AnandTech Calls Apple's Fastest CPU Core Claim for M1 'Extremely Plausible'

[amaze1499]

When you compare the arm windows devices...this is true and pure innovation that will push pc and servers forward
I dont think amd will wait to long

I just made a distinction between massive improvement and innovation. SoC is not an innovation. But they took SoC to another level. M1 over other existing chips is a massive improvement indeed. How long until we see SSD storage included in that chip?

 

[citysnaps]

Isn't there a rule about first gen apple products though ? Although surely the first iPod disproved this ?

Rule? Maybe for some who feel the need to be bounded by so-called rules over analysis. Personally, I've never been disappointed with an Apple first gen product.

 

[coredev]

Rule? Maybe for some who feel the need to be bounded by so-called rules over analysis. Personally, I've never been disappointed with an Apple first gen product.

Second that. Owned the first Intel Mac that came out and also the first dual processor ppc Mac, the first generation iPad, the list goes on. Never disappointed.

 

[Pearple]

A true disaster, that Apple leaves intel without ensuring cross-platform-compatibility.

This Rosetta 2 crap is just an insult of the common user.

 

[coredev]

A true disaster, that Apple leaves intel without ensuring cross-platform-compatibility.

This Rosetta 2 crap is just an insult of the common user.

But have you tried it and where disappointed? Or are you just venting your unfounded anger?

 

[jmgregory1]

It will be really interesting to see how these new models perform, and thankfully we don’t have to wait long to find out. I was in the car yesterday listening to the announcement and when they talked about performance per watt, I thought Intel is in deep trouble. It’s clear that Apple realized this years ago, which drove them towards working on their own chips. There are going to be years of excuses from Intel fanboys why their laptops and desktops aren’t competing and as others have already noted, I too expect to hear that Intel is “working on” a far more powerful and efficient chip that will “blow away” Apple’s SOC.

 

[JimmyBanks6]

my favourite is ram complainers....who have no idea how memmory works on ARM based chips.

16gb is plenty , for even users with 32gb intel machines.

a 6gb ipad pro can edit 20gb images no problem....i wonder what the 16gb m1 can do...

another is the battery , the batter life will be very accurate. not like the variable power envelope of intel which can scale from 4 hours under load to 10-12 surfing web. the m1 cpu is no longer what consumes the most power. battery life wont change much under load.

That’s interesting, and not something I’m familiar with, could you explain why power consumption wouldn’t be a function of scaling under higher load?

 

[citysnaps]

A true disaster, that Apple leaves intel without ensuring cross-platform-compatibility.

This Rosetta 2 crap is just an insult of the common user.

Whoa! A true disaster. I'm a common user. And right now feeling truly bummed that I'm not feeling insulted.

How am I going to sleep at night with that burden?

 

[xmlninja]

Intel shares have gone down a lot since june. wonder why they are done in consumer products.

 

[smaffei]

A true disaster, that Apple leaves intel without ensuring cross-platform-compatibility.

This Rosetta 2 crap is just an insult of the common user.

Were you around for Rosetta 1 (PPC->Intel)? Or 68K->PPC for that matter? All of those transitions were smooth and painless. Very little compatibility problems. Apple has decades of experience in the processor translation arena. Your concerns are unwarranted.

 

[coredev]

my favourite is ram complainers....who have no idea how memmory works on ARM based chips.

16gb is plenty , for even users with 32gb intel machines.

a 6gb ipad pro can edit 20gb images no problem....i wonder what the 16gb m1 can do...

I am working on my MacBook Pro every day. It has 16GB of RAM, and I use most of that for the foreground apps and all the stuff that is running in the background. Features like Spotlight and TimeMachine don't come for free. I also have virtual machines running that I need for my work. I see this memory hunger only increasing in the future.
The memory usage of a work machine is not comparable to an iPad where you usually have one active app running.
On iOS, if an app is using too much main memory, the app is terminated. On macOS, the system starts swapping memory pages to disk, which slows down the whole system.

And I totally fail to see how ARM based chips would suddenly need less memory to hold the same amount of data.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

The real question is, how much do they have to throttle the Macbook Air to run it fanless?

Well, if its processor throttling is controlled by a temperature sensor, run another benchmark sitting it on top of an ice block and see what comes out.

 

[Mr. Dee]

This is why they couldn’t offer a redesign yet. They just don’t have the time and of course ‘rona. I think with M3 is when we will see the first redesign. So expect even next years iMacs to look the same. It’s also a strategy to keep you upgrading. Apple knows it can get by on performance: better battery life, speed, the large library of iOS apps.

In 2022 is when we will see redesigned Macs that are unique to the M series.

I feel kinda excited and might pick up a Mac Mini for the fun of it.

 

[EmotionalSnow]

Anandtech explains that the chip appears to have a 12MB cache?

Well done Sherlock.

All pages of the Anandtech article except the last one were written before the Apple Event

 

[macdos]

Sounds to me like a real quantum leap in technology.

Curve looks pretty linear to me…

 

[IceStormNG]

my favourite is ram complainers....who have no idea how memmory works on ARM based chips.

