The thrill of Apple silicon is already gone

[eltoslightfoot]

What does this even mean? I am having difficulty trying to make sense of it.

They don't exactly give you an i9 with a mac pro. They give you an intel Xeon processor with up to 28 cores. These are processors that are server only. They run Windows, Linux, UNIX, Mac, and probably others I don't even know about. The code that makes the processors interact with the OS has been many years in the making for intel. Apple has to recreate how to make that all work with the high number of cores you would need to get the same level of performance. That might be 128 M2 cores, who knows?

Now add to that the complexity of making all that work with an actual GPU capable of what is in the Mac Pros and it becomes even more daunting. My bet is they just keep the Intel one for a while longer and keep the Universal app thing a while longer as well.

Here shows the issues: https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/01/25/m2-pro-mac-mini-vs-mac-pro---compared

Pay attention to the graphics comparisons.

 

[Sydde]

The code that makes the processors interact with the OS has been many years in the making for intel. Apple has to recreate how to make that all work with the high number of cores you would need to get the same level of performance. That might be 128 M2 cores, who knows?

Apple already has a 20-core M1 Ultra in the Studio that "interacts with the OS" at least as well as the Xeon-W in the '19 Mac Pro and has been shown to outperform the Pro in many metrics, in part because the Ultra is able to run its cores hundreds of MHz faster than the Xeon (and it still does better than modern x86 devices at a much lower clock speed). There really is no black magic that needs to be worked out beyond what Apple has already accomplished over a decade of ARM core/SoC development. Even the PowerVR-derived GPU is improving at a steady pace, such that it will all but replace any need for a graphics card.

The M-series Mac Pro will most likely be an M3 on the N3 node, and it will make the old model look like a toy. It will barely need 24 cores, if that, to lay the Xeon-W to its final rest. Some people might be dissatisfied with the AS Mac Pro. Most who could actually use one will probably be pleased with the result.

 

[Altis]

Yet the biggest thing you are missing here is LONGEVITY. If a person is wanting more power and more space, then every year to two years they are upgrading all the time. That's what happened during the Intel vs. Cyrix vs. AMD Days with the Pentium II, K6 II, and early Athlon and Duron CPUs, and memory. You'd be spending a huge amount of money for the short term drug-like energy fix, while giving off the false sense of belief that more is better.

My mid-2011 13" MBA still screams fast for the speeds it offers, and it is going strong for 11 years without a single bit of maintenance to it. No replacement of battery, board, the entire lot. If I compared that to how much money I put into my PC that I've rebuilt 4 times since then and now, the MBA would still come out on top for stability, longevity, and overall cost per month. Doing the math, that MBA is costing me $11.56/month and is still going strong. I bought it at $1595 in 2011 ( 1595 / (12 months * 11.5 years) ).

Compare that to the PC I built, which is Ryzen 5, 32GB, 4 SSDs and a M.2, closed loop water cooling, I'm looking at around $1000 every other year, and that is including keeping the M.2 and 4 SSDs, the case, and the video card. That's $5000 in 120 months.

If my M1 Pro gives me the same outlook, and should give more than that, I should be on this for much longer than the 11.5 years I've had my MBA; besides, I'd be paying less in 10 years time than I would be for upgrading the PC for that short term fix.

As a sysadmin, I'm not worried about the fix, as stability and staying rock solid is the main concern (and that's coming from someone who manages two data centers at Intel); as a consumer, I sure as hell am not worried about the fix, because I want my Mac to stay working as long as it can, solidly and stably, without the need for the instant gratification of the fix. And most consumers want that; to only have to buy something once and not have to worry about speed or needing to upgrade. That's what brought them to Macs; not needing to get caught in the 2-year upgrade cycle.

BL.

I can certainly appreciate your viewpoint and agree on some points.

I still use a mid-2013 MBA as my mobile computer -- I don't use it every day, just for times when I'm on the go for basic stuff and remote desktoping to a work PC where necessary. It's physically in immaculate shape and the battery life is still very good, even though it's on its original battery. It's been great value and held up well over time, although it obviously runs slower on newer macOS than previous. It is on the cusp of being no longer supported (whenever BigSur is defunct) in its 10th year but for a laptop I consider that not half bad. I can still install Windows or Linux on it and further extend its useful life.

