[HN Gopher] Apple Introduces M2 Ultra
___________________________________________________________________
Apple Introduces M2 Ultra
Author : 0xedb
Score : 228 points
Date : 2023-06-05 17:22 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| behnamoh wrote:
| This paves the way for really large local LLMs coming to Apple's
| ecosystem.
| speedgoose wrote:
| It may be much cheaper than the Nvidia "the more you buy the
| more you save" priced GPUs for low loads.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| All locked down behind paywalls with all the Apple bullshit in
| place. No thanks
| bombolo wrote:
| RAM on apple is only 3$ per kb :D
| Taywee wrote:
| I would love to be able to socket one of these suckers in a Linux
| desktop for a reasonable price. I'm loving seeing competition in
| this field, but I don't like using MacOS and don't want to pay
| the Apple hardware tax.
| 7e wrote:
| There is no hardware tax. And why would you want to hobble your
| awesome hardware with the shit show that is desktop Linux?
| Taywee wrote:
| I like having a real package manager, good native
| containerization and virtualization, being able to develop on
| the same OS that the deployment target is, and a large
| handful of things that are simply more pleasant on Linux
| (like the assumption of a case-sensitive filesystem, better
| job scheduling and daemon handling, more scriptable system
| utilities, and simply more transparency and control of my
| machine front to back). The DE situation is crappy, but I'd
| expect this place to recognize that there's more to an OS
| than the DE, and that developers might take a subpar DE for a
| better development experience as a whole.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Asahi Linux :)
| tracker1 wrote:
| There's an Ampere workstation with like 128 arm cores as an
| alternative you can run Linux on. But it's going to run $5k+
| xnx wrote:
| Apple hardware is genuinely better in so many ways large and
| small: case, keyboard, hinges, touchpad, etc. I wish I could
| pay the Apple "tax" and without having to use MacOS (RIP
| Bootcamp).
| kllrnohj wrote:
| Apple's keyboards are pretty mediocre or even outright broken
| (butterfly switch debacle anyone?)
|
| If it's just chiclet keyboards you like there are no shortage
| of those. Logitech's MX Keys for example.
| mk_stjames wrote:
| You can with Asahi Linux. There are people using Asahi on M1
| Macbooks as their daily driver, right now.
| PheonixPharts wrote:
| I run desktop linux at home, and agree with the
| concerns/frustrations about running MacOS but I've never
| understood the complaints about Apple's pricing.
|
| The products do come at a bit of a premium, but, in my
| experience, it's well earned and is a premium experience as
| well. There have been occasional periods of sub-par hardware,
| but generally (and especially current generation) Apple's
| hardware is extremely well designed and durable.
|
| On top of that, I don't get the software engineer aversion to
| paying for quality tools. How many hours a year do you spend on
| a computer? How many hours over the lifetime of the computer
| will you spend? Even if devs weren't generally in top income
| brackets it would _still_ be easily justifiable to spend
| several thousand dollars on tools that you were happy with.
|
| Again, I completely understand not wanting to go with Apple in
| order to have much finer grained control over your system. But
| if Apple is selling what you're buying, then the pricing is
| more than fair imho.
| [deleted]
| ddtaylor wrote:
| > Apple's hardware is extremely well designed and durable.
|
| It's well designed, yes, but it's certainly not durable. The
| entire device will have to get scrapped and replaced if even
| the slightest thing goes wrong with any of it.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| Ah yes, like my 2016 MBPr that's still working like new,
| and had the battery replaced afresh for pretty cheap last
| year at the Apple Store.
| Taywee wrote:
| How cheap is "pretty cheap"? They wanted $300 to replace
| the trackpad that suddenly stopped working on its own on
| my 2019 one.
|
| Looking at the price estimator, battery service is like
| $250. That's not cheap.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| 250$ maintenance cost on a 5k$ machine from 2016 is
| cheap. I work with this thing, and I make a crap ton of
| money with this thing.
| glenngillen wrote:
| They did a full motherboard and keyboard replacement of
| my 2016 MacBook last year for no cost even though it was
| wwaaaayyyy out of warranty because the fault was a known
| issue.
| bombolo wrote:
| I suspect you guys with "they fixed mine for free" are
| just shills.
|
| In my experience they always go for a paid motherboard
| replacement, and that isn't cheap.
| Taywee wrote:
| They'll do free replacements if it's a known defect, and
| especially if it's widely experienced. Even Nintendo does
| that if they sniff a potential class action and want to
| avoid it.
| Taywee wrote:
| Oh yeah, I remember they did a free out of warranty
| replacement on one of my MacBooks a bit back, but there
| was a potential battery explosion issue on that one.
| [deleted]
| Taywee wrote:
| It's the combination of OS and price. When Apple is very
| often double or more the price for competitive products,
| charges exorbitant prices for modest upgrades (currently $200
| difference between 8 and 16 GB RAM. Over $400 for 1 TB SSD
| when a good 1TB M.2 goes for about $55), the OS is annoying
| and restrictive, and my choices for replacement OSes are all
| very experimental compared to non-Apple hardware, why would I
| spend significantly more for a significantly worse
| experience?
|
| And I'm happy to pay for quality tools, but I'm not spending
| $20 for copy-paste (edit: hyperbole. Every time I find some
| missing simple functionality that is available for free and
| easy on Linux, the Apple equivalent is available on the app
| store for a significant charge. Some games are simply more
| expensive on iOS than elsewhere because the developers know
| Apple users will pay more). Apple is still largely in the
| "luxury designer product with a consumer base of 10%
| historical savvy users who prefer it and 90% rich kids who
| like the logo and don't mind flushing money down the drain
| for a brand".
| rcarr wrote:
| > Every time I find some missing simple functionality that
| is available for free and easy on Linux,
|
| So basically you'll exploit the charitable developer who
| spent countless hours developing the software rather than
| pay them a fair price for their work. This is why people
| develop for Apple platforms first - because the people who
| buy Apple will actually pay them for their time and labour.
| Taywee wrote:
| That's an insultingly uncharitable read, and is loaded
| with some pretty unfair assumptions.
|
| I am a programmer, and I contribute plenty of FOSS code.
| Very often, I find a solution with some issues and submit
| PRs. I'm not arrogant enough to do a couple hours of work
| and charge $20 per download for it, and I'm not a useful
| enough idiot to work for free for Apple, so I guess that
| bars me from doing the same on MacOS (even though I have
| to work with it for work). I guess if some of my code is
| general enough, some well-meaning Apple FOSS users can
| port it over.
|
| It's interesting to me how much comradery and work for
| the general community is done in the open for and among
| Linux and BSD users with only the expectation that others
| will do the same for them, but many Apple users I've run
| into are like you, treating the simple desire to make
| things better for people with absolute derision and
| disgust. I guess if you aren't maximizing profit, why do
| anything at all, right?
| netr0ute wrote:
| Why is the Linux version free?
