Does an M1 with 8GB of Ram out perform an I7 with 16GB of Ram?

[mr_roboto]

There you go telling me what to do, that's not acceptable.

I inform you that you're wrong to compare the numeric values of measurements taken in two different coordinate systems, and your response is that it's not acceptable??? LOL. I'm not making arbitrary demands here. This is not me personally saying I have authority over you, you do not need to act like a rebellious teen.

It's as if you bought a 40cm length of lumber when you needed a 40in piece for your construction project, went to a forum and complained about how short the lumberyard cuts things these days, then got angry at the person who told you the lumberyard gave you what you asked for and it was all your fault because 40 centimeters is a lot shorter than 40 inches.

'You can't stop me! I'll mix cm and inch measurements without conversion as much as I want!' OK, you do you buddy, don't expect me to take you seriously ever again. (Or set foot on any deck you built.)

 

[Gudi]

The M series CPUs aren't the miracle performers people think they are around here. They are more efficient and performance per watt is better, not doubt of that, but faster overall, no.

Efficiency is a basic prerequisite for speed. All performance gains are indeed efficiency gains. What's the speed of a processor? Well, it depends on the GHz frequency at which you're running it. Why is there a limit to the max frequency of each chip? Because the heat of moving electrons would melt the silicon. Be more efficient in how many electrons need to move how far for each calculation and you have a cooler processor, which can run much faster, if pushed to the limits of a given cooling system. That's why admitting defeat on efficiency also surrenders the race for performance.

 

[bobcomer]

I inform you that you're wrong to compare the numeric values of measurements taken in two different coordinate systems, and your response is that it's not acceptable??? LOL. I'm not making arbitrary demands here. This is not me personally saying I have authority over you, you do not need to act like a rebellious teen.

The way you said it it was definitely telling me what to do -- try phrasing it a bit better next time...

 

[bobcomer]

Efficiency is a basic prerequisite for speed. All performance gains are indeed efficiency gains. What's the speed of a processor? Well, it depends on the GHz frequency at which you're running it. Why is there a limit to the max frequency of each chip? Because the heat of moving electrons would melt the silicon. Be more efficient in how many electrons need to move how far for each calculation and you have a cooler processor, which can run much faster, if pushed to the limits of a given cooling system. That's why admitting defeat on efficiency also surrenders the race for performance.

That's for others to worry about, I buy finished product these days.

 

[Gudi]

That's for others to worry about, I buy finished product these days.

Finished products also need to care about with which frequency they run within which thermal envelope. The M1 is efficient enough to fit in a fanless iPad Air and and powerful enough to run a 24-inch iMac. Efficiency blurs the line and bridges the gap between mobile and desktop computing. More powerful mobile devices and smaller cooler quieter stationary computers with the same chip. And if you put a giant heatsink on an M1 Ultra, it's also a computing beast.

 

[spiderman0616]

M1 Pro with 16 GB of RAM has been the sweet spot for me. Handles all work tasks and gaming at ultra settings and barely breaks a sweat. I had an M1 MacBook Air with 8 GB before this though and it was fantastic even for some less intense gaming.

 

[4sallypat]

For my workplace, I have these Macbooks:

• 2020 13.3" i7 1.7Ghz MBP w/ 16GB RAM $1800
• 2022 13.3" M1 MBP w/ 8GB RAM $1200
• 2022 13.6" M2 MBA w/ 8GB RAM $1000

With exact same work loads, the i7 gets super hot, battery depletes quickly and the fans spin up a lot.

OTOH - M1 and M2 are super cool / cold, battery lasts at least 2 days without charging and very quiet.

For the money, I prefer the M2 MBA.

 

[spiderman0616]

For my workplace, I have these Macbooks:

• 2020 13.3" i7 1.7Ghz MBP w/ 16GB RAM $1800
• 2022 13.3" M1 MBP w/ 8GB RAM $1200
• 2022 13.6" M2 MBA w/ 8GB RAM $1000

With exact same work loads, the i7 gets super hot, battery depletes quickly and the fans spin up a lot.

OTOH - M1 and M2 are super cool / cold, battery lasts at least 2 days without charging and very quiet.

For the money, I prefer the M2 MBA.

