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Beyond the M1 hype and why the fairy dust needs to settle.
- Thread starter Kung gu
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for me the construction of the laptops won me over in 2019 when I purchased a windows laptop.
The M1 is still encased in a sleek but fragile encasement that does absorb a fall like that laptop that i chosen back then.
sure the laptop is fast and all that, but the outside needed improvement was ignored or bypassed.
In all honesty, I'm happy that Apple completed their quest of producing their own Macooks now, seems to me that those who love the M1 chip are very content and big sur runs great!
the same outer design and disposable laptop prevented me from buying a Macook Pro this March and will stick with that windows one, which seem to function and respond as well as the M1 processor everyone is excited about.
The M1 is still encased in a sleek but fragile encasement that does absorb a fall like that laptop that i chosen back then.
sure the laptop is fast and all that, but the outside needed improvement was ignored or bypassed.
In all honesty, I'm happy that Apple completed their quest of producing their own Macooks now, seems to me that those who love the M1 chip are very content and big sur runs great!
the same outer design and disposable laptop prevented me from buying a Macook Pro this March and will stick with that windows one, which seem to function and respond as well as the M1 processor everyone is excited about.
You can run Big Sur (intel version) in a VMWare VM on an AMD.It actually does better than you would think. Not to mention it would be a way for Mac people that still want to run 32-bit Mac software, because you can run Catalina that way too.
No x86/x64 emulation product yet on the M1 is my biggest, and pretty much my only gripe with the M1 Macs. I run a lot of different stuff and I need that versatility.
I've been using VM Ware and that other tool, don't really remember the name, and VM is way slower in every aspect compared to bare metal. It's just not comparable.
Is MacOS free to download for anyone who wants to use it? I did mess around with Linux in different VM's but it was just to slow.
All these suggestions seems time consuming. Hackintosh, run in VM, those kind of workarounds comes with a cost metaphorically speaking.
I do have an Intel Xeon Workstation with 64 or 128 GB of RAM, and a couple of Nvme-drives, and a Nvidia 2080ti graphics card, but my M1 whips the Xeon butt when editing 4:2:2 UHD/DCI RAW movies.
How is it compared to editing 4:2:2 UHD/DCI RAW movies in Final Cut Pro?
Parallels on the Mac, and VirtualBox on multiple OS's, and Hyper-V on Windows (and there's a lot of others in the Linux World.) And yes, it's slower (not WAY slower, but slower, and tolerable. What it gives you is versatility though, and that's something the M1 dearly lacks.
That's changing the question, but yes, it's quite free to download. It's not supported nor licensed, but it does work. If what you messed around with was too slow, you probably didn't have the PC to run something like that. I do a LOT of things with virtual machines and I buy PC's that can run them adequately.
Of course, but it's almost the same as Apple going to the M1, it comes with a cost, and a big one.
How old a Xeon? I also have an intel workstation with 64G of RAM, SSD's, a decent GPU -- and I get a LOT more done with it than my M1. So much so my M1 sits there sleeping most of the time. (My Intel Mac Mini is basically doing a server role)
That's not anything I do, so I wouldn't know. I'm a business guy, not a video guy.
If it is well multithreaded, it would be faster at it. If it's not, yuck.
I don’t think you have any idea what you’re talking about:
“If taking the geometric mean of all the benchmark results, Windows 10 had an 18% advantage over macOS 10.15 Catalina.”
Well, everyone chooses the hardware and software of his/her choice but you have some strange arguments. You use CPU-Monkey as source and this is a side-by-side comparision of both. 4800U only wins in Cinebench R23 multi-core.
You mention gaming but seem to forget that M1 GPU is almost twice as fast as Vega 8 with its 128 units vs 8 units. Then in your price example you choose an even more inferior laptop with 4700U Vega 7. Here is a side-by-side comparison of M1 and 4700U.
Borderlands 3 1080p Very low on Vega 7: 23 fps
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1080p Very Low on Vega 7: 27 fps
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1080p Low on 4800U Vega 8: 22 fps
Borderlands 3 1080p Ultra M1 Rosetta 2: 23 fps
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1080p Medium M1 Rosetta 2: 23 fps
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1080p Ultra M1 Rosetta 2: 23 fps
You mention gaming but seem to forget that M1 GPU is almost twice as fast as Vega 8 with its 128 units vs 8 units. Then in your price example you choose an even more inferior laptop with 4700U Vega 7. Here is a side-by-side comparison of M1 and 4700U.