| tredre3 wrote:
| > When Apple is very often double or more the price for
| competitive products
|
| This is a complete lie. I've used PCs for 30 years and I'm
| not an apple fanboy but when you actually look at the
| market, there's only very few products that can compete to
| the macbooks to begin with and they're always in the same
| price range or more expensive.
|
| > charges exorbitant prices for modest upgrades (currently
| $200 difference between 8 and 16 GB RAM.
|
| This is true, but it's also true in the PC world. And PC
| laptops increasingly come with soldered RAMs so you don't
| even have the advantage of upgrading it yourself anymore.
| FpUser wrote:
| All my laptops including recent ones have upgradeable RAM
| and SSDs. I usually buy laptop with smallest amount of
| RAM and SSD and then upgrade those myself. Way cheaper.
| Taywee wrote:
| Macs are PCs.
|
| And looking at the Framework laptop shop right now, I see
| a 16GB DDR4 DIMM for $60, and you can throw in a standard
| M.2 storage module. Maybe Framework is just singularly
| better, but that's still a reason to not buy Apple for
| me.
| joshmanders wrote:
| > Macs are PCs.
|
| This is just being pedantic. "Mac vs PC" is just a widely
| known way to distinguish between Mac's and non-Mac's.
|
| > And looking at the Framework laptop shop right now, I
| see a 16GB DDR4 DIMM for $60, and you can throw in a
| standard M.2 storage module. Maybe Framework is just
| singularly better, but that's still a reason to not buy
| Apple for me.
|
| Ok now instead of looking at number of GB of RAM you get
| per price and show me quality and efficiency between
| these. I'm no hardware nerd/genius but from what I
| understand the Apple Silicon was out performing even what
| Apple CLAIMED in their keynotes and that caused everyone
| to scramble because they couldn't sit on their thumbs
| anymore. (Cough Intel)
|
| So yeah, you may get same numbers of RAM, but that RAM
| isn't equal.
| Taywee wrote:
| Apple marketing made "Mac vs PC" to try to differentiate
| themselves, and I refuse to adopt their marketing terms
| as if they are facts. Most people who work with computers
| will call a Mac a Mac, but won't use the "PC" category as
| if it doesn't include Apple PCs.
|
| Apple Silicon is really good for what it does. Apple does
| not create its RAM and the RAM is indeed equal for a
| significant markup.
| icedchai wrote:
| It's more than that. Historically (from 80's onward),
| "PC" meant "IBM PC or compatible." You could argue that
| x86 Macs are actually PCs.
| Taywee wrote:
| Yeah, and you could argue that ARM and RISC-V Windows and
| Linux wouldn't be PCs, but I don't really see the value
| in using the terminology for such a dated use. It's not
| really useful anymore since none of the same software is
| compatible across different OSes anymore.
|
| "Mac vs PC" was way after Windows software was already
| not compatible with IBM PCs, so by that point, the
| implication was just "PC == x86", and Apple was already
| transitioning to Intel as well. "PC" being tied to a
| specific Intel processor is confusing. It's all very
| bizarre and mostly marketing.
| aktuel wrote:
| I agree with you on the engineering except the ridiculous
| notch situation and the soldered on SSDs, both are
| unforgivable.
|
| The only saving grace for Apple here is that all other
| manufacturers outcompete them on the unforgivable sins front.
| roqi wrote:
| > The products do come at a bit of a premium, but, in my
| experience, it's well earned and is a premium experience as
| well.
|
| As a long time Linux and macOS user, I don't agree. Even
| though macOS is more polished than your average Linux desktop
| environment, it's really very hard to ignore the unjustified
| markup. Nowadays I can buy a miniPC with a Ryzen5 and 32GB of
| RAM for around 400EUR, but the cheapest Mac mini nowadays
| sells for over 700EUR and comes with 8GB of RAM and an absurd
| 256GB SSD. Moreover, a Mac mini tops up at 24GB of RAM, and
| for that you need to pay an additional 460EUR for your weak
| 256GB HD box.
| erremerre wrote:
| Where can you buy that miniPC?
| kidfiji wrote:
| After doing a quick search, a couple brands that have
| miniPCs that meet these specs include "Beelink" or
| "Minisforum"
| krger wrote:
| >Even though macOS is more polished than your average Linux
| desktop environment, it's really very hard to ignore the
| unjustified markup.
|
| It's justified if people pay it.
|
| >Nowadays I can buy a miniPC with a Ryzen5 and 32GB of RAM
| for around 400EUR, but the cheapest Mac mini nowadays sells
| for over 700EUR and comes with 8GB of RAM and an absurd
| 256GB SSD.
|
| So what's the problem?
|
| If you like running Linux on your Ryzen5 miniPC with 32GB
| of RAM for 400EUR, you're more than free to do that.
| Apple's not stopping you.
| chc wrote:
| The original point of this thread is that they'd like to
| be able to get an M2 PC like that. So that's the problem.
| krger wrote:
| I, too, would like to pay Ford prices for a Rivian.
| Taywee wrote:
| I'll gladly play Apple processor prices for an Apple
| processor, but I'm not going to pay Apple PC prices for
| an Apple PC when all I really want is the CPU.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| I guess Apple doesn't want to be Intel. It is like the
| old Kelloggs adverts "we don't make cereal for anyone
| else". Alluding to those brands that use the same cereal
| at a marked up price and resell it to a supermarket brand
| to sell at a lower price in a plain box.
| derefr wrote:
| It's an SoC; what do you think you're paying for besides
| the CPU? The whole rest of the computer (for a Mac Mini,
| at least) is worth maybe $50.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Except if you want 32gb ram and 2tb disk space, they
| charge well in excess of what anyone else (for the most
| part) is able to charge for similar upgrades.
| the_watcher wrote:
| The markup is because I can go to apple.com, pick the RAM
| and storage I want, and not really have to figure out
| anything about flavors or distros, knowing that it comes
| with the best chip on the market. This is leaving out that
| it just works with my phone and tablet.
| adventured wrote:
| The markup is because Apple can command it based on a
| long history of quality and building a tech luxury brand.
| It's solely about keeping margins high and the brand
| status high.
|
| Even if they could make the same money by lowering prices
| (and increasing volume), it'd be a terrible idea based on
| how consumer behavior and status seeking actually works.
| If the quality were the same and the product were far
| cheaper, consumers wouldn't want it as much. The absolute
| worst place to be in any market tends to be the middle,
| you go to the middle to die. High margins provide a
| margin for error in business, it's invaluable.
| thx-2718 wrote:
| There's other reasons not to like Apple hardware.
|
| For one the difficulty they engineer into their devices when
| it comes to repairing and servicing them.
|
| Then there's the use of child and/or slave labor.
|
| (if a child or a slave is making a product I expect it to be
| priced as such then/s)
|
| Removal or weird choices in terms of ports and which cables
| you may use.
|
| Question becomes for an independent software developer
| whether it's better to write off $7k or $3k and have $4k more
| in your pocket.
|
| Edit: Thank you apple fan boys for your downvotes! :D
| threeseed wrote:
| Apple does not intentionally use child or slave labour.
|
| And of all the OEMs they have always been the most
| aggressive at auditing their supply chain.
| thx-2718 wrote:
| You can not in good faith argue that executives along the
| way didn't turn a blind eye to these issues when they saw
| the price tag for those contracts.
|
| edit: Here's more to back my point:
|
| https://9to5mac.com/2023/05/22/iphone-maker-wistron-
| quits/
|
| If Apple isn't paying it's manufacturers enough to turn a
| profit then how long until a manufacturer cuts corners
| and abuses labor to make money?
