Intel's Anti-Mac Ad Campaign Highlights M1 Shortcomings

[pasamio]

I thought Target Display Mode was dead for newer Macs. Realize that is only to be used as a display...I think.

My iMac is from 2009. I have tested TDM on it from my Retina 2015.

Target Display Mode was stopped being supported when they moved to 5K, the hypothesis at the time was there were some technical difficulties driving the 5K display over Thunderbolt 2. Part of me hopes with the new M1 Mac's that they bring back Target Display Mode because it was a cool feature and since it's firmware you can run something like a headless Linux server on the iMac whilst still using it as a display (I've got a 2011 iMac that eventually will end up there). When I look back I miss the days of old when the MBP came with every port that you could need with some extra features that were useful (miniTOS in the 3.5mm audio jack). It feels like Jony pushed radical simplification too far and with any luck that needle will move back towards the features that help the Pro community now he's left. Not that we need to go all the way back but would it kill them to put a HDMI port in?

 

[urib2]

I suspect Intel's big fear is Windows. Seeing the immediate success of the m1 has to be a huge wake up call for Microsoft. If they werent already serious about Windows on Arm, they will be now. Its not going to be long before the performance gap opens up wider and wider. They will have a huge problem on thier hands if they get left behind.

What exactly success are you talking about compared to Microsoft?
Take it or leave it, Windows is the best platform today ...
All the scientific software, CAD, CGI, medical, military, accounts, entertainment and gaming, all this you will not get on a Mac with or without an M1 chip.
Funny that Apple fans ignore AMD RYZEN processors especially the 5000 series that Apple has no chance against.
And I did not take into account the lack of new Macs in a powerful GPU.
By the way, I'm not a fan of Intel but Intel will not sit still! You forgot about Intel's success with the CORE architecture after the Pentium processors.
In my opinion, no matter how good the M1 will be, Mac users still lost the ability to run windows in boot camp, a lot of people switched to Macs just for that reason.

 

[pshufd]

What exactly success are you talking about compared to Microsoft?
Take it or leave it, Windows is the best platform today ...
All the scientific software, CAD, CGI, medical, military, accounts, entertainment and gaming, all this you will not get on a Mac with or without an M1 chip.
Funny that Apple fans ignore AMD RYZEN processors especially the 5000 series that Apple has no chance against.
And I did not take into account the lack of new Macs in a powerful GPU.
By the way, I'm not a fan of Intel but Intel will not sit still! You forgot about Intel's success with the CORE architecture after the Pentium processors.
In my opinion, no matter how good the M1 will be, Mac users still lost the ability to run windows in boot camp, a lot of people switched to Macs just for that reason.

One big advantage that I see for M1 is the cost advantage over buying from Intel. The advantage of buying over AMD, right now, is that you can actually get the M1 and its integrated graphics solution right now. Have you tried buying an AMD Graphics card lately? I personally think that Apple should just add custom silicon to do crypto-mining - they could sell to that market so that ordinary people could buy AMD and nVidia GPUs.

My understanding is that there's a decoder advantage with ARM that x86 will never be able to bridge.

I expect to see QEMU solutions to running Windows at some point. This week, I experimented with running macOS on QEMU on KVM on Ubuntu on WSL 2. It worked mostly but WSL 2 is a work in progress. I was also able to run macOS on KVM on Ubuntu directly and that worked quite well too - I got everything working well except for Audio - that apparently is a lot of work. At some level of ARM performance, you should be able to run Windows. I'm sure that there is experimentation going on in this area as well as there are an incredible number of people playing around with all of this stuff.

 

[Martyimac]

What exactly success are you talking about compared to Microsoft?
Take it or leave it, Windows is the best platform today ...
All the scientific software, CAD, CGI, medical, military, accounts, entertainment and gaming, all this you will not get on a Mac with or without an M1 chip.
Funny that Apple fans ignore AMD RYZEN processors especially the 5000 series that Apple has no chance against.
And I did not take into account the lack of new Macs in a powerful GPU.
By the way, I'm not a fan of Intel but Intel will not sit still! You forgot about Intel's success with the CORE architecture after the Pentium processors.
In my opinion, no matter how good the M1 will be, Mac users still lost the ability to run windows in boot camp, a lot of people switched to Macs just for that reason.

