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As a developer, I can tell you that the 16GB in these new machines will far out perform 32GB in anything you've used previously. I certainly recommend learning about ARM and the differences between your standard CPU like the Intel chips we've been using. RAM in these cases is not directly 1:1 comparable.
All true. And you still won’t dissuade any spec warriors out there. The uninformed will always prioritize their hertz, and their bytes, and their nits, and their pixels, and their watts, etc., etc., etc.
 
I hope this isn’t against the rules as it’s cross referencing somewhat competing sites, but the Max Tech guys have posted some incredible results regarding the performance of these M1 chips...

In a nutshell, the lower end MacBook Air (7 GPU cores / 8 GB of RAM):
- Beats anything out there in single core and in quad core scores (and more) like we have been hinted know until now.
- Final Cut Pro X is indeed 3x times faster... than the previous MacBook pros! Because it’s about 10x more performant than the previous equivalent priced MacBook Air.
- FCPX again: he does some tests that not even his $15K Mac Pro is able to achieve... 8K 60fps Raw footage handled no problems, even with problematic codecs.
- FCPX again again: it actually happens to beat exporting and stabilizing footage when compared to MBP 16”.
- On the MaxTech channel one, they test League Of Legends, all maxed out, some above 1440p resolution (can’t remember exactly) solid no lag, 60fps. This is under Rosetta. Lightroom, solid, no lag, still under Rosetta.

I’m somehow still expecting a rain of hate and dislikes regarding how doomed it all is, that it won’t work, that it’s just synthetic benchmarks... but I think this gets as real life use case as it can get.

As a reminder, this is the lowest of the lowest machines offered there, 8GB of RAM, one GPU core disabled. That’s a great entree for the main course if you ask me and actually a great portable powerhouse.
I haven’t been excited for technology in such a long time.
 
I bought one in early October. It was a desperate need. I couldn’t wait. :(
The person from May is already too long, and for what its worth, it’s a great machine and it will continue to be for years to come. Granted not this new beast of a thing.

However, in your case, October is only a month away, I think that you might have a chance at an honest tech support call and politely ask if they are still accepting longer than expected return windows because of pandemic and COVID (Apple was accepting longer than usual return times) and that you bought on a rush. Does it meet your needs? Because if it doesn’t just say that, that it also feels too underpowered to what you think it was going to be able to.

It might still be under the allowed playing rules.
 
All true. And you still won’t dissuade any spec warriors out there. The uninformed will always prioritize their hertz, and their bytes, and their nits, and their pixels, and their watts, etc., etc., etc.
I think it's fascinating to watch how Apple once again turns conventional wisdom on its head.

Remember back in the past where we had a variety of different processor options with every PC? It invariably boiled down to how many cores you wanted (which could be confusing to new users, because more cores doesn't necessarily mean better performance depending on their workflows), with the option to pay more for a faster processor (which again, may not result in any appreciable benefit to the end user).

Now with the new AS Macs, Apple is simply offering a single processor choice, and the only options the customer gets are choice of ram and storage, which harkens back to the iPad.

Apple is basically saying - this laptop is going to be fast enough for your needs. Just trust us on this. And I think it's refreshing just how much Apple has been able to simplify the options for the consumer, by essentially tying the choice of processor to the device itself.

So much more streamlined. None of this "i3 / i5 / i7" and "how many cores do you want with that?" nonsense. But it only works because Apple needs to only serve their own clientele at the end of the day and doesn't have to cater to the rest of the industry, so this may be an area Intel will find hard to match.
 
I hope this isn’t against the rules as it’s cross referencing somewhat competing sites, but the Max Tech guys have posted some incredible results regarding the performance of these M1 chips...

In a nutshell, the lower end MacBook Air (7 GPU cores / 8 GB of RAM):
- Beats anything out there in single core and in quad core scores (and more) like we have been hinted know until now.
- Final Cut Pro X is indeed 3x times faster... than the previous MacBook pros! Because it’s about 10x more performant than the previous equivalent priced MacBook Air.
- FCPX again: he does some tests that not even his $15K Mac Pro is able to achieve... 8K 60fps Raw footage handled no problems, even with problematic codecs.
- FCPX again again: it actually happens to beat exporting and stabilizing footage when compared to MBP 16”.
- On the MaxTech channel one, they test League Of Legends, all maxed out, some above 1440p resolution (can’t remember exactly) solid no lag, 60fps. This is under Rosetta. Lightroom, solid, no lag, still under Rosetta.

