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Is anyone else blown away by how fast these M1 MacBooks are?
- Thread starter Jacoblee23
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I'm very impressed with the performance. I can't remember when I last see this kind of extreme performance jump.
I'm a longtime Windows (SQL DBA) consultant for 25 years now. I'm also a hardware nerd and are very interested in new CPU:s and storage architecture. My journey/transition to Apple started with iPhone 3GS.
I went from a Macbook (2015) 12 m5 8GB RAM and 512 GB SSD as my primary computer to the new MBA 16GB/1TB. It was mostly hot all the time and I got warnings about heat. This was my second Macbook, first was a late 2013 MBP.
I have had no issues at all with performance, all is working very smooth. I run most of my daily tasks with Apples own products that comes with Big Sur.
As a consultant I work remotely most of my time to customers Windows environments. Unfortunately I do still need a Windows laptop for my work (not often), but I can live with that. This is a new Lenovo L490 with i7, 64GB/2TB SSD, use is mostly for virtual machines. But it does not have the smooth feeling of my MBA
Before I got my new MBA I was considering buying a new iMac with Intel CPU to replace my 2014 Mac mini - uses this for photo and video editing (home stuff). But after being working with the MBA I will wait to see what Apple is going to offer with a possible new AS iMac and if there will be a more powerful AS Mac mini.
All the best,
///Mike
I'm a longtime Windows (SQL DBA) consultant for 25 years now. I'm also a hardware nerd and are very interested in new CPU:s and storage architecture. My journey/transition to Apple started with iPhone 3GS.
I went from a Macbook (2015) 12 m5 8GB RAM and 512 GB SSD as my primary computer to the new MBA 16GB/1TB. It was mostly hot all the time and I got warnings about heat. This was my second Macbook, first was a late 2013 MBP.
I have had no issues at all with performance, all is working very smooth. I run most of my daily tasks with Apples own products that comes with Big Sur.
As a consultant I work remotely most of my time to customers Windows environments. Unfortunately I do still need a Windows laptop for my work (not often), but I can live with that. This is a new Lenovo L490 with i7, 64GB/2TB SSD, use is mostly for virtual machines. But it does not have the smooth feeling of my MBA
Before I got my new MBA I was considering buying a new iMac with Intel CPU to replace my 2014 Mac mini - uses this for photo and video editing (home stuff). But after being working with the MBA I will wait to see what Apple is going to offer with a possible new AS iMac and if there will be a more powerful AS Mac mini.
All the best,
///Mike
I think your problem might be the latest updates to Safari, and not M1 specific. We've had to move a majority of work in our school to Firefox recently, as Safari has stopped working properly with any number of educational and testing sites: Complete hangs, inability to scroll or very slow scrolling, inability to select links, audio cutting out completely after minutes or tens of minutes (only website-generated audio, computer audio otherwise continues to work normally), page refreshes not working, it's been a real fustercluck. Restarting will often resolve the issues for an amount of time that seems totally random (i.e. one person taking a test will find Safari fails after a full restart in 5 minutes, the student sitting next to them will find it fails in 2 minutes, and the student one over from there can take the entire test). But in ALL cases switching to Firefox resolves the issue completely on both Intel and M1 Macs. So the problem is clearly Safari, not the websites in question, not the OS version (happens on Mojave and Big Sur) not the WiFi, not the Lan, not the internet connection, and not user error.
Just got my m1 MacBook Pro. It's faster than my MacBook Pro 16 fully loaded. It benches faster and run native fast without generating heat on load. In fact it runs Intel software faster than the 16 did. it's not that 16 is slow or poor, it's throttled and hindered by too much heat.
Only area I saw any difference is my eGPU RX580 is a tad faster than the M1 using an game running under Rosetta. Not 100% accurate as the game is super unoptimized anyway and likely a bad benchmark.
Only area I saw any difference is my eGPU RX580 is a tad faster than the M1 using an game running under Rosetta. Not 100% accurate as the game is super unoptimized anyway and likely a bad benchmark.
