In the UK Energy prices are rising all over the place, so using less energy is a huge selling point. And that's on top of the obvious environmental benefits.
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Devious marketing of M2
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In the UK Energy prices are rising all over the place, so using less energy is a huge selling point. And that's on top of the obvious environmental benefits.
It’s real neat how fast the new arm chips are. But fast at what? If any of the industry standard design software was made to run on it, all that speed would be really swell, but it isn’t and it isn’t going to be, because Apple‘s penchant for burning its bridges and leaving its users in the lurch makes this latest wild swing to these speedy processors just another undependable wagon to hitch to. The design & engineering side of this world doesn’t have the luxury of making such reckless jumps. Consistency and reliability are key to the ability to plan long-term projects. We can’t build a 15 or 20 year aircraft program (not a computer program) around design data that won’t be able to be read from year to year due to Apple's complete disregard for compatibility. And thanks to Apple's own efforts, everything other than design work, all the admin & whatnot, can be better done on an iPad, also powered by these same new chipsets. As speedy as these macs are, Apple‘s effectively eliminated the need for one. I guess I could get one just to run FCP, since Apple won’t put that on the iPad, even though the iPad Pro‘s got the same chipset and costs as much as a mba/p. None of Apple’s recent product decisions really make a compelling case to drop thousands of dollars.
When AMD, Intel, and Nvidia make a 1000 W power supply crawl, energy efficiency can be a big deal. You will be hard-pressed to run a decent workstation/desktop that doesn't throttle with voltage or heat. It's a damn shame that many of us are forced to underclock and under-volt GPU and CPU from Nvidia, Intel/AMD because of power inefficiencies.
Easy to throw around numbers from a useless benchmark test run for a short duration, but real-world usage is different. It makes sense for Apple to compare the Mini with the previous model. Let the 3rd party do the same tests with intel and AMD.
Edit: I am not talking about short bursts in computing power, gamers use.
Not to mention the benefit of not having what is essentially a noisy little oven on your desk.
What apps did you use on Intel Macs under MacOS that you can't use now running through Rosetta?
...you do know what the function of marketing is, yes?
What design software are you referring to?
AutoCAD is on Mac. MATLAB is on Mac. Adobe is on Mac.
So at least some industry standard design sofware runs on Mac.
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I'm guessing it doesn't run hotter than hell by design, requiring a wind tunnel of a case, the finest noctua fans artfully placed in the correct positions, liquid cooling requiring pumps and large radiators or air coolers the size of a football, vapor chambers that fail, power connectors that melt, or drivers that melt the GPU.
I'd enjoy building a pc if the market would calm down. But I've done enough research to know that pc enthusiasts enjoy working on them, and don't mind the time and effort it takes to build something good and keep it running.
Heat is the biggest problem in the PC world, and the biggest performance advantage of apple silicon--something many people here don't appreciate because they're not used to the constant threat of thermal throttling.
If you want to play the heat game, go for it, but most of us here would rather use our computers rather than maintain them.
Did OP read the article they linked? It's hilarious, and it says the base model $599 M2 Mac Mini should have been compared with a brand new high end PC, and not a best-selling base model. The article even includes a helpful link, described as a list of "the best desktop PCs."! It shows three PCs, priced at $850, $945 and $1,215.
The author even complains that the PC that was compared to the Mini has - gasp - integrated graphics. Remind me again what discrete GPU the M2 has? Oh right, it's all on the same chip. Like the PCs Apple compared it to.
But oh no that's unfair, waaah.
So that's what the Windows world wants you to see. "Please don't look at what Apple is selling! Please don't consider how much computer you're getting for $599!"
I guess the "hilarious, ridiculous, absurd comparisons to Windows PCs" that Apple is making only go one way. Clearly they think Apple should be comparing their machine to PCs that cost twice as much, with discrete graphics.
Now that is revealing.
The author even complains that the PC that was compared to the Mini has - gasp - integrated graphics. Remind me again what discrete GPU the M2 has? Oh right, it's all on the same chip. Like the PCs Apple compared it to.
But oh no that's unfair, waaah.
So that's what the Windows world wants you to see. "Please don't look at what Apple is selling! Please don't consider how much computer you're getting for $599!"
I guess the "hilarious, ridiculous, absurd comparisons to Windows PCs" that Apple is making only go one way. Clearly they think Apple should be comparing their machine to PCs that cost twice as much, with discrete graphics.
Now that is revealing.
Catia, Solidworks, Inventor, etc. Static modelers are dead. I think AutoCAD still exists for architectural draftsmen to use for legacy documentation, but when its 1960s ip rights expired, free clones started showing up and even Autodesk realized it was outmoded by parametric solid modelers & put out their own with Revit, which took over by about ‘07. …15 years ago. Still, I think they teach it to kids as an intro to cad, so it made sense when they put it out for Mac.
Adobe thankfully hasn’t entered the design & engineering software market, or we’d be stuck with the equivalent of illustrator, some outdated klunky 1980s program with twenty years of ill-fitting features poorly shoehorned in lol
There is absolutely zero incentive for Apple to compare M2 chips to x86 chips at this moment. This will only provoke manipulation. The M2 family is not faster than the premium mobile chips, and is certainly slower than the premium desktop chips. What do you expect them to say, "the new Mac Mini is 40% slower than an Intel desktop"? How is this good marketing for Apple? Never mind that the Mac Mini is a tiny box and the faster Intel computer is a large tower that uses 10x more power. That's not what the people will focus on.
Of course, you can also be like AMD and say stuff like "our new CPUs are 30% faster than M1 [running an irrelevant benchmark that is known to favour x86 and consuming 50% more power] while offering same or longer battery life [not the same CPU for which we make the performance claims though, but a severely undervolted version that's much slower]" — comments in brackets added by me. Will that be better advertisement? With that kind of marketing style Apple can claim 50% or higher better performance than Intel at the same power usage. Which would also be silly.