Why do I smell a plant? Joined today just to downplay the M1 on a popular Mac platform and only one post, so far.
Beyond that, the Ryzen 5000 may have it's own set of problems. https://www.pcmag.com/news/if-you-buy-an-amd-ryzen-5000-cpu-make-sure-you-keep-the-box

Be careful who or what you are proselytizing for, there are always downsides to everything.

 

[urib2]

Why do I smell a plant? Joined today just to downplay the M1 on a popular Mac platform and only one post, so far.
Beyond that, the Ryzen 5000 may have it's own set of problems. https://www.pcmag.com/news/if-you-buy-an-amd-ryzen-5000-cpu-make-sure-you-keep-the-box

Be careful who or what you are proselytizing for, there are always downsides to everything.

Yes the M1 has no problems at all, especially the bluetooth and video encoding.

 

[pshufd]

Why do I smell a plant? Joined today just to downplay the M1 on a popular Mac platform and only one post, so far.
Beyond that, the Ryzen 5000 may have it's own set of problems. https://www.pcmag.com/news/if-you-buy-an-amd-ryzen-5000-cpu-make-sure-you-keep-the-box

Be careful who or what you are proselytizing for, there are always downsides to everything.

It's hard to tell what the story is here. Other OEMs don't seem to be having these problems. OTOH, I had the infamous Sandy Bridge Chipset bug and had to take apart my system, send back my motherboard and get a replacement. That was my first system build and I really did not appreciate having to do a teardown and rebuild and wait for the new parts. They didn't supply me with additional thermal paste either.

My last build was perfect so no complaints on parts outside of it being hard to get GPUs back then. I was able to get one at a decent price - the situation right now is really insane.

 

[Martyimac]

It's hard to tell what the story is here. Other OEMs don't seem to be having these problems. OTOH, I had the infamous Sandy Bridge Chipset bug and had to take apart my system, send back my motherboard and get a replacement. That was my first system build and I really did not appreciate having to do a teardown and rebuild and wait for the new parts. They didn't supply me with additional thermal paste either.

My last build was perfect so no complaints on parts outside of it being hard to get GPUs back then. I was able to get one at a decent price - the situation right now is really insane.

Many years ago I used to build my own Windows PC's. It was fun, challenging, and satisfying when the unit was finally done, up, and running well. Over the years as I quit gaming, I realized that what I needed and what I wanted diverged enough that I quit building my own and just bought a decent PC that did what I needed. Besides, their cost advantage due to scale of manufacturing essentially whittled the cost savings to pretty much zero.
With todays multitude of options and choices, I'm not sure I am up to the task of making all those decisions. But that's okay now considering my age and other interests.

 

[deevey]

Why do I smell a plant? Joined today just to downplay the M1 on a popular Mac platform and only one post, so far.
Beyond that, the Ryzen 5000 may have it's own set of problems. https://www.pcmag.com/news/if-you-buy-an-amd-ryzen-5000-cpu-make-sure-you-keep-the-box

Be careful who or what you are proselytizing for, there are always downsides to everything.

How many Ryzen 5000 laptops are there ? I mean if you want to compare....

 

[pshufd]

Many years ago I used to build my own Windows PC's. It was fun, challenging, and satisfying when the unit was finally done, up, and running well. Over the years as I quit gaming, I realized that what I needed and what I wanted diverged enough that I quit building my own and just bought a decent PC that did what I needed. Besides, their cost advantage due to scale of manufacturing essentially whittled the cost savings to pretty much zero.
With todays multitude of options and choices, I'm not sure I am up to the task of making all those decisions. But that's okay now considering my age and other interests.

