[HN Gopher] A look at power on the new M1 Max
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A look at power on the new M1 Max
Author : exhaustedbrit
Score : 92 points
Date : 2021-11-07 20:53 UTC (1 days ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (nyaa.sh)
| ogazitt wrote:
| These power numbers are impressive. The memory bandwidth is also
| impressive. But one thing to watch for - just because the memory
| bandwidth is so good, don't skimp on memory.
|
| The original M1 reviews in Feb 2021 convinced me to get an M1
| Macbook Air with only 8GB of memory back in March. My brother-in-
| law who works for Apple hardware assured me it would be more than
| enough. Wrong - the machine was churning within a day or two of
| normal operation. Had to return it and stay with the Intel-based
| MBP.
|
| A couple of weeks ago I ordered a 14" MBP with an M1 Max and 32GB
| of memory, which I expect will be an awesome dev machine.
| TheJoeMan wrote:
| Unfortunately you might have a nice 4gb for dev work after
| WindowServer takes 28gb :(
| ehutch79 wrote:
| I haven't rebooted in weeks and it's taking up 1.49 for me?
| p_l wrote:
| It's probably reference to the Monterey memory leaks (seems
| I recall something similar back with Catalina?) which end
| up allocated in various applications (seen Control Center,
| WindowServer, etc.)
| drclau wrote:
| Maybe you've seen the problem discussed here?
|
| _Memory leaks are crippling my M1 MacBook Pro_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29142157
| [deleted]
| alexkundera wrote:
| It is good for industry in the long term. With all the rumors,
| obviously I can't wait for Microsoft to release a Surface of
| their own with fanless design and custom chips.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| They already have an ARM Surface model I think it is called X.
|
| The one I played with for a while was first gen using
| Microsofts ARM chip. SQ1.
|
| A much slower design than the M1 for sure, but I wonder if they
| can do better in the next generation. I am not sure if SQ2 is
| out yet.
|
| I know they got really busy once the M1 came out.
| jamesgeck0 wrote:
| The SQ2 has been out about a year. It was only about 12%
| faster than the SQ1. Neither is a particularly fast chip. To
| make matters worse, most popular Windows applications still
| don't have ARM builds and run under emulation.
| krrrh wrote:
| I haven't looked into the details of Rosetta 2 enough to
| understand how big of an undertaking it is, but it is so
| impressive, especially given that of the dozens of pieces of
| software running on my system right now, only a handful are
| still relying on it.
|
| I'm curious if anyone has any insight on how difficult it would
| be to pull off something similar on the windows platform,
| because it feels like tablestakes. Iirc they didn't have
| anything like Rosetta 1 when they released their first Windows
| RT systems a decade ago.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| It's not easy to beat Intel, AMD and Qualcomm at their own
| game. I would estimate at least 5 year timeline if any company
| wants to come close to them. Apple had an advantage that they
| were able to use iPhone which were built first for low power
| usage as a good testing ground for the chip(iPhone chip were
| around 60-70% faster in single core than any Android phones).
| sgspace wrote:
| You are going to be waiting a long while
| johnklos wrote:
| No matter whether you're a fan of ARM, amd64, or something else,
| this helps everyone. The leaps that Intel, AMD and NVIDIA will
| have to take to even just stay in the same range as Apple will
| help everyone. Competition is good!
| akmittal wrote:
| I see Qualcomm to be a better competitor to Apple. They already
| have experience building custom cores and NUVIA acquisition
| should help with performance. x86(Even Ryzen) is hardly as
| power efficient as ARM.
| witweb wrote:
| Is the efficiency really that depend on the architecture (x86
| vs arm64)? I always thought Apples lead comes from things
| like the little big approach and the lower transistor size.
| Can someone elaborate?
| akmittal wrote:
| Yes it does, ARM provides great performance even at very
| low power consumption but x86 can't. That's the reason x86
| failed for mobile devices.
| knolan wrote:
| A part comes from the dedicated units such as the hardware
| media and neural blocks. So you can export video in Apple's
| ProRes in something like Final Cut at way better perf/W
| compared to doing some other codec blocks on a GPU in
| Premiere Pro.
|
| You also save a lot of time and power not having to move
| data between memory pools by having fast access to the
| unified memory.