I believe it. I left the Mac completely for about 4 years for all the reasons you mention above. I was trying to podcast with my 13" MacBook Pro and the fan noise and heat actually made it take longer to record, edit, and publish for a variety of reasons. I was able to come up with an alternate workflow on my iPad Pro so I ditched the Mac completely.

Apple Silicon was an oasis in the desert for me. I still love the iPad, but it got demoted in my workflow once the Mac came back to life.

 

[Zest28]

Not in Intel Macbooks Pro there aren’t.

In 2023, you are not going to buy a 4-year Intel MacBook Pro from 2019.

Instead, you buy a PC laptop with an Intel i7-13700HX. In combination with a mid-range GPU like the RTX 4060, it is not even close.

But sure, a M1 is faster CPU wise than a 2019 16" MacBook Pro.

 

[falainber]

Efficiency is a basic prerequisite for speed. All performance gains are indeed efficiency gains. What's the speed of a processor? Well, it depends on the GHz frequency at which you're running it. Why is there a limit to the max frequency of each chip? Because the heat of moving electrons would melt the silicon. Be more efficient in how many electrons need to move how far for each calculation and you have a cooler processor, which can run much faster, if pushed to the limits of a given cooling system. That's why admitting defeat on efficiency also surrenders the race for performance.

Nonsense. Current generation of x86 processors is faster than Apple processors no matter how much you are going to talk about their efficiency. The situation gets more nuanced when power constraints are involved but that's a different story.

 

[Gudi]

Nonsense. Current generation of x86 processors is faster than Apple processors no matter how much you are going to talk about their efficiency. The situation gets more nuanced when power constraints are involved but that's a different story.

No, it's not. 80% of all PCs (macOS or Windows) are laptops. So even if you ignore all tablets and smartphones, power and heat constraints are predominant. A Bugatti Veyron isn't the fastest car in the city and 80% of the population live in urbanized areas. Even if you ignore the horrible fuel consumption, inefficiency is killing you and raw power is getting you nowhere in traffic waves. The few situations in which the Bugatti can shine are outliers, which never occur during a typical working day. You've got to travel to a special race track and book a few laps to benchmark a top speed of 407 km/h. The "fastest road legal car" is a meaningless bragging title and everybody knows that you're selling the fantasy of being faster than anybody else. The actually fastest car on the road is much more efficient and practical. It doesn't completely ignore heat, noise and fuel consumption in favor of maximizing one specific benchmark number for advertising. Real life is always nuanced and never one-dimensional. Performance per watt didn't became important only because Steve Jobs began to speak about it on stage and bewitched everybody with his Reality Distortion Field. Intel laptops always throttled down when you unplugged them from power, because it's objectively bad when you suck the battery dry in less than two hours. Efficiency allows the M1 Pro in the 3.5 pounds MacBook Pro to stay fast when unplugged. Efficiency enables speed, cool, quiet, lightweight designs and ultimately the smartphone revolution which swept away the PC era. Not just x86 is obsolete, but the entire industry is contracting by 30%, because so much can be done on a smartphone. And city planers are looking to Amsterdam to learn how to combine mostly bicycle travel with a few remaining cars. The most efficient solution always wins.

 

[bombardier10]

Why do we need a fast CPU ? To convert time-consuming projects faster .
You don't buy a top-end processor to browse the web or play with photos.
Comparing M1 chip with the new generation i7 is a bit ridiculous.

 

[leman]

Why do we need a fast CPU ? To convert time-consuming projects faster .
You don't buy a top-end processor to browse the web or play with photos.
Comparing M1 chip with the new generation i7 is a bit ridiculous.

What does any of this have to do with CB23? The practical relevance of that benchmark is almost zero.