I enjoy doing builds and like the ability to choose exactly what I want to - unless parts aren't available. I've been playing around with all kinds of configurations and this morning's configuration is a i7-10700 on dual 4k monitors, a Late 2009 iMac 27, and a 2015 MacBook Pro 15 driving a 4k monitor. I keep my eye out for used systems cheap to try to upgrade performance or capacity from time to time. I wish Apple had an M1X system out already. It doesn't really matter what the form-factor is.

 

[Arctic Moose]

Take it or leave it, Windows is the best platform today ...

Except that it is Windows, and my skin crawls when I am forced to use Windows.

Besides, none of the software I prefer, such as Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Safari, Preview, Final Cut, NetNewsWire, BBEdit or Drafts are available on Windows.

Funny that Apple fans ignore AMD RYZEN processors especially the 5000 series that Apple has no chance against.

How so? It seems Apple's entry-level first-try budget chip beats anything and everything available from AMD in single-core performance, which at least to me is what matters most. (As far as performance is concerned, at least.)

Do you really not believe Apple will be releasing more powerful chips when the real MacBook Pros, the iMacs and the Mac Pros are updated?

In my opinion, no matter how good the M1 will be, Mac users still lost the ability to run windows in boot camp, a lot of people switched to Macs just for that reason.

I bet more people switched to Macs to run macOS and not have to use Windows.

 

[Taz Mangus]

Funny that Apple fans ignore AMD RYZEN processors especially the 5000 series that Apple has no chance against.
And I did not take into account the lack of new Macs in a powerful GPU.

Apple has 2 more Apple Silicon releases coming. This year for the 14" MacBook Pro, 16" MacBook Pro, and iMac. Following year for the Mac Pro. Might want to watch the video I attached about the lowly M1 GPU. Pretty impressive for a low power integrated GPU. What integrated GPU does Intel and AMD offer that has the same or better performance than the M1 GPU.

A pro photographer tests Apple's M1 MacBook

Apple's new silicon offers great improvements for creative pros, but it doesn't do everything, yet.

www.cnet.com

In my opinion, no matter how good the M1 will be, Mac users still lost the ability to run windows in boot camp, a lot of people switched to Macs just for that reason.

It is only a matter of time before Microsoft licenses Windows for virtualization on ARM.

 

[Taz Mangus]

Yes the M1 has no problems at all, especially the bluetooth and video encoding.

Posting some random crappy low resolution images really proves nothing.

 

[cmaier]

What exactly success are you talking about compared to Microsoft?
Take it or leave it, Windows is the best platform today ...
All the scientific software, CAD, CGI, medical, military, accounts, entertainment and gaming, all this you will not get on a Mac with or without an M1 chip.
Funny that Apple fans ignore AMD RYZEN processors especially the 5000 series that Apple has no chance against.
And I did not take into account the lack of new Macs in a powerful GPU.
By the way, I'm not a fan of Intel but Intel will not sit still! You forgot about Intel's success with the CORE architecture after the Pentium processors.
In my opinion, no matter how good the M1 will be, Mac users still lost the ability to run windows in boot camp, a lot of people switched to Macs just for that reason.

Huh. Weird that i was watching NASA’s mars landing yesterday and they were using Macs. I guess when it comes to successfully navigating 7 minutes of terror, Windows is not the best platform.

 

[pshufd]

My approach is to have a Windows system for the one Windows program that runs like crap on M1 and still runs poorly on Intel Mac. That's a solution for customers that require Windows for one or two programs. I will likely always run a mixed environment.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Funny that Apple fans ignore AMD RYZEN processors especially the 5000 series that Apple has no chance against.

How many Ryzen 5000 laptops are there ? I mean if you want to compare....

By a large margin, mobile computers of all kinds are outselling desktops. So, the fact that RYZEN 5000 is great in a desktop doesn’t speak to the LARGER market. Thing is, this is not a NEW trend. The market has been getting smaller/lighter/more efficient for years. And, understanding that’s the direction of the market, the BEST Intel and AMD can do for this ABSOLUTELY HUGE market is marginal improvements year over year.

First, they’ve got to get serious about mobile, then they have to start working to solve those problems.