|
| It seems that there's no one thing that achieves the
| efficiency numbers we're seeing. It's excellent execution
| across the entire design.
| amelius wrote:
| Yes. Until Intel, AMD, and NVidia start their own walled
| gardens.
| Spartan-S63 wrote:
| They're all already there, to a certain extent. Intel with
| their opaque Management Engine, AMD with their PSP, and
| Nvidia with their refusal to contribute to open source or
| enable the development of open source Linux drivers without
| resorting to reverse-engineering.
|
| The biggest difference is that Apple owns the entire device
| and software stack. Everyone else is walled to a certain
| degree. To me, the distinction doesn't exist.
| geraneum wrote:
| Regarding Apple's walled garden in macOS, I think this
| explanation from Asahi Linux sums the situation up to a good
| extent:
|
| > The line on Apple Silicon Macs is when the alternate kernel
| image is booted, while SEP firmware remains closed - which is
| quite similar to the line on standard PCs, where the UEFI
| firmware boots the OS loader, while the ME/PSP firmware
| remains closed. In fact, mainstream x86 platforms are
| arguably more intrusive because the proprietary UEFI firmware
| is allowed to steal the main CPU from the OS at any time via
| SMM interrupts, which is not the case on Apple Silicon Macs.
|
| https://asahilinux.org/about/
| traspler wrote:
| I wonder, is it actually competition? Apple will never sell any
| of their Chips to OEM partners so they will have to make do
| with whatever AMD, Intel, nVidia, Qualcomm, etc. sell. Will it
| actually lead to more people choosing a MacBook than any other
| Laptop? With these prices I'm not so sure.
| D13Fd wrote:
| Yes, it is competition. Whether people buy it immediately or
| not, the other CPU/GPU companies are going to take notice.
|
| Beyond that, the M1 directly replaced an Intel chip, and that
| Intel's CEO has already said he wants to win back Apple's
| business (as unlikely as that seems).
| friedman23 wrote:
| > With these prices I'm not so sure.
|
| The prices are completely in line with other professional
| laptops such as dell xps line.
| ksec wrote:
| >Will it actually lead to more people choosing a MacBook than
| any other Laptop? With these prices I'm not so sure.
|
| Not MacBook Pro, but MacBook Air.
|
| The MacBook Air starts at $999. And if anyone has been paying
| a little more attention one may discover MBA discount is
| unusually high compared to previous Intel MBA. Education MBA
| M1 are going at $899 and in some cases $799. The lowest
| retail discount on MBA goes down to $800 on Amazon.
|
| Basically because the BOM cost advantage and margin on M1 MBA
| are higher. At this price M1 MBA are selling as fast as they
| could make them. And Apple _could_ afford to lower the
| official price of MBA M1 to $899 once newer M2 MBA ( or
| MacBook ) are out. Compared to the PC industry, not only do
| they not have anything as fast, as good experience, their BOM
| cost are also higher due to Intel or AMD chip pricing.
|
| I think once the transition has settled, Apple will announce
| their 120M Mac active Mac user next year.
|
| While I made this predictions of BOM cost advantage way back
| in 2014, this actually makes me rather sad because PC has
| nothing left to fight the Mac. They have nothing on the
| roadmap. And Apple is no longer the same company as they were
| in 2014.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| 94% of people aren't current college enrollees and aren't
| paying educational prices they are paying the prices listed
| at store.apple.com. Looking at store.apple.com the 999
| model is a dog nobody should buy because its forever locked
| in at 8GB of non replacable RAM and it comes with an anemic
| 256GB of storage.
|
| The minimum configuration anyone ought to buy in 2021 comes
| in at $1400 for 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage or $1600
| if you want to bump it up to 1TB. Meanwhile the average PC
| is bought for between $600 and $700 meaning half of people
| actually pay less even than that.
|
| Here is an example of a typical PC one can find at Walmart
| where an average user buys their tires, green beans, and
| their computers.
|
| https://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-2021-New-Touchscreen-
| laptop-i3...
|
| It comes with 16GB of RAM and 512GB storage for $649 or 1TB
| for $719. I do not herein assert that it is an equivalent
| machine its not. However it is a very typical PC.
|
| Here is another with 16GB of RAM but only 256GB of storage
| but its also only $449 and you wont have to close some
| applications before opening others partying like its 1998
| with your windows CE portable machine.
