It does...but if its not sipping power and working as a laptop CPU, it could be even faster. Think of stuff like VR, AI, 3D rendering, games, video encoding..etc etc.
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M1 iMac is Up to 56% Faster Than Prior-Generation High-End 21.5-Inch iMac
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It does...but if its not sipping power and working as a laptop CPU, it could be even faster. Think of stuff like VR, AI, 3D rendering, games, video encoding..etc etc.
The M1 is already very good at video encoding. If you need more power then wait for the next generation.
Comparing to my 2012 MBP, it’s 2.5x faster in single core performance and 2.75x in multicore.
So the 4 efficiency cores add at least 10% performance boost under heavy load, and increase battery life under light load.
But on an iMac, wouldn’t one prefer 5 performance cores and zero efficiency cores? That would provide a 15% improvement over the 4/4 setup in heavy load. Or a 6/0 setup would give 35% multicore improvement over 4/4.
To reduce power use under light load just turn off 4 cores.
So the 4 efficiency cores add at least 10% performance boost under heavy load, and increase battery life under light load.
But on an iMac, wouldn’t one prefer 5 performance cores and zero efficiency cores? That would provide a 15% improvement over the 4/4 setup in heavy load. Or a 6/0 setup would give 35% multicore improvement over 4/4.
To reduce power use under light load just turn off 4 cores.
The iMac and Mini offer no desktop performance advantage, but they still need to stay plugged in to line voltage because they are “desktops.” This is dumb.
The Mini should have the same battery the MacBook Pro has (and yes, the new monitors should have a battery in them too), and the iMac should at least have a enough battery to be unplugged for a few minutes to be moved to a different room without needing to shut down.
The M1 delivers high performance at an extremely small TDP. This enabled Apple to redesign the iMac into a thinner and lighter form factor and also deliver virtually silent operation. This line of iMacs is pretty obviously the "low end" part of the iMac line - once we get the next higher end version of M1 (M1X?) we will likely get both MacBook Pros and iMacs using it.
My iMac early 2019 has a Radeon 580X Pro GPU that is between 2.5 - 3 times faster than the M1.
So M2 has to improve a lot, and when I say a lot, I mean a lot to reach this GPU.
The thing is games in this iMac will be slower....
I don't use iMac only for games...
But I guess, to reach my core i9 9th generation and the Radeon I will have to wait till M5
So M2 has to improve a lot, and when I say a lot, I mean a lot to reach this GPU.
The thing is games in this iMac will be slower....
I don't use iMac only for games...
But I guess, to reach my core i9 9th generation and the Radeon I will have to wait till M5
I don’t think you need to wait that long.My iMac early 2019 has a Radeon 580X Pro GPU that is between 2.5 - 3 times faster than the M1.
So M2 has to improve a lot, and when I say a lot, I mean a lot to reach this GPU.
The thing is games in this iMac will be slower....
I don't use iMac only for games...
But I guess, to reach my core i9 9th generation and the Radeon I will have to wait till M5
The current 27” iMac already has the Radeon Pro 5700XT option. It will most definitely be replaced with an Apple Silicon version by this year. Very unlikely for Apple to replace it with anything that’s lower in performance. Worst case is it will match it in the GPU department.
Which I don't think the target market for this iMac is going to be doing at any rate. As people have pointed out, it's can be seen as a Mac mini or MBA with a better display, and is going to appeal to a similar demographic. I don't think people will buy a MBA or Mac mini expecting to be able to power VR or crunch heavy numbers on it.
I think this also sets the tone for how Apple intends to position and unify their Macs moving forward. We may have 2-3 tiers, with each tier of Mac / iPad devices using the same processor, differentiated only by their form factor. I get that some people may feel it is a waste and that the 24" iMac might be capable of fielding a more powerful chip, it appears that Apple is content to use the same processor to better manage costs, even if it makes the Mac mini seem overpowered or the iMac underpowered in comparison.
I guess at this point, it's really more about recalibrating our expectations.
I understand why they do this and it probably means more money to them, but I would feel scammed if I paid for a product that was limited on purpose because I didn't pay more. Can't imagine for example getting an iPhone for $600 that actually has a 1TB storage, but they limit it to 128GB and enable it for those who paid the premium $900 price.
Which is exactly what they don‘t. You buy a M1 machine, you get what a M1 machine can do regardless of the form factor.
I get what you are saying, and I suppose a more apt analogy would be when the 2020 iPad Pro launched with an A12Z processor, or when then the iPad Air came with the A14 processor, and customers are understandably underwhelmed because they had been expecting a much more powerful A13X or A14X chip which simply didn't exist.
It is what it is at the end of the day, I suppose.
Funny how Apple’s costs management never results in customers getting better/lower prices.
That should be an easy thing to validate with numbers comparing the costs increases this generation as a percentage of past cost compared to the past increases seen between generations. If you cared to prove that.
It would also be impossible to prove unless we know how much goes into designing and manufacturing Apple products. The only thing we have going for us is that Apple's net margins have been steadily declining after year, so one can infer that their products in some part cost more because they cost more to make.
Apple is probably setting up either two or three tiers, with the current tier being the lowest one and the next higher tier having the M1X or whatever the scaled up SOC is called. And if they wind up with three tiers then the highest tier will probably be yet again another upscale - but I suspect it will be two tiered.
That's basic economics though, you price the product at the point at which you think the market will bear. They might be able to sell it for less but if they can price it higher and gain success in the market then why not sell it at a higher premium price?