MBP/256GB/8GB here…
The first Mac I bought was the mid-2010 MBP. It was a great experience for most of the time. Then I went for a stationary Mac with the Mac mini 2018 i5 w/ 32GB RAM and I am quite happy with that and since I use my iPad for mobile work I wasn't considering buying an additional mobile Mac.
But when Apple revealed the M1s and I saw the reviews, I couldn't resist and got myself the M1 MBP. And even though there's a a 24GB difference in RAM between my machines, the M1 just smokes the Mini in every task. I even could bump up my hobby-ish video editing from 1080p to 4K! Pretty impressive.
Additionally, even tough most people seem to dislike the Touch Bar, I have to admit that I pretty much enjoy it and find it quite handy for many tasks. I integrated in so much in my workflow that I really miss it when using my Mac mini…
The first Mac I bought was the mid-2010 MBP. It was a great experience for most of the time. Then I went for a stationary Mac with the Mac mini 2018 i5 w/ 32GB RAM and I am quite happy with that and since I use my iPad for mobile work I wasn't considering buying an additional mobile Mac.
But when Apple revealed the M1s and I saw the reviews, I couldn't resist and got myself the M1 MBP. And even though there's a a 24GB difference in RAM between my machines, the M1 just smokes the Mini in every task. I even could bump up my hobby-ish video editing from 1080p to 4K! Pretty impressive.
Additionally, even tough most people seem to dislike the Touch Bar, I have to admit that I pretty much enjoy it and find it quite handy for many tasks. I integrated in so much in my workflow that I really miss it when using my Mac mini…
But how much time is spent getting (and keeping) that non-custom-built Windows machine running? I want a computer I can use not one I have to fiddle around to use.
See point about time is spent getting (and keeping) that non-custom-built Windows machine running before. Time spent fiddling with the computer is time taken away from using the computer.
AMD might have a crack as they have got an ARM Chip (Opteron) they can improve but Intel? IMHO Intel has sat reliving past glories too long and given how well they stuck to the planned schedule last time and the quality of what shipped (the main reason Apple effectively said screw this) and worst it uses X86. Either Intel doesn't understand part of what makes the M1 so fast is ARM or they are so dependent on the X86 code out there they can't realistically change.
AMD might (big might) be able to get something actually similar to the M1 but that brings up the other reason the M1 is so fast - hardware and software integration. And that is totally out of AMD (or Intel's) control. Heck, when virtualization (not emulation) can run Windows for ARM faster then Microsoft's own Surface X Pro you know that just emulation Apple's CPU design isn't going to cut it.
Then there is fact Apple has been working on this design at least since Intel basically shafted them back in 2015 with its unacceptably buggy Skylake CPUs and Apple started improving a CPU they had been using in iPhone and iPads since 2010 with the A4. I doubt AMD (and certainly not Intel) has an ARM chip they have working on improving for 10 years with actual public feedback rather then going 'we got this' out of what amounts to a clear blue shy.
I am reminded of an old joke:
Commander: I will only listen to this crazy idea when pigs fly
Soldier grabs nearby pic and loads it into catapult
Commander: Oh no.
Soldier launched squealing pig into air. "Pig fly, sir Now listen to idea, sir?"
Commander (under his breath): I am really going to have to talk to our recruiter about what they are sending us.
Well sorry to ruin the party but performance test with Ableton Live (under rosetta) show it is the be about on par with a mac mini quad core from 2012. underwhelming to say the least. It's definitely a lot slower than a 13" macbook pro from last year. It gets 80 tracks; while some other guy with a 15" from 2016 gets 240. So in this case at least it's really not worth it. We'll see about the native version in about (I hope) six months or so.