|
| https://www.walmart.com/ip/Gateway-15-6-FHD-Ultra-Slim-
| Noteb...
|
| Yes its a gateway. Gives you a warm fuzzy right.
|
| The point is for the majority of PC laptop buyers the M1
| macs even the economical models aren't competitors anymore
| than a Tesla is really competing for the same buyer as KIA
| even though the goods are absolutely in the same category.
| PC's are a largely a huge mass of very cheap machines with
| a minority that compete directly with apple.
| tokamak-teapot wrote:
| I have two M1 Airs. The 8GB/256GB is not a dog - far from
| it. It's used for 'family' stuff. It's never given the
| slightest indication of struggling with anything it's
| been asked to do.
| kube-system wrote:
| Here's another data point.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Computers-
| Accessories/zg...
|
| #1, #2, and #5 are MacBook Airs. The only Windows PC in
| the top 50 is #39, and has 4GB RAM, and 128GB SSD.
|
| Although I really don't think that power users would
| always be better served with a 16GB RAM Walmart
| marketplace specials. RAM and storage space are important
| data points, but the types of machines made specifically
| for bargain-basement prices often sacrifice other
| important design features -- particularly anything
| qualitative.
|
| I have family that was recently screwed by one of these
| marketplace sellers. They bought one of these marketplace
| laptop with great specs, later to find out that it didn't
| _ship_ with those specs from the manufacturer, the
| marketplace seller modified it with crap parts and
| relisted it. Now it has parts not subject to the
| manufacturer warranty and the performance of those parts
| is really bad.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| This is a good data point for a short term sales trends
| regarding a new device that is a big upgrade for apple's
| existing market share.
|
| It does not in any fashion show that short term sales
| suggest that people who who used to buy 200-600 average
| PCs are now spending 1000 on macbooks. Macs biggest
| opportunity rests in flipping people who buy machines in
| the same price range from PC to Mac. It puts substantial
| pressure on OEMs to improve their premium lines and yet
| they don't have a great margin so it looks like there is
| nowhere to go but up in price.
| ksec wrote:
| And a Chromebook at #25 priced at $179.
|
| And that is at current MacBook Air price. There is no
| reason why a Macbook Air cant be $799, the same price as
| iPad Pro from a BOM cost prospective with same margin
| other than market positioning and segmentation.
|
| And most consumer dont actually care about spec. They
| want a computer that works. ( Actually most dont want
| one, they just have to buy one for different sort of
| reason ).
| michaelmrose wrote:
| There isn't a strong justification for pricing it so
| aggressively when this would drastically decrease their
| margin. They would be selling their profit to increase
| market share which is exactly the opposite of their usual
| strategy especially when demand is high and fab capacity
| at a premium. They might well be just trading in a higher
| profit for a lessor if they couldn't make more units than
| people would already buy at the higher price.
| wmf wrote:
| Max Tech just posted a video comparing power consumption of the
| M1 Max in the 14" and 16":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XY_Utsmfvw In some intensive
| tests the 14" gets ~10% lower performance because the GPU clocks
| down.
| beached_whale wrote:
| In the future the 16" is supposed to get a high power mode
| enabled for when plugged in. Should be interesting.
| wmf wrote:
| The video also tests high power mode.
| beached_whale wrote:
| Oh, I thought there was something coming in a future
| release. Cool.
| 41209 wrote:
| I'm loving my M1 Mac mini. I use it mostly for recording and it's
| very nice for that.
|
| I still have my big desktop, but if I was to start again I'd go
| Windows Laptop+ Mac Mini. Realistically I don't want to spend 2k
| on a laptop, it can ultimately be stolen , destroyed, might not
| last too long , etc.
|
| But with a Mac Mini you buy into the Apple ecosystem at a fairly
| low price.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _Realistically I don 't want to spend 2k on a laptop, it can
| ultimately be stolen , destroyed, might not last too long ,
| etc._
|
| Aren't most of those things the reason why insurance exists?
