13-Inch MacBook Pro With M2 Chip Outperforms Base Model Mac Pro Despite Costing Nearly $5,000 Less

[TripleYoThreat]

I think I'll hold out til they figure out how to run an MBA on an M3, then wait til that's been out a year and hasn't set anyones pants on fire.

hahahahha 100% agreed. Might cop an m1 air after the m2 comes out and the price drops.
I wanna see that battery life first hand tbh
but on my 12" macbook 2017, I am so pleased with battery life, it lasts nearly a week as is - how much better can the m1 air do for me? I did try one and preferred the butterfly keyboard over the chiclet style scissor keys as well. I must be crazy but i love the feel and uniqueness of the butterfly keys

 

[russell_314]

More like they copied ARM, as ARM used the big.LITTLE architecture before apple.
Also Intel is doing fine, they just need a decent manufacturing process.

ARM? What consumer processor had this before M1? I don't mean in a lab but for sale to the general public. To my knowledge Apple did this first.

 

[iPadified]

Photoshop retouching isnt a niche use case. I worked in a retouching studio where they were handling 100GB PSD files with a lot of desktop automation using Apple script and plugins.

The point is that lower end computer gradually replaces high end systems for many work loads and has been doing this for at least a decade. The Mac Pro as a computer type is squeezed.

How would the Studio Ultra perform on 100 GB PSD files? Is this a normal file sized or is it an edge case?

The MP was always a niche system for a niche subset of users. It was also a 'Halo' system. Something to aspire to.

No, the Mac Pro is not something to aspire to. A computer is a tool, you buy what fits your needs.

 

[uczcret]

Is anybody waiting to trade in their 2019 Mac Pro for the M2 Mac Pro? If the price is that much lower are they going to give us 2 M2 Mac Pros?

Considering Apple gave MKBHD $4,000 for his (nearly) maxed out MP, you'll be lucky to get half of an M2 Mac Pro.

 

[Bodie CI5]

ARM? What consumer processor had this before M1? I don't mean in a lab but for sale to the general public. To my knowledge Apple did this first.

ARM has been sold to the general public for quite a while:

The Acorn Archimedes was variously described as "the first RISC machine inexpensive enough for home use", powered by an ARM (Acorn RISC Machine) chip[34] and "the first commercially-available RISC-based microcomputer". The first models were released in June 1987, as the 300 and 400 series.[35]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes

 

[mi7chy]

Using sometimes Windows on M1 Pro... never seen a faster real PC. even Microsoft x86 emulator is quite good.

Real PCs don't run ARM. M1 Pro and even M1 Ultra emulating x64 using UTM runs like poop and even running Windows on ARM runs like poop if it runs at all.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...indowsarm-to-run-on-a-macbook-pro-14.2348407/

 

[snipr125]

ARM has been sold to the general public for quite a while:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes

My UK compatriots in their early/mid 40's, may remember back in the early 90's using these Acorn BBC computers at secondary school during 'Computer' class! I got my first taste of writing BASIC programs on these.

 

[Onelifenofear]

The Mac Pro has always been a mishandled product - almost always being capable of being outdone by a custom PC rig at half the price, or in the cases where the same model sat on the shelf for years without an update - simply a criminal enterprise on Apple’s part that they would continue selling it as a Pro product when it was being smashed by its laptops.

I remember working for a doomed, over invested startup where they gave all the developers Mac Pros, and I was like “why did you spend $3000 on my workstation? I easily published my last app with a $400 mini!”

I suspect 80% of Mac Pros are purchased not by the narrow specialties which need them, but by people with too much money who simply think the most expensive Mac must be the best one.

Criminal Enterprise - Get a grip!

Xeons in the Mac Pro have not been significantly updated - you'd get maybe 10% faster - or up to 32 cores but a lower clock.

