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If you need old hardware to work (basic driver) not driver + software, then Linux has more chances to keep those hardware working for a loooooong time.

Linux is good for servers because they are usually running either a database or a web server, so for those uses, then linux is fine plus you don't have to pay per core or per user license that Microsoft/IBM/Oracle charges exorbitant prices.

But for Workstation, for real work that needs top software like adobe, office, cubase, logic, pro tools, autocad, in that case, MacOS smokes Linux, so if you want a Unix OS, definitively go MacOS if you need a good workstation, for servers, Linux is pretty good.
Oh gosh, don't even get me started on Oracle. I'm so glad that the company I work for is smart enough not to get locked into their licensing hell.

Linux is great. I actually use it as a desktop OS as well on my Thinkpad. Software compatibility still isn't very good for professional apps, but for everyday stuff, it's come a LONG way. Linux is more usable on the desktop now than it's ever been before.
 
Currently the mac equivalent to an core i9 13 gen is the Mac Pro which costs $7000, so unless you run a mac 27/7 for something like 50 years, the intel will be way cheaper.

No doubt, but "did you realize there are cheaper alternatives to Macs?" was an interesting conversation in 1993…

Yes, you can get higher-end Intel chips. But as far as performance per Watt goes, Apple has been leading.

This year Apple will launch the M3 Extreme.

That strikes me as unlikely.

I imagine we'll see the M3 (without suffix) in fall. Then the M3 Pro and Max in spring of 2024. Then maybe the Ultra and Extreme (if it exists) will launch in tandem, in summer or fall of 2024.

In your scenario, either they'd launch the M3 Extreme before the M3 Ultra (which would be an unprecedented move — they always starts with the lowest-end M chip), or they'd launch both at the same time this year, which would mean the M2 Ultra is less than 6 months old at that point. Which raises the question: why? At that point, why launch the M2 Ultra at all?

 
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If apple is thinking that they can improve sales by increasing CPU/GPU performance then they are wrong.
99% of the people don't need any more CPU/GPU power than what M1 MacBook Air offers.
Of course CPU/GPU performance gains is going to sell the machines. Do you think everyone only uses the web browser for work? A lot of us are software developers, data scientists, graphic artist, video producers, etc. We benefit from every bit of power we can get. We’re the ones who buy these pro chips.
 
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Meanwhile Geekbench's Mac page doesn't even have the M2 Studio on it.
I also wish that they included Mac results in the processor benchmark page rather than exclusively listing them on their own separate page. I sometimes am curious how they stack up against the PC competition, but you can't see them together in one place on the website.
 
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So gamers aren't choosing platforms based on performance and instead choosing based on which games are THE MOST COMPATIBLE with what they want to play. You just completely proved my argument to be right. Thank you.
nope, your take is completely off, i strongly recommend you to go back to these gaming forums you are on and touch base with that community.

you are considering exclusives into your equation, there will always be some franchises that is a exclusive such as final fantasy and metal gear solid, however majority of the AAA games are cross platformed, you want to cherry pick certain games thats only available on one platform to serve your narrative thats on you.
Random guess is random. Gaming PC laptops have poor battery life, weighs like a ton of bricks, and throttles graphics performance due to overheating. Performance per watt and form factor could absolutely matter. Not to mention Macs lasts longer than PCs which, like how customers see iPhone SE lasting many years longer than Androids, could be a factor in terms of X costs over Y years. Your argument is baseless, sorry.
lol now i'm absolutely convinced you are so out of touch with reality, gaming on apple silicon also has crap battery life, on the mba it throttles like crazy, WoW last just under 3 hours, Raise of TB you be lucky to get 2 hours, sure you can dumb down the graphic to lowest setting with 800p resolution with 30fps cap to eek out the battery but that is some stranded on survivor island type of mentality 🤣



And you're banking on this assertion on your earlier guess which is completely baseless. That's amazing.

Considering you've proved my argument to be right, it would be prudent to conclude this discussion here. Have a good one.
your entire argument is baseless so its ironic how you are calling me baseless 😂, you are doing some next level mental gymnastic to get to your conclusion.

you want to take my argument out of context to serve your narrative that bad go for it lol, i stand by what i said, people choose to play their cross platformed titles on pc instead of mac or consoles, to have the best experience, that is why people play pc games, to have the best experience. even if apple has the same game catalog as pc, the best gaming experience will still be on a pc because mac gaming is very much like console gaming, you cannot upgrade your hardware and you sure as hell can't achieve the same graphic/performance figure offered on a pc. have a good one.
 
I wish they would make a high end desktop chip. The Ultra is amazing for what it is, but can't compete with NVIDIA high-end and workstation GPUs.
Agreed. They need to move to top down. M1 is already faster than most standard users need anyway. But we still don’t have a replacement for the Mac Pro tier. Yet they just focus on the Air it seems.
 
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It's been at least 2 decades, that ever-faster computers have NOT promoted any new, and fascinating software abilities - but the opposite. They enabled stupid corporates (including Apple!) to employ ever decreasing quality software, with unjustifiable requirements for memory and other resources. Software that bloats with every version coming out, yet REMOVES existing functionality, and won't even work with documents of older versions.

If you want a proof - take a 2500 page word document, and open it on an older Mac using MS Word 4.0 (yes, the one from 1995). It will open reasonably fast on a 120MHz (not even 1GHz) Mac equipped with the first PowerPC processor (PPC601) and you can scroll throughout the document in 2-3 minutes - where the software actually "slows you down" intentionally to allow your eye to see something, and reduce tearing effects.

