watch this video. 
    It's on Apple's website, linked on the Mac mini page:

    https://www.apple.com/105/media/us/mac-mini/2024/58e5921e-f447-487a-a789-3452c23b8400/films/announcement/mac-mini-announcement-tpl-us-2024_16x9.m3u8
    williamlondonmuthuk_vanalingam
  • Apple posts new M4 iMac announcement video, confirms more products coming

    ApplePoor said:
    Perhaps another "just a chip" marginal update will be presented tomorrow. No wonder there is no big event. These "updates" could have been done with a few sentence E-Mail.
    They did a streaming video last year too even for the larger Pro/Max release.

    Hopefully we will see M4 Pro/Max this week too but it could just be the base model MBP and the mini.

    Bumping the entry RAM to 16GB is a nice change and effectively cuts $200 off every Mac and will have a knock-on effect for refurbs. Having the option for 32GB in the lowest chip models makes them more appealing for pro workflows.

    It's a bit unusual for them to split the announcements. Maybe they are setting some precedents for future updates so that teams can update the products separately through the year. Tim Cook wasn't in this video and indications are that he will retire within 6-7 years so they will have to prepare for the next generation and how they prefer to handle new products and announcements.
    williamlondonronnAlex1N
  • Apple updates 'Magic' accessories to USB-C, included with M4 iMac

    Afarstar said:
    Have they redesigned the Magic Mouse so you can charge it whilst using it - no I thought not. 
    It wouldn't take much of a design change for this. The port would only need to be recessed enough to allow a flat USB-C cable to sit below the runners. These have a 2mm depth:

    https://www.amazon.com/USB-Cable-3-3ft-High-Speed-Compatible/dp/B0CCJLS4R5/
    Alex1N