Borderlands 3 1080p Very low on Vega 7: 23 fps
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1080p Very Low on Vega 7: 27 fps
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1080p Low on 4800U Vega 8: 22 fps
Borderlands 3 1080p Ultra M1 Rosetta 2: 23 fps
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1080p Medium M1 Rosetta 2: 23 fps
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1080p Ultra M1 Rosetta 2: 23 fps
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This is trolling 101. Why the hell someone would come to macrumors and just open a thread saying "Windows laptops are better. Prove me wrong!"
Why does anyone need to evangelise others about what computer is better?
The best machine is the one that disappears and lets you get thing done. Unless you're a hobbyist who likes to read the numbers on the screen about how fast you can push your processor for the sake of it. By all means, do go on, but not everyone gets a computer for that. And not everyone wants to argue about it, because we have stuff to do.
To the OP: well done though, you're stirring the **** like it matters.
Why does anyone need to evangelise others about what computer is better?
The best machine is the one that disappears and lets you get thing done. Unless you're a hobbyist who likes to read the numbers on the screen about how fast you can push your processor for the sake of it. By all means, do go on, but not everyone gets a computer for that. And not everyone wants to argue about it, because we have stuff to do.
To the OP: well done though, you're stirring the **** like it matters.
I do some gaming on my M1 and it performs really well. Disco Elysium and Divinity Original Sin 2 both run extremely well. I've been extremely pleased with the M1 MacBook Pro, which is the first MacBook Pro i've bought for my own usage. The battery life, quiet operation, snappiness of response all make it extremely enjoyable to use (IMO).
In one cinebench test that’s not optimized for M1 yes, but M1 surpasses the ryzen in geekbench multicore - performance benchmarks don’t tell the whole story with M1 and you’ll also find that those benchmarks don’t always track to real world performance. Especially as the M1 is using a brand new architecture that is still be optimized.
Part of the reason people are asking about real world examples here is that the M1 for example has hardware encoders and decoders - so while the Ryzen scored more imaginary internet points in mutlcore in one benchmark, actuallly using the M1 for something like rendering or encoding video still works better on M1. It also has a MUCH better gpu, neural engine, ml cores, and other specific hardware that as of right now will never show up on a benchmark test. That’s all under a 10W package with no fan.
The best comparisons are comparing real-world useage. Don’t just rely on benchmarks especially ones that are not optimized for apples new architecture. The people in this thread that are bashing on M1 are getting caught up on one single benchmark result that is not optimized to take full use of the M1 and not looking at real world usage.
At the end of the day if you don’t want to go with Apple then don’t. Nobody is forcing you to do anything. But reading through all of these replies it is incredibly clear what advantages the M1 has over AMD. If you choose to get caught up on one single benchmark that doesn’t paint the full picture of M1 that’s on you. Nobody’s stopping you from using AMD. They are great chips.
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This alone makes the computer useless, and your comparison pointless, without even getting into how utterly distasteful Windows is.
That I absolutely agree with if you're talking multicore. They can only be used as a rough estimate. Now single core benchmarks for general purpose machines, they really tell me nothing about anything.
How well it does your workload means the most to me.
It's the cheapest desktop computer I've ever bought i think. Approx. $2000 compared to $8000 for my Windows workstation.
I only play World of warcraft. Medium settings in 4K. The Mac mini stays cool and completely silent. I would like to se any x86 do that.
fwiw, the workstation I just bought was $1600. Intel i9-10900, 10 cores, 32G RAM originally, and a SSD. I added another 32G for $240... Workstation stuff has gotten much cheaper on the Windows side than it was before...
This thread brings me back to 1998 and old BBS Mac vs PC flamewars.
Yes, PCs are sometimes cheaper. No, PCs are not universally faster. Yes, there's more games for Windows (though there's more games for iOS). Doesn't matter how good a PC is if it can't run macOS if that's what someone wants to use. No, a hackintosh is not a viable solution for most people. Yes, I use both -- right tool for the right job.
Ah, good times...