What's important is that the M2 Pro/Max with it's 8+4 cores will perform very similar to an Intel Raptor Lake 13900T with it's 8+16 cores, with the difference that the M2 Pro/Max will never break 35W power usage limit while the 13900T will regularly consume 2-3x more power.
Of course, you can also be like AMD and say stuff like "our new CPUs are 30% faster than M1 [running an irrelevant benchmark that is known to favour x86 and consuming 50% more power] while offering same or longer battery life [not the same CPU for which we make the performance claims though, but a severely undervolted version that's much slower]" — comments in brackets added by me. Will that be better advertisement? With that kind of marketing style Apple can claim 50% or higher better performance than Intel at the same power usage. Which would also be silly.
What's important is that the M2 Pro/Max with it's 8+4 cores will perform very similar to an Intel Raptor Lake 13900T with it's 8+16 cores, with the difference that the M2 Pro/Max will never break 35W power usage limit while the 13900T will regularly consume 2-3x more power.
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The intel mini allows you to run bootcamp, I think that’s the only reason they kept it for sale for that long.
For the comparison part, you are absolutely right, it’s beyond hilarious. Also, they didn’t need the video for what they announced, update them, produce a press release maybe highlighting the m2pro mini and be done with it.
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter all that much. I own an M1 mini and it’s a wonderful machine that will keep being wonderful for several years. When the time comes maybe an Mx Pro mini will keep me from pondering if a mac studio is worth it. Folks with M1 based chips have little reason to upgrade now, this is for switchers or people with intel macs.
Apple's chip division is going through some turbulence. The M1 came out in 2020. It's now 2023 and there have been no meaningful updates to the architecture. That in combination with Apple losing most of their best chip designers should raise eyebrows.
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Hypocrisy at best. Intel and AMD cranking up frequency and blowing past any reasonable power budget is touted as great advances. Apple moderately increasing the frequency and delivering 10-20% year to year performance updates is seen as "stagnation". At least get your story straight.
wrong..Apple now i think ship over 1 year probably over 100mil AS SoC combined
And the best chip designers will always be around Johny Srouji , until that man leaves Apple...Apple will be on front in overall architecture, with Amd and intel on 3d
Remember over a decade ago Intel was on front under Johny Srouji
Intel some time ago announced that in 2025, their foundry will be able to produce chips that match the performance per watt of the M1. You might think that's not impressive considering the M1 will be at least 4 years old at that point but we have to remember, the M1 is still the king of performance per watt - over 2 years after its release. The M2 is simply an overclocked version that is in some ways less efficient. The M3 MacBook Pro's will come out sometime in 2024. Times moves slowly in the chip world and there's a big chance that Intel will reach parity with TSMC somewhere between 2026-2028.
It's going to be interesting if Apple goes to Intel and asks them to manufacture ARM chips in the future because TSMC needs a kick in the butt. Intel is betting big on their foundry as the company's future because they are missing out on manufacturing hundreds of millions of chips in that go in smartphones, tablets, watches, etc.
It's going to be interesting if Apple goes to Intel and asks them to manufacture ARM chips in the future because TSMC needs a kick in the butt. Intel is betting big on their foundry as the company's future because they are missing out on manufacturing hundreds of millions of chips in that go in smartphones, tablets, watches, etc.
If they can do it, great. So far Intel's track record regarding efficiency is abysmal. I'll believe it when I see it. Meteor Lake being delayed and desktop SKUs being canceled doesn't add optimism in Intel's roadmap.
"Simply an overclocked version" in the same way as Zen 4 is a "simply an overclocked version of Zen3 on a smaller node"? M2 increases the cache size, rebalances CPU execution queues, supports new instructions as well as completely redesigns the efficiency cores. Sure, the IPC of the main cores didn't change. But that doesn't mean there is no work behind it. Supporting higher clocks on such a wide, ultra-efficient architecture is no trivial matter.
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yeah I would just rather not have a computer that sounds like a vacuum cleaner when I’m working in Ableton, that’s all
with TSMC opening a plant in the U.S., I highly doubt this would happen. Apple is currently on a mission to sever its ties to China. while I doubt they’ll ever be able to release a truly “Made in the U.S.A” product, they’ll be able to manufacture one of the cornerstones of their various products—the SoCs—in this country. that’s a huge leap forward.
This poster summed up it well for me. I’m running a 2018 Mac mini with 32GB of RAM, the M1 wasn’t a big enough leap. However the mini with M2 Pro has me considering it. The reason is Apple is still mentioning an older Intel chipset found in this Mac mini is there are still people who own it.
Both Intel and AMD based machines fudge their numbers too. People who tend to buy Windows PCs will go for the best (and lowest) price over performance each time. The article assumes everyone knows what they’re buying, but most users still rush for Black Friday door busters. Apple picked the best selling PC they could find from actual sales data, they aren’t going elephant hunting if consumers of a Mac mini aren’t buying the most powerful PC money can buy.Apple, cut the crap and give us some real numbers to compare you performance with the competition.
Apple's performance comparisons to Windows PCs continue to be hilarious and ridiculous
The fruit company just can't help itself, can it?www.windowscentral.com
So the 12900HX scores the same as M2 Pro on multicore, while being @2x TDP at base, and @5x TDP at turbo where benchmarks are taken?
Oh yeah, and the 150W TDP doesn't take into account the GPU that also needs cooling.
yikes.
Oh yeah, and the 150W TDP doesn't take into account the GPU that also needs cooling.
yikes.