Apple Silicon M1 Emulating x86 is Still Faster Than Every Other Mac in Single Core Benchmark

[Alan Wynn]

Not sure why there are customers that defend this practice?

This is all about tradeoffs. There are benefits to soldered in RAM that may or may not matter to you. Have you never had to reseat RAM after you moved a machine around? It also allows better tuning/binning of parts (making sure that timing matches). I remember a talk at WWDC about this years ago (back when the whole conference was technically covered by an NDA). I do not know if any of it ever made it online.

I have no numbers so I cannot speak to the value of the tradeoffs. I know that I had to replace the 3rd party RAM on a few of my older minis, but none of my minis with non-replaceable RAM have failed. Again, anecdotal evidence (so I would not even depend on it myself), but I do remember someone saying that one of the most common laptop problems was RAM sockets failing.

I do not claim to know all the reasons for every decision Apple makes, but I also do not accept the view that every decision is just to maximize profit. To me, this is the same as many other decisions about which people on here complain. I look at the total package and consider based on it.

Just as some people wish iOS/iPadOS/tvOS/watchOS were completely open, and that all Apple hardware had user replaceable/upgradable storage, RAM and CPUs, I am comfortable with the tradeoffs in functionality, pricing, reliability, and stability that Apple has made.

All things being equal, I would rather have these machines cost less and let me add/replace/upgrade everything. However, I also realize that all things are not equal and that forcing those decisions would create changes I might or might not like. Since I cannot know, I make my decisions on what exists. I am comfortable with the choices Apple has given me.

You clearly are not, and have every right to leave the ecosystem. I just wish that those who share your view would acknowledge that there might be other reasons for the choice that were made other than "greed".

 

[pshufd]

I'm using my computers for work. Time is money. When the SSD in my PC breaks, I order a new SSD online and it will be delivered within 3 hours at my door, mostly the time it takes to relax, grab some popcorn and watch a movie on Netflix. I replace it, restore a backup and be good to go within 4 hours max.

If this happens with an iMac, I need to take the huge iMac to my car, drive 10km through the traffic into town to the next Apple store, can't find a parking spot anywhere near, take the heavy iMac 500m to the store while it's raining, go to the Genius Bar, wait until they figured out that indeed the SSD is broken, be told that it will take 3 weeks to repair, go back to my car to find a parking ticket, binge watch Netflix series for 3 weeks while I don't earn money and lose customers, return again to the Genius Bar, get my iMac back, pay 3 times what I paid for my PC repair and got another parking ticket before I spend another hour in traffic jams till I'm back home again and swear to never buy an iMac ever again.

I'd have a backup iMac.

 

[Gru]

I'd have a backup iMac.

Great idea. I mean not exactly for my wallet and neither for the environment, but for Apple. I actually do, problem is, it's an older iMac with a 512GB SSD and I can't restore the 1TB backup from the other iMac on this one just because the SSD is too small. If there only would be an easy way to just extend the SSD on the old iMac, right?

 

[pshufd]

Great idea. I mean not exactly for my wallet and neither for the environment, but for Apple. I actually do, problem is, it's an older iMac with a 512GB SSD and I can't restore the 1TB backup from the other iMac on this one just because the SSD is too small. If there only would be an easy way to just extend the SSD on the old iMac, right?

I bought a 2014 MacBook Pro new and bought a used 2015 a few years later as a backup. The 2015 eventually became the primary with the 2014 as the backup. I am considering getting the MBP/AS and selling or giving away the 2014. Always, always, always have to have a backup.

 

[tbirdparis]

The 1% bootcamp figures was from Apple in one of their WWDC or State of the Union videos this year.

Yep. I think people are forgetting that the whole hybrid Mac/PC Bootcamp thing was never a fundamental part of the Intel transition game plan anyway. More like Apple saw an obvious advantage that came along with switching to x86, and chose to exploit it officially as a bonus feature instead of just ignoring it. Why not tempt some potential customers who would normally never even look at a Mac if the capability for booting natively into Windows was literally already built in?

End of the day, it was just a capability that was available for a time due to a (temporary) convergence of architectures. Just like Hackintoshes also have been an (unofficial) thing all this time too. If being able to sell natively dual-boot capable machines was a key strategy for the Mac, they'd have never even considered moving away from Intel. But clearly: no, it wasn't.

 

[Molla]

This is crazy, if true! I mean i'd love to see how it handles Logic Pro X!? I'm leaning towards the Mac Mini, 16gb 1TB, or MacBook Pro, but I have a feeling that in 2021 these may look slow when they release an iMac with M-chip or a MacBook Pro 16" with M-chip....
Decisions, decisions...

