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MacBook Air and MacBook Pro M1 Chips Have Same 8-Core CPUs, No Upgrades Available

dannys1 said:
No because obviously the chip is clocked different in each system - it performs much better in the Pro because it has fans and a big chassis for cooling.
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And that's a very good question. Why WON'T Apple release the true clock speeds on these chips? it's not on the website tech specs.

Steve Jobs would fake smoke and mirrors and still make it look good. Tim Cook has to hide the specs and no one is going to believe him even when he finally releases them if ever. :(
 
Fomalhaut said:
You also get twice the SSD storage, so not so bad. The extra GPU core still costs $50 though.
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To be clear, you mean to get the 8-Core GPU, 512GB in the Air format, it's an extra $250 additional, which is $50 more than the base MacBook Pro.

It's not bad, but it is like a brain teaser. I'm still exhausted thinking about the iPhone options.
 
Kcetech1 said:
all three of our software developers use more than 2. ( one uses 3 one uses 4 ) and the creators/develpers for graphics applications and animation and video playback/streaming all use eGPU's for rendering and multi platform testing. Its actually fun watching them swap their externals around some days.

my husband was looking at maybe getting one for his desk at home, shrugged and said nope. he even uses 3 screens all the time when not working. one for his web browser, one split for emails and whatever he uses the other side for and the third for real time day trading .... or running cartoons to keep our youngest happy.

admittedly everyone's needs are different and I have to go by our workplaces and what we deal with on a daily basis.
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OK - interesting to know! I guess we all have different needs :) The challenge in many office spaces (especially home offices) is space. I couldn't fit more than 2 screens unless I stack them vertically like a trading desk or NASA control center :)

What I don't understand (and I see this quite often in offices) is people who have one or more external screens and then don't use them, but prefer to be hunched over the screen of a 13-14" laptop....chiropracters and osteopaths will welcome them as clients in a few years time....
 
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BaltimoreMediaBlog said:
Why WON'T Apple release the true clock speeds on these chips?
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Nothing to hide once they ship. The real world benchmarks are all that matters. Apple's claims always need to be taken with a grain of salt. Not to mention we long ago Apple shifted from the clock speeds to the task productivity tailored for specific apps. How they stack versus other chips on the market will need to be tested in the wild but Apple is selling how quick it powers up instead.
 
harmoniumfarfisa said:
To be clear, you mean to get the 8-Core GPU, 512GB in the Air format, it's an extra $250 additional, which is $50 more than the base MacBook Pro.

It's not bad, but it is like a brain teaser. I'm still exhausted thinking about the iPhone options.
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No, I meant the 7-core GPU MacBook Air with 512GB SSD ($1199), costs $50 less than the 8-core MacBook Air, which also has a 512GB SSD, so the cost of the GPU core is $50.
 
harmoniumfarfisa said:
Nothing to hide once they ship. The real world benchmarks are all that matters. Apple's claims always need to be taken with a grain of salt. Not to mention we long ago Apple shifted from the clock speeds to the task productivity tailored for specific apps. How they stack versus other chips on the market will need to be tested in the wild but Apple is selling how quick it powers up instead.
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We'll see once Geekbench results start coming in. The M1 may be the "leaked" one we saw with 1.8GHz efficiency core and 3.1GHz performance cores.

I suspect they will all be the same, with the MacBook Pro and Mini able to sustain the clock speeds for longer under load.
 
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Fomalhaut said:
OK - interesting to know! I guess we all have different needs :) The challenge in many office spaces (especially home offices) is space. I couldn't fit more than 2 screens unless I stack them vertically like a trading desk or NASA control center :)

What I don't understand (and I see this quite often in offices) is people who have one or more external screens and then don't use them, but prefer to be hunched over the screen of a 13-14" laptop....chiropracters and osteopaths will welcome them as clients in a few years time....
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our offices are smaller but most are wall mounted, some right into the framing. at home we have wall mounts and motorized monitor/tv lifts and retractors so they can hide away.

as for the ones with screens and hunched over, I see that lots and our best man is a chiropractor and we laugh about that exact thing all the time about many clients under the age of 30. His daughter might be the worst and he attributes it to everyone used to staring at their ****** little phone all day and cant get used to screen real estate available.
 
kovalchuk71 said:
Not true. Back in the day (10-15 yrs. ago), the MBP was a significant step up from the plastic Macbooks.
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A step up in what?

We are not looking at a plastic MacBook though, those are gone for 12+ years. We are comparing a “pro” (undefined, could stand for prostate...) against an “air” (whatever that means in the product lineup) which was always made from nice materials as well.
 
Any super Guru tech guys please.... what are your thoughts on these for Audio. I'm a heavy professional audio user and recently (after years of reluctance and tied to a brick and mortar studio) using a new MBP 2.4 8 core. Obviously 1st generation doesn't seem to make sense at all.... but what are your thoughts on HEAVY Pro Tools loads in the next couple years?

Also, any thoughts that Apple is building these to where software will be able to take serious advantage of the HW? Like Logic just smoking competition.... (Lifetime PT user)

Thanks .... curious :)
 
Interesting that they're selling seven or eight core GPUs. Are they having yield issues and doing this to sell the chips that fail at least one GPU?
 
ian87w said:
The question is, should one buy this now (old design), or wait for a redesign but risking Apple not

I’d choose the 16GB RAM. It will go longer than the one with less RAM.
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"...risking Apple not"...what? Risking not performing? working with your software?