Now open the same document on the latest M2-Max Mac with several GB of ram - such a Mac that hosts the whole document in memory and all... use lates MS-Word - and.... Wait. and wait and wait - and in 2 thirds of the cases - it will fail to open the document and crash, and even if it succeeds - scrolling down continuously, you're most likely to end up crashing, than reaching the end of the document - and in any way it'll take 10 times more than on the old Mac and MS-Word version.

When "mobile computing" started, engineers studying software development were instructed to "expect nothing!" design your software for 0 memory and 0 cpu cycles. Make sure you have smallest possible "footprint" on the storage - to save download times and network bandwidth.

Now... "Facebook" for iOS weight more than HALF A GIGABYTES, for heavens sake. and I don't want to say anything about its performance and memory+CPU requirements.

So... don't get any happier because of the new M3. It won't serve you, the user. it will ONLY serve the ever bloating software of the ever bloating corporates.

I know no one cares to raise that glove and "think different", but I have faith in man-kind, and someone will finally find what to do on those monstrous computing devices.

When that one comes - please call me (old time software engineer). I'll leave whatever position I have - and will join. I'd like to earn back the honor software developers had long time ago.
 
Cannot wait! Apple make the best laptops and I've been buying / fixing laptops since the 80s. Tech excites me less often these days but an M3 Macbook ... hmmm
 
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We do? As daily devices?
yep, we do. With Linux they are thriving. Entire internet cafes in south America utelizing these devices. In 2nd and third world countries they are viable. Furthermore we have original apple MacBook pros with dual cores still around kicking perfectly fine. Completley viable.
Are the 10 year old MacBook pros not still havily used and sold online in masse with replaceable ram and storage? We do. And they are abundant.
 
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I also wish that they included Mac results in the processor benchmark page rather than exclusively listing them on their own separate page. I sometimes am curious how they stack up against the PC competition, but you can't see them together in one place on the website.

Maybe apple paid them to do that ;)

You can just open up two pages and look at them side by side
 
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I imagine we'll see the M3 (without suffix) in fall. Then the M3 Pro and Max in spring of 2024. Then maybe the Ultra and Extreme (if it exists) will launch in tandem, in summer or fall of 2024.
Apple released the M2-based MBP and Mac mini late January of this year. I can definitely see them doing the same with the M3-based versions. So, for example you have the following release cycle (for the short-term future);

Fall 2023 - M3 iMac / MBA (13" & 15") / 13" MBP

Late Jan 2024 - M3 Pro / Max MBP / M3 Mac mini / M3 Pro Mac mini

Spring 2024 - M3 iPad Pros
 
Apple released the M2-based MBP and Mac mini late January of this year.

Yeah, there were 15 months between the M1 Pro/Max and the M2 Pro/Max. That's why I'm guessing ~April 2024.

Of course, it's hard to extrapolate based on just one release. For example, there were 20 months between the M1 and M2. Is that Apple's expected schedule? I imagine it's intended to be a bit shorter.

I can definitely see them doing the same with the M3-based versions. So, for example you have the following release cycle (for the short-term future);

Fall 2023 - M3 iMac / MBA (13" & 15") / 13" MBP



Late Jan 2024 - M3 Pro / Max MBP / M3 Mac mini / M3 Pro Mac mini

Spring 2024 - M3 iPad Pros

I don't think we'll see another 14/16 MBP just 12 months after the M2 ones. Could be, but I don't see the urgency.
 
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Agreed. They need to move to top down. M1 is already faster than most standard users need anyway. But we still don’t have a replacement for the Mac Pro tier. Yet they just focus on the Air it seems.
No, they focus where the overwhelming market buys, which is consumer-pro level and cover that incredibly well with the M1-M2 Ultra product lines. I imagine the subset of users and use case scenarios that warrant the 2019 Mac Pro are incredibly small. Apple may or may not develop a full 2019 MacPro replacement in the near future but their product lineup is comprehensive and is definitely satisfying the overwhelming majority market/profit needs.
 
The rumored Max specs are…interesting.

50% more Performance cores and only 5% more GPU cores seems like an odd choice, especially looking at Apple’s prior emphasis on GPU and Neural Engine performance with CPU performance being a tertiary concern. If this is true, I’m curious why they’re inverting their prioritization.

Current guesses:
1. Apple has identified some embarrassingly parallel pro-workflows where they want to take the lead
2. New\Improved GPU capabilities enable them to get more performance out of each core, reducing the need for additional cores
3. This is not the high end variant (unlikely though, since Apple tends to focus testing on their most complicated SKU)
 
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I love the idea of new apple silicon. But I fear their longevity will be spotty at best.
We still have Apple G5 machines kicking to this day.
But with the heavy memory and storage integration I doubt we will have these apple silicon machines around after 6-7 years. A simple bad capacitor on these new boards completely wipe the devices. Requiring new motherboard. The storage usage is eating through the drives and when a single ram chip or ssd chip dies all of your data is gone. Yes iCloud and backups are helpful. But not a full proof plan.
It would be a step backwards to go back to the old way of building these systems. But there has to be a way to make the memory and onboard storage replaceable.
Backups ARE a full proof plan.

They exist to protect your data since your device can fail at any time. That’s why you have at least 3 copies of your data.
 
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I hope GPU speed gets more than a 20% bump with the leap to M3. Still way behind PCs there. Way more efficient, quiet, and cooler, than anything on the PC end, though.

Some 3d artists I talk to use Mac because of the shared memory (so they can run giant sims in cloth, particles, etc) and then send to their vacuum cleaner of a PC for rendering.

With online render services, I think I can just skip that and go for the quiet, coolness, and speed. My 3080ti can melt my feet in GPU renders, and my 3950x gets toasty, too. 16 cores on the max is getting close to my loud, hot AMD processor. But I bet the GPU will still be way behind.
 
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