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Then why do they seem to lobby in favor of slave labor?
| [0] At least for me it's difficult to come up with a
| reason why Apple might do this aside from knowingly
| profiting from it.
|
| [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/20/
| apple-u...
| tredre3 wrote:
| > Then there's the use of child and/or slave labor.
|
| It doesn't make it any better, but let's keep in mind that
| this is true for ALL current laptop brands unfortunately.
| They all come from the same factories.
|
| If anything I trust Apple more to audit their supply chain
| for human rights violations that I would trust eg Dell or
| Lenovo (and I use those brands exclusively myself).
| thx-2718 wrote:
| You have to look but there are options out there.
|
| https://puri.sm/
|
| I trust Apple to behave like a for-profit business. I've
| seen Apple make changes when it's benefited them (because
| their image matters to their customers).
| FireBeyond wrote:
| With my cheesegrater Mac, Apple wanted $3,000 for 160GB of
| memory (to go from 32 to 192). OWC sells the same memory
| (same spec, same manufacturer) now for $620, though I believe
| I paid about $1,000.
|
| They also wanted another $3,000 for an 8TB SSD. Similarly, I
| was able to buy a 4xM.2 PCI card, and populate it with 4 x
| 2TB SSDs for under $1,500. Furthermore my PCI setup is faster
| than the Apple system drive (7GBps versus 5.5).
| wfleming wrote:
| Overcharging on those kinds of bumps is standard industry
| practice, though. I just checked Lenovo, and they want $224
| to bump an X1 from 16GB to 32. And that's a sale price, the
| normal price is $340 (which seems largely theoretical since
| thinkpads are eternally on some kind of sale, but that's
| neither here nor there).
|
| Apple-to-apple (heh) comparison is tricky in this case
| since I don't see LPDDR5 laptop chips for sale on their
| own, and this is a soldered-on-laptop chip so DIY after
| buying isn't feasible, but an entire 32GB DDR5 desktop set
| can be had for about $100, so even if the low-power laptop
| form-factor commanded a premium, that's still pretty
| egregious.
|
| Dell is similar: for a desktop they want $200 to bump from
| 16GB to 32GB DDR5.
|
| Apple might be a bit more daring with those prices than
| some PC manufacturers, but it's hardly a behavior unique to
| them.
| godelski wrote:
| The difference is that you can buy the upgraded parts
| from a third party. This has always been difficult with
| Apple. RAM was constantly soldered in, but at least it
| was possible for an advanced user to upgrade it. Nvme
| drives had needless proprietary connections. I upgraded
| my old Intel Air and a $20 adapter and a n Evo Nvme drive
| was larger and faster than anything Apple would offer, at
| a cheaper price.
|
| The pricing may be standard (a bit higher if we're
| honest) but the bigger issue is how far Apple goes to
| make you pay that premium. It borders malicious. It's
| also not great for waste, considering upgrading is near
| impossible.
| wfleming wrote:
| Laptops, at least, are increasingly all-soldered RAM from
| many brands. SSDs are mostly still m.2, I think, so at
| least those are upgradable. Mac Pros were upgradeable
| until this most recent iteration switching to their ARM
| chips. The other companies also use lower-spec components
| than you could buy for less yourself, same as Apple.
|
| If anything, the rest of the industry has been moving in
| Apple's direction with these kinds of limitations.
| They're not more evil than their competition, they're
| just ahead of the curve.
|
| I agree Apple takes it further with the gouging than
| others. We should absolutely complain about it and
| criticize them for gouging! My criticism of the "Apple
| Tax" complaint is that 1. Nobody ever complains nearly as
| vociferously about other manufacturers doing similar
| stuff, and 2. The particular way people complain about
| Apple's behavior is always phrased to kind of imply it's
| unique and not just a more egregious form of a common
| behavior.
| dijit wrote:
| People get upset because they don't have a "cheap" product
| offering.
|
| With Dell there's the Inspirons
|
| With HP there's the Pavillion
|
| With Lenovo there's Ideapads and Yoga's and stuff.
|
| With Apple, their cheapest laptop is comparable to a business
| laptop (Elitebook, Latitude), and their most expensive
| laptops are comparable to the "creator" laptops like Dell XPS
| or HP ZBook -- except the Apple computers have better build
| quality than those.
|
| But people only look at the spec sheet and claim it's
| overpriced.
|
| Apple are definitely guilty of gouging the price of upgrades,
| but that's just business sense, if you _need_ the update then
| you have to trade how much it 's worth to you- it's just that
| other manufacturers do not do that.
| jart wrote:
| Apple's whole trick to gaining performance is to trade away
| the ability to upgrade RAM because having the RAM/GPU/CPU
| all exist within the same chip improves the physical
| locality which decreases latency.
| paulmd wrote:
| This is ultimately the same trick that consoles use in
| their APUs. At minimum it's a great way to bring power
| down and enable HSA/Fusion/M1 style unified-memory
| shenanigans, and in the long term it's going to be the
| only way forward with rising dGPU costs in the low-end
| market.
| rfoo wrote:
| > it's just that other manufacturers do not do that.
|
| Yeah. So it's just that people don't complain about other
| manufacturers.
| joshmanders wrote:
| > So it's just that people don't complain about other
| manufacturers.
|
| Because nobody expects the quality from these
| manufacturers like they do from Apple, so they don't get
| uppity about the price.
|
| They want Apple quality without Apple premium, or "to
| have their cake and eat it too"
| ddorian43 wrote:
| Why? Do you want to save electricity costs?
| Taywee wrote:
| They excel at a lot of workloads I do a lot of, and I'm
| really keen to experiment with non x86 desktop processors.
| aaomidi wrote:
| There's really nothing like them.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| Threadripper?
