[HN Gopher] Apple Neural Engine Internal: From ML Algorithm to H...
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       Apple Neural Engine Internal: From ML Algorithm to HW Registers
        
       Author : blopeur
       Score  : 83 points
       Date   : 2021-12-08 11:02 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.blackhat.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.blackhat.com)
        
       | exdsq wrote:
       | Picking up am M1 Pro tomorrow I hope. Assuming it can play
       | Factorio?
        
         | judge2020 wrote:
         | Factorio has a Mac client[0] so the M1 Pro will surely play it
         | just fine.
         | 
         | 0: https://store.steampowered.com/app/427520/Factorio/
        
         | selectodude wrote:
         | It doesn't support ARM64 and according the developer, probably
         | never will but it runs very well on Rosetta.
        
       | i_like_apis wrote:
       | Oof. Clicking this link got me blacklisted from my router. Had to
       | spoof my MAC address to reconnect.
        
         | Toutouxc wrote:
         | What?
        
           | i_like_apis wrote:
           | The router I'm connecting with is this Meraki thing I don't
           | manage. It has some security features. Upon opening a link to
           | blackhat.com, it put my MAC address on a blacklist.
        
             | mr_toad wrote:
             | Sounds like you should put the manufacturer on a blacklist.
        
           | phs2501 wrote:
           | Overzealous "protection" filtering presumably (guessing from
           | the Blackhat name). Happens on corporate VPNs too. We can't
           | have nice things.
        
       | blopeur wrote:
       | Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wvBDUnPNEo
        
       | retskrad wrote:
       | FTC should investigate Apple for misleading and false
       | advertising. Apple in their presentation compared the M1 Max to
       | the NVidia RTX 3080 mobile and claimed the M1 Max chip can
       | compete with the Nvidia card but yesterdays video by Linus Tech
       | Tips show that the M1 Max is only competitive when it comes to
       | editing video, which is an extremely narrow use case. As a
       | general purpose GPU, the M1 Max is years behind the RTX 3080.
        
         | quenix wrote:
         | How is this relevant to the Apple Neural Engine and this
         | BlackHat talk?
        
         | manuelabeledo wrote:
         | The M1 Max runs also at a fraction of the 3080 TDP.
         | 
         | Performance in gaming is a non issue. Apple didn't advertise it
         | as a gaming machine, and quite honestly, nobody buys a $3000+
         | MacBook to play games.
        
           | treesknees wrote:
           | I bought my M1 Pro not for the sole purpose of being a gaming
           | rig, but I did certainly buy it with the hopes that it could
           | play games at least better than my old Intel integrated
           | graphics laptop did.
           | 
           | And it does - I can run the PCSX2 PS2 emulator with a
           | controller and my fans don't even spin up. And with Rosetta
           | II there are plenty of Mac games I can play without any
           | issues.
        
             | smoldesu wrote:
             | What do you intend to do when they remove Rosetta?
        
               | Raymonf wrote:
               | Use a Windows VM? x86(_64)->ARM64 is not going away on
               | Windows anytime soon.
        
               | officeplant wrote:
               | Pray that there are more natively ported games by then,
               | and just not updating and holding onto Rosetta for much
               | longer than I should. Win11ARM in Parallels doing x86
               | emulation works pretty well for older games and its how I
               | play old shooters and Everquest at the moment.
        
           | smoldesu wrote:
           | Very few people buy gaming laptops to edit video on, but
           | that's not a reason for them to perform poorly at the task.
           | The most frustrating part about the M1-series is that it's
           | gaming performance is limited by arbitrary software
           | decisions.
        
         | RealityVoid wrote:
         | The M1 is an impressive chip... for what it is. I bought an Air
         | just to mess with it, while in the past I would not have
         | touched Apple with a 10 foot pole. But, the whole framing
         | around M1 being better than _everything_ in the x86 world was
         | just weird and not true. Yes, perf/watt it was unbeatable, but
         | the rest...if you just care about raw processing power, you'd
         | still buy a desktop x86. I think Apple framed it this way and
         | most media ran with it, but I don't see this a sue apple kind
         | of deal.
        
