They are not so good

[JMacHack]

Not if you don't want to carry a second machine with you and you want the Mac. Your way the Mac losses out and I carry only a Windows machine.

I’m a car guy. I like sports cars. I could buy a Camaro 1LS for about the same as a 4x4 truck.

I live in a rural area, with many dirt roads and poor terrain. Likewise I have many hobbies that necessitate moving dirty and bulky objects that I wouldn’t want in the interior.

A 4x4 truck meets my needs, far better than the desirable sports car. So I buy the truck. I don’t curse the sports car for not being a truck.

 

[nastysailboat]

Ther are fine… 14” is slightly “underclocked” also shame nobody compares to AMD…

Isn’t the 14 the same as the 16? Same chip. I believe the 16 max can do a high power mode but other than that they’re the same chips.

 

[robco74]

I try to avoid making too many sweeping generalizations about developers, as workflows are radically different. Most of the devs I know who work on apps or web services that have used the Apple Silicon machines love them. People who work all day with a screen can appreciate a good quality display, even if they aren't creative pros. Likewise the keyboard and trackpad are excellent.

Unlike desktops which can be hidden away, the "little things" matter when it comes to laptops and mobile devices. It's not just about raw performance. Apple Silicon isn't always faster. That was the case when switching from 68K to PPC, from PPC G3 to G4 to G5, or even with the Intel switch, there were still some use cases where the G5 was faster.

This is the first generation of Apple Silicon in the Mac. They aren't going to hit every niche case right away. But Apple has demonstrated that they can and likely will iterate quickly. It's only been a year, and that's for the lower end consumer machines. It's going to take a little time for porting, optimization, etc. to happen.

 

[bobcomer]

I’m a car guy. I like sports cars. I could buy a Camaro 1LS for about the same as a 4x4 truck.

I live in a rural area, with many dirt roads and poor terrain. Likewise I have many hobbies that necessitate moving dirty and bulky objects that I wouldn’t want in the interior.

A 4x4 truck meets my needs, far better than the desirable sports car. So I buy the truck. I don’t curse the sports car for not being a truck.

Quite a bit different in prices and portability between a sports car and a truck.

And I drive a turbo Subaru, almost sport like and almost truck like.

I do tend to want to combine tasks, no doubt of that, and fair criticism of Apple and Microsoft as far as I'm concerned. (since I had no trouble at all doing *all* I wanted with my last MBP until it killed itself) I probably should just buy a used Intel MBP, run it until it's dead, and then forget about Apple laptops.

 

[ahurst]

GPU die area is limited and FP64 ALUs are not cheap. Given that their utility is marginal it’s difficult to justify budgeting for them.

I think that statement fails to acknowledge the full context. FP64 is dead slow on virtually any modern GPU. It’s basically life suppport mode - they give you some FP64 hardware so that your software runs but that’s about it. What good is that fancy big GeForce to you if the FP64 throughput rate is limited to 1/64 of FP32? Use doubles - and you fall into the “it’s supported” trap. Sure, it’s supported - but probably not how you imagined it.

Interesting, thanks for the detailed reply! I've never written any OpenCL or CUDA code before, but I've seen cases in my field where leveraging GPGPU has led to major performance boosts (e.g. the incredibly cool but ill-fated BROCCOLI toolbox for OpenCL fMRI analysis):

Does that mean most software like this is trading precision loss for performance, or are they still faster *despite* the poor FP64 support?

On that note, I'd complain that Apple going all-in on Metal and deprecating OpenCL puts it in an awkward place for researchers trying to write cross-platform scientific software, but it looks like the rest of the industry is abandoning it as well, despite Vulkan not really being designed for GPGPU. I just hope that if a new/better cross-platform standard comes along, Apple will add support to macOS.

 

[JMacHack]

Quite a bit different in prices and portability between a sports car and a truck.

And I drive a turbo Subaru, almost sport like and almost truck like.

I do tend to want to combine tasks, no doubt of that, and fair criticism of Apple and Microsoft as far as I'm concerned. (since I had no trouble at all doing *all* I wanted with my last MBP until it killed itself) I probably should just buy a used Intel MBP, run it until it's dead, and then forget about Apple laptops.

Honestly when you include 4x4, the prices for a Camaro 1LE and a pickup truck are roughly similar, it’s ridiculous.

 

[bobcomer]

Honestly when you include 4x4, the prices for a Camaro 1LE and a pickup truck are roughly similar, it’s ridiculous.