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| How so? Apple says 20% faster cpu than the M1 ultra. So now
| it should be about as fast as a 13th gen i9 chip or
| comparable Amd chip. Power consumption is still very
| impressive, performance is as expected, so yeah it is good
| but "nothing like it" sounds like much, much more.
| nordsieck wrote:
| IMO, they really stand out as a laptop chip. If you want
| something that's thin-and-light but still powerful,
| that's getting tough on the x86 side.
|
| As you point out, the power efficiency isn't as great a
| benefit in a desktop form factor where cooling is a lot
| easier to accomplish.
| [deleted]
| breuleux wrote:
| The Apple hardware tax is arguably what funds the development
| of these suckers.
| smlacy wrote:
| So you're saying it's not a "tax" per say and that the
| hardware premiums actually go to R&D on next gen systems?
|
| Apple's profit margin says otherwise. :)
|
| > Apple net profit margin as of March 31, 2023 is 24.49%.
| stephencanon wrote:
| Intel's profit margins have historically been higher.
| reaperman wrote:
| Lowering the price 10% won't be a game changer for the vast
| majority of people who would buy these to put in a linux
| desktop/workstation/server.
| meesles wrote:
| What does this even mean, with the sarcastic smiley face?
| Since when are margins and R&D mutually exclusive?
| jakear wrote:
| Where exactly do you think they get the money to make
| payroll if not by selling goods and services?
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Is that their net profit margin on hardware?
| breuleux wrote:
| My understanding is that the profits are accumulated in a
| cash/low-risk investment reserve, which serves several
| purposes: hedging against the ~100B of debt they apparently
| hold, ensuring smooth operation in a downturn, and also
| enabling the acquisition of valuable companies or talent,
| such as P.A. Semi in 2008.
|
| Let's put it this way: it would be a lot harder for Apple
| to do what it wants if it didn't have a stupendous amount
| of cash to fund it. That money pile means that they can
| shoulder the risks of their own plans, and the fact that
| they just pile on more and more profit every year just
| means these plans are largely successful.
| joshuahutt wrote:
| You perfectly articulated my reaction to all of the
| complaints. It seems like people believe companies should
| aim for as close to zero profit margin as possible, as if
| margin is immoral waste akin to greed, and not fuel for
| for the business.
| ask_b123 wrote:
| A bit unrelated, but it is "per se".
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Well, that's actually not out of line for tech. Microsoft
| is 34.62%, NVIDIA is 28.41%, and Google is 20.58%.
| [deleted]
| dangus wrote:
| There's nothing impressive about Apple's chips in a desktop
| environment.
|
| If you've got a high end current generation Intel or AMD
| workstation processor plus an RTX 4090, you've got a more
| powerful _and probably cheaper_ system than Apple 's desktops
| that have the M2 Ultra (which start at $4000).
|
| Performance per watt is where Apple Silicon shines, so the only
| thing a Windows/Linux user should have envy over is the MacBook
| Air and MacBook Pro. I would personally stay away from Apple's
| desktops even though I like macOS well enough.
| [deleted]
| derefr wrote:
| > and don't want to pay the Apple hardware tax
|
| Why do you believe that the "Apple hardware tax" here is being
| applied to some pieces of aluminium, rather than to their
| extremely-high-CapEx investment into a new SoC?
|
| I would bet money that when the Mac Pro logic board becomes
| available as a component through the repair program, that a
| replacement of it will be 90-95% of the cost of replacing the
| full machine.
| ingenieroariel wrote:
| $3,999.00 is the entry price for the M2 Ultra. The M1 Ultra is
| supported by Asahi Linux and I have to say the memory bandwidth
| makes things like running llama.cpp way faster than Intel CPUs.
| The rust GPU driver is also a joy to use.
|
| Compared to the price of Two very good nvidia cards and the PC
| to host it I think the price is reasonable for running Linux on
| high end Apple Hardware.
|
| Another thing is that the memory consumption is under 20W when
| idle and 100W when compiling the Linux Kernel. I think you make
| up the money just in electricity after a few years.
| mannyv wrote:
| Apple's hardware tax funds their R&D, which is why Apple
| develops stuff like the M2 ultra when the Intel and Linux OEMs
| sit around waiting for Intel or Qualcomm to shit out some
| useless chip that's undifferentiated.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > don't want to pay the Apple hardware tax
|
| It's called the "price". Unlike taxes, you can choose to not
| buy it and not pay it.
| pxc wrote:
| You can also avoid sales taxes by not buying. Like a sales
| tax, it's a tax you have to pay it you really want to buy the
| thing
| nosefurhairdo wrote:
| You're making a silly point. There are not legal
| substitutes for paying taxes (inb4 loopholes for wealthy
| and corporations), while there are plenty of more
| affordable substitutes for Apple products.
| Taywee wrote:
| What are the affordable substitutes for the M2 Ultra?
| the_watcher wrote:
| If there are no substitutes, a high price is extremely
| justified.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| I get that lack of competition _explains_ the price, but
| I don 't think that means it's justified.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| You can also avoid sales tax by buying at the Apple store
| in Portland Oregon. But I'm not sure what the point is
| here.
| jchw wrote:
| I am surprised multiple commenters seem to not know about the
| (as far as I know, extremely common) euphemism "brand tax".
|
| https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=brand%20tax
|
| It's not meant to imply that it's exactly the same thing as a
| tax. It's meant to suggest that e.g. Apple hardware is
| significantly higher margin than alternatives, an affordance
| allowed due to the reputation conveyed by the brand.
|
| Like all analogies and metaphors, it does not imply equality,
| so showing how the two things are actually different isn't
| very interesting or constructive unless the statement being
| made hinges on wrongly comparing aspects that don't line up
| (doesn't seem to.)
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > an affordance allowed due to the reputation conveyed by
| the brand
|
| Calling it a tax implies there's no added value, which is
| entirely false. If their products are more expensive for a
| similarly capable device from another manufacturer (that's
| a big if), it's because Apple's products have a reputation
| for being higher quality. Many people will always be
| willing to pay a lot more for a little more quality, in the
| least.
| jchw wrote:
| I'm not even trying to argue that it's necessarily true,
| I'm just saying that arguing about semantics would simply
| be showing ignorance to what a brand tax _is_. One can
| argue if the prices are actually justified by some
| tangible value or not, it 's neither here nor there.
|
| That said, the evidence that Apple has difficult to
| justify prices is definitely present in their product
| line. Love it or hate it, it's extremely difficult to
| justify a $1,000 monitor stand; even if it's actually not
| a result of high margins, it's really hard to see how
| they can add so much value into the concept of a
| reticulating monitor stand that it would be worth such a
| price tag. Or perhaps the $700 caster kit for the Mac Pro
| (a price that hasn't changed: I looked!) They may be the
| nicest casters ever made, but if it's an option you
| happen to want, the price from Apple is $700. They don't
| offer a cheaper option, so that's what you get with
| Apple. You may want it anyways, because well, it's just
| so nice and you don't care. That's fine, but that's
| definitely what most people call the "Apple Tax".
| Taywee wrote:
| A sales tax of any sort can be avoided by not buying the
| product. I assumed nobody would misinterpret the common
| colloquial term "Apple tax" (meaning "Apple's much higher
| than typical profit margin"), which I didn't invent and has
| been used widely for a very long time.
