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Probably a bad idea to get an M1 Max or Ultra. 5nm is old tech
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I reckon Apple might change things up with the Mac Pro release.
Lets say for sake of argument, Apple wants to release a Silicon Mac Pro in a new form factor that blows everythign out of the water…. It makes no sense that they release a M1 Ultra Duo Mac Pro at WWDC for example… That’s a bit meh…
But what if they release a M2 Ultra duo or M2 quad… now that would grab some headlines…
Thats the trick here… the M2 chips wont be released in the same way that the M1 was… we now know what machines get what chips (except teh Mac Pro of course)… so it would make sense that the silicon Mac Pro gets announced at WWDC with not only stacked quad silicon chipset but also the first M2 chips and then we expect to see the M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max and M2 Ultra being rolled out over the various desktops and laptops over the next 18 months or so…
Lets say for sake of argument, Apple wants to release a Silicon Mac Pro in a new form factor that blows everythign out of the water…. It makes no sense that they release a M1 Ultra Duo Mac Pro at WWDC for example… That’s a bit meh…
But what if they release a M2 Ultra duo or M2 quad… now that would grab some headlines…
Thats the trick here… the M2 chips wont be released in the same way that the M1 was… we now know what machines get what chips (except teh Mac Pro of course)… so it would make sense that the silicon Mac Pro gets announced at WWDC with not only stacked quad silicon chipset but also the first M2 chips and then we expect to see the M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max and M2 Ultra being rolled out over the various desktops and laptops over the next 18 months or so…
I replaced my non-retina Core i7 MBP15”, which lasted 9 years and only needed a new battery this summer. I upgraded HD to SSD and then SSD multiple times and maxed out RAM. Still works like better than new.
But I bought the 16” Pro because at some point, you have to settle for 5nm…
It’s called capitalism. We get cool stuff and soon that’s dropped drastically in price as new better ones are released. Also called progression.
Nope skipped Amiga and did damn right with that, just look Amiga is obsolete today.
Nah since I’m in europe I did like most european users, I run it with a tape deck.
And again it was the right choice, floppys are obsolete today.
Why are you calculating percentages when 3nm/5nm/7nm are all marketing terms that are meaningless?
Additionally just because something is made with the 3nm process doesn't mean that it is faster or better than if it was made with the 5nm process. Something made with a 7nm process can be better/faster/whatever than something made with a 3nm process. There is a lot more going on.
All of our Macs (not stored in Faraday cages or similar) may become useless due to EMP damage after the impending global thermo-nuclear war...so time to rethink our computer needs.
In my youth I learnt to use a slide-rule and an abacus (the former because they were allowed in exams where electronic calculators weren't, and I liked to give myself a psychological advantage over my classmates who were using pen and paper).
Or there is Charles Babbage's "Analytical Engine" (a mechanical analog computer); I saw a working replica in the London Science Museum a few years ago - fascinating stuff!
Let's hope this remains a humorous hypothesis, but a more realistic concern is how Apple would react to threats to Taiwanese autonomy considering their SoCs are manufactured there.
Also, I looked up how neon is sourced when these stories scaremongering about neon shortages were first floated, and it turns out it's probably not a big deal. Neon is refined by fractional distillation of liquid air - take a big volume of regular old atmosphere, chill it so it all liquefies, then carefully boil off each constituent gas.
So, I dunno if it's true that there might be some level of chip fab equipment disruption due to the conflict, but there's outfits extracting and purifying gases from the atmosphere with this technique everywhere in the world. There might be some lead time involved (vendor qualification, purity concerns, whatever), but all the capital equipment should be everywhere in the world, and so's the supply of raw material.
Tbh I’m starting to like the base model , ok it’s ugly as sin , but I’ll just stick it somewhere I can’t see the damn thing .
It’s like a super duper Mac mini with miles better cooling
It’s like a super duper Mac mini with miles better cooling
I was thinking the same thing last week. I waited until the March 8th announcements to see what happened and then the same day I ordered an M1 Pro 14" Macbook Pro (base model). I decided that this would do me well for awhile and with M2, M2 Pro, etc. out probably this year or next I didn't want to buy more than I could make use of for that time period. I suspect I will be tempted by an M2 Pro in a year or two. I never overbuy. I buy just what I can use now and for a reasonable time in the future and then I know I will want to upgrade as tech moves along.
M1 Ultra biggest strenght is memory driven workflow due to stupid fast memory implementation. But as long as you have 128GB option if you plan on doing anything serious. And that will cost you $5,199 with 2TB option cause 1TB is useless pretty much in todays world.
Node size doesn't matter at all when it comes to desktop computers unless you are obsessed over coulple of dozens of dollars on electrical bill in which case you would count it in yuor invoice anyway when you charge your client.
Node size doesn't matter at all when it comes to desktop computers unless you are obsessed over coulple of dozens of dollars on electrical bill in which case you would count it in yuor invoice anyway when you charge your client.