16gb is plenty , for even users with 32gb intel machines.

a 6gb ipad pro can edit 20gb images no problem....i wonder what the 16gb m1 can do...

another is the battery , the batter life will be very accurate. not like the variable power envelope of intel which can scale from 4 hours under load to 10-12 surfing web. the m1 cpu is no longer what consumes the most power. battery life wont change much under load.

Actually, ARM needs more ram for the same code. RISC favors doing things in software, while CISC uses complex instructions to reduce code size.
the usage of RAM for application‘s data doesn’t wont change (noticeably) because of the Switch from x86 to ARM.

you also cannot compare an ipad to a Mac. Just because they both run on ARM, it doesn’t mean they are equal.

 

[macguru212]

In the PowerPC era perhaps. I believe these new Apple chips will scream and next year M2 will probably be mind-boggling.

Indeed, this is exciting. This sets the stage for very fast machines, dare I say a return to the server market as well with highly efficient solutions. Performance, temperature and energy requirements are as attractive as it gets.

 

[EmotionalSnow]

It might be the fastest on earth but that is just one side of the coin. The other side is how the software you run can utilise this power & speed.

For years we heard that A* chips where the fastest on each iPad Pro and yet we can’t even get a decent desktop-like experience of iMovie (or any movie production software for that matter). Same with image processing software: we just had a OK version of Adobe Photoshop while the first iPad Pro was released 5 years ago.

What worries me a bit is that most of this ‘super M1 power’ will be used/wasted in Rosetta Intel-M1 translation that would, for the normal user, feel like the same as before ... until of course new M1 software is released. That could take years.

But that's not a CPU power limitation - rather a limitation of what software is available. Developer have to make use of all the power of course.

 

[IG88]

my favourite is ram complainers....who have no idea how memmory works on ARM based chips.

16gb is plenty , for even users with 32gb intel machines.

a 6gb ipad pro can edit 20gb images no problem....i wonder what the 16gb m1 can do...

another is the battery , the batter life will be very accurate. not like the variable power envelope of intel which can scale from 4 hours under load to 10-12 surfing web. the m1 cpu is no longer what consumes the most power. battery life wont change much under load.

Funny. Ram "explainers" in this forum swore up and down that Safari tab reloads (with only 2 tabs open and no other apps open) had nothing to do with RAM. Then Apple increased the RAM on the 6s, and by total magic coincidence, I stopped having tab reload problems.

 

[minimo3]

Instead of throwing around synthetic benchmarks, it would have been more convincing if they’d shown side by side comparisons of typical usage scenarios vs a reference competitor such as a M1 Air vs. Dell xps13 with a 10th gen i5 or a M1 MBPro vs. Lenovo slim 7 with Ryzen 9 doing tasks like rendering a complex web page or changing filters on a pivot table

For example, the A13 on my iOS device is supposed to run rings around intel in benchmarks yet a $300 i3 laptop at home runs browser based apps faster than the iOS device.

 

[Wando64]

Funny. Ram "explainers" in this forum swore up and down that Safari tab reloads (with only 2 tabs open and no other apps open) had nothing to do with RAM. Then Apple increased the RAM on the 6s, and by total magic coincidence, I stopped having tab reload problems.

Yeah, they also updated Safari and iOS if you haven’t noticed...

I am 100% convinced that the Safari reloads were a symptom of a system characteristic (error or design, as you prefer) that was reduced by more RAM, but not caused by lack of it.

Oh, and by the way, this complain didn’t stop with the 6s.

 

[macdos]

my favourite is ram complainers....who have no idea how memmory works on ARM based chips.

16gb is plenty , for even users with 32gb intel machines.

a 6gb ipad pro can edit 20gb images no problem....i wonder what the 16gb m1 can do...

another is the battery , the batter life will be very accurate. not like the variable power envelope of intel which can scale from 4 hours under load to 10-12 surfing web. the m1 cpu is no longer what consumes the most power. battery life wont change much under load.

RISC has a more efficient pipeline, so less memory is needed for computing. But RAM is primarily used for data.

If you put a 20 GB file through a 16 GB system, it is going to swap and if not grind to a halt at least slow down considerably.

Doing serious Photoshop and Premiere work with MM M1 is going to be a silly joke.

 

[TracerAnalog]

In case you are not aware, The Apple-design SoC became a reality during Steve Jobs tenure as leadership for Apple.​

If not, Tim Cook will still be outsourcing the SoC from SAMSUNG or LG for Apple mobile device.​

Had a bad night? You OK?

 

[iBluetooth]

*shrug*

It's faster than anything Intel (or AMD) they could have put in there with the same power restraints.

-> worth it

Wether that is still true in a few years remains to be seen, as it might end up similar to the PPC era were 5 fat years were followed with 5 years of stagnation (and Intel really getting their act together).

Intel really needs competition to reinvent them selves again. But I think the future is SoC that are focused closely on the computer it is serving.

 

[Veinticinco]

The real question is, how much do they have to throttle the Macbook Air to run it fanless?

Hopefully not as much as to be noticeable. Its Intel predecessor, the 12” MB, wasnt so much throttled by the combination of fanless design and a M3 dual core chip, as completely strangled to death before self-immolating. Until I bought that POS, I barely remembered what the spinning beach ball looked like.