| sxcurry wrote:
| What's the Apple hardware tax? I've never seen it applied, but
| maybe that's because I live in Oregon, no sales tax.
| comboy wrote:
| You probably can have a better AMD setup. Just look at things
| they brag about [1] - our newest 24-core machine is UP TO 4x
| faster than 8-core Intel from I don't know how many years ago.
| I have no idea about actual performance but it doesn't look
| great, especially given that they are running software for
| which these chips were specifically optimized.
|
| I currently use macos, the software is tolerable, but when I
| need some serious computation power the server is running
| Linux. You can have more cores, you can have more memory, what
| else do you need?
|
| 1. https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/
| Mayora13 wrote:
| Today, I had an interesting encounter after work when I brought
| my Framework laptop to the store. I had a chance to closely
| compare it with the current MacBook Pro line and wanted to share
| some thoughts.
|
| Firstly, I was not particularly impressed with the MacBook Pro
| cases and haptics. The build quality seems to have deteriorated
| compared to previous iterations. Granted, this could be a matter
| of personal preference, but it seems to me that Apple's
| relentless pursuit of thinness and lightness has come at the
| expense of the premium, robust feel of their older MacBook
| models.
|
| As for the haptic feedback, it felt a bit off. Earlier MacBooks
| had a satisfying clickiness and responsiveness, but that didn't
| seem to be the case with the current model I tested. I suppose
| this could be subjective, and perhaps some may prefer the current
| haptic approach.
|
| On a positive note, the brightness of the screen was impressive -
| it certainly stood out. Apple has always been at the forefront of
| display technology and it's evident they are maintaining their
| standards in that regard.
|
| Comparing with other laptops in the store, I couldn't help but
| appreciate the Framework's design and user-focused approach even
| more. Other laptops felt plasticky and cheap in comparison, with
| subpar build quality and aesthetic.
|
| Despite the MacBook's stellar screen, it's hard to beat the
| Framework when it comes to customization, repairability, and the
| ethos of the company. It's a refreshing change in an industry
| that seems to be moving towards sealed units that discourage user
| modification and repairs.
|
| The old MacBooks were in a different league altogether, and it's
| disheartening to see how things have evolved. I would love to see
| a return to a focus on robust build quality and user experience
| beyond just raw specifications and form factor.
| stonegray wrote:
| > relentless pursuit of thinness and lightness has come at the
| expense of the premium, robust feel of their older MacBook
| models.
|
| The 14/16" are significantly thicker and heavier than previous
| generations, both in actual measurements and in appearance (as
| they don't taper at the edge like they have since the 2012) I
| truly cannot imagine looking at that and thinking any part of
| the design was imagined with the words "thinness and lightness"
| in the mind.
| antipaul wrote:
| "Apple's relentless pursuit of thinness and lightness"
|
| That ended in the previous generation.
|
| The 12" MacBook and previous-gen (final-gen Intel) MacBook pros
| were the most beautiful and the most thin/light MacBooks
|
| With the new MB Pros, Apple went with much more compromise
| towards functionality and quality. I think they are almost
| flawless - just much more ugly than previous gen!
|
| I am not sure about the Airs - and maybe that's your primary
| comparison.
| mnky9800n wrote:
| They really missed out on the chance to call it MK Ultra.
| JLCarveth wrote:
| 134 billion transistors, impressive.
| [deleted]
| shmde wrote:
| Let's see Nvidia's transistor count.
| alecco wrote:
| It's apples to oranges but here we go: M2
| 134bn 192GB RAM 800GB/s 3 TFlops? $9,600
| H100 80bn 188GB VRAM 900GB/s 60 TFlops $40,000
| A100 54bn 80GB VRAM 600GB/s 20 TFlops $10,000
| 4090 76bn 24GB VRAM 1000GB/s 82 TFlops $1,400
|
| [1] https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/h100/
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampere_(microarchitecture)#
| A10...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_pro
| ces...
| skunkworker wrote:
| M2 Ultra on a Mac Studio with 192gb is $5599 (60 core gpu),
| or $6599 (76 core gpu).
| alecco wrote:
| H100 has 16k cores, but of course that's a completely
| different kind of core.
| kaliqt wrote:
| I really want to see how that fares against Nvidia for ML
| development, because it's hard to compete with that kind
| of flexibility and price.
| alecco wrote:
| Somebody please correct why 4090 looks so close to H100, it
| looks off.
| [deleted]
| jedisct1 wrote:
| For scale, the 8086 had 29,000 transistors.
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| That isn't really a good example of transistors well spent.
| You can do 32 bit RISCV or MIPS cpu in the same process node
| that is 2-6x faster than that 8086 using the same number of
| transistors.
| grumpyprole wrote:
| My first CPU, the 6502, also used in the Apple II, had approx
| 4500 transistors!
| mannyv wrote:
| The human brain has 0 transistors!
| user6723 wrote:
| I would gladly pay Apple $30,000, like I will get financing and
| see this as a new car payment, for a machine where all chips are
| full open source and documented and detachable and auditable.
| nonrepeating wrote:
| Full open source of their latest chips? Make that $30 billion
| and you've got a deal.
| tough wrote:
| Waiting for MK2 Ultra
| tester756 wrote:
| Is there a name for this kind of speak?
|
| >"(...) further than ever"
|
| >"(...) largest and most (...) Apple has ever created"
|
| >"(...) the most powerful (...) ever made"
|
| >"performance to a whole new level (...)"
|
| You can say this thing at every release, what's the point? Of
| course you aren't going to release product which is going to be
| slower, right?
| crazygringo wrote:
| Yeah, it's called "Apple speak". I'm not even joking. For
| whatever reason, it's been Apple's thing for probably at least
| a decade and a half. Yes they say it at every release.
|
| Don't ask me why, but it's Apple's thing, and I'm not aware of
| any other major company that does it in quite the same way. You
| can find plenty of parodies of it on YouTube if you want.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| The closest term I can think of would be the legal jargon
| "puffery". See https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/puffing or
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffery
| raincom wrote:
| bullshit, simply.
| rob74 wrote:
| ...or hyperbole, if you want to be more charitable.
| raincom wrote:
| One can use truths to bullshit; that's what media,
| marketing, corporate do. In this case, phrases such as
| 'further than ever', 'the most powerful ever made', 'the
| largest and most .. ever created' are hedged. One has to
| add many missing ceteris paribus clauses (which cetera is
| paria?) to make something out of these lines. Media,
| corporate people don't lie, but they use truths to
| bullshit.
| BossingAround wrote:
| Or "technically, the truth" since all of the statements are
| the truth colored by marketing speak :)
| HDMI_Cable wrote:
| I guess it could be considered a superlative?
| justinator wrote:
| Years ago we'd call it "Steve Jobs Reality Distortion"
| senko wrote:
| They _are_ saying this thing at every release.
| antipaul wrote:
| For a long time, I thought this was bullsh*t too.
|
| But I think they make a subtle dig at many other consumer
| products.
