Apple Silicon M1 Chip in MacBook Air Outperforms High-End 16-Inch MacBook Pro

[hot-gril]

You've got me thinking, and you are right that the fast exponential growth of RAM doesn't exist anymore, I hadn't actually noticed that. It has slowed to a more slower exponential growth. In 2012 I bought a new MBP w a baseline 4GB RAM with upgrade option of 8GB, but cheaper laptops had 2GB, so 2/4/8GB. In 2015, Apple laptop options were 4/8/16GB, and now they are 8/16/32/64. In another 5 years they could possibly be 16/32/etc, but hey, maybe the baseline will still be 8GB. And you are quite right that over the life of a laptop now, the RAM it comes with is probably sufficient, good point. I guess this is due to the growth rate of data sizes, and RAM actually finally catching up to the needs of that data. Text data is static. Images have grown, but RAM has caught up. Video is growing still, as we see HD, 4K, 8K etc, but it isn't doubling every two years. Software size is growing slowly, but RAM has caught up. Fair point.

It does however remain true that Apple charges 4x the market retail rate for RAM and SSD though, which really affects the purchase price horrendously, especially if you want a larger sized option. This is a huge reason why I have put off replacing my current 2015 MBP.

Yes, but also I will always expect software to use as much RAM as it can get away with, which will be proportional to the amount of RAM the average user has. So if within a year somehow 16GiB became the norm, I'd be worried about my 2015 MBP becoming outdated soon.

 

[deevey]

Yes, but also I will always expect software to use as much RAM as it can get away with, which will be proportional to the amount of RAM the average user has. So if within a year somehow 16GiB became the norm, I'd be worried about my 2015 MBP becoming outdated soon.

Technically it already is, but not just due to Ram

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Yes, but also I will always expect software to use as much RAM as it can get away with, which will be proportional to the amount of RAM the average user has. So if within a year somehow 16GiB became the norm, I'd be worried about my 2015 MBP becoming outdated soon.

As a software dev, I can tell you that we definitely aren't deliberately trying to use up all the RAM. It's simply that more and more features get added, and more and better and faster hardware capabilities allow better and more complex features. In the old days, it was actually about trying to keep the software small and efficient enough that it works within the RAM constraints. But now that RAM has grown enough, we rarely have to worry about those RAM constraints anymore, and just build the software to do what we want it to do. So it's possible that one year or another, the OS and software will outgrow your 8GB. But hey, then maybe you will be wishing you could upgrade your RAM to 16GB right

 

[theotherphil]

Yes it did. My mistake. I still believe there is a limit on throughput. But that’s just speculation on my part.

I’m not so sure that there is a limit on throughput, it’s just how Apple is choosing to differentiate it’s “low end” products. The models these M1 devices replaced only ever had 16GB and 2 ports. These are for your average joe who only browses the web/ does some email, sorts their photos and some light video editing. Great for students etc.

The higher end models had 4 ports and a greater range of memory, as well as faster CPU’s which I expect to continue when that specific Apple Silicon is released. These are the models video editors, developers and other “professionals” actually use.

 

[IntelligentMan]

jmgregory1​

Don't go fanboi over marketing/sponsored content.. it's just silly.
Performance per watt is not something the literal majority cares about, but the fanboi minority are always seeking a reason to convince themselves of whatever it is they need to convince themselves of to fanboi and snicker.
-> Step outside of your little bubble and gapingly gawk at the CPUs reaching 5-7 times the M1 Multi-core score.
This M1 is nice to see.. but get a grip.

 

[Taz Mangus]

jmgregory1​

Don't go fanboi over marketing/sponsored content.. it's just silly.
Performance per watt is not something the literal majority cares about, but the fanboi minority are always seeking a reason to convince themselves of whatever it is they need to convince themselves of to fanboi and snicker.
-> Step outside of your little bubble and gapingly gawk at the CPUs reaching 5-7 times the M1 Multi-core score.
This M1 is nice to see.. but get a grip.

Apple has proven their ability to produce a high performance, low power CPU in the A series. I doubt the info given by Apple about the M1 is mere marketing fluff. The early bench marks of the M1 CPU and the M1 GPU seem to agree with what Apple is saying.

 

[magbarn]

The only downside is that it seems that M1 might have limited channels for bandwidth. No M1 device has more than 16gb of RAM nor does it have more than 2 thunderbolt 4 usb-c ports. The mini also lost the gigabit Ethernet. It’s fast and efficient but there’s a reason it’s not in the pro devices. Notice the 13” MacBook Pro doesn’t have a 4 port M1 option.

The M1 chip seems to have a limitation on PCIe lanes. You would have to dedicate so many for more TB3 ports. The 10gb Ethernet also requires 4 lanes of PCIe 3.0 to allow full throughput while 1 lane is enough for gigabit ethernet.

 

[thunng8]

Doing what exactly? Maybe so, probably. iOS is optimized differently than macOS and those chips are similar, however, the MacBook Air has a higher wattage for performance.

I doubt it has a higher wattage. The exact same chip or very similar will appear in the next iPad Pro update early next year.

 

[scottjl]

jmgregory1​

Don't go fanboi over marketing/sponsored content.. it's just silly.
Performance per watt is not something the literal majority cares about, but the fanboi minority are always seeking a reason to convince themselves of whatever it is they need to convince themselves of to fanboi and snicker.
-> Step outside of your little bubble and gapingly gawk at the CPUs reaching 5-7 times the M1 Multi-core score.
This M1 is nice to see.. but get a grip.

