Is this just a semantic difference though? The A14X doesn’t exist, and I’ve heard tech-savvy people make the same comparison. There’s literally another thread on page 1 of this forum called ‘M1 is A14X but rebranded’ and everyone seemed to agree there. Now I’m just confused.
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m1 ridiculously fast
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I wish people would stop the nonsense already. M1's DO GET HOT. VERY HOT if you push them. And google photos is not pushing it. They aren't THE fastest machines, either. They are not slow by any means, but come on. I guess if you think it's the fastest machine ever good for you? I'm glad you're happy. No, really I am. I have several m1's and a 2020 13 MBP. What you say is blatantly false. It did NOT struggle with those things, and if yours did something was very wrong with it.
My M1 MBA has never gotten hot, whether I’m using Xcode to build my apps, photoshop, Lightroom, etc. Ice cold. My 15” 2016 MBP does get hot doing any of these things. And Swift UI live previews don’t even work on the 2016 MBP -they slow the machine to a crawl. They are instantaneous on the m1.
I wish mine didn't, that's why I'll be upgrading to the 14" MBP if/when it comes out. It seems a lot of what I do doesn't run very efficiently. (Java based applications, VM's, Office.)
i'm writing swif† ui in macbook m1 instead of my imac for testing purpose .
Swift ui preview - ya pretty fast but not all be preview in swift ui.
You have “several” m1s and they get “very hot”? Send them back, maybe you got defective ones? (not sure why, given a quick glance at you previous posts, you invest so heavily in equipment from a company you’re notably negative on? the competition must be bad? Either way, to each their own).
In the meantime you can state whatever, as you say, “nonsense” you want while I will state my observations from my own experience (watched comp. tests including heat, pre-buying. I knew what I was getting into. Not getting “hot” was the tests finding, not getting hot in my own use is still the finding). Again, you can say and not say whatever you want with your own knee deep M1 equipment experience. Thank you, I’ll do the same.
Again, My MBA M1 does not get “very hot”. I’m clear on what you says yours does and you’re now clear on what mine does. Yes, It has a very localized place/specific area that I can feel warmth to the touch when it’s under extreme resource usage, “vert hot” it is absolutely not.
And While I don’t have “several” of them, I do have an HP(my old laptop):, a 2020 Lenovo (my newest) and a Dell(my company issued laptop 2+ years old). I work with dbs and VMs, I’m well aware on taxing HW resources and what a laptop feels like to be described as actually very hot. Personally (as I’ve said before here) I like my Lenovo but the fan kicks in easily and it can actually get hot (the HP was a giant workhorse but has one foot in the grave - that beast got white hot. On the Dell, I wish my company would allow me to use my Lenovo so I can give the Dell a more wanted home. For its form factor and what it does, the thermals are a negative among all). My MBA M1 is cooler, quieter, much more often quicker, most of the onboard exp. is better (not the camera, IME) and the vast majority of times is the outright better laptop to use — one that was singularly smoother and easier to integrate into my relatively-ish recent plunge into the eco. And it’s pricing is absolutely competitive for the two I bought (noting I got my MBA from Apple refurb store for 850).
It’s Unlikely but i personally hope the M1 is simply an A__ with a few more pieces of beef packed on. Often Apple hits it out of the ballpark but they definitely lay some goose eggs too. Yet Apple took a tablet CPU and simply copied it and put it into one of the finest if not the finest laptop in its particular class? If it’s true about the M1 is simply a copy, Apple gets 10 out of 10! on this. What an engineering and business success in one swoop! Saving resources, lowering power consumption, upping performance. That must amaze you too (and others here) doesn’t it?
I know the thread. I did not jump in coz the discussions tend to get heated up rather quickly (as you can tell) - and I have no intent going down that rabbit hole.
All I can say is: I do not agree at all. Let‘s leave it at that
Well, that's the result of poor software that finally works ok with highly powered hardware. I've got 2019 MacBook Air and M1 mini too, but macOS shouldn't need that kind of power just to run smoothly. It's slow since they redesigned it with OS X Yosemite. Even the Metal rendering didn't help. Every Windows version in comparison is fast and buttery smooth even on very old computers. Apple absolutely have to step up in the software engineering. But with M1 they can finally afford to be lazy in this department.
The M1 is its own thing. However, just like anything that has ever existed; it came from somewhere. Saying the M1 is essentially a rebranded A14X is an easy statement because: the A14X chip has never existed, and most likely would have been used for the same purpose. But, the reason Apple’s custom silicon has developed so quickly over intel’s chips is scalability.
