Yet you are ignoring @leman ‘s preferences for MacOS. Is a M1 Max MacBook Pro also not a powerful platform? He likes the versatility he gets with MacOS. He can’t get MacOS on a steam gaming platform.
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[CPU only] Apple M1/2(Max/Ultra) (TSMC 5nm) vs AMD Zen 4 (TSMC 5nm) - Technical Analysis
- Thread starter exoticSpice
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I'm not ignoring it. Of course MacOS is a powerful platform, but I'm arguing that MacOS is just not as versatile. It might work for him, but it's a limited system. A setup like GPD can do everything a MacOS system can do and more (and if it can't, just throw in an extra GPU there).
So advocacy for the sake of advocacy? Why bother? No one’s mind is going to be changed.
I'm not advocating for anything, except the fact that there's life and a world of possibilities outside MacOS / iPadOS / iOS (and I'm an Apple user myself!).
I think they mostly schedule the patents with the patent office in such a way that the patent is not public till after the HW comes out. (Even though it's often not clear till many years later whether that particular patent feature is present or not...)
It's also misleading to compare "looking for new stuff" with "examining the past". When you examine the past you're look at a pool of ~15 years of patents and it's somewhat easy to see the patterns, to see significance in something that to a naive reader would seem obscure, and to find related patents (by comparing filing names and similar tricks).
When you reach modern times (basically anything after about 2020) all this goes away, so it looks like the record is sparser (fewer new CPU patents) but I suspect that's an illusion -- a watched pot never boils.
The main stuff I've seen in patents that doesn't *seem* to be connected to anything we know of in existing hardware are
- stuff related to making VM's a lot more efficient, specifically in the handling of virtual memory for VMs. Of particular interest is support for a wide variety of page sizes...
- stuff related to making IO a lot more efficient. Apple has always had a small "bridge" between each different IO bus (USB, PCI etc) to map requests (like interrupts or power state changes) between the native Apple SoC form and what that bus wants, but the latest version (in patents anyway) is much more aggressive in how it translates between the two so that data being moved to/from memory can be much more aggressively cached. This has minor performance benefits, but is mainly about energy.
- stuff related to scaling up the design to larger HW by improving the cache coherency protocols.
I think it's probably ALSO the case that h.266 decoder HW has already been in CPUs for a while (maybe starting with A15, but maybe even A14 and M1?) Apple in the past has jumped onto new codecs rapidly once the spec is finalized, but has delayed announcing their new "preferred" codec until a critical mass of HW supports it...
No-one has gone beyond 8 in an "interesting" fashion (as opposed to trivial things like VLIW).
The stage of resource allocation (CPUs generally call this Rename) is the most challenging part of keep scaling up, but there are ways to handle this. Not trivial, but also not impossible.
And, as I said, there are ways to make the CPU "effectively" wider today without tackling Rename. The details of this are far too complex to discuss in a post here, but I described many of the ideas in my M1 PDFs. That's the strategy I would use, if I were Apple, for the N3-targeted CPUs.
For MOST people, what Apple now sells is the convenience of an Apple Cluster, a set of devices that all work well together, and from which you can choose whatever you need - AirPods, aWatch, aTV, iPhone, Mac, etc. If you only have one you don't see the advantage, but when you have the whole set things (mostly...) work magically together. You look up an address on your Mac, then when you get into your car, Carplay automatically displays it on the navigation screen; You play audio from your phone to your AirPods, but can control the playback (pause/volume/ etc) on your aWatch; You can cut and paste from your Mac to your iPhone, or put your iPad next to your Mac and use it as an extension of the Mac screen. etc etc.
There are bugs, and for demanding users (like myself!) there are still too many limitations, but for most users and especially naive users, the interconnections mostly just work as they should. I see this with my family members, moving data and activities between their iPhones, aWatches, and macs without even thinking about it, just assuming this is the way things should always work.
You may not care about these, but many users do.
On the business side, this means that you insist on seeing Apple's strategy through the eyes of what you consider to be important, not what APPLE considers to be important. You (probably) could not care less about UWB, but "Apple Find" (whether it's Find my Friends, Find my Devices, or Find my Stuff) is an important part of the Apple experience, hence UWB and Airtags...
It also means that energy will always be the most important part of what Apple does, because the so much of the Apple Cluster experience relies on items that are not plugged in. Yes, give aTV or iMac extra features that can exploit always-on power; but energy efficiency is required to keep the phone or watch or AirTags experience (or, soon glasses) working well. And that same energy efficiency then makes the MBA a much nicer everyday device.
But you don't have to give up on those integration tools if you have a X86 system. For example, you could just download Airfoil Satellite (or a similar solution) if you want to stream sound from your cellphone to your sound system. Or you could download software to make your Samsung tablet to work as a secondary monitor, such as Duet Display. Sure, it doesn't come out of the box, but it's not impossible to setup.