 

[falainber]

No, it's not. 80% of all PCs (macOS or Windows) are laptops. So even if you ignore all tablets and smartphones, power and heat constraints are predominant. A Bugatti Veyron isn't the fastest car in the city and 80% of the population live in urbanized areas. Even if you ignore the horrible fuel consumption, inefficiency is killing you and raw power is getting you nowhere in traffic waves. The few situations in which the Bugatti can shine are outliers, which never occur during a typical working day. You've got to travel to a special race track and book a few laps to benchmark a top speed of 407 km/h. The "fastest road legal car" is a meaningless bragging title and everybody knows that you're selling the fantasy of being faster than anybody else. The actually fastest car on the road is much more efficient and practical. It doesn't completely ignore heat, noise and fuel consumption in favor of maximizing one specific benchmark number for advertising. Real life is always nuanced and never one-dimensional. Performance per watt didn't became important only because Steve Jobs began to speak about it on stage and bewitched everybody with his Reality Distortion Field. Intel laptops always throttled down when you unplugged them from power, because it's objectively bad when you suck the battery dry in less than two hours. Efficiency allows the M1 Pro in the 3.5 pounds MacBook Pro to stay fast when unplugged. Efficiency enables speed, cool, quiet, lightweight designs and ultimately the smartphone revolution which swept away the PC era. Not just x86 is obsolete, but the entire industry is contracting by 30%, because so much can be done on a smartphone. And city planers are looking to Amsterdam to learn how to combine mostly bicycle travel with a few remaining cars. The most efficient solution always wins.

Are you saying that you can't use powerful PC laptops because your dwelling is too hot or electric connection is inadequate?

 

[Gudi]

Are you saying that you can't use powerful PC laptops because your dwelling is too hot or electric connection is inadequate?

No, you can't use powerful Intel laptops, because they are all performance throttled once you unplug them from wall power. They literally become less powerful on battery, because at full clock speed they would suck the battery empty in no time. And of course the fans also need to run at full speed, when all CPU cores are 100% utilized, which only adds to the power draw. Efficiency is what makes a powerful laptop a feasible idea.

 

[dmccloud]

No, it's not. 80% of all PCs (macOS or Windows) are laptops. So even if you ignore all tablets and smartphones, power and heat constraints are predominant.

In terms of market share, according to a 2020 report by Statista, Notebooks / laptops accounted for 46.8% of the global personal computer market, while desktop PC made up 40.6% of the market. The remaining market share was made up of other devices such as tablets and workstations.

That's a far different picture from what you describe above, as there is a big difference between 80% of a market and under 50% of the same market. While that percentage has most likely gone up to some degree since 2020, there's no way laptops jumped by 30%-plus in the middle of a pandemic and subsequent supply constraints.

 

[falainber]

No, you can't use powerful Intel laptops, because they are all performance throttled once you unplug them from wall power. They literally become less powerful on battery, because at full clock speed they would suck the battery empty in no time. And of course the fans also need to run at full speed, when all CPU cores are 100% utilized, which only adds to the power draw. Efficiency is what makes a powerful laptop a feasible idea.

Why do you want to unplug the laptop? There are several scenarios where people need to do it (like web browsing in Starbucks) but very few of those require much of the performance. Nowadays most laptop use cases require portability only to move the laptop from one power outlet to another (if ever).

 

[dmccloud]

Why do you want to unplug the laptop? There are several scenarios where people need to do it (like web browsing in Starbucks) but very few of those require much of the performance. Nowadays most laptop use cases require portability only to move the laptop from one power outlet to another (if ever).

Not sure what use cases you're familiar with then. I don't even bring my AC adapter with me because I can easily go all day on a full charge, even when doing web design, video editing, etc. There are a lot of scenarios where you need to use a laptop, but may not have access to AC outlets for charging either due to available seating (i.e., in a coffee shop) or where you are meeting and/or working at the time. This is even more true for workers who are more mobile/remote in the first place, because they do not necessarily have an office or home base to work out of.

 

[spiderman0616]

Why do you want to unplug the laptop? There are several scenarios where people need to do it (like web browsing in Starbucks) but very few of those require much of the performance. Nowadays most laptop use cases require portability only to move the laptop from one power outlet to another (if ever).

So let me get this straight—in a world where Apple is now making very powerful laptops that can literally go all day off charger even with some heavier workflows and even without throttling anything if you don’t want them to, and you are justifying that Windows PCs can’t do that by saying why would you want to? Come on. You have to have your entire body in the sand to think that’s a logical defense.

The brutal truth is this: more and more people are buying Macs these days and it’s accelerating because of Apple Silicon and all the advantages it brings. One of those major advantages is efficiency.

