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do your work on a $250 computer then highlight what you encounter after 5-10 videos.
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Is M1 base really that superior to Intel i9 or i7?
- Thread starter TheOutlier
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do your work on a $250 computer then highlight what you encounter after 5-10 videos.
You mentioned a Reddit forum with people bitching & complaining, and expect a change? Seriously? Smh.
It's sponsored by Fidelity Investments and they have customer service representatives providing official responses. So yes, I expect changes. But they haven't updated their product for native macOS support for well over a decade and I don't expect them to start doing so anytime soon.
ATP runs best on WinTel. It runs on macOS via WINE. It runs on macOS/AS via WINE and Rosetta 2 but performance stinks as you would expect. Performance isn't all that great on a strong WinTel machine.
Major brokerages do not care about Apple Silicon -- just like the major game developers producing AAA titles don't care. These so-called niche use cases add up and I hope this developer apathy is not a canary in the coal mine for Apple. If the major brokerages refuse to support Apple Silicon going forward, I'll have no choice but to leave Apple for Windows -- and I really do prefer to use MacOS.
Fidelity is putting their development dollars into their mobile apps because that's what their new customers want. They had a huge influx of new customers 20-30 years old come in from Robinhood and younger customers like mobile platforms. Until they run into limits. I'd agree, brokerages don't care about Apple Silicon.
Fidelity can also just say to use the browser platform but it really works poorly for pro traders. I'm using Windows for ATP and Apple Silicon for ToS but it's with a huge hack to get it to run natively.
One other pro trading platform I used to use is Medved Trader. Windows only. Doesn't run on WINE. If you want to run it on macOS, you run it on a Windows VM. Jerry Medved provides zero macOS support.
Highly highly subjective. In some things my M1 Pro is faster than my Ryzen 2700X 8 core. Which is significantly faster than your 2014 iMac.
If its video related, compute related, ml related, etc. then the M1 Pro will pretty much crush anything from intel pre-alder lake. The M1 Max romps through video faster than many specs of the current Mac Pro.
Have you actually used one?
Hey, I'm OP of this thread and continuing on with my quest here:
I found a local seller selling a secondhand MacBook Air M1 with 16GB RAM + 1TB SSD for $1280 USD. Is this a good deal?
My other option is a MacBook Pro 16" 2019 with i9 2.3GHz + 32GB RAM + 1TB SSD + Radeon 5500M 4GB for $1475 USD.
Which would be the better buy here? Need a powerful system to handle daily motion and 3D design work. For context, I'm currently working on an Early 2013 15" Retina MBP with 16GB RAM and it's terrible. It's why I'm not sure if 16GB RAM is enough to cut it.
Here are my specific use cases:
- I don't need to use Windows or any Windows apps as I'm a designer mostly working on Mac.
- Not going to be playing any games on it. That's what my Xbox is for.
- I will be using an external monitor as well, so being able to connect is important.
- Mainly using apps like Figma, Photoshop / Affinity Designer, Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Blender, Unreal Engine, etc.
- Open to the possibility of reselling and then upgrading to an M1 Max in a few months from now.
I found a local seller selling a secondhand MacBook Air M1 with 16GB RAM + 1TB SSD for $1280 USD. Is this a good deal?
My other option is a MacBook Pro 16" 2019 with i9 2.3GHz + 32GB RAM + 1TB SSD + Radeon 5500M 4GB for $1475 USD.
Which would be the better buy here? Need a powerful system to handle daily motion and 3D design work. For context, I'm currently working on an Early 2013 15" Retina MBP with 16GB RAM and it's terrible. It's why I'm not sure if 16GB RAM is enough to cut it.
Here are my specific use cases:
- I don't need to use Windows or any Windows apps as I'm a designer mostly working on Mac.
- Not going to be playing any games on it. That's what my Xbox is for.
- I will be using an external monitor as well, so being able to connect is important.
- Mainly using apps like Figma, Photoshop / Affinity Designer, Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Blender, Unreal Engine, etc.
- Open to the possibility of reselling and then upgrading to an M1 Max in a few months from now.