However, my desktop PC from 2014 (i7 4790k, 16 GB, GTX 970) is also upon its 9th year and it's absolutely solid as a rock. I did upgrade the ~2010 era SSD a few years ago for about $100 (2 x 1TB drives). Even today, it can 4k video edit, 3D model, audio production, run any kind of engineering and development software, and 1080p game modern titles. I can push it very far with multitasking and it simply never misses a beat. Since it's modular, I can replace any component (though I tend to do CPU+mobo+RAM at once) as needed over time. It's still a very fast computer in most respects even today and even though I'm definitely far from a casual user.

Oddly enough, a few months ago I was at my parents and used their computer -- an HP from 2013 (i7 4770, 12 GB). It ran so unbelievably miserably I was ready to set it on fire. But instead, I tossed in a $30 SSD to replace the 1TB HDD, fresh install of Windows 10, and voila -- it ran as nice as a brand new computer. Boots from power-off to reading emails in Outlook in 12 seconds. Runs all their software nearly instantly. That HDD was such a massive bottleneck but they had no idea and were ready to buy a new computer, but turns out they didn't need one at all.

So having said that the MBA is great for longevity, there are many model years of Apple hardware I wouldn't buy simply because they didn't last (dGPU problems, butterfly keyboard, etc). Generally speaking the hardware is good but being upgradeable (at least RAM and storage) would go a long way to keeping them on the road, so to speak.

The biggest longevity issue I have is with macOS: new major revision every year and it often breaks some software if it doesn't get updated. It tends to have relatively poor support for any older software, and each version of macOS is only supported about 3ish years, so far as I can tell. I pretty much have to stick with new/supported software at any given time.

Meanwhile, my Windows 10 machine will happily run 20-year-old software such as my old copy of Photoshop v7 (2002), old games, whatever I ask of it, without it being updated in years. I love that ability.

For example, I still regularly (about 1-2 times per month) use Lightroom 4, which I bought as a perpetual license in 2012 for about C$150. It runs perfectly on the latest Windows 10 build (and I'd assume Windows 11). If it didn't run, I'd have to jump on Adobe's Photography plan which at the time was C$12/month and now about C$25/month. Over this 10-year period, that would have cost me about C$2,200! (average cost of C$18.50/m * 12m * 10yr). I can still run my perpetual Photoshop CS3 license (from 2009) perfectly, although I've also bought Affinity Photo for like C$50.

As Apple locks things down further the problem seems to be only getting worse. I don't like the direction it's taking (nor Windows 11 for that matter as they follow suit). In any case, my whole point in this is that Windows can definitely have great longevity and value. And I haven't even mentioned all the old work PC machines/servers I come across that are decades old and still serving a purpose today.

 

[bradl]

I like Macs as much as anyone here. I'm still using a 2018 MacBook Air base model. Are you seriously suggesting it's common to spend over 1k on a PC every 1-2 years?

Have you seen the cost of parts/components nowadays?

Back then (some 20 years ago), one could get away with building a decent machine for no more than $500, and that is with reusing some parts. It was doing that that got me back into Macs, as I cobbled together what I had, and needed a case, motherboard, and CPU to build a Hackintosh.

Adjust the prices back then to right now, along with the supply constraints, and yes, you're looking at roughly $1000 for a new build.

I have a custom built PC that I spent about $1500 on 7 years ago and it still runs every PC game/MMO that I throw at it. It doesn't support Windows 11 but otherwise it still runs like I built it yesterday. People buy a Mac for all different reasons, mostly to run Mac OS but I disagree that longevity is an advantage when the new Mac desktops cannot even be upgraded with RAM/Storage anymore.

When you have people buying prebuilt PCs (read: Dell, HP, etc.), and have those boxes die on you roughly 3-5 months after the 2-year warranty expires, yes, longevity is an advantage. I haven't had to upgrade a single thing in my MBA; in fact, the only thing I have bought to supplement my MBA is an external USB disk for Time Machine. Other than that, nothing else has gone into it, and one does not need to upgrade the machine to use it and keep it usable. Why would I need to upgrade anything if how it was configured served my purposes when I bought it, and still serves my purposes now? In all honesty, the only reason I moved to M1 is the fact that one single application I need will no longer be supported and there is no suitable upgrade path for that application that doesn't involve a subscription.