 

[pshufd]

Yep. I think people are forgetting that the whole hybrid Mac/PC Bootcamp thing was never a fundamental part of the Intel transition game plan anyway. More like Apple saw an obvious advantage that came along with switching to x86, and chose to exploit it officially as a bonus feature instead of just ignoring it. Why not tempt some potential customers who would normally never even look at a Mac if the capability for booting natively into Windows was literally already built in?

End of the day, it was just a capability that was available for a time due to a (temporary) convergence of architectures. Just like Hackintoshes also have been an (unofficial) thing all this time too. If being able to sell natively dual-boot capable machines was a key strategy for the Mac, they'd have never even considered moving away from Intel. But clearly: no, it wasn't.

It was attractive to us to have Bootcamp and my son does use his MBP for gaming on Bootcamp.

Of course Bootcamp drivers are pretty poor. It works, yes, but it's more likely a selling point than something that people use.

I personally find that Parallels is far better if you need to run Windows on your Mac.

 

[Alan Wynn]

You say "repairability" but you really mean "can stick more ram in it and a faster hard drive later on to save me money"

That is what most people mean when they say that.

I don't understand the obsession with being able to upgrade computers.

Storage is the one case where being able to upgrade makes some sense (in general I agree with you). The issue with storage is that, for those in the content creation business storage, needs increase over time and it is not ideal to have to pay today's prices for one's storage needs in 18 months, 2 and 3 years.

There's literally no other piece of electrical equipment I own that I can upgrade ......snip.... my fridge, my freezer ....

Really? I just doubled the cooling capacity of my refrigerator. Now I can cool a Coke from room temperature in 2.5 minutes....

 

[Alan Wynn]

I'm using my computers for work. Time is money. When the SSD in my PC breaks, I order a new SSD online and it will be delivered within 3 hours at my door, mostly the time it takes to relax, grab some popcorn and watch a movie on Netflix. I replace it, restore a backup and be good to go within 4 hours max.

How often has this happened to you? You use your machines for work and you also do your own support? What do you do?

If this happens with an iMac, I need to take the huge iMac to my car, drive 10km through the traffic into town to the next Apple store, can't find a parking spot anywhere near, take the heavy iMac 500m to the store while it's raining, go to the Genius Bar, wait until they figured out that indeed the SSD is broken, be told that it will take 3 weeks to repair, go back to my car to find a parking ticket, binge watch Netflix series for 3 weeks while I don't earn money and lose customers, return again to the Genius Bar, get my iMac back, pay 3 times what I paid for my PC repair and got another parking ticket before I spend another hour in traffic jams till I'm back home again and swear to never buy an iMac ever again.

Again, how often has this happened to you? Did you not have AppleCare which offers onsite services for desktop systems? Maybe you should consider having a support contract for a machine that is a critical component of your work.

 

[Gru]

How often has this happened to you? You use your machines for work and you also do your own support? What do you do?

Again, how often has this happened to you? Did you not have AppleCare which offers onsite services for desktop systems? Maybe you should consider having a support contract for a machine that is a critical component of your work.

I just want to be able to replace an SSD (or a noisy fan or a PSU) in my computer. That's not exactly rocket science (outside of the Apple world).

What I learned so far, I should buy a second iMac as backup and pay for an AppleCare contract with onsite service (which may or may not even be available where I live).

 

[Alan Wynn]

I just want to be able to replace an SSD (or a noisy fan or a PSU) in my computer. That's not exactly rocket science (outside of the Apple world).

You described a situation as if it happens frequently. I asked a simple question to understand how often these things have happened to you. Either these are frequent or they are not. I have many Macs and work with organizations with many more, and SSD failures are pretty rare in my experience.

What I learned so far, I should buy a second iMac as backup and pay for an AppleCare contract with onsite service (which may or may not even be available where I live).

Again, you described this situation as if it has happened. If it has, it would be interesting to know the information requested. In addition, I would be curious if this has happened how old was the Mac where your SSD failed?

You made several claims about how these things would affect you. For anyone else to reasonably evaluate your statements, they need some of the other information requested (again what do you do, where are you located, how often have you had these failures, how old are the machines).

 

[Unregistered 4U]

More like Apple saw an obvious advantage that came along with switching to x86, and chose to exploit it officially as a bonus feature instead of just ignoring it.

AND, it wasn’t like the community was already onboard with making it happen. I would imagine lots of folks were happy, but a few that wanted the accolades of making Windows work on Mac Intel were crestfallen.