see here (every report I've seen is telling the same story)
https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=239381&start=45
1. Ableton Live CPU Meter % with the Live Set for the Lesson – 34%
2. Maximum number of playback tracks? – 84 (grouped the 16 tracks, then duplicated until audio started to breakup)
3. Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? – Apple Macbook Air M1 Late 2020
see here (every report I've seen is telling the same story)
https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=239381&start=45
1. Ableton Live CPU Meter % with the Live Set for the Lesson – 34%
2. Maximum number of playback tracks? – 84 (grouped the 16 tracks, then duplicated until audio started to breakup)
3. Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? – Apple Macbook Air M1 Late 2020
Sorry to ruin your party but do you really expect Ableton to run fast under Rosetta? Keeping in mind that Rosetta is emulation. Secondly Ableton like many other audio editing softwares still have 32bit plugins and are still not ready for Big Sur. You should be getting "acceptable" performance enough to run it but expecting it to run fast is the fault of Ableton's developers, not Apple or the M1.
In real world usage and not useless synthetic benchmarks M1 is not much different than Surface Pro X to make up for the hardware feature differences.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mba-m1-surface-pro-x-and-ryzen-4650u-comparison.2282098/
From all the youtube content ad reading here on MacRumors I'm very impressed with these m1 machines. I'm actually fixing to build a home recording studio with the m1 and logic pro at its core. seeing these machines perform way outside their class is just impressive. and games running in parallels emulating x86 wow mind blown. I'm extremely excited to get the m1 mac mini and most likly retire my current windows pc.
That is crazy that Ableton has to take that long to create an M1 version...so many other devs already have them out? Affinity said it took no time at all. Here is more information: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/apple-m1-chip-support/
Same with programs such as Scrivener. It sounds like you should wait since you need more than 80 tracks in Ableton Live. That seems like a pretty pro (and intense) workflow.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Wow. Go get a SP X then. I have many windows computers, including an SP5, the SPX is completely TERRIBLE. Don't take my word for it, take the internet's:
Surface Pro X Review: The Surface I really tried to love, but ended up hating
In this article Toggle TL;DR Very good design USB-C is great (depending on how you look at it) The Microsoft SQ1 Processor powering the Surface Pro X isn’t what Microsoft says it is The battery life is just alright This isn’t a Surface for gaming The Type Cover is decent, at the right angle The […]
www.onmsft.com
Microsoft's Surface Pro X Is an Expensive Mess. Don't Buy One
The slim, light, 2-in-1 computer has a new chip that hobbles the machine’s ability to achieve the dreams that Microsoft had for it.
Surface Pro X
The Surface Pro X is the next generation of Microsoft’s 2-in-1 – but to achieve its incredible design, Microsoft has had to make one too many compromises
www.trustedreviews.com
But, sure, it is as great as the M1 Mac line. ? ? ? ? ?
Edited to add: Okay, I read your forum post (I admit I hadn't until now) and it doesn't actually say that the three systems are the same (Yoga, m1, SPX). Sorry that I assumed that. Bottom line, they are not equal. I agree.
Edited again to add: Nope, I see what you are trying to actually say, and I don't agree. The SPX is slower in the real world than M1 every time. Sorry, that's the way it is. Especially when you factor in real world applications for both. Need an x86 emulated app on the SPX? Good luck. Rosetta is exponentially better.
I sold my 16” i9 Quad Core for a MBA. The M1 Air is slower. But the thing is: it’s not slower by much! Considering it has fewer cores and runs FANLESS! That’s the thing for me. Not only the speed.
You get performance within a whole different power envelope. One kg lighter. Twice the battery life. Your laps aren’t cooking. Your genitals aren’t roasting. Pure performance without the bunsenburner.
You get performance within a whole different power envelope. One kg lighter. Twice the battery life. Your laps aren’t cooking. Your genitals aren’t roasting. Pure performance without the bunsenburner.
Today i was photo editing on the 2010 macbook air running Mojave and was impressed how fast that went exporting and posting onto flickr a matter in seconds on low rate internets, the 25mbs price.
i guess the new M1 would impress an vintage graphic designer like me, especially if i can use an iPad drawing app on a notebook.
too bad the Apple store does not,have these in stock.
i guess the new M1 would impress an vintage graphic designer like me, especially if i can use an iPad drawing app on a notebook.
too bad the Apple store does not,have these in stock.