I can’t imagine Apple will release an M2 chip that is better than the M1 Pro/Max/Ultra chips. Given that M1 and M2 will be for the base spec machines (Mac Mini, Air, 13” Pro)
I think M2 will be moderate boost over M1 but won’t meet M1 pro performance, simply so that it doesn’t wipe out sales of lower end 14” and 16” MacBook Pro’s - then the M2 Pro/Max/Ultra will come along and replace all the higher M1 variants
I think M2 will be moderate boost over M1 but won’t meet M1 pro performance, simply so that it doesn’t wipe out sales of lower end 14” and 16” MacBook Pro’s - then the M2 Pro/Max/Ultra will come along and replace all the higher M1 variants
so show me something better by apple I can buy right now than a Max in a laptop? Oh you can't so your old tech is still king until another one comes along... don't hold your breath this year...
Well.... yes and no.
People paying $4000 for a Mac Studio not because they care about the fabrication of the SoC, but because they can make more/save money by having the Mac Studio as part of their tools. Besides, regardless of the fabrication, these chips will be judged by their performance and efficiency. And so far the M1 is leading the pack in most areas.
The only issue I have in buying the M1 today is that it uses an "older" core from the A14. Meanwhile, the A15 has a newer core with ARMv8.5 instruction set (compared to ARMv8.4 instruction set on the M1/A14). Presumably the M2 will have the newer cores based on the A15.
The plain M2 will not be better than the M1 Pro/Max/Ultra. The M2 will follow the M1, with a focus on efficiency (less performance cores, less GPU cores, no pro-res encoder/decoder). It might have better single core performance due to newer cores, but it will have lower scores on multi-core and GPU.
It's like the regular A chips and the AX chips for iPads.
Seriously, the worries of some people and the play straight into capitalist strategies to develop the taste for the next big thing. When will you be ever satisfied - what CPU is perfect, the perfect speed, the perfect TDP, the perfect die size. Pointless threads like this are what I hate about the tech community. It’s like you wear your strange fantasies in public and don’t know when to stop typing. Of course the next CPU will be more efficient, faster, more cores, a smaller process size but when has that not been the case… hence what’s the point in your thread? Just to say the obvious, that an existing tech (which is phenomenally adequate and ridiculously fast for years to come) is going to be made BARELY obsolete by a new tech in 1 to 3 years. Think before you type, you’ll save the internet some megabytes, us a few minutes of stumbling on pointlessness like this and make the forum a more useful place.
Any chance we can bring in a “relevance to humanity” button and if a post is pure arse then we can vote for its obliteration ?
Me waiting for technology to flatline before I'm willing to upgrade my 1990s PC:
Hi Fomalhaut,
I didn't know whether to chuckle or "evacuate in my pants" when I read your post, but I did go to Walmart to buy more aluminum foil so I can wrap my MBP in tin foil every night.
I too learned to use a slide rule in my youth (as a kid I even carried around a copy of Marsh's "Interpolated Six-Place Tables of Logarithms ..." wherever I went so that the book's spine became permanently stained with my hand print; I also noticed that the early part of the book became much dirtier than the latter pages --> Benford's Law), and I used the slide rule to teach my own progeny and some of my students about functionals. My first year in college, however, was at the beginning of the scientific calculator revolution. But I still always took my slide rule to physics and chemistry tests along with my HP calculator because at that point I didn't trust the calculator nor trust that its batteries would last through a three hour exam.
And lastly, is TSMC building a chip fab in Phoenix or not?
Still chuckling,
Solouki
P.S. I apologize to those concerned individuals about off-topic posts ... my fault, I won't let it happen again.
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Hi ninecows, Yup, my Apple Watch said that it was "-0F" the other day in the weather app ... I didn't quite know how to interpret that. Solouki
That’s likely floating-point side effects. It’s normal, and even expected/helpful in some scenarios, but temperature reporting is not one of them
So many accurate replies here already.... But yeah, just chiming in to point out that ANY computer equipment you purchase is really only cost-justified by what you get out of it while you own and use it.
ALL of it I've ever seen depreciates rapidly. Even if there's no new technology out, companies will revise the exact model of what you own to make cosmetic changes and so on, just so they can turn yours into the "old model" within 6 months.
I bought the M1 Max Macbook Pro 16 and paid all that money for it because I wanted to rid myself of a nearly as expensive high-end configuration of a 2019 model that had the Intel CPU Apple was clearly moving away from supporting. It had too many overheating problems under load that had no solution except throttling the speed, anyway.
This really should be plenty good enough for anything I want to do with it for the next few years. And hopefully, I can say I "got my money's worth" from all the things I did with it until I resell it. That's all that matter with tech purchases.
ALL of it I've ever seen depreciates rapidly. Even if there's no new technology out, companies will revise the exact model of what you own to make cosmetic changes and so on, just so they can turn yours into the "old model" within 6 months.
I bought the M1 Max Macbook Pro 16 and paid all that money for it because I wanted to rid myself of a nearly as expensive high-end configuration of a 2019 model that had the Intel CPU Apple was clearly moving away from supporting. It had too many overheating problems under load that had no solution except throttling the speed, anyway.
This really should be plenty good enough for anything I want to do with it for the next few years. And hopefully, I can say I "got my money's worth" from all the things I did with it until I resell it. That's all that matter with tech purchases.
My Apple ][+ runs Lemonade Stand as fast as I need it to. I'm not convinced this x86 thing will pan out and surely the new Apple silicon has no chance.