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Expected GPU performance of M1X/M2
- Thread starter joelypolly
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Higher Tflops wil give faster GPU acceleration in Metal apps. I don't know how Tflops helps in games though, don't care about gaming much these days.
I used to have one desktop, one laptop. Then I sold the laptop and switched to desktop + iPad. Now I'll go laptop + iPad.
Not just for gaming, workstation and AI too. That's why Nvidia dominate the GPU market by 80%.
We'll see how long that lasts now that Apple is in the GPU game though. Their first mobile CPU basically wrecked havoc in CPU market.
Did it though? Apple doesn’t sell CPUs directly, and Mac is not everyone’s cup of tea. M1 did turn some heads though. I expect Apple to take bigger bites of the premium PC market from now on (where they already performed very well), but low-end to mid-range will still be x86 domain.
Lord knows they’ve been trying to. Not sure how much actual success they are having, to be honest.
LPDDR5x is possible but I definitely wouldn’t call it likely.
LPDDR5 however was brought to market in a volume consumer product just over a year and a half ago, and spread rapidly. Since it is used in cell phones, it is today produced in volumes that are high by MacBook Pro standards (but not Apple iPhone standards - unless Apple were to place the order, producing such amounts in the hope that someone will pick it up would be exceedingly stupid.) At the time of procurement for the MacBook Pros there shouldn’t have been any remaining questionmarks.
What Apple will use for a memory subsystem on these machines is one of the big mysteries. The A15 seems fairly bandwidth constrained for 3D-graphics, actual graphics benchmarks scale roughly half as well as could be expected from the increased internal processing, which is likely to be bandwidth related as the M1 performs pretty much exactly in line with its doubled GPU processing while also having twice the memory bandwidth.
Unfortunately, unless they have made a design that marketeers thinks is impressive to communicate, Mondays presentation may not reveal what solution they went with. In which case we’ll have to gnash our teeth and wait until they end up grubby geek hands. 🙂
The base iPads are increasingly getting more performant while iOS and macOS architectures are slowly merging. My guess is Apple is playing the long game. In a few years, an iPad + keyboard and mouse may satisfy many needs.
Is there another trackpad that is actually usable?
I enjoy using the trackpad on every Mac I’ve had, but on laptops from Dell and HP I’ve been forced to use the trackpad has been so bad I practically cannot use the computer without a mouse.
The problem is not performance, the problem is form factor and the software ecosystem. A lot of people need a full computer, not a "tailored" experience. Can't really do university or office work on the iPad.
I've heard that Microsoft has good trackpads as well. But on a typical mass cheap laptop? Forget about the trackpad.
not that I’ve found. Closest is probably Surface devices. Nothing comes close though. It has to be a Windows problem, I’ve heard trackpad/scrolling behaviors have been updated in Windows 11 which can make things better but it’s not as good as macOS and the hardware doesn’t even come close.
Apple have had the best trackpads in the industry for well over 10+ years now and still nobody has met their bar.
Apple still lack the gpu for that....for finalcut pro the SoC is a masterpiece...i want more gpu power for Maya too
Apple's advantage here comes from their iPhone touch screen research. But the simple fact is that excellent trackpad is very tricky to get right, R&D is expensive and the device itself is not cheap either. The overwhelming majority of laptop brands out there are penny counters that do anything to drive the price down. Besides, the mainstream PC mentality has always been "the default stuff you get is crap, you have to buy your own extra to compensate" which is why everyone uses a mouse.
yes, the surface laptop studio has the best trackpad in the windows OEM, and also very very good keyboard , the same as the thinkpads
But again, when you type on the middle of the keyboard surface , it flexes too much, or it flexes more than our macs...
The surface studio laptop should be named the flex surface, because when you are in full flat tablet mode, again, the hinge flex a lot ..so i dont think the artist can rest their hands down on the display for drawing
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I think one of the things that keeps the Macs around at all at post iPod Apple is they actually eat their own food. People working there predominantly use Macs for - work. And of course use iPhones/iPads. The benefits and drawbacks of the paradigms are pretty clear, it’s not just university or office work, it’s any kind of job where you collaborate with different people sending you snippets and parts of projects or pulls from different sources or… An efficient way of dealing with files is simply..er..efficient!
The rumored M1X should offer two to four times the GPU power of the M1 SoC...?
Current M1 SoC:
8-core CPU (4P/4E)
8GB RAM
7-core GPU
8-core CPU (4P/4E)
16GB RAM
8-core GPU
(Rumored) M1X Soc:
10-core CPU (8P/2E)
32GB RAM
16-core GPU
10-core CPU (8P/2E)
64GB RAM
32-core GPU
Now, the Mac Pro (Cheesegrater 2.0 / Mac Pro Cube / iMac Pro) is rumored to have multiple SoC chips gathered in / on a package:
Jade 2C (two top-end M1X SoC chips in/on a package)
20-core CPU (16P/4E)
128GB RAM
64-core GPU
Jade 4C (four top-end M1X SoC chips in/on a package)
40-core CPU (32P/8E)
256GB RAM
128-core GPU
Exactly. I believe that iPad is great for content consumption, note taking and maybe some creative applications (can’t judge since it’s not my area). But tables are woefully bad at dealing with multiple documents at once which is what a lot of people need.
Of course. Apple has the base MacBook for those needs. I’m thinking the sub $500 computer market that’s mainly bought for home use. Apple is never going there due to the low margin.
Of course you can do academic work with an iPad but that depends on which type of reseacher you are. If you are at the professor level, you will do nicely with an iPad because you work is consumption (reading manuscripts, reports, scientific papers etc), writing grants (even iPad version of Word works fine now that Mendelay is integrated), teaching (keynote works fine) and answering mails. What we need is a better external monitor support or larger iPads and a magic keyboard or external keyboard and trackpad.