Really? Because performance per watt translates into how long your battery is going to last while you get your work done, and I have a feeling most people care about that. Those high performance chips you're going fanboi over, they come with a high watt usage, which means far less run time on batteries.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Yes, but also I will always expect software to use as much RAM as it can get away with, which will be proportional to the amount of RAM the average user has. So if within a year somehow 16GiB became the norm, I'd be worried about my 2015 MBP becoming outdated soon.

Read this - https://larryjordan.com/blog/perfection-is-the-enemy-of-the-good/ - also this - https://larryjordan.com/articles/configure-a-2020-27-imac-for-video-editing-should-you-buy/

It’s written from an editors perspective, but the rules still apply.

 

[Brien]

Dear God. An M1X/Z/dual M1’s in the 16” (plus, hopefully, a dGPU) is going to destroy the competition.

 

[Brien]

Wow, just imagine what the higher end products are going to deliver. As others are saying, Intel and AMD are going to be scrambling to find a way to get just close to this kind of performance per watt - in the next 12-18 months, which by that time Apple will be at the next level again. I wonder if the PC crowd really understands what Apple has been able to deliver, or if they’ll just be in denial?

In 18 months, Apple/TSMC will be at 3nm (they’re already at 5!), AMD will be at 7nm and Intel will still likely be at 14nm.

Plus, Nvidia buting ARM means they will likely be producing some chips too.

Intel is done.

 

[hot-gril]

As a software dev, I can tell you that we definitely aren't deliberately trying to use up all the RAM. It's simply that more and more features get added, and more and better and faster hardware capabilities allow better and more complex features. In the old days, it was actually about trying to keep the software small and efficient enough that it works within the RAM constraints. But now that RAM has grown enough, we rarely have to worry about those RAM constraints anymore, and just build the software to do what we want it to do. So it's possible that one year or another, the OS and software will outgrow your 8GB. But hey, then maybe you will be wishing you could upgrade your RAM to 16GB right

I'm a dev too. Yep, it's not deliberate, but choices are made that don't always favor efficiency. The last thing I wrote used Electrum and React. Boy is that inefficient, but it's also easy to develop wtih.

 

[hot-gril]

Technically it already is, but not just due to Ram

Eh, it's been serving my needs well regardless of what Apple says. I have a high-end 2016 one for my main job, and I don't like it. Keyboard sucks, USB-C requires dongles, and it's faster but idc.

 

[carltabet]

Time to retire my 13-inch MacBook Pro from Early 2015 and get one of these.

 

[kupan787]

The M1 chip seems to have a limitation on PCIe lanes. You would have to dedicate so many for more TB3 ports. The 10gb Ethernet also requires 4 lanes of PCIe 3.0 to allow full throughput while 1 lane is enough for gigabit ethernet.

While I won't argue on PCIe lane limits, I think you are off a bit on the lanes required for 10gb ethernet.

PCIe 3.0 at x1 is 1 GBps (and it's full duplex)

10 Gbps ethernet is 1.250 GB/s (also full duplex)

So you'd only need 2 lanes for a 10 Gbps ethernet connection. A x1 connection could easily support 4x1 Gbps ethernet ports.

 

[heretiq]

#AppleSilicon #M1 performance is legendary! In a league of 1.

 

[iJustines]

Apple new accessory for the Macbook Air.

 

[Koyuki]

What intel is doing right now is similar to what Apple did in the last of PowerPC era.

 

[JohnnyGo]

Performance per watt is not something the literal majority cares about, but the fanboi minority are always seeking a reason to convince themselves of whatever it is they need to convince themselves of to fanboi and snicker.

Performance per watt impacts many problem areas:
- battery life !!!
- sustained workloads being throttled back
- MacBook getting extremely hot over time

So NO! I think the average user does care about performance per watt. Maybe not in the technical sense (and how the industry measures any chip against each other for the last 10+ years) but certainly its practical impact on daily laptop use.

Why would laptop owners NOT care about battery life ???

 

[scanarch]

It’s not a chip issue. It’s an OS issue.

Thanks. This is actually quite promising - I have thought that this was a chip limitation.

 

[tadzooks]

Has anyone thought about why the MBP 8GB version is beating the 16GB version in the benchmark scores? I’m curious what you all think as to why this could be.

 

[CooperAngeleno]

I'm impressed and confused. On Geekbench 5 the difference between all 3 models seems nominal. I assume with fans the Mini and Pro may sustain the speeds longer but wow. An Air outperforming a desktop Pro is incredible. I joked that Windows 10 will likely run better on the new Macs in emulation than on your average windows box, and I might be right. Apparently Parallels is working on just that right now. (Not sure if they're getting the ARM version of Windows 10 or completely emulating Intel Windows 10.)

 

[cmaier]

What intel is doing right now is similar to what Apple did in the last of PowerPC era.

Except apple didn’t design or make processors in the PowerPC era.

 

[cmaier]

Thanks. This is actually quite promising - I have thought that this was a chip limitation.

It’s mostly an issue of drivers. The low level code you’d need to support eGPUs is not the sort of code you’d want to be running through a translation layer.

I predict that at some point in the future eGPUs will be supported, but certainly not before the high end (and 16”) MBPs are released, and even then, only for a small number of external graphics cards. It may take quite awhile, though - eGPUs are not that popular, and Apple still sells intel machines for those who really need eGPUs, and the engineers have their hands busy.