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Most laptop insurance policies don't cover theft. Likewise
| with car insurance. You might have better luck with your
| renters or home owners policy although if you are getting
| actual cash value with is pretty common you will be getting a
| value that may be substantially less than you paid for it.
|
| Buyer beware.
|
| Most loss via theft is the result of user error. Setting
| something down or leaving it unattended where its liable to
| be stolen like in your car. Fun fact did you know that there
| are scanner apps that will use bluetooth to tell exactly what
| car has the $2000 laptop in it so they can break the correct
| window.
| yardie wrote:
| > there are scanner apps that will use bluetooth to tell
| exactly what car has the $2000 laptop in it
|
| This might explain why a friend's car was hit and laptop
| stolen. Rear window tint was illegaly dark and the bag was
| out of sight under the passenger seat. Yet, they knew to
| hit that car out of a parking garage full of cars. And if
| they are using a bluetooth scanner it makes more sense.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Sounds like someone needs to make a faraday bag for laptops
| just like they have for cell phones. I'm sure china has
| pumped it out by the time you are done reading this
| comment.
| Hamuko wrote:
| My laptop is just covered through my home owners policy. I
| think the age deduction is 25% per year of ownership, so if
| I put down 2000EUR in a laptop and it gets stolen after two
| years, I should be getting 1125EUR minus 150EUR deductible
| for it. It is definitely less than what I paid for it, but
| a) the laptop was no longer worth 2000EUR b) it definitely
| helps when getting a replacement c) since it's part of my
| home owners insurance, it doesn't cost me any extra per
| month.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| How long will it take that all software is just as slow again and
| the fans are spinning constantly?
| friedman23 wrote:
| Given we are already using browsers as cross platform gui
| environments, I don't think applications can get more bloated
| unless everyone starts integrating 3d effects into all their
| apps.
| visarga wrote:
| you mean "meta" effects? they will come soon enough
| Warrenio wrote:
| This is old news, but I just noticed that "M1 Max" sounds exactly
| like "M1 Macs." Mac computers with M1 Max processors are "M1 Max
| Macs."
| hbn wrote:
| The top-specced configs are the maxed M1 Max Macs
| bullen wrote:
| I measured the Gflops/W and the big cores give 2.5 which compared
| to f.ex. raspberry 4 at 2 is not revolutionary.
|
| What gives the M1 an edge is also it's weakest point: proprietary
| designs, it cannot run things like Unity or Java Minecraft that
| require generic x86 CISC to run well.
|
| From my perspective the only hope apple has is linux reverse
| engineering the GPU to allow OpenGL.
| cschmittiey wrote:
| Have you actually tried playing Minecraft on the M1 laptops? It
| certainly outperforms any laptop I've ever played Minecraft on,
| especially if you use native Java and native lwjgl. Even under
| Rosetta, I experienced a smooth 60 fps at native settings.
| trollitarantula wrote:
| Unity released native Editor for Apple Silicone recently.
| bullen wrote:
| Ok, have you had time to try it out?
| weatherlight wrote:
| It's great? it literally twice as fast
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IQdSHNmoIo
| https://twitter.com/_kzr/status/1402636826578362368
| Havoc wrote:
| Honestly I find the potential for fanless "good enough" almost
| more exciting than the top end.
|
| For most of my use cases computers these days are already "good
| enough" and apple pushing the bounds suggest to me that soon
| we'll have chrome book class (and price) devices that don't suck
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| To be honest I'd buy a hypothetical fanless "MacBook Air Plus"
| with a modest M2 if only it supported 64 GB RAM. M1 is already
| significantly better than my 2019 16" MBP, and I'd much prefer
| the MBA's thermals.
| Havoc wrote:
| >To be honest I'd buy a hypothetical fanless "MacBook Air
| Plus" with a modest M2 if only it supported 64 GB RAM.
|
| Went this route with my home server. Pn50 in akasa A50
| case...8 core zen2, 64gb, passive cooling, 3TB storage fits
| under couch.
|
| Can't quite compete with the guys running full rack home
| servers but in terms of self hosting it can do pretty much
| everything I need (big gotcha is not RAID friendly)
| batmanthehorse wrote:
| Yeah, I was eagerly waiting for the new MBP but ended up
| returning it (unopened) because I was disappointed that its
| 10% heavier than the last model. I think my ideal would be a
| thin, fanless 16 inch with 32GB RAM. I'm fine with some power
| throttling under sustained load, but I understand why they
| filled the new Pros with big fans to avoid that.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| And I'm absolutely not fine with it. I've only bought new
| one because they finally treated constant thermal issues
| seriously.
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