I’m somehow still expecting a rain of hate and dislikes regarding how doomed it all is, that it won’t work, that it’s just synthetic benchmarks... but I think this gets as real life use case as it can get.

As a reminder, this is the lowest of the lowest machines offered there, 8GB of RAM, one GPU core disabled. That’s a great entree for the main course if you ask me and actually a great portable powerhouse.
I haven’t been excited for technology in such a long time.
Honestly, THIS is a better review and a show off of power than rapidly open a bunch of light demand apps.
 
All true. And you still won’t dissuade any spec warriors out there. The uninformed will always prioritize their hertz, and their bytes, and their nits, and their pixels, and their watts, etc., etc., etc.
This reality bothers me to no end... I kinda can get it with cars, there’s some nostalgia, personality, etc to a big powered muscle car with beautiful engine sound but that might be not as fast as a lighter snappier 4x4 small sports car, we appreciate it nevertheless.

But not with this... the denial of some (big minority mind you) on these forums is off the hook. When the benchmark is for whatever system they have then it’s cool, but when it’s Apple smoking the same then “it’s synthetic, don’t trust it”.
Real life use cases come out, reviews, etc “yeah, but it‘s Apple it will break”.
There was one guy saying “I don’t care about TDP” just that it scores a bit less than whatever many cores system he had... TDP, that’s tied to battery life, longevity of components, etc... suddenly it’s not important. Not caring about TDP, price point, system size, portability, etc etc then what are we comparing then? Just the raw final number? If it lasted for 1month it’s still good right? Who cares about how long it lasts just the final number?

Anyways, I’m ranting and venting, not saying that it’s 100% flawless system, we don’t really know yet, apps compatibility is still a concern, Big Sur freshly out is a concern but this entry of entry levels is looking goddamn amazing. Credit where credit’s due.
 
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the future security chip that attacks piracy is coming to Intel and AMD and Qualcomm

 
I hope this isn’t against the rules as it’s cross referencing somewhat competing sites, but the Max Tech guys have posted some incredible results regarding the performance of these M1 chips...

In a nutshell, the lower end MacBook Air (7 GPU cores / 8 GB of RAM):
- Beats anything out there in single core and in quad core scores (and more) like we have been hinted know until now.
- Final Cut Pro X is indeed 3x times faster... than the previous MacBook pros! Because it’s about 10x more performant than the previous equivalent priced MacBook Air.
- FCPX again: he does some tests that not even his $15K Mac Pro is able to achieve... 8K 60fps Raw footage handled no problems, even with problematic codecs.
- FCPX again again: it actually happens to beat exporting and stabilizing footage when compared to MBP 16”.
- On the MaxTech channel one, they test League Of Legends, all maxed out, some above 1440p resolution (can’t remember exactly) solid no lag, 60fps. This is under Rosetta. Lightroom, solid, no lag, still under Rosetta.

I’m somehow still expecting a rain of hate and dislikes regarding how doomed it all is, that it won’t work, that it’s just synthetic benchmarks... but I think this gets as real life use case as it can get.

As a reminder, this is the lowest of the lowest machines offered there, 8GB of RAM, one GPU core disabled. That’s a great entree for the main course if you ask me and actually a great portable powerhouse.
I haven’t been excited for technology in such a long time.
Thanks for this. It is exactly what I was looking for. It is really impressive. My 16" MBPro i9 is starting to feel a little long in tooth, now.

I almost want to max out a mini and just use an iPad on the go.
 
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It's quick but your comments about the low RAM utilisation are misleading. It had already started to use some swap.

Also in Tech Chap's review he was getting out-of-memory warnings on an 8GB M1 MBP.
Shh...dont burst their bubble yet, it still slices bread.

On a side note I can't find any real reviews of things like drivers. Like printer drivers or lets say I buy the Mini and I fire up Zoom or Microsoft Teams for work, the Intel versions via Rosetta 2, and I plug in a my current USB web cam....is that going to work??
 