Yes, PCs are sometimes cheaper. No, PCs are not universally faster. Yes, there's more games for Windows (though there's more games for iOS). Doesn't matter how good a PC is if it can't run macOS if that's what someone wants to use. No, a hackintosh is not a viable solution for most people. Yes, I use both -- right tool for the right job.
Ah, good times...
You are missing the fundamental architecture difference between the processors. Apple went for a heterogeneous core processor that allows for different loads to be handled more efficiently on different cores. for all x86-64 based CPUs all cores are identical. This allows for one big advantage for Apple, better computer per watt.
For basic user loads (web-browsing, basic photo work, e-mail, Netflix, etc.) every processor sold today can handle the work with ease. The processing might is there. The issue is now not raw performance but performance per watt to maximize battery life.
Additionally ARM based CPUs have one more power per watt advantage. Because they have a fixed instruction size they can consistently keep their pipeline full when processing. Since each instruction size must be calculated at execution time on x86-64 this isn't possible for Intel and AMD. This wastes cpu time. Intel's hyper-threading and other "virtual core" technologies like this are meant to remedy this issue and help somewhat as do the micro-instructions but both of these still cost time on the chip and therefore power.
That's just the proc of the system.
Apple DOES have an SSD write issue that his a firmware bug that needs to be worked out but they wouldn't be the first. Intel has had numerous chip bugs that have caused all sorts of fun errors including some unfixable security bugs in all processors prior to the Ivy Bridge platform. They are bugs. They get fixed when they can. As far as they go, this isn't too bad. If you want to pick this up we can talk about the Itanium server platform from Intel...
Switching to the OS for now.
As for Windows being able to do more, sure. But do more has never been Apple's MO. It is to cover the 90% case and make it as smooth as possible. Apple shines most when you look at how smoothly the use case for a task is handled. I do think Big Sur is a bit of a regression a it is a transition to a new UI design language but the function between apps is far more consistent. While Apple doesn't implement it perfectly there is one design language and this makes use cases easier to pick up and execute as a user. Does Apple cover them all? No. But the ones they do the cover well and make easy.
Microsoft, by contrast, has three design languages: Modern, Longhorn (Vista/7), and the old GDI style from NT4. (Four if you want to throw in MMC). And all are still used. Modern will throw you out to GDI for trying to modify network settings. Outlook will present Modern at first but the options pane is in the Longhorn style. This is not a smooth transition. It is done this way in the name of back compat. While windows may outperform by raw numbers if you change the measurement to how fast a user gets things done Apple will compete much more closely.
Had you gone after the OSs at a lower level (I still love the NT object permissions model) we would have a different conversation but at the user level they are comparable.
And as for gaming, well, yep. The Mac Gaming market is shrinking. But so is the PC gaming market as well. Yelling "get a PC if you want to game" to Mac gamers is the equivalent of yelling "get a Playstation if you want to game" to a PC gamer. The title set for MS GamePass is much smaller on PC than Xbox. It's telling. It is better just to say "people will game where they game." Although interestingly, with Metal 2 finally stabilizing and MoltenKV on top of it we might see something interesting happen here. Also the latest releases to Apple Arcade on AppleTV and iOS are surprisingly good, so Apple reprioritizing the Mac Gamer prolly makes business sense.
Your closing was about the M1 chip again and while I think there is a lot of hype I think it is mostly justified. OS and app platforms aside this is a game changer. Not only does it show the strength of a heterogeneous architecture but it calls out intel and AMD for resting on their laurels. On the CPU front I have seen little exciting out of either of them in almost a decade. (AMD has done some good work on GPUs). Apple bringing the mobile mentality of getting the most done per battery life to a laptop is a serious game changer. It will be a challenge for AMD and Intel to compete here.
Right tool for the right job...yep. My home server runs windows server with two linux VMs that run smart home hubs to manage devices controlled by my iPhone and MacBook.
That said I don't mind a good flame war every now and then...
I don't know if people realize the M1 is a fanless-capable design and Apple's equivalent to the ultra low-voltage core-m and core i3s of the world that used to power the 12" Macbook and Macbook Airs of late.
The M1 is Apple's i3/Celeron bottom of the line processor.
