Will we ever see a bump as impressive as the M1 again?

[leman]

Because lots of publishing, reporting and advertising is done on Macs and some even on iPhones. Being useful for professional work is hardly depending on raw performance alone.

Publishing and advertising doesn't rely on raw performance. Some other things might.

Your arguments are all over the place. You change your narrative as you go. It's like that with your claims about machine learning and also with performance.

You just need to make up a new class and suddenly you're the best in it.

Subnotebooks existed well before the MacBook Air. Sure, Apple invented the premium sub-notebook category. But we are talking about performance in a given chassis, not performance per dollar.

Nobody gave Apple thermal conditions, they designed them according to their priorities.

Common sense, practical considerations and legal regulations. There is a good reason why the weight of the Apple's large workstation laptop has historically been 2-2.5kg. That's simply the most practical weight for a practical computer without being unwieldy. Same with the target battery life of at least 7-8 hours. Simple practical consideration. Everything else comes from it.

But we want to crunch numbers, not heat the room. Customers like cool and silent, maximum heat dissipation was never Apple's goal. Just like raw performance.

Mac Pro begs to differ. It can run the CPU at 300W pretty much indefinitely.

But regardless, I don't think this discussion is login anywhere. It's clear we interpret these things differently so I suggest that we just leave it at it. The future will tell who was right. My prediction is that some Macs will become more performance-oriented in the coming years.

 

[Gudi]

Subnotebooks existed well before the MacBook Air. Sure, Apple invented the premium sub-notebook category.

But the MacBook Air is not a subnotebook. It defined a new class of thinner (not smaller) and lighter (not cheaper) notebooks with normal sized keyboard keys and a not too tiny 13-inch screen. Steve Jobs deemed anything less unusable trash and he was right. Because after its unveiling Intel came up with the Ultrabook standard and label for OEMs to build MacBook Air clones. Ultrabooks replaced subnotebooks in the market despite all of them being considerably more expensive. That day the cheap and subsized notebooks died and suddenly everyone had to pay extra for thin and light.

But we are talking about performance in a given chassis, not performance per dollar.

And Apple was the one who said, notebooks must go thinner so that we can build them lighter (not faster). The MacBook Air optimized performance per weight. And sacrificed both price and performance for this goal. It took four years 2008-2012 before the 13-inch Air was down to the same $1,199 starting price of the 13-inch Pro. Just in time for the MacBook Pro to shoot up in price to $1,699 for the Retina version.

Retina Displays also use up financial and performance resources, which otherwise could've been used on more frames per second, but are sacrificed for a sharper display.

Mac Pro begs to differ. It can run the CPU at 300W pretty much indefinitely.

And that's the only Mac, which puts performance above everything else. Except maybe design? And that's where we got the trashcan Mac Pro, which wasn't updated for six years 2013-2019. Yeah, Apple clearly puts performance first!

But regardless, I don't think this discussion is going anywhere. It's clear we interpret these things differently so I suggest that we just leave it at it. The future will tell who was right.

I'm fine with what the past already told us about Apple's priorities. The road was bumpy and some early adopters had to pay premium for immature tech. But look where we've arrived!

My prediction is that some Macs will become more performance-oriented in the coming years.

Since Apple is freed of Intel's release cycle and the chassis have thermal headroom, why not? By now performance is the least interesting part to me. I'm looking forward to the large-screen iMac. But beyond that I'm hard pressed to tell what's even left to improve?

 

[Joe Dohn]

It really doesn't matter if Apple doesn't allow us to easily take advantage of that performance (I'm looking at you, Mx iPads!).

Apple is aware of it, of course: so much they are testing a limited version of their MacOS with their M2 iPads.
But they are not being fast enough to capitalize on that advantage, and the clock is ticking.

As they sit idly by, being overly restrictive and not allowing us to take advantage of their devices, Intel and AMD devices catch up, and become more efficient. Until the point a competitor's tablet is only slightly worse in performance, but much more flexible in what it can run.

At some point, everything will be so much faster that raw performance won't matter – and it already doesn't in many scenarios. For example, all you need is seeing some photos and writing a few texts, with no highly advanced formatting, even a Chromebook will do.

Apple needs to review and revert some of their policies on e.g, virtual machines so we can run virtualized operating systems on their tablets. It's clear that even their M1 iPads can do it, but are being held back by artificial hypervisor limitations.