 

[falainber]

Not sure what use cases you're familiar with then. I don't even bring my AC adapter with me because I can easily go all day on a full charge, even when doing web design, video editing, etc. There are a lot of scenarios where you need to use a laptop, but may not have access to AC outlets for charging either due to available seating (i.e., in a coffee shop) or where you are meeting and/or working at the time. This is even more true for workers who are more mobile/remote in the first place, because they do not necessarily have an office or home base to work out of.

Your case is clearly a corner one. It would be rather strange if most of the computer work was done in coffee shops. It is my observation that most laptop users move them between home and office (that is if they even have to go to office, not many do nowadays) and park them to some sort of a docking station connected to one wide or multiple monitors. When at office they may occasionally bring the laptop to the meeting, but modern conference rooms have plenty of power outlets and even if they don’t, the meetings don't typically last for more than an hour. People who spend more time at the meetings are usually managerial types who don't need powerful laptops to begin with.

 

[leman]

Why do you want to unplug the laptop? There are several scenarios where people need to do it (like web browsing in Starbucks) but very few of those require much of the performance. Nowadays most laptop use cases require portability only to move the laptop from one power outlet to another (if ever).

Why would I want to tether myself to a cable and and outlet? That’s such a strange thought to me…

 

[leman]

Your case is clearly a corner one. It would be rather strange if most of the computer work was done in coffee shops. It is my observation that most laptop users move them between home and office (that is if they even have to go to office, not many do nowadays) and park them to some sort of a docking station connected to one wide or multiple monitors. When at office they may occasionally bring the laptop to the meeting, but modern conference rooms have plenty of power outlets and even if they don’t, the meetings don't typically last for more than an hour. People who spend more time at the meetings are usually managerial types who don't need powerful laptops to begin with.

We really live in different worlds. Right now I’m sitting on my sofa and building a largish codebase. I don’t even plug my laptop that often in when I am in the office. Why would I purposefully limit myself? With my Mac I can literally work anywhere without worrying about cables.

 

[falainber]

So let me get this straight—in a world where Apple is now making very powerful laptops that can literally go all day off charger even with some heavier workflows and even without throttling anything if you don’t want them to, and you are justifying that Windows PCs can’t do that by saying why would you want to? Come on. You have to have your entire body in the sand to think that’s a logical defense.

The brutal truth is this: more and more people are buying Macs these days and it’s accelerating because of Apple Silicon and all the advantages it brings. One of those major advantages is efficiency.

Your brutal truth is a plain lie. Just check Mac worldwide market share over the years. It's been mostly stagnant for a couple of decades. It grew best after Apple switched to Intel processors. Another factor why people buy Macs has to do with success of the iPhone. In my line of work (and I believe this is true for most) ability to run on battery is beneficial but much less important than performance. I always dock my laptop using TB. This immediately gives you connection to power, monitor(s) and peripheral devices. Saving $10 per year on electric bill vs performance advantages of the more powerful laptop is not really a tradeoff I would think for more than a second.

In any case, these arguments do not in any way counter my statement that current generation of x86 processors is more powerful than Apple processors (both mobile and desktop).

 

[jdb8167]

Your case is clearly a corner one. It would be rather strange if most of the computer work was done in coffee shops. It is my observation that most laptop users move them between home and office (that is if they even have to go to office, not many do nowadays) and park them to some sort of a docking station connected to one wide or multiple monitors. When at office they may occasionally bring the laptop to the meeting, but modern conference rooms have plenty of power outlets and even if they don’t, the meetings don't typically last for more than an hour. People who spend more time at the meetings are usually managerial types who don't need powerful laptops to begin with.

It was a corner case because in the past no powerful laptop could really be used as a true mobile device. Apple has changed all that with Apple silicon MacBooks. As others here have noted, I use my M2 MacBook Air all day at my current contract doing software dev and I never bother to bring a charger because it isn’t necessary. I don’t use a larger monitor at work because they are mostly PC centric and the monitors there suck (think 1920x1080). I’m not an employee so I can’t ask for a modern monitor and I’m not going to bring my own.

 

[falainber]

Why would I want to tether myself to a cable and and outlet? That’s such a strange thought to me…

Why would I want to work anywhere but at the proper desk? That's for slackers who do not want to work or do not know what productive work is. And if I work at the desk, why would I want to use anything but the computer with the highest performance? To slow me down? Personally, I would prefer to use a desktop but most companies want you to work from home too so desktops are rarely an option.