Apple Silicon is Overpriced and over valued in technology market

[sam_dean]

I guess my analogy is flawed as I have a newer Acura, an older Audi, and a Camry that's in between the two.

The Acura is the TSX sport version that's fast and fun, the Audi has a convertible top, but the Camry wins hands down as most reliable with coldest A/C and the best heat.

Like PC users so focused on the latest AMD gaming CPU or Nvidia RTX 40 GPU.

They all think that every person should have one even when people do not play PC games.

When I start talking about 7nm <15W TDP ultrabook AMD chips they draw a blank especially when the laptop's <$700.

I get a kick out of these really cheap ThinkPad E-series as the value, performance per watt and form factor would have been impossible to achieve a decade ago.

Most laptops sell <$999 so that's that.

So when other people call Macs a luxury item then I do not blame them as >80% of laptops cost below a Mac.

This was intentional on Apple's part as they're only interested in the top ~20% of the PC market as it delivers >80% of the profit. Same with the iPhone that sells between $429-1599. This represents that top ~20% of the market and delivers >80% of the smartphone profits.

 

[maflynn]

They all think that every person should have one even when people do not play PC games.

Actually the RTX GPUs are used in a lot scientific computing, as the cuda cores are well suited to that level of processing. Many reviewers tend to communicate that the the 90 series, e.g., RTX 4090 is more likely to be used in scientific usage then gaming. I can't say if that's true or not, but I do know a lot people need Nividia GPUs simply because their software relies on the cuda cores to such a high degree that it saves them an incredible amount of time.

I'm not saying people are not gaming on them, but there are business usages outside of gaming

 

[sam_dean]

Actually the RTX GPUs are used in a lot scientific computing, as the cuda cores are well suited to that level of processing. Many reviewers tend to communicate that the the 90 series, e.g., RTX 4090 is more likely to be used in scientific usage then gaming. I can't say if that's true or not, but I do know a lot people need Nividia GPUs simply because their software relies on the cuda cores to such a high degree that it saves them an incredible amount of time.

I'm not saying people are not gaming on them, but there are business usages outside of gaming

It also applies to scientists as well.

If majority of RTX owners play games or do crypto then the minority do science on it like but not limited to endeavors like SETI@Home.

It is like many users here are software devs, engineering or other related fields who claim that most users use Terminal or CLI.

This does not apply to all users regardless of fields

Going back to topic.

Keep MSRP at current SoC but double RAM & SSD to make Apple Silicon a bargain.

Dream Macs

2023 MBP 16"

- M2 Pro
- 12-Core CPU
- 19-Core GPU
- 32GB RAM LPDDR5
- 1TB SSD ~7.5GB/s
- $2499
- 96W

2023 iMac 27" replacement

- M2 Pro
- 10-Core CPU
- 16-Core GPU
- 32GB RAM LPDDR5
- 1TB SSD ~7.5GB/s
- $2599
- ~100W

 

[dmccloud]

Actually the RTX GPUs are used in a lot scientific computing, as the cuda cores are well suited to that level of processing. Many reviewers tend to communicate that the the 90 series, e.g., RTX 4090 is more likely to be used in scientific usage then gaming. I can't say if that's true or not, but I do know a lot people need Nividia GPUs simply because their software relies on the cuda cores to such a high degree that it saves them an incredible amount of time.

I'm not saying people are not gaming on them, but there are business usages outside of gaming

With some of the internal changes made to limit the usefulness of newer GPUs for tasks such as Crypto mining, I can't help but wonder if there are any spillover effects into other areas, such as scientific modeling. From what I've seen, the 4090s have been snatched up by those gamers who "must" have the latest and greatest at all times and also tons of money to burn. The 4080s might actually be a better value proposition if you can handle the ~5% drop in framerates for gaming. nVidia also has two types of driver packages now - the Game Ready Driver and the Studio Driver, I'd assume the latter is what's used in the scientific community.

 

[maflynn]

I'd assume the latter is what's used in the scientific community.

I can't speak of the scientific community with any accuracy, other then my passing understanding that they like to use nvidia gpus

 

[NY Guitarist]

One aspect of the SoC transition I didn't realize I would appreciate as much as I do is not chasing the latest GPU's, which would inevitably lead to OS and driver conflicts etc.

When Apple dropped support for Nvidia GPUs it cost me a pile of money, time, and considerable aggravation.

 

[senttoschool]

Here's another laptop, and again the price is less then what Apple charges.



Of course, because I can easily find a name brand laptop for less then what apple charges with similar configurations ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Do you want to spend 2,750 for the Legion 7i or 3,500 for a 16" M2 Max MBP?

The new Legion 7i from Lenovo - a 13th Gen Intel i9 13900HX (24 core, 32 thread process) with a 4080 GPU, 32GB of ram and 1TB of storage.

The M2 MBP with 12 cpu cores, 38 gpu cores, 32GB of ram and 1TB of storage runs 3,500 dollars.

The early benchmarks that I've seen show the RTX 4080 being faster so that's why I chose the highest tier 16" MBP

btw, I'd consider Lenovo a major player in the PC world with very good customer service and a reputation of having high quality.

View attachment 2156463

You just proved my point. This Lenovo has a way worse battery life, runs like a jet engine, way worse display, lower resolution, dimmer, less sharp, way worse battery life, and worse build quality, way heavier, way bulkier. And it sells for $2750. It's a much worse value than the M1 16" MBP, which is frequently on sale for $2100. I'd only get this if my usage requires an Nvidia GPU or Windows.

The only thing this Lenovo wins in is the raw amount of RAM (using much cheaper DDR5 instead of LPDDR5), a higher TB drive, and it has an Nvidia GPU which has more utility right now until more applications take advantage of Metal and unified memory.

Apple will always lose when it comes to the amount of RAM or storage you get for the price. That's how Apple is able to charge so little for base machines that have much higher quality. Apple makes its high margins on storage and RAM.

You can argue that there is an Apple tax when you upgrade the storage and RAM. It would be a good argument. But the base machines are good to great values.