I think 16GB would be the minimum given the fact that you're sharing that memory with the GPU that may be getting close to the peformance of the 4GB AMD Radeon Pro 5300M. I've no idea how the GPU usage of shared memory is limited in Apple Silicon (probably based on how much you have open), but I would want to give it as much as it can use.
 
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zorinlynx said:
Interesting that they're selling seven or eight core GPUs. Are they having yield issues and doing this to sell the chips that fail at least one GPU?
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It’s the same idea as A12X vs A12Z. I wouldn’t immediately say it’s a yield issue, but any fabrications will have parts that don’t pass the complete tests. These parts can still be sold as the lower performing part.
 
Fomalhaut said:
"...risking Apple not"...what? Risking not performing? working with your software?

I think 16GB would be the minimum given the fact that you're sharing that memory with the GPU that may be getting close to the peformance of the 4GB AMD Radeon Pro 5300M. I've no idea how the GPU usage of shared memory is limited in Apple Silicon (probably based on how much you have open), but I would want to give it as much as it can use.
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I think that was a brain fart... Was typing something then ending up replying to another comment, but forgot to delete what I just typed... :D
 
I was watching MKHD review on youtube on his thoughts and agree when he said the benchmarks apple mentioned like 2.5x or 3x the speed of this and that is against what windows machine?...what is the comparison to and there were no concrete numbers or specs! so have to wait for reviews before even considering these machines. The marketing train is all apple with lovely splashy presentation but It did get me excited but then skeptical and a bit disappointed as the minutes passed on closer to the end ...as i let it all sink in. But a good first start and i'm excited for 2021.
 
cpnotebook80 said:
I was watching MKHD review on youtube on his thoughts and agree when he said the benchmarks apple mentioned like 2.5x or 3x the speed of this and that is against what windows machine?...what is the comparison to and there were no concrete numbers or specs! so have to wait for reviews before even considering these machines. The marketing train is all apple with lovely splashy presentation but It did get me excited but then skeptical and a bit disappointed as the minutes passed on closer to the end ...as i let it all sink in. But a good first start and i'm excited for 2021.
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I think for the graph, its safe to assume that they're simply comparing it with the last Intel Macbooks.

Now as for the claim about faster than 98% of best selling PC in its class, well, now that's the reality distortion field... :D
 
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cpnotebook80 said:
I was watching MKHD review on youtube on his thoughts and agree when he said the benchmarks apple mentioned like 2.5x or 3x the speed of this and that is against what windows machine?...what is the comparison to and there were no concrete numbers or specs! so have to wait for reviews before even considering these machines. The marketing train is all apple with lovely splashy presentation but It did get me excited but then skeptical and a bit disappointed as the minutes passed on closer to the end ...as i let it all sink in. But a good first start and i'm excited for 2021.
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I agree that on the surface the ambiguous comparisons border on comical. However, there's zero chance any specific comparison would turn into something other than a legal nightmare for Apple the minute they said it or flashed it on screen.
 
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citysnaps said:
Image and signal processing software.
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Go to A12X vs A12Z videos. Won’t make a difference. Your sold by Apple on extra core. The A12X has a disabled core just like the M1 in the Air vs Pro. The GPU Freq along with the voltage has to be increased/overclocked to see the a difference and not just by placing another core within the instruction set.
 
ericwn said:
A step up in what?

We are not looking at a plastic MacBook though, those are gone for 12+ years. We are comparing a “pro” (undefined, could stand for prostate...) against an “air” (whatever that means in the product lineup) which was always made from nice materials as well.
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Please re-read what you posted on my previous comment. “never been” implies that the MBP was always a marketing ploy. You can’t just ignore the early years because they don’t fit your argument. For a while, MBPs were definitely “Professional” machines, with great performance and the ability to self-upgrade hardware.

Over the past few generations? Yes, I 100% agree that the name has been turned into a marketing ploy (like BMW and their “///M-Sport” lines).
 
Btaylor_prod said:
The Neural Engine is still a little ambiguous to me. How does this help the CPU and GPU? What improvements will I see in my day to day?
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I believe this is what accelerates the ML performance in apps like Pixelmator, Lightroom, and FCP. Also deals with the webcam image I believe.
 
Fomalhaut said:
No way to use unified memory with an AMD dGPU, so that won’t be happening. It will use an Apple GPU.


ssgbryan said:
I take it you didn't watch the Ryzen Zen 3 reveal.......
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I'm not sure if you understood my comment, which was in response to someone suggesting that Apple should continue to use an AMD dGPU with Apple Silicon. My response was that Apple Silicon uses shared memory, so the GPU has to be provided by Apple.

It's well known that AMD has APUs that use shared memory with GPU and CPU - both located within the AMD SoC package.

What I'm saying is that I can't see how Apple Silicon could share its on-package memory (on the M1) with a "memory-less" third party GPU from AMD. Such a device may be possible, but I doubt very much that either Apple or AMD are planning of making one.

I'll rephrase my comment: "No way to share the Apple M1 memory with an AMD dGPU on a separate chip".
 
I’m disappointed that the RAM maxes at 16 GB. My wife’s MacBook Pro 13” from 2013 has 16 GB and it was one of the lower tier models at the time. 16 GB of RAM is fine for today, but the reason I got 16 GB for her then was so that it would run well for 7-10 years, and I don’t think a computer with 16 GB of RAM will run well 5+ years from now unless it’s only being used very lightly.
 
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There are performance and battery improvements. There are zero design improvement like the symmetrical bezel in 16.4’ Macbook Pro.

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