Mac Pro are bought buy people that need them - and a PC Workstation from Dell, HP or Boxx is going tocos the same amount of money as the Mac Pro ( you don't buy apple RAM )

Custom PC rig mean you need a support person. I you have a Corpotate apple account Studio in London for example you can get a broken Mac swapped out in 3 hours. You can't get that support with any PC workstation ( perhaps a specialist lease company )

All that said about your doomed startup is they didn't understand what was needed.... sense doomed.

While the M2 is blazingly fast - does it have potential for 1.5TB ECC RAM ( I have 768gb ) or 8 PCIE slots ( have currently have 60+ TB in my Mac Pro ) + Dual GPUs that are faster than a 3090 and significantly better in Pro Apps that have massive datasets - gaming cards are bullt for Texture fill over vertex and Workstation cards are the opposite ( sense they are not great for games )

 

[Onelifenofear]

More like they copied ARM, as ARM used the big.LITTLE architecture before apple.
Also Intel is doing fine, they just need a decent manufacturing process.

It's not copied it is ARM - M1 is an ARM Architecture as are all the iPhone / iPad chips... they have a perpetual Licence to use the general architecture - all the apple chips have used them. The key is how it all works together and apple are now years ahead of the competition now.

 

[Onelifenofear]

Saw the writing on the wall. Apple should have just skipped the Mac Pro altogether. Now they are obligated to keep supporting it until god knows when.

And why's that a bad thing? They didn't have a M Chip fast enough to compete with a top of the range Mac Pro yet ( this is the base model they are comparing )

Also what do you think those M1/2s were originally designed on.... Mac Pro 2019, iMac Pro, and probably the Mac Pro 2013 to start with.

 

[ducknalddon]

I'd love to see the sales figures for the Mac Pro. My gut feeling is that it hasn't had much attention over the years because it isn't a big seller. Even now we are a long way into the transition with Air/MB on their second revision already and there is no sign of an imminent Mac Pro ARM release.

 

[Bodie CI5]

My UK compatriots in their early/mid 40's, may remember back in the early 90's using these Acorn BBC computers at secondary school during 'Computer' class! I got my first taste of writing BASIC programs on these.

We also had BBC Micro‘s at our school here in Melbourne in the late 80s/early 90s! They were fun as. We had them running on amber screens 😍. I always remember their keys were so much harder to press than those on our C64 we used to have at home. We were schooled in Logo. They were withdrawn in ‘91 IIRC and replaced with Macintosh Classic II’s.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

A Commodore 64 was worth US$595 when it first released in 1982. The Apple IIe released in Jan 1983 was worth US$1395 (figures taken from google searches).

As I remember it, the 64 started selling at a much higher price. MUCH higher. Then they slashed the price and people that had bought the system at the previous overly inflated price were deservedly miffed. But whatever...

 

[cajun67]

I'd love to see the sales figures for the Mac Pro. My gut feeling is that it hasn't had much attention over the years because it isn't a big seller. Even now we are a long way into the transition with Air/MB on their second revision already and there is no sign of an imminent Mac Pro ARM release.

I suspect the Mac Pro largely exists for Apple to say that they are a serious computer company, because they sell "big iron" systems... even if their "big iron" category is often neglected for years on end.

The target audience is probably Hollywood production companies who can creatively expense farms of these high margin systems to big budget films, then use them for free on everything else.

 

[abhibeckert]

More like they copied ARM, as ARM used the big.LITTLE architecture before apple.
Also Intel is doing fine, they just need a decent manufacturing process.

An Apple employee was the first CEO when the ARM company was founded 32 years ago and Apple also provided almost all of ARM's initial funding ($3m on day one - and more funding over the following decades).

ARM was supposed to design the CPU for the Apple Newton, which was one of many early failed attempts at creating a smartphone.

Apple didn't "copy" ARM. They paid ARM to spend decades designing a better CPU, and then Apple used that CPU design.

 

[svish]

Apple silicon is very powerful. The Mac Pro replacement with Apple Silicon will be extremely powerful.