 

[gavroche]

What exactly success are you talking about compared to Microsoft?
Take it or leave it, Windows is the best platform today ...
All the scientific software, CAD, CGI, medical, military, accounts, entertainment and gaming, all this you will not get on a Mac with or without an M1 chip.
Funny that Apple fans ignore AMD RYZEN processors especially the 5000 series that Apple has no chance against.
And I did not take into account the lack of new Macs in a powerful GPU.
By the way, I'm not a fan of Intel but Intel will not sit still! You forgot about Intel's success with the CORE architecture after the Pentium processors.
In my opinion, no matter how good the M1 will be, Mac users still lost the ability to run windows in boot camp, a lot of people switched to Macs just for that reason.

I didn’t say say success against Microsoft. I was referring to success in that the very first models with M1, which were intended as low end, already perform better than Intel in a lot of ways. When improved models come out, especially in pro models intended to be more powerful, you can bet they perform even better yet. So while you are correct that so much software runs on windows and not Mac, are you prepared to say that will always be the case? Will developers that make that software not mind if they start seeing the Mx machines performing 20% faster? 30% faster? 40% faster?
So again, I’m not taking about dominance between Microsoft and Apple. I’m taking about what chips Microsoft chooses optimize for. Because while you and others don’t see the risk of them staying tied to Intel, I hope they see it.

Edit: imagine how far worse technology would be if there were not companies willing to take risks to innovate. The vast majority of people appear to accept the status quo... and think that whatever company currently dominates in any space will/should continue to dominate. So why bother trying, they say. Change is hard for a lot of people, and they prefer the comfort of staying as things are. But that is perhaps the slowest way for technology to evolve. Windows is the best example one could give. They made a decision decades ago to try to keep their operating system compatible with and running on very very old hardware, and using very old software. That is a boat anchor it’s pulling along, and it’s at the expense of the potential it could have had, and speed and streamlining it could have achieved... which would have benefited people that wanted more speed and capability and were willing to upgrade hardware and software.

 

[pshufd]

I didn’t say say success against Microsoft. I was referring to success in that the very first models with M1, which were intended as low end, already perform better than Intel in a lot of ways. When improved models come out, especially in pro models intended to be more powerful, you can bet they perform even better yet. So while you are correct that so much software runs on windows and not Mac, are you prepared to say that will always be the case? Will developers that make that software not mind if they start seeing the Mx machines performing 20% faster? 30% faster? 40% faster?
So again, I’m not taking about dominance between Microsoft and Apple. I’m taking about what chips Microsoft chooses optimize for. Because while you and others don’t see the risk of them staying tied to Intel, I hope they see it.

Edit: imagine how far worse technology would be if there were not companies willing to take risks to innovate. The vast majority of people appear to accept the status quo... and think that whatever company currently dominates in any space will/should continue to dominate. So why bother trying, they say. Change is hard for a lot of people, and they prefer the comfort of staying as things are. But that is perhaps the slowest way for technology to evolve. Windows is the best example one could give. They made a decision decades ago to try to keep their operating system compatible with and running on very very old hardware, and using very old software. That is a boat anchor it’s pulling along, and it’s at the expense of the potential it could have had, and speed and streamlining it could have achieved... which would have benefited people that wanted more speed and capability and were willing to upgrade hardware and software.

Intel is working harder than ever with Apple and AMD nipping at their heels.

 

[pasamio]

Microsoft already has Windows on ARM, it's known it needs to be there for a while but it hasn't had a hardware partner to make the transition work well. What Apple showed with the M1 is that with the right hardware support as well as improvements in the OS layer, you can make an x86 emulation tier that is significantly more performant than what Microsoft's own work has done. Microsoft's challenge is people wanting older 32-bit and 16-bit applications, it has to deal with that baggage where as Apple in Catalina cut off the legacy 32-bit applications to enable Big Sur to be more successful.