Apple’s chips Scale really easily: so when the roadmap evolves and requires a new design, they take weeks instead of months to finalize. We are living in a new age, but make no mistake we haven’t slowed down or hit any invisible wall of advancement quite yet. In a few more generations, if the rest of the industry doesn’t keep pace with apple; it might, but not yet and these chips are big part of the reason why.
Apple’s chips Scale really easily: so when the roadmap evolves and requires a new design, they take weeks instead of months to finalize. We are living in a new age, but make no mistake we haven’t slowed down or hit any invisible wall of advancement quite yet. In a few more generations, if the rest of the industry doesn’t keep pace with apple; it might, but not yet and these chips are big part of the reason why.
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All that shows is that they use the same cores. The A14 lacks the inclusion of the T2 coprocessor functions, as well as several I/O components that are only used in MacOS. ARM-based architecture is highly modularized, which means you can use the same cores across multiple SoCs, even though the SoCs can have a wide range of functions and capabilities. Qualcomm uses the same cores as many lower-end ARM-based SoCs including offerings from Realtek (used in many low-end Chromebooks and Android phones), but the SoC designs are not even remotely close in terms of either features or performance.
Let’s do a calculation here.
A14 @ 2.99ghz = 1590 single-core in geekbench
M1 @ 3.2 ghz = 1710 single-core in geekbench.
Now let‘s correct for the clock-speed difference:
3.2 / 2.99 * 1590 = 1702.
So the A14 is the same speed as the M1 in single core performance if you adjust for the clock frequency difference.
You can add I/O, more cores and other stuff to the A14 as you want, the underlying is the same and the performance comes from the A14 which Apple used for the M1.
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All well and good. But all I know is mine is working GREAT. My 8/256 MacBook feels snappier and more powerful than my 2019 i9 iMac with 40Gb of ram. Quite an achievement in a $1K package.
Except in this thread we’ve been told the M1 and A14 actually have different cores!
winner!
The thread hijack is fun to read but it’s laughably silly. If Apple took a tablet chip and was able to use that as the basis of this excellent, and in some ways singular, quality laptop? More the better. Apple likes to sell an apple easy to use eco. Same CPUs, in house engineering loop, that populate throughout much of its product line? Outstanding! Less resources, less energy needed, cost efficiency, OS and app coding efficiency. Apple has outdone itself which is pretty amazing considering it’s often ranked the most respected name in business (added last few items to really get under the A-haters skin).
For anyone looking for a more technical deep dive into what really is happening under the hood with the M1 check out this video I recently watched on YouTube. Lots of excellent information here.
I saw a yt video comparing an Intel Mac to a M1 MBA in which the poster was using an IR function on his phone to show heat. He ran one of those high-load image generator/manipulation app and Air got pretty hot. I think he said something like 80°C, which is close to where you get actual burns. I might have heard wrong, though.
I run Office on my M1 MBA and it is fast, fluid and the machine stays nice and cool. I also use VSCode, Visual Studio for Mac, DbVisualizer with SQLLite, Zoom, Slack and other tools. All fast and little heat.
I've not had any issues with Office 365 on my M1 MBA or M1 Mac mini. I load some pretty large Excel spreadsheets, lengthy (200+ page) documents in Word, and even Acrobat hasn't had issues and it's not even Universal or AS-optimized.
The M1 truly is the best Mac I've ever owned. Can't wait to see where Apple takes the Silicon chips. M1X, M2, etc. are going to rock!
The M1 truly is the best Mac I've ever owned. Can't wait to see where Apple takes the Silicon chips. M1X, M2, etc. are going to rock!
All the replies neatly sum up what my point was.
For the majority of users - benchmarks and some clickbait youtube infrared thermometer "Oh my God, shocking and breaking, look at that boiling temperature" videos - are useless.
We went through this with iOS devices already. For majority of users it boils down to hardware/software usability. And I will argue that for average workflows M1 is lightyears ahead of Intel and this can be seen and felt when working with the computer, you don't need benchmarks.
Also keep in mind that some people are comparing m1s with 2 or 3 times more expensive devices. Put it together with an underpowered NUC and you'll see what happens.
For the majority of users - benchmarks and some clickbait youtube infrared thermometer "Oh my God, shocking and breaking, look at that boiling temperature" videos - are useless.
We went through this with iOS devices already. For majority of users it boils down to hardware/software usability. And I will argue that for average workflows M1 is lightyears ahead of Intel and this can be seen and felt when working with the computer, you don't need benchmarks.
Also keep in mind that some people are comparing m1s with 2 or 3 times more expensive devices. Put it together with an underpowered NUC and you'll see what happens.
You heard wrong. The videos I’ve seen that have run these kinds of test only reached ~40c so nowhere near what you have mentioned