You are confusing the "can it get the job done" with "is it a good for the job". You can use a sportscar to drive equipment for the farm, but it's probably not a very bright idea buying one if farm work is your daily bread. I can imagine that a GDP is an ok handheld gaming console (although personally I have zero interest in these kind of products), but it would take a very special person to choose one as their daily driver. I happen to value my comfort and work efficiency. I neither have any inclination to drive in nails with a pair of pliers nor do I need to carry around a pneumatic hammer if a handheld battery powered drill can get the job done.
BTW, I did briefly purchase a high-end ASUS gaming laptop with an 6800HS earlier this year, and I did test my usual workloads on that machine. I am afraid I don't have the exact numbers but the performance in tasks I care about was considerably slower compared to my M1 Max. That machine also very awkward to use due to poor ergonomy, poor display and poor battery. Getting things to work under Windows was a story on its own. In the end, I had it for about two weeks, returned it to the store and got a PS5 for gaming instead.
You are entitled to your own opinion of course. My opinion happens to be that Windows is a terrible system for productivity.
Of course there are. But again, the things you are trying to sell me as alternatives so far have been... interesting. First you tried to convince me that a PC gaming laptop plus a beefy powerbank is a good way to go (why would I chose to carry all that stuff around if I can have all that in one ultracompact device??), then it was a GPD — a system without a full-sized keyboard or a proper display that comes with a CPU that's at least two times slower for tasks I need... how is any of that making any sense?
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I also noticed this when looking for GPU-related patents. Some stuff they implemented in A15/M2 only go published in mid/late 2021. What's interesting is that their ray-tracing patents as well as some other details of GPU instruction work/scheduling have been published this year — further offering evidence that there was a last-minute change of plans or other scheduling issues regarding the GPU.
It makes sense because you can connect it to a display, either wirelessly (through e.g, SteamPlay, Moonlight, Parsec, or simply a traditional remote desktop app), or through a traditional video cable (HDMI, USB-C, DisplayPort...), and you can connect a keyboard and a mouse through its USB ports or use a Bluetooth USB / keyboard.
And if you want to make things more convenient (e.g, if you do want to use it as a desktop replacement), then you can just get a dock. It's not mandatory, but just to make those connections easier.
I mentioned GPD, but in fact, there are many other interesting alternatives, such as the Steam Deck, WinPD or Aya Neo, all within different needs and budgets. PCs never stopped shrinking, and those smaller devices are the future.
No, it doesn't make any sense. I need a computer for work. I can't be carrying a display, keyboard and mouse with me everywhere I go.
And yet, it's exactly what you do with a laptop. Isn't a laptop a display, a keyboard and a "mouse" (trackpad), all glued together? What stops you from integrating one of those systems with a case, or just carrying what you need?
By the way, those systems also have a builtin optical trackpad. GPD has a builtin keyboard which is a bit awkward to use, but the trackpad is just fine.
You are not in all seriousness claiming that a gaming handheld can serve as a replacement for a mobile workstation?
I am! And you're not taking it seriously because it's in a portable form factor. The hardware may be dressed as a handheld console and may not have the reliability server parts do, but a CPU is a CPU. In all honesty, I do believe smaller PCs (smaller than what we have today) are the future.
Well, I use mobile workstations each day (M1 16“, Thinkpad P52). Once owned a Steam Deck. No, I wouldn‘t want to carry around a console, keyboard and monitor. Not at all. No offense, but I find the idea ridiculous
But you already do with a laptop! The difference is that it's all glued together, instead of separate as it would be in a handheld.
True, but the difference is: its all in a package. When done, I close the lid and leave. No interest in disconnecting the various devices, stow them away somewhere in a bag, go to the next classroom and connect everything again; rinse and repeat every hour or so (being a lecturer). Just not convenient, not even slightly comparable
Yeah, I hear youI already tried to have this conversation. Not advisable, comrade...
Apple had never had a proper desktop replacement laptop until M1. In my workshop I have every single desktop Mac from II to Mac Pro (except trash can trash) but I had only few Apple laptops because they were not properly speced enough for our needs. It took them a really long time to put a proper display on a PowerBook which was the main reason why we stayed away from them. Then came Intels which were underpowered compared to PC competition and so on.
Everyone's needs are different, to be sure, but I have felt that my 2012 rMBP was most certainly a capable and fast laptop to the point it replaced my desktop. Countless threads were created on the MBP being a sufficient desktop replacement and many people chimed in and said it had for them.
Is the M1 even more capable, yes, but that doesn't mean the prior generations were not desktop replacements. I get that for some, they need the power of a Mac Pro, or iMac Pro and the MBP didn't have the raw horse power to go toe to toe with those classes of machines where as the M1 variants can. But for most users of desktops, the MBPs of yesteryear were very capable imo
The 2008 MacBook Pro was a desktop replacement for me. My workplace was kind of cheap on upgrades so I used my own equipment. I think that I had a circa 2002 desktop in 2008. The chassis was big enough so that I didn't have overheating problems either. The 2021 MacBook Pros are just absolute beasts.
I can do a heavy workload, on battery, and not worry about running out for a day. To the point where I don't bring the charger with me. I do have carry a small 40-watt charger with 2 ports at 2x20 watts but that's more for my phone and watch. But it can trickle-charge the MBP too.