On Intel Macs? its meh
on M1 Macs? It's good
I believe the quicker Apple finishes this transition, then Apple can focus on the macOS more.
Big Sur was buggy on my early 2020 MBP, and it’s buggy on my M1 MBA.
Basically, Big Sur is buggy. There are plenty of posts in these forums going over the different ways it is buggy on various platforms, but as always YMMV.
Apple might of took on a bit too much work with a new UI and chips maybe they should of kept the catalina design style for one more year. for me though on intel anyways big sur has been rock solid so hyped to get my m1
Which was what I was alluding to, the benchmark article was just easier to find. I don't know what Microsoft can really do other then allow Windows for ARM to run via virtualization mode (it not think booting into it is really an option). They need an ARM champ that make their OS shine until they can write a better version and right now the M1 Mac is it.HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Wow. Go get a SP X then. I have many windows computers, including an SP5, the SPX is completely TERRIBLE. Don't take my word for it, take the internet's:
Surface Pro X Review: The Surface I really tried to love, but ended up hating
In this article Toggle TL;DR Very good design USB-C is great (depending on how you look at it) The Microsoft SQ1 Processor powering the Surface Pro X isn’t what Microsoft says it is The battery life is just alright This isn’t a Surface for gaming The Type Cover is decent, at the right angle The […]
Microsoft's Surface Pro X Is an Expensive Mess. Don't Buy One
The slim, light, 2-in-1 computer has a new chip that hobbles the machine’s ability to achieve the dreams that Microsoft had for it.www.wired.com
Surface Pro X
The Surface Pro X is the next generation of Microsoft’s 2-in-1 – but to achieve its incredible design, Microsoft has had to make one too many compromises
But, sure, it is as great as the M1 Mac line. ? ? ? ? ?
Edited to add: Okay, I read your forum post (I admit I hadn't until now) and it doesn't actually say that the three systems are the same (Yoga, m1, SPX). Sorry that I assumed that. Bottom line, they are not equal. I agree.
Edited again to add: Nope, I see what you are trying to actually say, and I don't agree. The SPX is slower in the real world than M1 every time. Sorry, that's the way it is. Especially when you factor in real world applications for both. Need an x86 emulated app on the SPX? Good luck. Rosetta is exponentially better.
Definitely a case of YMMV, Big Sur has been rock solid on my M1, the initial release did cause my iMac to kernel panic on shutdown, but since 11.1 has been rock solid.
I'm getting 10 hours battery life in Xcode with simulators open. Absolutely mind boggling. My Intel MBP would last 4 hours in the absolute best case scenario.
Agree completely. I've had a ton of little issues. Off the top of my head:
1. I had to manually set the OS X print queue to open in Rosetta mode, otherwise it would not open
2. The OS keeps waking up my USB-C displays every minute or so, when the laptop should be sleeping. I'd like to charge my laptop at night when connected to the display, but that's a no-go because of this bug.
3. When waking from sleep, the keyboard and trackpad may be totally unresponsive. This can be resolved by closing and reopening the lid
4. Screen brightness keys stop working sometimes
5. The mouse pointer will sometimes be very sluggish
I've never experienced any of these problems on my Intel Macs. Clearly a lot of M1-specific issues going on. I anticipate Apple will nuke these bugs in the next software update.
This is so weird. I just tried all of these things and they all worked fine...Do you have the pro or mini? I have the air.
Clearly you haven't tried to run WoA on a Surface Pro X, Samsung Galaxy notebook, or Lenovo rig then. We ran some tests at work (Surface Pro X vs. 8GB/256 GB MBP running WoA Insider build via Parallels), the Mac still blew right by the Microsoft hardware despite not running WoA on bare metal. These tests included much of the production software we use on a daily basis, so it was very much a real-world comparison.