|
| I have seen too many examples, where the "latest" product is
| inferior to previous-gen.
|
| EG:
|
| - A few car models I am familiar with had adaptive cruise
| control a few years ago, standard. Now, you need some expensive
| package. Definitely not "our best model xyz ever"
|
| - Consumer appliances like refrigerators and washing machines
| just get more expensive, and more complicated, and crappier.
|
| - A key. A friggin door key. How can you make a "next-gen" key
| that is worse than a piece of metal? Hello, every "digital" key
| fob. They SUCK! Slow, cumbersome, annoying sounds. Did I say
| slow? No, many keys are not "the best ever key".
|
| - Ever update Microsoft Windows to a new version? Through
| today, I am scarred that an "update" to a device will be a
| regress.
|
| So yea, when Apple says "our best ever", it may sound obvious
| and trite.
|
| But other companies can't say this for _so many of their
| product lines_...
| alpaca128 wrote:
| I wouldn't call it "subtle". The only time I watched an Apple
| event I was shocked to find how accurate all the jokes were
| and how Apple really didn't miss any opportunity to boast
| about how many millimeters and percent something was thinner
| than before.
|
| > I have seen too many examples, where the "latest" product
| is inferior to previous-gen.
|
| You mean like when they removed the headphone jack? Or the
| magsafe laptop charging port, before adding it again years
| later? Yes, Apple made many improvements but they still mess
| up a lot and their software has just as many bugs (I use Mac
| OS for less than a year and already discovered three easily
| reproducible bugs/crashes in preinstalled applications).
| lozenge wrote:
| Sure, but Apple have had missteps too.
|
| Touch Bar - most intuitive ever?
|
| Butterfly keyboard - thinnest ever?
|
| Bendy iPhone - lightest ever?
|
| Antennagate - sleekest design?
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| > Butterfly keyboard - thinnest ever?
|
| Definitely thinnest. Still terrible. I don't recall if they
| even attempted "best ever" with that keyboard. I suppose
| perhaps they would have said that about the laptops that
| included these keyboards ...
|
| My point is "thinnest" can be true without being "best
| ever."
| varispeed wrote:
| It's a form of corporate prayer to the god of profit.
| hgsgm wrote:
| It's the newest product EVER released by the company!
| j-kent wrote:
| great, I can't wait to buy a new Mac Air with the most powerful
| consumer chip ever made paired with 8gb ram and 128g HD.
|
| Note: I have a M1 Air that I love, best computer I've ever owned.
| hoorible wrote:
| The MBA line has 256GB standard now.
| endorphine wrote:
| Isn't 8GB too little these days?
| [deleted]
| Def_Os wrote:
| That discrepancy is his point.
| [deleted]
| pseudopersonal wrote:
| With a unified 192GB memory, could this challenge nvidia's lock
| on ML training? Or is CUDA still insurmountable?
| corysama wrote:
| Nvidia's NVIDIA DGX(tm) GH200 supercomputer links 256 Grace
| Hopper CPU+GPU chips with 576 GBs of unified memory each into a
| single 144 terabyte GPU address space.
|
| https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/dgx-gh200/
| [deleted]
| ajb117 wrote:
| Besides Nvidia cards usually being faster and having higher
| memory bandwidth, Ada cards also have FP8 cores. I'm not sure
| how well Apples' M-series chips handle low/mixed precision
| tensors, but I wouldn't be surprised if Nvidia cards perform
| better with them.
| viscanti wrote:
| Training is unlikely for most things but you could probably run
| a trained model on it that needs a lot of RAM.
| bufo wrote:
| The memory bandwidth is still a bit lower than Nvidia's best
| cards, and it doesn't have the equivalent of Tensor Cores. If
| they wanted they could compete, but it's clearly not their
| desire. They build consumer end products.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Regarding Tensor cores, it does have them as part of the 32
| core Neural Engine. Apple considers AI/ML a consumer feature,
| all the way down to the iPhone hardware. At the same time,
| this isn't a data-center supercluster. It's still just a mid
| sized workstation.
| earthnail wrote:
| The Neural engine is for inference, not training.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| There's no difference between inference and training.
| Training is simply ~4x more expensive inference.
|
| The submitted article also talks about training models.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| The neural engine on all recent Apple silicon (and A##
| devices) has "tensor" cores for matrix calculations (note:
| Apple abstracts all of this behind coreml so there is some
| conflation between the ANE and AMX instructions/hardware).
| The M2 Ultra offers 31.6 trillion ops per second with fp16,
| for instance, which actually bests an A100.
|
| The software support is terrible, of course, which is the
| biggest limitation, but Apple clearly wants to be in that
| realm as well.
| bufo wrote:
| The neural engine has severe limitations at the moment. I
| tried using it for BERT about a year ago and kept crashing
| its API because of "out of memory" issues. The theoretical
| TOPs you mention also don't necessarily translate into
| usable TOPs because of memory bandwidth and caches. This is
| why for example the comparison of the M1 Max with a RTX
| 3090 was completely off.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| I certainly can't speak to your specific uses or issues,
| but I mean we've really moved the goalposts from the
| prior claim that it didn't have tensor (e.g. matrix)
| functionality.
|
| My daily work life includes a lot of model running on
| Apple hardware (Apple Silicon and A1# chips with the
| neural engine) using CoreML, often Pytorch models
| converted using coremltools. The performance of the Apple
| chips is _spectacular_ if the intrinsics are supported
| (things obviously get dicier if there are currently
| unsupported ops). I mean, the memory bandwidth of the M2
| Ultra is within spitting distance of the GDDR6X 4090.
|
| People aren't going to be replacing H100 arrays with
| Apple Silicon and even as a fan I use nvidia hardware for
| training and convert the models to CoreML after the fact,
| but Apple clearly isn't just satisfied being some toy.
| They are continually climbing up that vine.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > For example, M2 Ultra can train massive machine learning
| workloads in a single system that the most powerful discrete GPU
| can't even process.
|
| It's interesting to see that Apple is explicitly targeting the M2
| Ultra as an alternative to GPUs for machine learning.
|
| I think it is great for consumers for Nvidia to have a competitor
| in this space. If you wanted to do ML, you really didn't have
| much of an option other than Nvidia, which allowed Nvidia to do
| things like disable certain features in consumer GPUs even though
| the hardware was capable and limit RAM. Having Apple as a
| competitor in the consumer space will force them to up their
| game.
| giobox wrote:
| That unified memory architecture makes them well suited in many
| cases - that's the one bit current x86 desktop platforms don't
| have a good answer for, where the system design generally keeps
| GPU and system memory as entirely separate technologies.
|
| This is why fanless M2 MacBook Airs are regularly loading
| models 5k dollar PCs might choke on - you can get 24gb of
| unified memory, while almost all high end consumer GPUs top out
| at 16gb.
| nightski wrote:
| High end consumer GPUs would be your 3090/4090 cards which
| both have 24GB.