 

[jakey rolling]

Custom PC rig mean you need a support person. I you have a Corpotate apple account Studio in London for example you can get a broken Mac swapped out in 3 hours. You can't get that support with any PC workstation ( perhaps a specialist lease company )

Tell me you live in Apple's bubble without telling me you live in Apple's bubble.

As far as corporate support goes, Apple is bottom of the barrel. It was clear even dating back to the Xserve that Apple has no idea whatsoever how to support corporate environments, and they have been failing miserably at trying for almost 30 years now.

Almost every other workstation manufacturer has same-day, on-site service for high-end workstations. There is no such thing as "swapping out" a machine in the real world - doing so results in hours of downtime even after the swap is complete. Corporate support means having techs at the ready and available to travel to the worksite with replacement parts, repair the machine, and getting it back up and running that same afternoon. HP does this, Dell does this, Apple doesn't do this. And with Apple's latest designs with the M-series chips, Apple will never be able to offer that level of support.

 

[theluggage]

An Apple employee was the first CEO when the ARM company was founded 32 years ago and Apple also provided almost all of ARM's initial funding ($3m on day one - and more funding over the following decades).

Technically not untrue, but you missed a bit. The original ARM chip was developed by Acorn Computer in the UK and initially stood for Acorn RISC machine (I think the chips were actually manufactured by VLSI). The ARM 2 first appeared in 1987 in the Acorn Archimedes - which was the successor to the 6502-based Acorn BBC Micro (huge in the UK, not so much elsewhere) followed shortly by the faster ARM-3. They were seriously powerful personal computer/workstations but never made much traction outside of niches in UK education. (Acorn also produced a plug-in accelerator board for the PC ). The ARM 2/3 ran rings around contemporary Intel chips, but at that time no DOS/Windows == No Sell. Further development was concentrated on low-power/embedded applications rather than computers until the smartphone boom came along.

Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. was a joint venture between Acorn, Apple and VLSI founded in 1990 - and yes, Apple put in a shedload of cash to further develop the ARM chip, but the ARM 3 pre-dated Apple's involvement. Then Apple hit the hard times and had to sell their shares in ARM - have fun speculating about an alternate universe in which Apple still owned a large chunk of ARM today....

ARM was supposed to design the CPU for the Apple Newton, which was one of many early failed attempts at creating a smartphone.

"Supposed to"? They did, and the Newton went on sale. While the Newton failed for various reasons (such as handwriting recognition not quite being up to snuff, but also the slight matter of Apple teetering on bankruptcy and Jobs wielding the axe) I don't think anybody has ever cited the processor as a problem. NB - the Newton wasn't a smartphone - no phone - it was a PDA ("Personal Digital Assistant") like the Psion Organiser (probably the first), Series 3, Palm Pilot , and the HP IPAQ (have fun with that name, but I'm pretty sure it pre-dated the iPod).

Anyhow this is all OT because I'm pretty sure this started with a reference to ARM BIG.little tech (c.f. performance/economy cores) which came much later, post-iPhone/iPad, post Apple ownership... but before M1

ARM? What consumer processor had this before M1? I don't mean in a lab but for sale to the general public. To my knowledge Apple did this first.

ANS: Here's a press release from 2013:

Adoption of ARM big.Little Technology Accelerates – Arm®

ARM big.LITTLE Momentum

www.arm.com

...some 8 core phone/tablet processors are either BIG.little or 3rd party variations on the theme. E.g. Qualcomm Snapdragon 615/616 from 2014/15

...and I'm pretty sure that some A-series processors use the technique.

Of course, Apple are pretty pioneering in re-introducing ARM (or at least the ARM ISA) as a desktop/laptop processor after the Acorn machines faded out in the 1990s.

 

[russell_314]

ANS: Here's a press release from 2013:

Adoption of ARM big.Little Technology Accelerates – Arm®

ARM big.LITTLE Momentum

www.arm.com

...some 8 core phone/tablet processors are either BIG.little or 3rd party variations on the theme. E.g. Qualcomm Snapdragon 615/616 from 2014/15

...and I'm pretty sure that some A-series processors use the technique.