So yeah, like your PC, that MBA still runs like I bought it yesterday. And for nearly 12 years (I bought it in July 2011), it still runs wonderfully.

BL.

 

[quarkysg]

Apple has to recreate how to make that all work with the high number of cores you would need to get the same level of performance. That might be 128 M2 cores, who knows?

Not sure what you're trying to say here. You know that macOS is running on a Mach microkernel, that is basically processor agnostic, and that it does all the process scheduling, regardless of how many CPU cores it has right?

The Mach kernel has been running on many processors since the Next Cube time, starting from the Motorola 68040 to PowerPC, x86, x86-64 and ARM ISA. I'm sure I missed other ISA, but you get the picture.

 

[Philip Turner]

None of these things changed gaming. Metal 3 won't either.

Metal 3 makes it possible to emulate D3D12 in Parallels.

 

[unrigestered]

When you have people buying prebuilt PCs (read: Dell, HP, etc.), and have those boxes die on you roughly 3-5 months after the 2-year warranty expires, yes, longevity is an advantage.

funny thing, despite much of the hyperbolic claims by many Apple users, i've never had a PC system (or in fact non-Apple system) die on me.... EVER... and i'm still using some stuff ranging back to the 80's (don't have anything from the 70's anymore)
while i'm often reading things on here that go like this: "my Macbook has been awesome! I just had to send it to repair to replace my logic board three times and my keyboard twice within 7 years of use... other than that it has been working flawlessly!"
(note, not everyone on here had such experiences on Mac, i just literally never had such on non-Apple products and actually haven't heard such things from other people with Windows systems. i personally know someone though who has fried two of his Intel iMac logic boards since he was doing CGI renderings 24/7. i told him that for such stressful tasks a chunky PC that allows for better cooling would be better, but he insisted that an iMac was the way to go)

 

[bradl]

funny thing, despite much of the hyperbolic claims by many Apple users, i've never had a PC system (or in fact non-Apple system) die on me.... EVER... and i'm still using some stuff ranging back to the 80's (don't have anything from the 70's anymore)
while i'm often reading things on here that go like this: "my Macbook has been awesome! I just had to send it to repair to replace my logic board three times and my keyboard twice within 7 years of use... other than that it has been working flawlessly!"
(note, not everyone on here had such experiences on Mac, i just literally never had such on non-Apple products and actually haven't heard such things from other people with Windows systems. i personally know someone though who has fried two of his Intel iMac logic boards since he was doing CGI renderings 24/7. i told him that for such stressful tasks a chunky PC that allows for better cooling would be better, but he insisted that an iMac was the way to go)

My wife's Dell Inspiron died 3 days after the 2-year warranty expired. She got tired of having to replace something so often, that she picked up a Mac. 15" 2008 MBP. Lasted her 8 years, until she went for the 12", found it to be too small (screenwise; she's legally blind), and went to the 16" MBP.

From going from 3 different Dells from 2002 to 2008 to something that lasted her 8 years to what she has now? I'd say that the stability and longevity are worth it.

BL.

 

[Isamilis]

Have you seen the cost of parts/components nowadays?

Back then (some 20 years ago), one could get away with building a decent machine for no more than $500, and that is with reusing some parts. It was doing that that got me back into Macs, as I cobbled together what I had, and needed a case, motherboard, and CPU to build a Hackintosh.

Adjust the prices back then to right now, along with the supply constraints, and yes, you're looking at roughly $1000 for a new build.



When you have people buying prebuilt PCs (read: Dell, HP, etc.), and have those boxes die on you roughly 3-5 months after the 2-year warranty expires, yes, longevity is an advantage. I haven't had to upgrade a single thing in my MBA; in fact, the only thing I have bought to supplement my MBA is an external USB disk for Time Machine. Other than that, nothing else has gone into it, and one does not need to upgrade the machine to use it and keep it usable. Why would I need to upgrade anything if how it was configured served my purposes when I bought it, and still serves my purposes now? In all honesty, the only reason I moved to M1 is the fact that one single application I need will no longer be supported and there is no suitable upgrade path for that application that doesn't involve a subscription.