All car pricing is insane right now. I just had to buy that Subaru myself, and there was one car in town that fit what I wanted, and the town is over a million in population. I could have bought a used car that fit what i wanted, but it was as much as new. That chip shortage sure is hurting some industries.

And fwiw, even used Intel MBP's are also insanely priced right now! No way I'm going to pay that.

 

[LonestarOne]

Linus always reminds me of the sales guy who would come up to you in the computer store and try to tell you what you should be buying, when he clearly knew less than you did. Not surprising, since Linus *was* the sales guy in a computer store, before he became a YouTuber. I don’t understand why anyone takes his clickbait seriously.

 

[Shivetya]

The Ryzen9 3060 from the LTT test is $1549 from Best Buy. That is the real killer for many people who buy laptops, price. This is lower than a M1 13 with equivalent SSD space and memory. LTT's test simply revealed that the M1Pro and M1Max after significant improvements over the M1 we already have.

However outside a very limited media related apps they are in the same boat as before, beaten by something much lower in price. M1 compared to Apple intel laptops is night and day but it wasn't like even top end Apple intel notebooks were anything to write home about. They certain have incredible build quality but this is not just an Apple forte now.

I am waiting for the high end iMac and or iMac Pro to see if I can dispense with my current iMac but I not going back to a situation where I need two machines which my i9 iMac may see much longer use than I suspected

 

[thunng8]

The Ryzen9 3060 from the LTT test is $1549 from Best Buy. That is the real killer for many people who buy laptops, price. This is lower than a M1 13 with equivalent SSD space and memory. LTT's test simply revealed that the M1Pro and M1Max after significant improvements over the M1 we already have.

However outside a very limited media related apps they are in the same boat as before, beaten by something much lower in price. M1 compared to Apple intel laptops is night and day but it wasn't like even top end Apple intel notebooks were anything to write home about. They certain have incredible build quality but this is not just an Apple forte now.

I am waiting for the high end iMac and or iMac Pro to see if I can dispense with my current iMac but I not going back to a situation where I need two machines which my i9 iMac may see much longer use than I suspected

Not sure what you mean by limited media apps. video editing and photo editing applications are some of the the most used applications is there.

 

[l0stl0rd]

Isn’t the 14 the same as the 16? Same chip. I believe the 16 max can do a high power mode but other than that they’re the same chips.

I don't have either but Maxtech showed that the 14” draws less power on the GPU which makes it slower than the 16”.

Same thing Nvidia does not every 3080 in a notebook runs at the same speed.

 

[thedocbwarren]

Well, I think that if running Windows apps is essential then it makes far more sense to buy a Windows PC. That’s just a given.

How many times can this be said? Why are people buying Apple Silicon macs to run Windows? Please, it does not make sense.

 

[JMacHack]

How many times can this be said? Why are people buying Apple Silicon macs to run Windows? Please, it does not make sense.

From what I’ve gleaned:
1. Excellent build quality
2. Good performance
3. Compatibility with all three OSes (no longer the case)

For what it’s worth I’ll have to use Windows at my new job, but I’m still gonna use Mac at home. I’m probably gonna build a pc though (which I was going to do anyway) in case I need to work from home.

I’ll keep my Mac Pro 5,1 around though, I can install Windows on it and it has sentimental value.

 

[robco74]

How many times can this be said? Why are people buying Apple Silicon macs to run Windows? Please, it does not make sense.

I think it's people who need to run that one, often legacy, app that only works with Windows. Quite a few businesses still depend on abandonware. Then of course there are those who like to play games and are unwilling or unable to have two machines.

Every time Apple makes a switch, be it OS or hardware, there are always some apps and users left behind. Those users tend to be the most vocal.

 

[JMacHack]

This is lower than a M1 13 with equivalent SSD space and memory.

in a lot of price/performance comparisons I’ve seen this thrown around and it bothers me.

Yes, we know Apples prices for storage and RAM upgrades is exorbitant. Yes, other vendors offer upgrades at a lower price.

But those two factors effect the performance of the PC far more than the ASi. As said before, ASi doesn’t trip over itself when swapping memory as much as a pc does. *theoretically* allowing you to get by with less RAM and storage than a PC.

Taking that into consideration, the price/performance metric changes. And I believe when you start lumping in storage upgrades, you’re being disingenuous to the performance argument.

 

[ahurst]

The Ryzen9 3060 from the LTT test is $1549 from Best Buy. That is the real killer for many people who buy laptops, price. This is lower than a M1 13 with equivalent SSD space and memory. LTT's test simply revealed that the M1Pro and M1Max after significant improvements over the M1 we already have.