 

[robinp]

Most of you all seem to be unable to do basic research(no offence). Windows virtualisation WILL work a super Apple's own words!

The big problem here is one of comprehension on your part (no offence).

 

[Darth Tulhu]

You say "repairability" but you really mean "can stick more ram in it and a faster hard drive later on to save me money"

I don't understand the obsession with being able to upgrade computers. There's literally no other piece of electrical equipment I own that I can upgrade, many of my single objective pro devices that cost far more than my Apple devices which do 1000 things can't be upgraded. Neither can my £4000 OLED TV, or the PS5, Xbox, Audio Interface, Hi-fi components, £1000 Sennheiser Headphones, my fridge, my freezer, my cooker, my heat pump, I could go on and on. In all those things I have to buy the spec I want at the time of purchase and stick with it. Just because computers could be fiddled with the 80's doesn't mean it's something that should stay forever.

Repairability and upgradeability are two different things, but they often go hand-in-hand.

You post a bunch of bad examples in some sort of strawman attempt (aside from the PS5 and XBOX, which ARE upgradeable), but I understand that you are well within your rights to not want to upgrade your devices (that are reasonable to be upgraded) even if EVERY SINGLE ITEM you mention IS repairable. You probably take your car to the dealership for oil changes and scheduled maintenances too. And there's nothing wrong with that.

A computer is a tool, and it is a collection of components, just like a car, a tv, a fridge, etc. It always has been.

Just because Apple decided, for their monetary benefit, to turn their devices into end-user un-upgradeable and unrepairable appliances (you CAN upgrade them at the time of purchase and you CAN bring them to the Apple store for repair), doesn't mean there is no merit in us being able to do so.

I was able to replace the drain pump in my dishwasher, replace the ice-maker control boards in my refrigerator, swap the fuel pump and the front bumper in my car (after a boneheaded accident), replace a tuner board from my flat-screen tv, and replace the door switches to my microwave (which were preventing it from operating) as a far less significant cost of replacing each entire thing (YouTube is a wonderful tool). Replacing storage in a PS3, 4, or 5 as your gaming library grows is a COMMON thing.

I'm sure this is better for the environment too, a goal Apple often (and hypocritically) claims to espouse in their marketing materials.

The benefit of having the ability to add storage or RAM to a computing device in order to enhance it's performance, a device whose primary function is to process, consume, and store our most personal, sensitive, and treasured (i.e. non-deletable) data: intellectual property, legal documents, and memories, speaks for itself.

The truth is, it will ALWAYS stay forever. It just may not be you doing the upgrading. And to be fair, that's a choice we all have to make at the point of purchase.

 

[Darth Tulhu]

I'm using my computers for work. Time is money. When the SSD in my PC breaks, I order a new SSD online and it will be delivered within 3 hours at my door, mostly the time it takes to relax, grab some popcorn and watch a movie on Netflix. I replace it, restore a backup and be good to go within 4 hours max.

If this happens with an iMac, I need to take the huge iMac to my car, drive 10km through the traffic into town to the next Apple store, can't find a parking spot anywhere near, take the heavy iMac 500m to the store while it's raining, go to the Genius Bar, wait until they figured out that indeed the SSD is broken, be told that it will take 3 weeks to repair, go back to my car to find a parking ticket, binge watch Netflix series for 3 weeks while I don't earn money and lose customers, return again to the Genius Bar, get my iMac back, pay 3 times what I paid for my PC repair and got another parking ticket before I spend another hour in traffic jams till I'm back home again and swear to never buy an iMac ever again.

LOL I swear, I've been in your exact iMac scenario too many times to count.

Which is why my iMac 27" is a mid 2011 model.

However, I'm still on that iMac because despite having to take it in for repair at least 5 times (not exaggerating), I was able to upgrade it with a 2TB SSD (with an aftermarket OWC kit), and add a ton of RAM over the years. The screen is still spectacular, and it does everything I need to, even if it's on High Sierra still.

But I'm with you, it will be my LAST iMac.

Thankfully, tech has moved forward enough that now an iPad (or an MBA) will suffice for me. So I was able to wait it out with my 9 year old machine.

 

[Lammers]

The 1% bootcamp figures was from Apple in one of their WWDC or State of the Union videos this year.

Do you have a reference or link to that?

 

[MacBH928]

I told you those numbers announced in the event are crazy to believe, but everyone else shrugged it off thinking Apple is twisting words and doubted them. I haven't seen this much advancement since like mid-90s

How the heck is Apple so far ahead in performance? It's incredible how much of a lead they have it's like alien technology.