 

[senttoschool]

Since Apple is freed of Intel's release cycle and the chassis have thermal headroom, why not? By now performance is the least interesting part to me. I'm looking forward to the large-screen iMac. But beyond that I'm hard pressed to tell what's even left to improve?

* Ray tracing GPU
* Much faster GPU for AAA games
* Taking the lead on ST again

Apple is probably planning a major upgrade around the first 3nm chip.

But for most the gains, it'll be software. Optimization for Metal and ARM. Software that supports massive amount of Vram. AAA games coming to the Mac and iPad.

 

[Joe Dohn]

* Ray tracing GPU
* Much faster GPU for AAA games
* Taking the lead on ST again

Apple is probably planning a major upgrade around the first 3nm chip.

But for most the gains, it'll be software. Optimization for Metal and ARM. Software that supports massive amount of Vram. AAA games coming to the Mac and iPad.

All that optimization will mean nothing if Apple doesn't open up to third party developers and they don't feel compelled to create software to Mx chips (or port their solutions to it).

 

[exoticSpice]

All that optimization will mean nothing if Apple doesn't open up to third party developers

They are. Apple teamed up with Blender and Capcom. Blackmagic is also a partner.

 

[Joe Dohn]

They are. Apple teamed up with Blender and Capcom. Blackmagic is also a partner.

Can you clarify why Blackmagic is still a partner? As far as I know, their eGPUs are going nowhere after the M1 Mac line. Or has Apple changed its mind?

 

[senttoschool]

All that optimization will mean nothing if Apple doesn't open up to third party developers and they don't feel compelled to create software to Mx chips (or port their solutions to it).

Apple's app third party support is the largest in the world.

 

[spiderman0616]

Thats one advantage and another one is that i can work on battery in maya full load for double the time compared to the former Intel 16" Mbp of mine. Another advantage is the heat, far less heat on the chassis, another, almost no fan noise ...so overall the whole experience is far far ahead of what Intel could and can offer in the mobile space

I still can’t believe I can work at the kitchen table all day long on battery power with either the 14” or 16” MacBook Pro and never need to reach for a charger. This is a luxury I previously only had on iPad and even then it didn’t always last without needing power. These things definitely do, especially the 16”.

 

[Gudi]

* Ray tracing GPU
* Much faster GPU for AAA games
* Taking the lead on ST again

My bad. I said "improve", but what I meant was "innovate". Of course GPUs are getting faster as smaller process nodes allow for more transistors. That's been the case since the term was coined for the very first GPU in 1994 or something. An innovation is not just the same but better, it's better in a new, unexpected and exciting way. It's all the things only Apple can do, because they have full control over their own software, hardware and even programming language and chip design. The new iMac really is smaller and runs cooler than most 24-inch monitors. Whereas the MacBooks got thicker and heavier again. What could be Apple's next surprise? The one more thing.

 

[sam_dean]

The M1 bump was one of the most impressive CPU bumps I've ever seen, and I think it's from a combination of variables:

- Apple accidentally "overshooting" with how good their mobile chip was
- It's a strange point in time where desktops and laptops have similar performance at the same core counts
- It's soooo quiet and cool which is more impressive to me than just the performance

The M2 is already giving hints that at higher performance the laptop chassis can't keep up with more heat, and I suspect moving forward, even with a dip to 3nm, 2nm, or below, the sheer amount of performance simply won't be able to be cooled as passively as the M1.

I have the 16" 24-core igpu variant and it's just incredible.

We jumped from 14nm Intel chips (2014-2020) to 5nm Apple chips (2020-2023).

Intel Macs did not get 10nm chips in 2016 and 7nm chips in 2018.

To experience such a leap one would need to replace your Mac, iPad, iPhone, Watch, etc to a year model after their final Security Update is released. This is typically every 8-10 years.

Example below

- 2012 iMac 27" 22nm > 2023 iMac 27" 5nm > 2034 iMac 27" Angstrom3

- 2011 MBP 13" 32nm > 2021 MBP 16" 5nm > 2031 MBP 16" Angstrom7

For your future reference this is the after 2nm die shrink roadmap

 

[Luis Ortega]

Will we ever see a bump as impressive as the M1 again?​

Impressive is a relative term, but no.
Incremental improvements will dribble out for years to maximize profits and keep people buying newer stuff.
The next actually impressive computer performance will be when quantum computers emerge.