Damn now I’m seriously considering selling my 16in for the 13in. This machine is incredible
Or maybe wait for the M1 version of said 16" MBP. It's way overkill for my needs (am currently typing this now from my AS MBA as I wait for my Zoom meeting to begin), and I am most curious as to just how much extra performance Apple will be able to squeeze out of this one.

I am willing to accept that this being Gen 1, it makes sense for M1 to be introduced in the entry-level Macs, where the apparently limitations (eg: lack of ports, E-GPUs and multi-monitor support) are less of an issue for say, the MBA user base, and where the devices would get the most bang for the buck relative to what they were getting under Intel.

Give Apple a little more time to properly scale it up for more powerful Macs and assuming Apple can maintain this lead for their workstations, I am upgrading my 2017 5k iMac the moment the new AS iMacs hit. Previous resolution to hold on to it for 6-7 years minimum, and even if I can't get a good price for it...

I am upgrading. 😃
 
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That is crazy!

Mine is out for delivery right now. Dinnertime will be fun.
“Please do not eat happy fun MacBook Air.”

I am hoping more people will buy these entry level machines, so in a year and a half, I can buy them at 1/4 the price for simple IT projects.
You know what would be MORE exciting for those simple IT projects? An m1 on a Raspberry Pi type board, call it Apple Pi :)
 
Oh I see the memory wars have started up again 🙈

So I made a helpful explanatory graphic for those who seem to think anything more than 8GB is a crime against Steve Jobs......

No_more_RAM.jpeg


Note..... there were no out of memory warnings here.... it just crashed and restarte .... r...e...a...l...l.....y ......s....l.....o.....w....l....yyyyyyy. Note also this is me triyng not to crash it I could easily have made each simulation bigger and I'm only using 14 out of 16 possible logical cores (in then end I have to only use 4 cores as each shard increased to 12-14GB as the simulation continued which makes the whole thing take longer). Yes folks -> more cores need more RAM to support them.

Whats the take-away here ? If you find yourself saying stuff like "nobody will every need more than 8kb of RAM.....", you dont' know what you are talking about. You don't have a RAM critical workload. Stop telling other people what they dont' need and accept that if Apple put more RAM in their machines more people would buy them and Apple would make more money. If Apple gave a 32GB option on these new machines -> it doens't affect you stop picking fights with the people it does effect.
 
Remember back in the past where we had a variety of different processor options with every PC?

...

Now with the new AS Macs, Apple is simply offering a single processor choice, and the only options the customer gets are choice of ram and storage, which harkens back to the iPad.

...

So much more streamlined. None of this "i3 / i5 / i7" and "how many cores do you want with that?" nonsense.

This is nonsense. There's only one chip because Apple have only switched their lowest-performing devices. You'll have more choice once they've fully transitioned away from Intel.

All true. And you still won’t dissuade any spec warriors out there. The uninformed will always prioritize their hertz, and their bytes, and their nits, and their pixels, and their watts, etc., etc., etc.

More uninformed nonsense. If you have a large amount of data to load in to RAM you need a large amount of RAM for it, otherwise the OS will start to use swap. macOS has not changed in this regard. Nothing about the M1 prevents it.

Does anyone really use more than one application at a time? Having windows “available” isn’t the same as actually typing into one window while touching up a drawing in another while meticulously fine tuning the color in another while scrolling through a webpage in yet another. I’m not even sure the UI handles multiple targets.

Yes of course they do. If you have any kind of professional workflow you'll be switching between multiple running apps all the time.

A properly written macOS app is nearly incapable of showing an "out of memory" error.
macOS apps run in a virtual memory space and they all think they have 64 bits of addressable memory. So an app would have to use enough storage to fill up main memory then main storage before the OS itself would start complaining about critically low space.
Several Adobe apps, for example, use their own memory managers rather than let the OS do what it does so well.

Maybe you should have watched the video before you commented? macOS has its own memory warning and that's what was shown in the video:

H6VPA.png


Yes, but that 10 litre bucket of petrol will get you a lot further in a 2020 BMW M340 than it will in a 1979 Buick LeSabre.
So while 10 litres - 10 litres, the 120km you get in the Bimmer is more than double the 50km you get from the land barge.