           | Jcowell wrote:
           | If raw performance is the _only_ thing you care about then
           | you would get a desktop. If you care about mobility as well
           | or changes a lot.
        
             | marderfarker2 wrote:
             | It's funny that you mention mobility. I usually see people
             | stuck an extra slab of USB C to HDMI/USB hub beside their
             | thinnest and lightest Apple laptops so that they can use
             | peripherals.
        
               | Toutouxc wrote:
               | Usually, except for the overwhelming majority of people
               | who don't use a hub.
               | 
               | (e.g. my Air has two cables running into it, power and
               | display)
        
           | vmchale wrote:
           | I've actually found it slightly better in single-threaded
           | performance. Only slower with rosetta.
        
         | perardi wrote:
         | 1. Cite exactly what they said in the presentation, and in
         | particular did they compare actual games, or synthetic
         | benchmarks?
         | 
         | 2. It is insanely competitive, especially given power
         | consumption, with the NVidia card in both synthetic benchmarks
         | and video editing. Not so much with games...but that's
         | complicated by _most games still running in Rosetta_.
         | https://www.anandtech.com/show/17024/apple-m1-max-performanc...
         | 
         | 3. Video is not an edge case. And how can I claim that? Because
         | you are here citing...a video.
         | 
         | 4. What does this have to do with the linked article?
        
           | mhh__ wrote:
           | Surely bigger issue is most games having given up supporting
           | MacOS?
        
             | pjmlp wrote:
             | All game engines that matter in the market support Metal.
        
           | dhruvdh wrote:
           | For 3: you cannot compare consuming media with creating
           | media.
        
             | ctdonath wrote:
             | Generating media in real-time on the user's computer rather
             | blurs the line between who is creating vs consuming media.
        
         | deep-root wrote:
         | If you're shopping for a Macbook Pro, gaming is the extremely
         | narrow use-case, no?
         | 
         | Edit: various benchmarks seem to show the M1 Max games at about
         | the FPS of a RTX 3060L (though with lower power). It's around
         | the same price as a similarly spec'd 3060L gaming laptop.
        
           | LegitShady wrote:
           | It's signiticantly more expensive than a 3060 equipped
           | Zephyrus and that doesn't change apples marketing pretending
           | it was a 3080.
        
             | vesrah wrote:
             | Having owned one of those Zephyrus and owning a M1X there
             | is no comparison on terms of quality or usability. Zephyrus
             | is hot, loud, has a poor screen in comparison, and poor
             | battery life.
        
               | LegitShady wrote:
               | You're right about the battery life, but in exchange an
               | AMD zephyrus is significantly more performant at a lower
               | price. That's a fair trade off.
               | 
               | It's also not a ticking time bomb, since the SSD can be
               | changed without sending the device into apple to change
               | the entire CPU/SSD/GPU combo. Every one of these apple
               | devices basically has planned obsolescence built in.
        
           | mhh__ wrote:
           | Well it's narrow historically but apple did seem to be
           | implying it could game competitively with the latest from
           | Nvidia. Which it apparently can (although there are
           | practically no games), just bump the model down a step from
           | what apple are saying.
           | 
           | Also M1 Max seems to be on the order of a PS1000 more than a
           | _3080_ equipped laptop, where are you getting that figure
           | from?
        
           | kitsunesoba wrote:
           | It's going to get a lot less hot and noisy than a similarly
           | specced 3060 laptop while also having vastly better battery
           | life, which is worth something (varies depending on one's
           | personal priorities). I would imagine a lot of people looking
           | for portable power might value those qualities enough to
           | trade away some raw graphical muscle.
        
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       (page generated 2021-12-09 23:01 UTC)