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That's a tough decision. I had a 2018 Macbook Pro 15" with i9/32GB RAM/1TB SSD/560X and it was very good for the applications you mention. The biggest problem was the heat and fans. The 2019 Macbook pro you reference should have improved thermals and a better keyboard. It will still run hot though. My wife's Macbook Air M1 is great and will run most of the applications you mention better than the i9. However, RAM is RAM and if you have a lot of applications open at once, it'll probably be better to have more RAM. If you are going to be using the laptop screen most of the time rather than plugged into a monitor, then the 16" i9 makes more sense I think. The portability and quietness of the M1 is great if that is more of a priority for you. You probably will be able to sell both of them at a good price if you decide to go with the M1 Pro or Max macbooks later this year. Another factor is that if you decide on the M1, it will give you a good idea if 16GB is good enough for you if you decide to upgrade to the Max or Pro later on. The M1 Air is a special little machine; it does most tasks very, very quickly, but it is small and has a limited number of ports. Like I said, it's a tough decision.
I can't do my work on a new $250 computer. But most people spending a grand or more on a new Mac aren't doing my work. I'm unsure what part of my original statement you're trying to disprove.
I would go with M1.
Reason: intel i9 Macbook pro is hot and noisy when connected to external monitor. M1 is silent. Check if M1 fully supports monitor you are planning to use, there have been reported some issues with some vendors.
If you find good deal for i9 with radeon 5600 8GB than pick that one over M1. that particular one is not so hot and noisy when connected to external monitor and GPU is more capable than M1.
I would still go M1 route, because if there is a plan to buy M1 Max (typing it from M1 Max
than M1 Air is still nice laptop for traveling. Small and capable.Come on, tell us how you *really* feel!
To add a different viewpoint, I think the M1 Mini I bought in December 2020 was the *best* computer that I had bought in decades, at least in terms of bang-for-buck.
It's only just been superseded by the new MBP14 M1 Max that I bought, which is basically quite similar in user experience, but with a *lot* more headroom when you push it a bit. It does what I what in a computer, which is to just get out of the way and run my tasks really quickly with minimum fuss and faffing around.
You seem to be forgetting the M1 Pro and M1 Max. These are definitely in the same class as many desktop-class processors. Maybe not the top end of 12-16+ core workstations, but definitely your mid-tier i7 & i9 offerings with 4-10 cores. I would say that it demonstrates some kind of *flex* when a laptop chip can outperform the Mac Pro (at least in its cheaper options).
We're already in the second revision with M1 Pro/Max, even if this is a scaled out M1. It will only get better, and I would expect the Mac Pro with 20-40 cores will be quite something, albeit with an eye-watering price tag.
I just sold a similar MBP16 (i9, 32GB, 1TB, 8GB 5500M) because I found the M1 Mini with 16GB gave a better user experience and did pretty much everything faster without zero heat and fan noise. Even the 8-core GPU in the M1 performed better for video editing than the 8GB AMD 5500M, despite the latter having better scores in Geekbench and other benchmarks.
The M1 Air may be a little more thermally constrained than the M1 Mini, and of course you can only run a single external screen (without resorting to DisplayLink), but it will probably be a better choice as long as (a) you don't *need* more than 16GB, (b) you are OK with a single smaller screen or being limited to a single external screen (c) don't need to run x86 software
Yes but requirements change. If a computer is going to last you 10 years, then its worth buying a good machine because what is a note-taking/essay-writing/content consumption computer in college may be required to work with big spreadsheets or virtual machines when you do post-grad work or have a regular job.
What Apple did with M1 was raise the minimum bar for a new machine, and give you the opportunity to buy for a grand a good machine that will last. It makes perfect sense for them to do so, because they have a limited set of options at purchase. They aren‘t interested in doing an Intel and supplying a large range of processors to fit every niche in a large technical ecology.
Plus there is the pleasure of working with something nice.
I thought that once. Which is why in 2011 I ended up almost selling a kidney to buy a nearly new hugely over-specified (for my needs) 27" i7 3.4GHz iMac. 11 years later it still is more than I need in some ways, but in other ways that I couldn't have foreseen and couldn't have planned for, it has been increasingly obsolete for about 8 of the last 11 years, such as the graphics card which does not support metal, and the OS pegged to High Sierra.