However outside a very limited media related apps they are in the same boat as before, beaten by something much lower in price. M1 compared to Apple intel laptops is night and day but it wasn't like even top end Apple intel notebooks were anything to write home about. They certain have incredible build quality but this is not just an Apple forte now.

Just looked up the Zephyrus M16. It's certainly cheaper than the MBP 14", but it also only has a 1920x1200 display, a DDR4 RAM (vs. the M1 Pro's DDR5), and a battery life of about 6 hours under light use at low brightness. If someone's okay with those tradeoffs it's a good deal, but it's definitely not a 1-to-1 comparison on features to price.

A Windows laptop with a similarly nice display and DDR5 would probably be a fair bit closer to an equivalent M1 Pro in cost.

 

[throAU]

Given Nvidia and AMD frequently release game ready drivers for specific games that improve performance anywhere between 10 and 30+ percent with a single driver update, comparing an M1 Max/Pro on games that aren't specifically written for metal is more of a software optimisation comparison than raw hardware performance measuring.

I mean, its "fair" because if that's the stuff you want to run, buy the thing that runs it best, but expecting the M1 based machines that games were not optimised for to run them as well as the leading gaming GPU brand is just not being realistic.

 

[leman]

Interesting, thanks for the detailed reply! I've never written any OpenCL or CUDA code before, but I've seen cases in my field where leveraging GPGPU has led to major performance boosts (e.g. the incredibly cool but ill-fated BROCCOLI toolbox for OpenCL fMRI analysis):

View attachment 1926323

Does that mean most software like this is trading precision loss for performance, or are they still faster *despite* the poor FP64 support?

I don’t know whether this software uses FP32 or FP64. Of course, even if you use FP64 and take the penalty hit, large GPUs still have many more processing units than your average CPU. And there are some workstation GPU versions with higher FP64 throughout. Still, on consumer hardware you should be able to get 2-4x higher performance by utilizing extended precision math.

On that note, I'd complain that Apple going all-in on Metal and deprecating OpenCL puts it in an awkward place for researchers trying to write cross-platform scientific software, but it looks like the rest of the industry is abandoning it as well, despite Vulkan not really being designed for GPGPU. I just hope that if a new/better cross-platform standard comes along, Apple will add support to macOS.

Yeah, we definitely need a new cross-platform toolkit for this. It’s a little bit if a conundrum because for reliability and performance reasons, having platform-specific APIs is probably a good thing - it allows the vendors to experiment freely without constraining themselves. But it does make cross-platform developing more of an effort. OpenCL was a great effort by Apple, unfortunately it was successfully burried by Nvidia and the incompetence of the Kronos committee.

I think there are two ways forward through. First, both Metal and CUDA are C++ based. This means you can write kernel code that would be equally valid Metal and valid C++ if you constrain yourself to a certain subset of C++ and use appropriate macros. The host code can be abstracted away by a software wrapper. This is essentially the approach Apple took to port Blender Cycles to Metal.

Second, WebGPU offers a cross-platform API and shading language - and it won’t be restricted to web only. Could be a viable alternative for many use cases, although probably less powerful than using Metal or CUDA directly.

 

[Xiao_Xi]

Nvidia didn't adopt OpenCL 2.0 and will never embrace any cross-platform toolkit in the future while it is the industry leader.

Industry leaders don't adopt standards; they use proprietary software and hardware to take advantage of lock-in.

 

[bobcomer]

How many times can this be said? Why are people buying Apple Silicon macs to run Windows? Please, it does not make sense.

There might be a desire to use a Mac, plus a small need to run emergency Windows apps. I really can't understand those that put us down because they think we should buy a Windows PC because we may need to run an occasional Windows app!!!

I'm an IT Manager, I run Windows all day and then some. At home I want something different, but I also want to do what I need to do, even if that different is the only PC I have at hand. I've heard it so many times in these forums and it makes less and less sense to me. (and more and more annoying!)

 

[thedocbwarren]

There might be a desire to use a Mac, plus a small need to run emergency Windows apps. I really can't understand those that put us down because they think we should buy a Windows PC because we may need to run an occasional Windows app!!!

I'm an IT Manager, I run Windows all day and then some. At home I want something different, but I also want to do what I need to do, even if that different is the only PC I have at hand. I've heard it so many times in these forums and it makes less and less sense to me. (and more and more annoying!)