Its more of a head scratcher since AMD and Intel are dedicated business to create CPUs meanwhile this is a side thing for Apple. I think this is the first CPU designed by Apple to go into a computer. What does Apple know that others don't?
Plus we are still talking about the lower end, the beefy stuff has still not been released!

 

[jerryk]

How the heck is Apple so far ahead in performance? It's incredible how much of a lead they have it's like alien technology.

You have it backward. The question should be why is x86 so far behind? Or why is Intel is 4 years behind meeting the performance they promised 6 years ago?

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I'm sure this is better for the environment too, a goal Apple often (and hypocritically) claims to espouse in their marketing materials.

Not necessarily. When parts are replaced aftermarket, the HOPE is that everyone’s not throwing the old DIMM’s in the trash, but that’s wholly up to the consumer. If the replacement parts ARE thrown in the trash, then that device is adding to the landfill even while it’s still in use. This means means the total environmental impact when that system is then thrown into the trash is greater than for a device that had no replaceable parts.

Of course, if the person in question is a recycler, then the system AND all it’s parts are getting responsibly handled. It must be said, though that the materials to make any replacement parts still means more total raw materials used to support that system.

 

[hot-gril]

Some here are focusing on processor technology and dont realize what they are claiming would require magic. At a high level many programs do an action wait on an answer and do another action based on the answer. This coding style is very common and cannot be parallelized because a procesor cannot guess the future and it has nothing g whatsoever to do with processor optimization. The processor could be instantaneously fast it would make no practical difference if the bottleneck is elsewhere.

i will grant them a benchmark for a processor is unlikely to be dependent on disk seek or have a wait on a network service, but they opened up the discussion rather wide

Yeah, all code is actually written very inefficiently in that respect, and that permeates to the hardware design. I've been trying to better formalize causes and effects in programming to help with larger scale issues like database consistency, and maybe that would help at this small scale too.

Basically no success. The only thing I've got is that if you built a DAG of table relationships in a DB, you could split that into one separate DB per connected component. I'm sure that's been considered already. The microservice architecture already does that, and idk if people even realize.

 

[Darth Tulhu]

This is all about tradeoffs. There are benefits to soldered in RAM that may or may not matter to you. Have you never had to reseat RAM after you moved a machine around? It also allows better tuning/binning of parts (making sure that timing matches). I remember a talk at WWDC about this years ago (back when the whole conference was technically covered by an NDA). I do not know if any of it ever made it online.

I have no numbers so I cannot speak to the value of the tradeoffs. I know that I had to replace the 3rd party RAM on a few of my older minis, but none of my minis with non-replaceable RAM have failed. Again, anecdotal evidence (so I would not even depend on it myself), but I do remember someone saying that one of the most common laptop problems was RAM sockets failing.

I do not claim to know all the reasons for every decision Apple makes, but I also do not accept the view that every decision is just to maximize profit. To me, this is the same as many other decisions about which people on here complain. I look at the total package and consider based on it.

Just as some people wish iOS/iPadOS/tvOS/watchOS were completely open, and that all Apple hardware had user replaceable/upgradable storage, RAM and CPUs, I am comfortable with the tradeoffs in functionality, pricing, reliability, and stability that Apple has made.

All things being equal, I would rather have these machines cost less and let me add/replace/upgrade everything. However, I also realize that all things are not equal and that forcing those decisions would create changes I might or might not like. Since I cannot know, I make my decisions on what exists. I am comfortable with the choices Apple has given me.

You clearly are not, and have every right to leave the ecosystem. I just wish that those who share your view would acknowledge that there might be other reasons for the choice that were made other than "greed".

Whether or not the decision is made because of "greed" (I don't think of it that derisively, I prefer "capitalism") cannot be dismissed outright.

But one can make assumptions based on a comparison between the outgoing and incoming product. And even then you often end up with a glass half full, glass half empty scenario. Both are true.

In my glass half empty scenario, the move to non-reparability/upgradeability appears greedy:

Apple both saves AND makes money, and I'm forced to pay whatever THEY decide if I want to retain the SAME functionality of an outgoing model.

Going USB-C-only yields obvious benefits for Apple (simplified manufacturing, etc), but even more obvious drawbacks which competitors capitalize on by offering an assortment of ports. Or upgradeable M2 drives or RAM.

There is NO BENEFIT in me not being able to upgrade or replace (in the event of failure) these myself.

Does the simplified manufacturing yield a more reliable product? I mean, people had to deal with the GARBAGE butterfly keyboard for 4 very long years (and it wasn't the ONLY garbage we had to deal with during that time).

All that said, I'm with you in the sense that in the end, you're either comfortable or not with the decisions Apple makes.