| duskwuff wrote:
| A 4090 is $1500-2000 depending on the vendor. A M2 MacBook
| Air with 24GB RAM is in the same price range, and it's a
| whole-ass laptop.
| giobox wrote:
| 4080 is still a 16gb part, and still the 2nd fastest part
| Nvidia sell at consumer level (its a 1200 dollar part). The
| 3090 (for however long it remains on sale) and the 4090 are
| outliers.
|
| The obvious counter point is an M2 MacBook in 14/16 inch
| size, where wallet permitting you can have up to 96gb of
| unified memory too...
|
| I simply chose the Air in my example earlier because its
| incredible you can have that level of performance in
| ostensibly an entry level passively cooled machine.
| ajb117 wrote:
| Well at least in the U.S. a lot of used 3090s are out for
| less than $800 on eBay which is a steal for 24GB VRAM.
| The 4090 is about $1600 and it's still a consumer-level
| card; gamers are buying it more often than the 4080. For
| ML workloads, it's actually a pretty good deal
| considering how expensive Nvidia's higher-end, non-
| consumer offerings are. Lambda Labs did some
| benchmarking: https://lambdalabs.com/blog/nvidia-
| rtx-4090-vs-rtx-3090-deep...
|
| But yeah the M2 MacBooks are incredible for local LLMs
| for their price. Nvidia doesn't have any consumer-level
| priced accelerators with that much memory.
| [deleted]
| nightski wrote:
| You don't have that level of performance though. Not even
| close really. RAM amount is only one piece of the puzzle.
| ownagefool wrote:
| Don't AMD APUs have unified memory?
| alanfranz wrote:
| Not with the same bandwidth.
| senko wrote:
| Yup!
|
| > It's interesting to see that Apple is explicitly targeting
| the M2 Ultra as an alternative to GPUs for machine learning.
|
| For many purposes the limiting factor on local LLMs is the
| amount of VRAM. nVidias with 64GB+ are insanely expensive
| (unless you're a funded startup). The ability of Apple Sillicon
| GPUs to use system RAM for the GPUs is a game-changer.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > The ability of Apple Sillicon GPUs to use system RAM for
| the GPUs is a game-changer.
|
| It'd be a lot more of a game change if Apple didn't continue
| its tradition of charging extortionate prices for ram.
| minhazm wrote:
| While I agree it's expensive it's not quite apples to
| apples. GPU memory is very very expensive. A100 80GB costs
| $10k msrp (> $15k on ebay). An RTX 4090 only has 24gb of
| vram at $1600. Even if you do dual 3090's + nvlink for
| $1600 you only get up to 48GB, no where near the up to
| 192GB of vram you can access on apple silicon. The upgrade
| from 64GB to 192GB of ram is $1600. That's still expensive
| of course, but 128GB of 800GB/s memory that your GPU has
| access to for $1600 is actually not bad value. It's not
| like just sticking an extra 128gb of ram into your
| computer. DDR5-6400 dual channel will give up up to 102
| GB/s, which is no where near M2 Ultra or GDDR6X.
| kimovski wrote:
| Made in Taiwan?
| nilsbunger wrote:
| They have a silicon interposer to connect two dies. That's a
| really cool way to effectively make a chip twice as big. Is this
| a new technique ?
| p_l wrote:
| In the mid 90s IBM used it for multiple chips in POWER and
| S/390
| kjs3 wrote:
| So did Intel with the Pentium Pro and later Pentium 2, didn't
| they?
| p_l wrote:
| I believe Pentium 4D counts more than Pentium 2, but
| Pentium Pro does count and it was part of why it was so
| expensive (comparably). The slot-mounted CPU modules were
| essentially avoidances of multi-chip-modules or large
| easily broken (thus low yield) dies, and ran a normal PCB.
| duskwuff wrote:
| Apple started using this technique in 2022 for the M1 Ultra.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| It is like AMD Chiplets but all on one actual Die. The actual
| chips are produced as one chip. Chips with a bad 'half' get cut
| in half to become a M2 Max and a lower binned M2 Max. The Apple
| method here of using one die allows for much higher bandwidth
| than Chiplets.
| BooneJS wrote:
| This is what the industry calls 2.5D technology. Intel has EMIB
| and TSMC has CoWoS. It's one way the industry has been able to
| keep Moore's Law limping along with chiplets.
| loser777 wrote:
| AMD has been doing this with Zen/EPYC since 2017, and I'm not
| sure they were the first
| drexlspivey wrote:
| I'm guessing those might power the upcoming headset
| [deleted]
| qweifjoiOIJ32 wrote:
| On desktop benchmarks no Apple CPU in top 20 (AMD beats the most
| powerful apple chip by 2.5 times):
|
| https://www.cpubenchmark.net/desktop.html
|
| On laptops it looks the same (AMD is 2.x times faster):
|
| https://www.cpubenchmark.net/laptop.html
|
| So where is the astonishing performance Apple claims all the
| time?
|
| Yes, I know it consumes less power, but my laptop is docked 95%
| of the time, so I'd rather have more power than more battery
| life.
| zamadatix wrote:
| The M2 Ultra will definitely crack the top 20 but it's no
| surprise a 24 core option is beat by 64 core competition, which
| tops that chart. Usually their performance claims are about
| previously available x86 Mac workstations, not x86 in general.
| You could even go beyond that chart and look at dual socket AMD
| to get 192 cores, you just won't be able to run a supported
| macOS on it.
|
| Their more traditional "vs the rest of the industry"
| performance claims on laptops aim towards the single thread
| performance of M2. While maybe not a chart topper a year later,
| it's quite a far cry from the 2.5x difference you've found
| there. In the end though, if all you want is the fastest,
| loudest, most plugged in laptop you can just go out and buy a
| laptop chassis which accepts desktop CPUs from the likes of
| Clevo et al.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Good perf per watt means more than just good battery life. It
| also means the laptop's fans won't be screaming like the
| machine is being burned alive when being pushed, that the
| chassis won't get uncomfortably hot easily, and and performance
| doesn't fall off of a cliff when you're unplugged.
|
| In short, it's about balance, which I think is just as
| important as raw performance for most people.
| jiripospisil wrote:
| Interesting that the chip still doesn't seem to support hardware
| acceleration for AV1 despite the fact that Apple is a member of
| the Alliance for Open Media consortium which developed the
| format.
| brianwawok wrote:
| 1) What percent of all media is AV1?
|
| 2) Does software encoding/decoding block any workflows? Which
| ones?
| Havoc wrote:
| Most of the live streaming stuff seems to be converging
| towards AV1.
| thfuran wrote:
| Software decoding tends to use a lot more energy even if the
| CPU can keep up.
| c0balt wrote:
| 1) Some small sites, like YouTube, are adopting it. However
| it is a chicken-egg problem that usually has to start from
| the hardware site because, in contrary to software, it can't
| be added later. That's why those organizations usually
| include Companies like Intel, which had delivered AV1 with
| their GPUs recently.