The fact that it beats Intel's latest desktop i9 and workstations Xenons and is faster in single-threaded performance than the Mac Pro and every Intel/AMD processor ever made doesn't mean they were made to be actually competing with those systems. People talking about the latest 12 & 16 core Ryzens that wouldnt even fit physically and thermally on an ultrabook (fanless or otherwise) are just trying to convince themselves that this isnt happening.
The hard reality is that the whole x86 paradigm, including Windows itself, even for gaming, is in danger. As a hard-core PC gamer summed it up when the first independent M1 benchmarks came out, "I really hope 10 years from now We wont be having to buy Apple's".
The M1 is Apple's i3/Celeron bottom of the line processor.
The fact that it beats Intel's latest desktop i9 and workstations Xenons and is faster in single-threaded performance than the Mac Pro and every Intel/AMD processor ever made doesn't mean they were made to be actually competing with those systems. People talking about the latest 12 & 16 core Ryzens that wouldnt even fit physically and thermally on an ultrabook (fanless or otherwise) are just trying to convince themselves that this isnt happening.
The hard reality is that the whole x86 paradigm, including Windows itself, even for gaming, is in danger. As a hard-core PC gamer summed it up when the first independent M1 benchmarks came out, "I really hope 10 years from now We wont be having to buy Apple's".
It would be kinda meh for what you are doing. The M1 is not built for raw power, it is built for efficiency. You'll get more battery life and power over time out of the M1 at the same workload but it won't be faster. It's a 10W chip vs a 15W chip and it sounds like you're just looking crunch video fast.Bought into the hype and M1 turned out kind of meh and feels like a beta product with so many issues. I'd get the AMD 5800U if I didn't already have the 4650U which has none of the issues M1 has and only $500 for Lenovo Yoga 6. Probably should just wait for the 5nm 6800U hopefully with AV1 hardware decoding/encoding.
I don’t think you have any idea what you’re talking about:
“If taking the geometric mean of all the benchmark results, Windows 10 had an 18% advantage over macOS 10.15 Catalina.”
Sure, I know of these tests. I find it hilarious that you — a "developer for one of the largest companies" is using this kind of evidence to argue that macOS is "poorly optimized fo x86".
What they show is a) OpenGL is slow on macOS (duh!) and b) Linux-deployed technologies like Java, PHP or Go optimized for Linux (duh again!). The only really surprising result is PyBench, but I am sure there will be some sort of trivial explanation (like lack of optimizations in the platform-specific backend). Basically, you take a bunch of software optimized for Linux and then proclaim that Linux is fastest...
So you're comparing a processor without hyperthreading, and with only 4 performance cores to a processor with hyperthreading and having 8 identical cores, and are annoyed it's a bit slower?
Ok.
Ok.
intellectual dishonesty is the requirement for good trolling. You make a nebulous (at best!) statement and then require everyone else to disprove it. This thread is a dumpster fire.
You
Your misconceptions and false analogies aside, those "extraordinary" claims are actually backed up by multiple independent sources, some of whom aren't the friendliest to Apple or the Mac platform. Your blanket dismissal of those reviews as "extraordinary claims" is ignorant in the best case scenario and downright reckless in the more likely scenario. Touchscreens on Windows laptops are still only used regularly by less then 10% of the userbase according to Microsoft's own research. I had a Windows laptop with touchscreen, and I may have used the touch features three times in 5 years - it's just not as big a feature as some people would have you believe.
Regarding software, on what rational level is there "very limited app compatibility?" 32-bit apps are irrelevant to the discussion, since Apple phased out support for those with Catalina, before the first Apple Silicon Macs hit the market. On the gaming side, there is more support that many people realize, as evidenced by Blizzard dropping an M1-native build of World of Warcraft day and date of the M1's official release. You also have Tomb Raider and Baldur's Gate 3 being updated for the M1, and Steam has its own set of tricks up its sleeve, so gaming on an M1 Mac is not the desolate wasteland you claim. The only holdouts are some developers (mainly smaller niche devs) who have not updated their apps yet. The main players are all either already on Apple Silicon or have beta versions of their apps available for testing now.
Now for the SSD "issue" - given the MTBF on the SSDs is ridiculously high, the usage due to swap files is really nothing to even glance at a second time. To translate into "WinBro" speak for you, it's a feature, not a bug. You also tried to compare the Envy's 1080p screen (which is bright, but that's about it) to the P3 Retina display on both the M1 Air and Pro while trying to pass off the HPs screen as superior.