It's not a put down, it's confusion on the expectation. Most systems have only compatibility with the environment they run in. Why expect Apple, Linux Foundation, Microsoft, etc. will test and focus on other OS environments to run third-party? If you manage to run something on an other OS than intended and it not run like a mess it's a gift. I ran alternative (to PC and Windows) for years and never expected I'd run Windows software on my systems. When I was lucky to do so I was happy but expectations were low. That's reality.

 

[bobcomer]

Most systems have only compatibility with the environment they run in.

VERY false. If I'm running Linux, I can run a Windows VM no problem, at full functionality. Same for an Intel Mac, no problems. Even OS/2, no problems.

Microsoft, etc. will test and focus on other OS environments to run third-party?

Yep, it's called Hyper-V -- virtual machines. Included in all Windows Pro and up OS's.

If you manage to run something on an other OS than intended and it not run like a mess it's a gift.

I've only been doing it for about 30 years, it has always served me well. I started with Virtual PC and VMWare WAY back then...

I ran alternative (to PC and Windows) for years and never expected I'd run Windows software on my systems. When I was lucky to do so I was happy but expectations were low. That's reality.

That's not reality in my experience, not even close.

 

[thedocbwarren]

VERY false. If I'm running Linux, I can run a Windows VM no problem, at full functionality. Same for an Intel Mac, no problems. Even OS/2, no problems.

Yep, it's called Hyper-V -- virtual machines. Included in all Windows Pro and up OS's.


I've only been doing it for about 30 years, it has always served me well. I started with Virtual PC and VMWare WAY back then...


That's not reality in my experience, not even close.

Not talking about a VM. VMs are the answer to run other environments. That's why I question why people wish to run Windows on Apple Silicon macs. You can easily run Windows Arm on Parallels. Gaming works as well (mostly.). Running x86 is an obvious no-go. Same with 32-bit. These are known and were known for quite some time. There are so many threads on this and it's very redundant. Apple is moving on to their own chips. There will obviously be some things that don't run in some form of VM or other neat trick (like Wine via CrossOver.) That has not changed other than the flavor of Windows under a new architecture with macOS outside bootcamp. And bootcamp will not likely get supported. I wasn't advertised that it ever would be.

I'm clearly missing something.

Want to add, I didn't clarify I meant native vs a VM and thus created some confusion. That's on me.

 

[bobcomer]

Not talking about a VM. VMs are the answer to run other environments. That's why I question why people wish to run Windows on Apple Silicon macs. You can easily run Windows Arm on Parallels. Gaming works as well (mostly.). Running x86 is an obvious no-go. Same with 32-bit. These are known and were known for quite some time. There are so many threads on this and it's very redundant. Apple is moving on to their own chips. There will obviously be some things that don't run in some form of VM or other neat trick (like Wine via CrossOver.) That has not changed other than the flavor of Windows under a new architecture with macOS outside bootcamp. And bootcamp will not likely get supported. I wasn't advertised that it ever would be.

I'm clearly missing something.

Want to add, I didn't clarify I meant native vs a VM and thus created some confusion. That's on me.

But I am talking VM's as a solution to running things not native to the particular host. It works very well normally.

Windows on Arm runs most things, but it's not legal for production work, the EULA says it can only be run on the hardware it comes with. We get by that by using the insider builds, and that has its own limitations.

And actually, running Windows on Arm was advertised, but Apple forgot to add the part about licensing would be a problem. I'll never forgive them for that. (At least until we can license it.) Part of why I bought my M1 MBA is because I thought it could run a Windows VM, so it would cover the necessary part.

The other ways like Boot Camp, Crossover, are not a solution like you said, and personally, I've never used Boot Camp on a Mac, always VM's. Nor do I game on PC's of any kind.

 

[thedocbwarren]

But I am talking VM's as a solution to running things not native to the particular host. It works very well normally.

Windows on Arm runs most things, but it's not legal for production work, the EULA says it can only be run on the hardware it comes with. We get by that by using the insider builds, and that has its own limitations.

And actually, running Windows on Arm was advertised, but Apple forgot to add the part about licensing would be a problem. I'll never forgive them for that. (At least until we can license it.) Part of why I bought my M1 MBA is because I thought it could run a Windows VM, so it would cover the necessary part.

The other ways like Boot Camp, Crossover, are not a solution like you said, and personally, I've never used Boot Camp on a Mac, always VM's. Nor do I game on PC's of any kind.

I use VMs a lot myself. I had bootcamp for testing on my 16 but not using it for a lot of anything.