So yeah, like your PC, that MBA still runs like I bought it yesterday. And for nearly 12 years (I bought it in July 2011), it still runs wonderfully.

BL.

I doubt your 2011 can still run just like you bought yesterday. If I’m not mistaken, MBA 2011 can only run High Sierra where only few software nowadays can still run on that (unless you use the old version).

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Not sure what you're trying to say here. You know that macOS is running on a Mach microkernel, that is basically processor agnostic, and that it does all the process scheduling, regardless of how many CPU cores it has right?

The Mach kernel has been running on many processors since the Next Cube time, starting from the Motorola 68040 to PowerPC, x86, x86-64 and ARM ISA. I'm sure I missed other ISA, but you get the picture.

Good to know! I did not know that.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

funny thing, despite much of the hyperbolic claims by many Apple users, i've never had a PC system (or in fact non-Apple system) die on me.... EVER... and i'm still using some stuff ranging back to the 80's (don't have anything from the 70's anymore)
while i'm often reading things on here that go like this: "my Macbook has been awesome! I just had to send it to repair to replace my logic board three times and my keyboard twice within 7 years of use... other than that it has been working flawlessly!"
(note, not everyone on here had such experiences on Mac, i just literally never had such on non-Apple products and actually haven't heard such things from other people with Windows systems. i personally know someone though who has fried two of his Intel iMac logic boards since he was doing CGI renderings 24/7. i told him that for such stressful tasks a chunky PC that allows for better cooling would be better, but he insisted that an iMac was the way to go)

Oddly I have had one gaming PC fail due to an overheating video card and another one fail in it's power supply, which I replaced. I have also had a mobo fail a time or two.

I mostly have had Macbooks or Hackintoshes, but I have never had either fail. Your idea is solid though. Both sides can have tech issues, and for the most part windows runs old equipment well also.

I wonder if people are conflating android with windows. Android gets outdated very quickly.

 

[PauloSera]

Metal 3 makes it possible to emulate D3D12 in Parallels.

Also not the first time I've heard Parallels be suggested for gaming. It's still not a thing.

 

[bobcomer]

They don't exactly give you an i9 with a mac pro. They give you an intel Xeon processor with up to 28 cores. These are processors that are server only. They run Windows, Linux, UNIX, Mac, and probably others I don't even know about. The code that makes the processors interact with the OS has been many years in the making for intel. Apple has to recreate how to make that all work with the high number of cores you would need to get the same level of performance. That might be 128 M2 cores, who knows?

Now add to that the complexity of making all that work with an actual GPU capable of what is in the Mac Pros and it becomes even more daunting. My bet is they just keep the Intel one for a while longer and keep the Universal app thing a while longer as well.

Here shows the issues: https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/01/25/m2-pro-mac-mini-vs-mac-pro---compared

Pay attention to the graphics comparisons.

Xeons are definitely not server only, they also fit into the workstation market. (PC's that support a lot more RAM and I/O)

 

[Curry119]

funny thing, despite much of the hyperbolic claims by many Apple users, i've never had a PC system (or in fact non-Apple system) die on me.... EVER... and i'm still using some stuff ranging back to the 80's (don't have anything from the 70's anymore)
while i'm often reading things on here that go like this: "my Macbook has been awesome! I just had to send it to repair to replace my logic board three times and my keyboard twice within 7 years of use... other than that it has been working flawlessly!"
(note, not everyone on here had such experiences on Mac, i just literally never had such on non-Apple products and actually haven't heard such things from other people with Windows systems. i personally know someone though who has fried two of his Intel iMac logic boards since he was doing CGI renderings 24/7. i told him that for such stressful tasks a chunky PC that allows for better cooling would be better, but he insisted that an iMac was the way to go)

The other difference is that although PC desktops (and older Macs) might have a bad component (I've lost a GPU before) the PC is still good for many years if you replace the failed part. I think most of us have come to terms with the fact that laptops cannot be repaired/upgraded easily but I still think a desktop should have serviceable parts. Now from Apple you are essentially getting an iPhone/iPad board in an aluminum box. I really don't understand how folks could claim such systems have superior longevity. Sure, many people here on MacRumors just buy new computers every few years, but that is not the norm for most folks.