As for me, I begrudgingly go along with them because going Windows is just WORSE than the BS Apple has been doing, and now I've gotten to the point where I don't WANT to fix anything. But in the back of my mind I still don't like that I can't.

 

[Gru]

You described a situation as if it happens frequently. I asked a simple question to understand how often these things have happened to you. Either these are frequent or they are not. I have many Macs and work with organizations with many more, and SSD failures are pretty rare in my experience.

That's very strange. In my experience every SSD and HDD I ever owned failed. Which are probably somewhere around 50-100 over the past decades. And every single one of them broke. Mostly after 4-8 years of usage.

It was never a problem however because I always replace them after 3-4 years. (Mostly upgrading them at the same time, because why not)

Again, you described this situation as if it has happened. If it has, it would be interesting to know the information requested. In addition, I would be curious if this has happened how old was the Mac where your SSD failed?

May I ask you a question as well - do you make backups of your data? Because I'm making backups every single day for decades already and I never needed one. Ever. Except for the scheduled installation of new SSD/HDD or new computers.

Do you think we even need to make backups? In my experience it's very rare that a disaster strikes.

You made several claims about how these things would affect you. For anyone else to reasonably evaluate your statements, they need some of the other information requested (again what do you do, where are you located, how often have you had these failures, how old are the machines).

Maybe we can turn this around and Apple should be specific how long Macs may be used? Printing something like "Good till 02/04/2025. Do not use after 02/04/2025!" on the cover?

My oldest machine is btw. 14 years old. It runs as a firewall behind the router. However, I did replace the fans and I did replace the PSU (which is in my experience the first part to break in any desktop) and the HDD of course.

My oldest Mac is 10 years old. Still running fine as well. I replaced HDDs twice und it runs now with an SSD and serves for testing purposes.

Let me ask you another question, do you have any problem with old computers? Do you think they are supposed to break and everyone should be forced to buy a new one and throw away the old one immediately?

 

[Alan Wynn]

Just because Apple decided, for their monetary benefit, to turn their devices into end-user un-upgradeable and unrepairable appliances (you CAN upgrade them at the time of purchase and you CAN bring them to the Apple store for repair), doesn't mean there is no merit in us being able to do so.

This is your speculation. I have heard many other reasons why they have chosen to use soldered in RAM, etc., you claim none of those reasons are true/valid. Please provide some evidence that supports your position.

replace a tuner board from my flat-screen tv,

Curious about this. How much was the tuner board? How long did it take you to replace it? What size was the screen? How old was the set?

I'm sure this is better for the environment too, a goal Apple often (and hypocritically) claims to espouse in their marketing materials.

In some cases that will certainly be true. If adding connectors and discrete components makes a device more repairable at the expense of reliability, size or other things, it might be worse for the environment.

The benefit of having the ability to add storage or RAM to a computing device in order to enhance it's performance, a device whose primary function is to process, consume, and store our most personal, sensitive, and treasured (i.e. non-deletable) data: intellectual property, legal documents, and memories, speaks for itself.

Yes, there are clear benefits to being able to add RAM or mass storage, but you do not seem to accept that they are downsides also in terms of size or reliability.

 

[Darth Tulhu]

Not necessarily. When parts are replaced aftermarket, the HOPE is that everyone’s not throwing the old DIMM’s in the trash, but that’s wholly up to the consumer. If the replacement parts ARE thrown in the trash, then that device is adding to the landfill even while it’s still in use. This means means the total environmental impact when that system is then thrown into the trash is greater than for a device that had no replaceable parts.

Of course, if the person in question is a recycler, then the system AND all it’s parts are getting responsibly handled. It must be said, though that the materials to make any replacement parts still means more total raw materials used to support that system.

If I replace a circuit board in my tv, and throw away the old one, it's NOWHERE NEAR the same as throwing away the TV and buying a new one.

We HOPE that people recycle their TVs, but, well, you know...

RAM and SSDs (and chargers, for that matter) are highly REUSABLE and RESELLABLE because I venture to say people would upgrade these more than they had to "repair" or replace them due to failure.

I do not agree with your logic.

 

[hot-gril]

That's very strange. In my experience every SSD and HDD I ever owned failed. Which are probably somewhere around 50-100 over the past decades. And every single one of them broke. Mostly after 4-8 years of usage.

I own a vintage Macintosh collection (not just the iMacs in my sig) and used to run active servers at home pounding SSDs with database writes. IDK what you do to your hard drives if they're breaking so consistently after 4-8 years.
UNLESS they're Seagate, then that explains it