I went to Dell and looked at their AIO and found a device that looked comparable running an i5-1135G7 with Xe graphics, similar RAM and more out of the box storage. The display is 24" but only 1928x1080 near as I can tell compared to Apple's 4.5K display. The M1 seems to be around 30% faster on single core and on multicore almost double the i5-1135G7 CPU included in the device. Not that it's hard but the Dell does manage significantly more ports so there is that though only one USB-C port on it.
Now the Dell is $950 versus the $1200 for the bottom end iMac. We've got two clear cost variables: a 4.5K display and a significantly better CPU. Dell's lowest 4K monitor retails around $450 with it's next tiers at $700 and $2000 so there's easily the $250 price difference without even accounting for the fact that the M1 CPU consistently benchmarks higher than it's comparison i5 CPUs versus getting a more expensive i7 CPU that has comparable performance.
On a quick review of a competitor product, it seems competitively priced for what it offers and if their market will bear the increased cost then that's great for Apple, why sell yourself short?
One other aside I get from this thread is folk expecting a magic spec jump for the M1 but I feel that's just conditioning from the CPU manufacturers that need folk to buy into these spec jumps because that's how Intel and AMD make their money: convincing you that you need a newer CPU so you go buy one. The direction Apple has taken in the phone space has been to take most of that away and just give the CPU a name and that's the CPU they're using. They're bringing that to the desktop and it's causing cognitive dissonance because you're supposed to change the CPU type. The same CPU can't be used in a tablet, a laptop, a desktop and an AIO? Yet here is Apple doing it. We've been trained by Intel and AMD that the ARM chips are not powerful enough and only useful in low end computing like mobile devices and M1 is demonstrating that it can be just as capable for a lot of workloads. It's resetting the narrative that we've been told for years and it's a tough battle for Apple to prove their way was the right choice. Plenty of folk scoffed at Apple's claims about M1 and whilst they were perhaps too broad initially when considered against other devices at similar TDP values, M1 is very competitive. Folk keep seeing the AMD GPU's in the system as a sign there is more Intel coming down the line but I can't help but wonder if the Mac Pro doesn't come with an update M series SOC but also features support for leveraging dedicated AMD GPUs on top of that for even more graphics performance or functionality like ray tracing.
a) Apple Silicon uses the ARM ISA that is all. The performance comes from the microarchitecture which is 100% Apple internal design.
b) We already know for a fact that a spec jump is incoming - there is reliables news that the TSMC fabs are already in production of it. Call it M1X or M2 (if it involves rolling out the successor to Firestorm) it will be even more performant and have additional controllers to support a divergent port selection. And it will all but certainly support more RAM (probably 32 and possibly 64 GB).
b) We already know for a fact that a spec jump is incoming - there is reliables news that the TSMC fabs are already in production of it. Call it M1X or M2 (if it involves rolling out the successor to Firestorm) it will be even more performant and have additional controllers to support a divergent port selection. And it will all but certainly support more RAM (probably 32 and possibly 64 GB).
This. It's roughly an AMD Ryzen 7 5600X in single and multi-threaded performance, but uses 75-80% less power.
In terms of performance per watt, that's damn impressive.
We already know that M1 Mac Minis idle at only around 6.8W for total system power consumption. With the 24" display on (not in display sleep), the iMac will be probably somewhere around 35W of draw at idle. Compared to the late-2009 that my parents are replacing with a 24" M1 Mac Mini, that's a reduction from ~105W at idle to 35W at idle.
Some of AMD's APUs can be pretty impressive. I have an 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 4750GE (Zen 2) Mac Mini-sized system with 64GB of memory and a 1TB Samsung 980 Pro I use as a home virtualization server, but that still idles at about 12-14W, whereas an M1 Mac Mini is HALF of that.
For desktops I couldn’t care less about performance per watt. This sounds like the Japanese car fans making excuses for their tiny low-power engines by discussing how their engines have more HP-per-liter. In the end what matters is your total power (or CPU speed) not how little electricity (or liters) you used to get it. Especially in the case of the CPU since you’re largely stuck with they give you (you can’t slap a turbocharger on your CPU - I don’t think Apple motherboards and CPUs are overcloc-friendly). Desktop computing users don’t care whether a CPU uses 25 watts or 250 watts. They want performance, not excuses.
I am complaining if they are actually restricting M1 power on purpose on lower end machines and enabling it on higher end machine. Both people paid for the same chip.
At this point I do not care about prices, i just want a product that works as advertised. I am tired of the current trend of planned obsolescence or not tested enough. I so much miss the great Made in Japan electronics from the 90s.
Also, a lot of people complain about the Apple price tag but their reports show they are making around 25% profit only which is more than reasonable and does not sound greedy at all.
I completely agree.
Wait for a million knock offs that cost a lot less, and are braided and higher quality.
I agree I don’t care if my iMac uses 35W at idle or 50W, since an idling Mac for me is one about to sleep its screen anyway.
I do care if it creates so much heat that the fans blast when opening a web page with lots going on like on my 2012 MBP.
But from what I can see from the package, a 6/0/8 core package is doable vs a 4/4/8, and for an iMac, that’s a better package with significantly higher Multi core performance.
The CPU "idles" a lot even while you're using the computer. On Intel CPUs, it will step down in frequency (and can do so many times a second, so even if you suddenly do need more CPU, it can scale back up in a fraction of a second). On Apple's CPUs (and soon on more and more Intel ones as well), it will also move work to what Apple calls "efficiency cores", which are slow, but take up far less power.
If you open up Activity Monitor while doing minor stuff like reading a web page, you'll find that most of the CPU is idle.