On the performance side, the M1 Air is easily holding its own against machines such as the LG Gram (which was hyped as a big step forward on the Windows side), surpassing that model in several aspects including battery life, screen quality, overall performance, and build quality. This is another area where multiple reputable websites have corroborated these findings, consistently placing the M1 Macs towards the top of the review charts.
You also completely ignore the overarching advantages of Mac OS and its ecosystem (probably because it further disproves your weak arguments). MacOS is more secure than Windows, mainly because Apple can drop support for older hardware and 16/32-bit software, while Microsoft is somewhat beholden to the x86 specification as well as supporting older hardware and 16/32-bit applications while creating more holes in the OS than a ton of Swiss cheese. There are so many vectors by which a malicious actor can attack Windows-based systems, that teams of researchers both inside and outside Microsoft are filing multiple reports a day when they find something new (or a fix to an issue discovered in January opens up three more vulnerabilities). The cross-compatibility between MacOS, iOS, WatchOS, etc. is unparalleled in the PC market, and is yet another area that Microsoft and its hardware partners are falling further behind every day. For proof of this, have fun synching an Android device to your Windows based PC.
TL/DR - Your claims are week and unsupported by facts. In fact, I openly wonder how much HP is paying you to pimp their crap...
Your misconceptions and false analogies aside, those "extraordinary" claims are actually backed up by multiple independent sources, some of whom aren't the friendliest to Apple or the Mac platform. Your blanket dismissal of those reviews as "extraordinary claims" is ignorant in the best case scenario and downright reckless in the more likely scenario. Touchscreens on Windows laptops are still only used regularly by less then 10% of the userbase according to Microsoft's own research. I had a Windows laptop with touchscreen, and I may have used the touch features three times in 5 years - it's just not as big a feature as some people would have you believe.
Regarding software, on what rational level is there "very limited app compatibility?" 32-bit apps are irrelevant to the discussion, since Apple phased out support for those with Catalina, before the first Apple Silicon Macs hit the market. On the gaming side, there is more support that many people realize, as evidenced by Blizzard dropping an M1-native build of World of Warcraft day and date of the M1's official release. You also have Tomb Raider and Baldur's Gate 3 being updated for the M1, and Steam has its own set of tricks up its sleeve, so gaming on an M1 Mac is not the desolate wasteland you claim. The only holdouts are some developers (mainly smaller niche devs) who have not updated their apps yet. The main players are all either already on Apple Silicon or have beta versions of their apps available for testing now.
Now for the SSD "issue" - given the MTBF on the SSDs is ridiculously high, the usage due to swap files is really nothing to even glance at a second time. To translate into "WinBro" speak for you, it's a feature, not a bug. You also tried to compare the Envy's 1080p screen (which is bright, but that's about it) to the P3 Retina display on both the M1 Air and Pro while trying to pass off the HPs screen as superior.
On the performance side, the M1 Air is easily holding its own against machines such as the LG Gram (which was hyped as a big step forward on the Windows side), surpassing that model in several aspects including battery life, screen quality, overall performance, and build quality. This is another area where multiple reputable websites have corroborated these findings, consistently placing the M1 Macs towards the top of the review charts.
You also completely ignore the overarching advantages of Mac OS and its ecosystem (probably because it further disproves your weak arguments). MacOS is more secure than Windows, mainly because Apple can drop support for older hardware and 16/32-bit software, while Microsoft is somewhat beholden to the x86 specification as well as supporting older hardware and 16/32-bit applications while creating more holes in the OS than a ton of Swiss cheese. There are so many vectors by which a malicious actor can attack Windows-based systems, that teams of researchers both inside and outside Microsoft are filing multiple reports a day when they find something new (or a fix to an issue discovered in January opens up three more vulnerabilities). The cross-compatibility between MacOS, iOS, WatchOS, etc. is unparalleled in the PC market, and is yet another area that Microsoft and its hardware partners are falling further behind every day. For proof of this, have fun synching an Android device to your Windows based PC.
TL/DR - Your claims are week and unsupported by facts. In fact, I openly wonder how much HP is paying you to pimp their crap...