Of course, Apple are pretty pioneering in re-introducing ARM (or at least the ARM ISA) as a desktop/laptop processor after the Acorn machines faded out in the 1990s.

I know about the tech and and yes it was on phones and tablets to include the iPhone. I'm talking about laptop and desktop computer processors.

Before Apple Silicon I don't think it was a thing. Maybe there's some rare laptop out there but I haven't heard about it. From everything I've read it seems Apple was the first to do this on a laptop and desktop but even if there is some rare specimen out there they were still the first to bring this to mainstream. Intel is just playing follow the leader here. I don't fault Intel because it's what they need to do at this point. If you see someone doing something successful learn from them.

 

[AgeOfSpiracles]

Computers don't age well. My laptop kills a supercomputer from 15 years ago

Sorta? It's not faster than the fastest in 2007, but a 3080 will get you into the top 30.

 

[ACHD]

ARM? What consumer processor had this before M1? I don't mean in a lab but for sale to the general public. To my knowledge Apple did this first.

Actually MS did.....it had a snapdragon processor in their Surface X.
Then they did the Surface RT. Surface Rt actually worked really well but was limited and came to early in time.

The Surface x is able to run non ARM aps as well. But there is a significantly larger plethora of apps that run on windows compared to mac. And thats the thing. Theres WAY more non app store apps on windows that people expect to work but for what the Surface x was it did a good job.

But Apple was not first.


Also ARM is not owned by apple. apple pays a license to use the ARM architecture and design and apple builds upon it.

 

[InuNacho]

I know about the tech and and yes it was on phones and tablets to include the iPhone. I'm talking about laptop and desktop computer processors.

Before Apple Silicon I don't think it was a thing. Maybe there's some rare laptop out there but I haven't heard about it. From everything I've read it seems Apple was the first to do this on a laptop and desktop but even if there is some rare specimen out there they were still the first to bring this to mainstream. Intel is just playing follow the leader here. I don't fault Intel because it's what they need to do at this point. If you see someone doing something successful learn from them.

Acorn had ARM CPUs in desktops back in the late 80s. "Mainstream" outside of UK and maybe a little bit of Europe here and there, no.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes

You need to remember that "mainstream" meant something completely different 30 years ago when computers were the wild west before the IBM compatible takeover.

 

[HaddockW]

The point is that lower end computer gradually replaces high end systems for many work loads and has been doing this for at least a decade. The Mac Pro as a computer type is squeezed.

How would the Studio Ultra perform on 100 GB PSD files? Is this a normal file sized or is it an edge case?

No, the Mac Pro is not something to aspire to. A computer is a tool, you buy what fits your needs.

It is more than just RAM. The x64-Rosetta translation isnt as rosy as everyone makes it out to be. There may be legacy x64 plugins or/and PCI-E cards/dongles for plugin software as well.

I know for sure my organization is having a hella of a hard time with Docker right now. Simply because it uses QEMU-64 emulation underneath. Anything more complicated than a run hello-world is problematic. To a point some Devs are asking for Intel macs or go Linux. I am sticking it out with my M1 Max but it sure isnt a honeymoon.

 

[theluggage]

Acorn had ARM CPUs in desktops back in the late 80s. "Mainstream" outside of UK and maybe a little bit of Europe here and there, no.

This isn't about ARM per se - it's about ARM Ltd's "BIG.little" technology - using a mixture of high-performance and low-power cores - which was introduced ~2013.

 

[theluggage]

I know about the tech and and yes it was on phones and tablets to include the iPhone. I'm talking about laptop and desktop computer processors.

Before Apple Silicon I don't think it was a thing.

True, it's never been a thing on x86, - but it's something developed by ARM and - until you go back to ancient history & Acorn - ARM in desktops/laptops has never been a thing.

As has already been posted - the Surface Pro X which snuck out just before the M1 used the technique - you can argue the toss as to whether it sold enough to qualify as a "thing".

...but Apple Silicon grew out of phone/tablet technology where big.little (or similar) was definitely a thing.