 

[dmccloud]

funny thing, despite much of the hyperbolic claims by many Apple users, i've never had a PC system (or in fact non-Apple system) die on me.... EVER... and i'm still using some stuff ranging back to the 80's (don't have anything from the 70's anymore)
while i'm often reading things on here that go like this: "my Macbook has been awesome! I just had to send it to repair to replace my logic board three times and my keyboard twice within 7 years of use... other than that it has been working flawlessly!"
(note, not everyone on here had such experiences on Mac, i just literally never had such on non-Apple products and actually haven't heard such things from other people with Windows systems. i personally know someone though who has fried two of his Intel iMac logic boards since he was doing CGI renderings 24/7. i told him that for such stressful tasks a chunky PC that allows for better cooling would be better, but he insisted that an iMac was the way to go)

Funny thing, I have worked as a PC/Mac repair technician, and I have seen countless PCs (desktops and laptops alike) come in with failing motherboards, components, GPUs, drives, etc. I'm confused how you "haven't heard such things from other people with Windows systems" when you can walk into any Best Buy/Geek Squad or local PC repair shop and see dozens upon dozens of machines with the very issues you seem to imply are nonexistent on the PC side.

 

[salamanderjuice]

Have you seen the cost of parts/components nowadays?

Back then (some 20 years ago), one could get away with building a decent machine for no more than $500, and that is with reusing some parts. It was doing that that got me back into Macs, as I cobbled together what I had, and needed a case, motherboard, and CPU to build a Hackintosh.

Adjust the prices back then to right now, along with the supply constraints, and yes, you're looking at roughly $1000 for a new build.



When you have people buying prebuilt PCs (read: Dell, HP, etc.), and have those boxes die on you roughly 3-5 months after the 2-year warranty expires, yes, longevity is an advantage. I haven't had to upgrade a single thing in my MBA; in fact, the only thing I have bought to supplement my MBA is an external USB disk for Time Machine. Other than that, nothing else has gone into it, and one does not need to upgrade the machine to use it and keep it usable. Why would I need to upgrade anything if how it was configured served my purposes when I bought it, and still serves my purposes now? In all honesty, the only reason I moved to M1 is the fact that one single application I need will no longer be supported and there is no suitable upgrade path for that application that doesn't involve a subscription.

So yeah, like your PC, that MBA still runs like I bought it yesterday. And for nearly 12 years (I bought it in July 2011), it still runs wonderfully.

BL.

You can easily build a PC for $500 these days. Graphics card prices have been a bit wack lately but if you're not into gaming the integrated GPUs in Intel and AMD CPUs are fine. And the Intel Arc A380 is OK for its $140 MSRP that it's regularly found at. And that's for brand new everything. If you already have a case, PSU, etc. you can put that budget into better parts. No it's not going to be top of the line but neither was a $500 PC 20 years ago.

Not like Apple's are free of troubles either. I know quite a few people on one or more butterfly keyboard replacements, dead logic boards and dead displays from flexgate. Maybe better quality than the $400 Dell special but not much different from an equivalently priced PC laptop.

 

[dmccloud]

You can easily build a PC for $500 these days. Graphics card prices have been a bit wack lately but if you're not into gaming the integrated GPUs in Intel and AMD CPUs are fine. And the Intel Arc A380 is OK for its $140 MSRP that it's regularly found at. And that's for brand new everything. If you already have a case, PSU, etc. you can put that budget into better parts. No it's not going to be top of the line but neither was a $500 PC 20 years ago.

Not like Apple's are free of troubles either. I know quite a few people on one or more butterfly keyboard replacements, dead logic boards and dead displays from flexgate. Maybe better quality than the $400 Dell special but not much different from an equivalently priced PC laptop.