|
| 2) None, really, the increased use of bandwidth + CPU time is
| not a blocker per se. In this case y don't _need_ hardware
| support but it sure as heck wold be nice to use those CPU
| cycles for something else.
| varispeed wrote:
| Ok why is it so expensive? Is it because there is no competition
| or because they have poor yields on that chip?
|
| I mean after all this is just a phone in a fancy big case. I
| mean, they are not too constrained by the size nor the cooling.
| Extra connections on board add how much, $50?
|
| I'd think the beefiest version wouldn't cost more than $2000. It
| doesn't have a screen like a laptop etc.
| brianwawok wrote:
| Ok, create one for less and sell it.
| varispeed wrote:
| Not sure how such remark is relevant? Can you point out where
| I am wrong and explain why?
| [deleted]
| samcat116 wrote:
| Its two of the worst yield chips. Its a lot more than a
| phone...
| varispeed wrote:
| It's less complex as you don't have the size constraints and
| more freedom regarding heat and power, everything else is
| very much the same in principle.
|
| I don't believe it costs more than producing a phone. Only
| substantial costs may be when it comes to poor chip yield.
|
| But you think otherwise, I am all ears.
| xcv123 wrote:
| By the same logic, the Nvidia H100 is just a phone and
| should cost a few hundred dollars (H100 is priced at
| $40,000 per unit and has fewer transistors than M2 Ultra)
| mft_ wrote:
| It's not the answer you're looking for, I suspect, but it's the
| price that it is because Apple's marketing team has run a bunch
| of market research and this is the price they judge will
| maximise their overall profit.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| I mentioned this before... As a Linux user I am getting more and
| more afraid of being left behind.
|
| In the end this spurring Intel to innovate, but will it be
| enough?
|
| I realize there are some Linux' running on Apple H/W, but due to
| do the closed nature (H/W specs anyone?) it will already be
| inferior to MacOS.
|
| I have a MacBook from work, and strongly dislike (hate?) MacOS.
| dangus wrote:
| This worry you have is only a worry if we assume that the M2
| Ultra is unmatched by AMD and Intel. In reality, Apple doesn't
| make the fastest desktop chips money can buy.
|
| Unbiased benchmarks need to be compared. Apple's press release
| doesn't compare performance to x86 with quantitative benchmarks
| and that is intentional. Don't just believe Apple when they
| tell us that this is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
|
| For one thing, both Nvidia and AMD kick the pants out of
| Apple's graphics solution. Nothing comes close to touching the
| RTX 4090.
|
| High memory workloads are completely off the table with Apple
| systems now. The previous Intel Mac Pro could handle more
| memory (1.5TB compared to 192GB), and it was modular.
|
| Apple Silicon only really shines in performance per watt, but
| once you need a higher level of performance you reach a point
| where Apple has no product to compete. In a desktop
| environment, the advantages of Apple Silicon get whittled away.
| [deleted]
| pantalaimon wrote:
| It looks like support is coming along nicely
|
| https://chaos.social/@marcan@treehouse.systems/1104910318986...
|
| > I realize there are some Linux' running on Apple H/W, but due
| to do the closed nature (H/W specs anyone?) it will already be
| inferior to MacOS.
|
| By that argument you could also say that Linux will always be
| inferior to Windows on the desktop
| fotcorn wrote:
| I got a base-spec MacBook Pro 16 inch with the M2 Pro chip from
| work last week. Before that, I was on my Linux workstation with
| an AMD Ryzen 3950x, a desktop CPU released 3.5 years ago.
|
| The compile time for a debug build of LLVM and MLIR is
| basically the same on those machines, the desktop machine only
| winning by a little bit. Roughly 10 minutes. Yes, of course
| desktop vs. laptop is unfair, but it's also a 3.5 year old
| chip.
|
| And if you really want all-out performance, there are still AMD
| ThreadRippers, which should easily beat an M2 Ultra in almost
| all multi-threaded workloads.
|
| (Details on the benchmark run: Building LLVM from source using
| precompiled LLVM 15 downloaded from the official website, debug
| build, only clang;mlir;lld projects, using mold/sold linker on
| Linux/Mac respectively, ninja build tool).
| mo_42 wrote:
| The people from Asahi Linux are doing an exceptional job.
| They're moving pretty fast. So you won't have to wait too long.
|
| I'm using Asahi Linux on my M1 because I dislike MacOS.
|
| I would already recommend it for a Mac Mini but not for a
| MacBook.
| stavros wrote:
| Why not for a Macbook? What are the issues?
| petemir wrote:
| Probably related to the different sleep states of the CPU,
| standby/resume, and battery use in general. Always a pain
| with Linux.
| mo_42 wrote:
| Actually, I run it on my MacBook. Two things that might
| discourage most people:
|
| - CPU idle (they are trying to hack it into the their
| forked kernel but it will be a long way for proper support
| by Linux)
|
| - Sleep (not even Apple's deep sleep)
|
| Not involved with the project. I read about this a couple
| of weeks ago. Could be outdated already.
| [deleted]
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Intel (and AMD) reportedly have M2 Pro-like quad channel, GPU
| heavy laptop CPUs in the pipe.
|
| Those will be very cool!
|
| Technically they both have datacenter focused, M2 Ultra esque
| APUs too (the MI300 and Falcon Shores). Intel delayed and then
| canceled the CPU part due to a lack of demand (it is now just a
| big GPU). The MI300 _was_ HPC only, but AMD is trying to spin
| it as a more general AI product now.
| senko wrote:
| I sometimes feel the same. Then I have to deal with Homebrew,
| Docker or macOS equivalents of coreutils, and I'm happy to go
| back to my Linux-powered Thinkpad, thankyouverymuch.
| izacus wrote:
| You're listening too much to the biased Apple marketing, BSing
| you with comparisons to years old Intel CPUs locked into poorly
| cooled chassises on their laptops (they compared it for Intel
| MacBook Air ffs).
|
| The new AMD and Intel CPUs are fine. There's a reason Apple
| never dares to mention them in their marketing shows - they
| always ignore things that are competitive.
|
| Your FOMO reaction is exactly the emotional reaction their ads
| are meant to trigger - they're dialed in to manipulate you into
| this feeling to feel bad about not owning their products.
| fyzix wrote:
| Agreed, the only thing I'm jealous about is battery life
| qorrect wrote:
| I had an M1 Mac Mini and honestly it felt slow. It would
| often hang and the entire interface would become unusable.
| Pretty disappointed.
| bjelkeman-again wrote:
| Was it with the small SSD? 250GB I think, which seems to
| have miserable performance.
| toxicdevil wrote:
| How about using Qualcomm machines with linux. Microsoft is
| pushing for WindowsOnArm. Any ideas on how much support there
| is for linux? considering these chips are similar to the ones
| that are running Android
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