It's obviously wise to future-proof to some extent. For example if you reckon you currently need 256GB for your current apps and data, don't just buy a 256GB model. But I think it's senseless to over-specify your purchase based on assumed future needs you don't yet know. Five years from now whatever you buy will be obsolete in ways you can't yet fathom because of the overall advancement of technology.
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I think they are. They’re definitely comparable with the latest Core i5 and Core i7. The question is, what do you need the extra speed for? On PC the need for performance is largely driven by games and pro applications, while on the Mac people don’t game so much and there is less need for powerful consumer machines.
In a way the positioning of the base M1 is very clever, because it moves a lot of semi-pro applications such as basic video editing and working with decent numbers of photo’s into the base lineup. There are a lot of vloggers, photographers, graphic designers and consumers who don‘t need more.
I think there is significant demand for a 15” MacBook Air, from people who want a larger screen but dont need the Pro chips or more ram. I also think the Mac Pro is really going to be the interesting machine to see what the architecture can do for those who always need more speed.
Yes, agreed, there is a sweet spot. If you vastly over spec you’re not likely to make optimal use of your investment. Similarly if you spec too tightly to your current needs you may find the machine straining to do whats needed and obsolete before its time.
In terms of storage I don’t buy more more than one tier from Apple because external storage is vastly cheaper. For my 24” iMac i bought 512 GB internal, and a 2 TB external Samsung T7 SSD on sale for 160 euros. For the ram i did get the 16 GB upgrade, because i know I will need it for dev work.
First, that comparison is soon going to be irrelevant: those i9 Macs are being replaced by M1 Pro and Max machines - and while that shouldn't change the single-core benchmarks much compared with the M1, it will really show up in the multicore scores. Going forward, M1 (and the M2 in the future) are going to be the "entry level" for Macs.
Second, it's not all about raw CPU power as expressed by Geekbench. The Intel i9 MBPs support more RAM and more Thunderbolt/USB3.1 I/O bandwidth. The M1 GPU blows the Intel integrated GPU in the old Airs and 13" MacBooks - and is particularly good on applications that are optimised for Metal and particular video codecs, but it is only really equivalent to a so-so discrete GPU and the GPUs in the higher-end Intel MacBook Pros will probably beat it in general - except on those well-optimised apps. The M1 Pro/Max machines offer better GPUs, more I/O and more RAM than the plain M1.
So it really comes down to what your workload is, whether it is limited by RAM or I/O bandwidth, how much advantage it gets from multithreading, whether your software benefits from specific hardware acceleration in the M1: some applications will run like the wind on the M1, and the new MB Air can certainly play in a different league to the old one. Others may be better on Intel, especially the higher-end 16" MBPs.... and the new M1 Pro/Max will beat the Air hands down on jobs that use multiple cores, are GPU heavy or which benefit from more than 16GB RAM.
Basically, the M1 blows away anything based on ultra-low-power Intel chips with integrated graphics ('ultrabooks' and ultra-small-form-factor systems), the M1 Pro/Max MBPs blow away any truly mobile laptop (their real competition comes from significantly heavier, power-hungry 'mobile workstations' and 'gaming laptops' - a market that Apple doesn't really address) while Apple have yet to show their cards in the mid/high-end desktop category - which is going to be a harder sell for them, because Apple Silicon's strengths of low-power/low heat/long battery life are less vital there - so it depends on how much Apple is prepared to invest in developing workstation-class processor/GPU combos.
Apple has a firm hold of my balls in that respect unfortunately. The kind of work I do, I need a lot of storage, and commonly the apps and plugins I use either work best when used on the main drive or don't work on anything but the main drive.
I'm not forgetting about those chips, M1 Pro and Max are exclusively the new MacBook Pros for now. The M1 has been a rocket out of the gate. I'm saying we haven't seen what Apple has in mind for the last of the Macs that have yet to transition. I suspect the Pro and Max will be seen in a Mac mini (high end) and iMac 27-inch. The flex I was referencing was against Alder Lake that is just in desktop form, I can see Apple crushing them pretty easily with their silicone. It is going to get better from here. The fact these chips required Intel to make such huge power suckers in Alder Lake is entertaining, so I can't wait to see what these models are packing.
What I can glean from this thread is that the answer depends on the software you use regularly. With the apps you use, I would go with the MBA M1 for many reasons -- not the least of which is that Apple Silicon is the future for Apple.