Not all Intel or AMD desktop CPUs have integrated graphics at this stage, so for those builds you would have to put a dedicated graphics card into the PC anyways. It's easier to tell which AMD parts have integrated graphics, but on the Intel side you have to navigate the seemingly endless suffixes attached to their processors (KF vs. K vs G, etc.). The opposite is true for mobile SKUs, mainly because most laptops lack sufficient space or cooling to handle a dGPU, especially as everyone tries to make their Windows-based PCs thinner and lighter like the MacBook Air.

 

[salamanderjuice]

Not all Intel or AMD desktop CPUs have integrated graphics at this stage, so for those builds you would have to put a dedicated graphics card into the PC anyways. It's easier to tell which AMD parts have integrated graphics, but on the Intel side you have to navigate the seemingly endless suffixes attached to their processors (KF vs. K vs G, etc.). The opposite is true for mobile SKUs, mainly because most laptops lack sufficient space or cooling to handle a dGPU, especially as everyone tries to make their Windows-based PCs thinner and lighter like the MacBook Air.

That's literally not even remotely a problem? You just do a small amount of research. Google the part number if you're unsure. Then buy one with the integrated GPU if you're not going to use a discrete GPU. It's not even that hard, Intel uses an F to indicate it has no integrated graphics, AMD uses a G to indicate it does except on the new 7000 series Ryzens which all have them.

 

[bobcomer]

Funny thing, I have worked as a PC/Mac repair technician,

Given the job, I would expect you to see lots of failed systems, that's obvious.

Desktops last years, special purpose desktops last decades. Really, PC's don't have any higher failure rate than Macs do and vice versa -- after all it's all the same type of parts. I even have one non special purpose desktop at home that's over 20 years old and usable now that it has a SSD in it. The only time it isn't running is when the power is out. I call it decoy and it's for visitors to use.

 

[kasakka]

For longetivity, the difference between PCs and Macs is that if something fails you can't do anything about it on a Mac but try to get Apple to repair it - often at a too high cost. With desktop PCs you can just swap the failing part, with PC laptops you can usually at least swap some of the parts or salvage a disk drive.

 

[Curry119]

For longetivity, the difference between PCs and Macs is that if something fails you can't do anything about it on a Mac but try to get Apple to repair it - often at a too high cost. With desktop PCs you can just swap the failing part, with PC laptops you can usually at least swap some of the parts or salvage a disk drive.

I don't understand how more people don't see that this is just anti-consumer behavior. It seems like many Apple fans are truly convinced that to have a powerful computer you need to solder everything to a board. I went to check out the new M2 Mini in the store because I was tempted by the reviews but I just couldn't bring myself to buy one with all the limitations imposed on it. My 7 year old PC that I built myself already has 16gb of ram inside and a GPU that could still run anything I need. I'm probably just getting old in my ways, but give me a modular desktop any day over one of these new desktop Macs.

 

[bradl]

I doubt your 2011 can still run just like you bought yesterday. If I’m not mistaken, MBA 2011 can only run High Sierra where only few software nowadays can still run on that (unless you use the old version).

My MBA has been rock solid on Sierra for the past 6 years. It runs just as smoothly as the day I bought it, when it came with Lion.

For what I need, it runs perfectly. Browse, mail, Office, password manager, image editing, and even compiles code for me.

BL.

 

[bcortens]

Also not the first time I've heard Parallels be suggested for gaming. It's still not a thing.

I play both Sins of a Solar Empire and Age of Empires 2 in parallels...

 

[PauloSera]

I play both Sins of a Solar Empire and Age of Empires 2 in parallels...

Because this game could probably be played with an AirPod's hardware.

Gaming = playing $60 titles available on Steam right now at high FPS. That is what is meant when gaming is discussed. Not playing ancient games that have so little hardware needs that virtualized non native environments sharing a fraction of a system's resources can handle them.

 

[bcortens]

Because this game could probably be played with an AirPod's hardware.

Gaming = playing $60 titles available on Steam right now at high FPS. That is what is meant when gaming is discussed. Not playing ancient games that have so little hardware needs that virtualized non native environments sharing a fraction of a system's resources can handle them.

Elitist nonsense...