Microsoft now has a blueprint on how to bring an ARM based Windows PC of their own that can run x86 code with reasonable performance. There was already a group in the server space working to build their own ARM chips which may yet be the skunkworks project that also brings more improved Microsoft specific ARM chips to the consumer desktop space as well.

 

[deevey]

Intel is working harder than ever with Apple and AMD nipping at their heels.

Whats the old saying? work smarter, not harder

 

[pshufd]

Whats the old saying? work smarter, not harder

That's what managers tell you. What they mean is to work smarter, longer and harder.

 

[pdoherty]

Many years ago I used to build my own Windows PC's. It was fun, challenging, and satisfying when the unit was finally done, up, and running well. Over the years as I quit gaming, I realized that what I needed and what I wanted diverged enough that I quit building my own and just bought a decent PC that did what I needed. Besides, their cost advantage due to scale of manufacturing essentially whittled the cost savings to pretty much zero.
With todays multitude of options and choices, I'm not sure I am up to the task of making all those decisions. But that's okay now considering my age and other interests.

Same here. Starting with Amiga computers in the late 1980s then moving into PCs around 1991 (my first PC was a 386 home build by a guy who knew what he was doing), every computer since has been one of my own design and build except for laptops/tablets/MacMini and my most recent PC I bought a little over a year ago, where I did what you did and bought from a boutique builder.

 

[pdoherty]

Except that it is Windows, and my skin crawls when I am forced to use Windows.

Besides, none of the software I prefer, such as Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Safari, Preview, Final Cut, NetNewsWire, BBEdit or Drafts are available on Windows.



How so? It seems Apple's entry-level first-try budget chip beats anything and everything available from AMD in single-core performance, which at least to me is what matters most. (As far as performance is concerned, at least.)

Do you really not believe Apple will be releasing more powerful chips when the real MacBook Pros, the iMacs and the Mac Pros are updated?



I bet more people switched to Macs to run macOS and not have to use Windows.

He’s discussing the outcomes from Apple going from PowerPC to Intel CPUs. Why would anyone leave Windows for OS X simply because the CPU changed if they never had any intentions to use Windows? it should have made no difference to them, it would seem.

 

[pdoherty]

That's what managers tell you. What they mean is to work smarter, longer and harder.

Yep - employers will take all they can get out of you.

 

[skaertus]

I suspect Intel's big fear is Windows. Seeing the immediate success of the m1 has to be a huge wake up call for Microsoft. If they werent already serious about Windows on Arm, they will be now. Its not going to be long before the performance gap opens up wider and wider. They will have a huge problem on thier hands if they get left behind.

Yes, that is true. Macs represent some 5%, give or take, of total computer shipments worldwide. OK, Intel lost some market share, which is definitely not good. But at the moment someone (such as Qualcomm) delivers a competitive Arm chip to run Windows, then Intel might well go down very quickly. As Apple showed, an Arm chip to beat Intel is very possible, so Qualcomm and others should not be that far away. Intel is certainly running against time here.

It is funny how Intel focus those ads on things that have nothing to do with its processors:

• "If you can power a rocket launch and launch Rocket League, you're not on a Mac". That is because a PC runs Windows, which is developed by Microsoft, and not by Intel. And these tasks may well use a dedicated video card developed by Nvidia or AMD, and not by Intel.
• "If you can flip through Photoshop thumbnails with your actual thumb, you're not on a Mac". This is because Windows, developed by Microsoft, has support for touch. Photoshop is developed by Adobe. And because laptop screens, which are also not developed by Intel, have support for touch. And we should not forget that the iPad (which is powered by an Apple processor) runs a touch-based Photoshop version.

Intel just happens to have the luck of developing the processor that powers Windows PCs. None of it is Intel's merits. And it is underperforming at that so that even its long-time partner Microsoft is seeking Arm alternatives.

 

[Arctic Moose]

Intel just happens to have the luck of developing the processor that powers Windows PCs.

Unless you see the Intel inside sticker, it is not unlikely that some other company than Intel designed the CPU in the laptop.

Slap an AMD logo on those ads and they’d still make the same amount of sense.