This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of RAM. In my analogy, the RAM is the bucket. In your analogy, RAM is a fuel. That makes no sense.

Think of it another way, you have a 10L bucket full of flour. You're saying Apple has invented some way to let you bake 20 cakes instead of 10 after you fill up their magic bucket with flour. It's not possible. Sure you may be able to pack more flour in by compressing it a little (macOS has had memory compression since Mavericks) but you can't make 16GB of RAM be as effective as 32GB RAM. The improvements the M1 brings are mostly to do with speed.

If you have 10 litres of stuff to store, you need a 10 litre bucket. If you have 32GB of data to load in to RAM, you need 32GB of RAM. If you don't, the operating system will swap which is analogous to your stuff overflowing the bucket and spilling out all over the floor making it harder to manage. Due to the way computers work you can only use flour directly from the bucket. So before you can use the flour from the floor, you first have to empty the bucket a little bit then go around scooping up all the spilled flour. This is obviously much slower and less efficient than if you simply bought a bigger bucket (i.e. more RAM).
 
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Does anyone really use more than one application at a time? Having windows “available” isn’t the same as actually typing into one window while touching up a drawing in another while meticulously fine tuning the color in another while scrolling through a webpage in yet another. I’m not even sure the UI handles multiple targets.
You don’t have to be interacting directly at that moment for an application to be doing something. Something could be rendering, or building in the background. You may be swapping between using multiple intensive apps back and forth quickly. That’s what my day looks like anyway.
 
This is nonsense. There's only one chip because Apple have only switched their lowest-performing devices. You'll have more choice once they've fully transitioned away from Intel.

I can see Apple using at most 4 or 5 different ARM chips across their whole lineup, instead of dozens of BTO variants like they're doing now.
Like 1 chip for 2 form factors or something like that.
 
I can see Apple using at most 4 or 5 different ARM chips across their whole lineup, instead of dozens of BTO variants like they're doing now.
Like 1 chip for 2 form factors or something like that.

I agree and even 4 or 5 models completely invalidates their point. I predict there will be six:

A low-power mobile chip (M1)

A choice of two different CPUs in Pro mobile machines like the MacBook Pro 16". These will also be available in the Mac Mini (Mac Mini Pro?).

A choice of two desktop-class CPUs for the iMac.

A mindblowing workstation CPU for the Mac Pro.

Oh I see the memory wars have started up again 🙈
...

Note..... there were no out of memory warnings here.... it just crashed and restarte .... r...e...a...l...l.....y ......s....l.....o.....w....l....yyyyyyy. Note also this is me triyng not to crash it I could easily have made each simulation bigger and I'm only using 14 out of 16 possible logical cores (in then end I have to only use 4 cores as each shard increased to 12-14GB as the simulation continued which makes the whole thing take longer). Yes folks -> more cores need more RAM to support them.

Whats the take-away here ? If you find yourself saying stuff like "nobody will every need more than 8kb of RAM.....", you dont' know what you are talking about. You don't have a RAM critical workload. Stop telling other people what they dont' need and accept that if Apple put more RAM in their machines more people would buy them and Apple would make more money. If Apple gave a 32GB option on these new machines -> it doens't affect you stop picking fights with the people it does effect.

Finally somebody who gets it! Don't be surprised if somebody comes along and tells you that when R is released for Apple Silicon it will somehow make your huge datasets fit in 16GB of RAM because of M1 magic.
 
This is nonsense. There's only one chip because Apple have only switched their lowest-performing devices. You'll have more choice once they've fully transitioned away from Intel.

What I meant is that I see Apple only needing to offer one processor choice for each of their devices.

With the Mac mini, mba and 13” MBP, that’s the current M1 chip with 4 fast cores and 4 efficiency cores.

With the 16” MBP and iMac, I suspect 8 fast cores and 4 efficiency cores. Maybe a souped up one for an iMac Pro.

That leaves the Mac Pro in the unenviable position of needing the most powerful and expensive chip, but also having the lowest market share.

And there would be no need to choose, because they are still going to be faster than anything the competition has to offer either way.
 
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