[HN Gopher] Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max
___________________________________________________________________
Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max
Author : ehPReth
Score : 928 points
Date : 2023-10-31 00:30 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| tripdout wrote:
| You mean a Mac :P
| ehPReth wrote:
| character limit :P
| momothereal wrote:
| Something tells me it will get shortened to "Apple unveils
| M3" soon
| s3p wrote:
| A Mac can also be called a personal computer if i'm not
| mistaken
| raimue wrote:
| In the 2000s, Apple ran a big campaign with the phrase "I'm a
| Mac - I'm a PC" to highlight the difference.
| snickerbockers wrote:
| Yeah but then it's not the "most advanced chip" anymore.
| minimaxir wrote:
| > Additionally, support for up to 128GB of memory unlocks
| workflows previously not possible on a laptop, such as AI
| developers working with even larger transformer models with
| billions of parameters.
|
| The presentation explicitly highlighted this very randomly,
| without showing how AI development actually works.
|
| I know Apple has put more effort into Apple Silicon support for
| PyTorch but is it there yet?
| wmf wrote:
| Are the cool kids using GGML?
| minimaxir wrote:
| Also that.
| hnfong wrote:
| FWIW, the main developer of GGML apparently runs a M2 Ultra
| himself. Apple Silicon is a first class citizen on GGML and
| runs fast.
|
| See eg. https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/16o4ka
| 8/running...
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| no, GGUF
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I'm pretty sure pytorch supports it OOTB. In my experience it
| works even better than ROCM
| nextos wrote:
| I don't think it is? But I would love to be wrong. Cheap mobile
| Nvidia cards outperform regular M2 chips on small learning
| tasks.
|
| M3 Max might be a contender, but Metal is far from CUDA yet? A
| laptop M3 Max looks like it can compete with a Nvidia 3070.
|
| It's an unfair comparison as Nvidia is a huge desktop
| heat/energy hog and Apple M chips are really efficient. Let's
| see how desktop M3 chips fare.
| blep-arsh wrote:
| Consumer nVidia cards are constrained by their RAM which is
| inconvenient considering the sizes of popular LLMs. An M2
| Ultra basically gives you 100+ GB VRAM which is nice.
| hnfong wrote:
| Although pytorch is in python, some ML features in SoTA
| libraries are coded against CUDA and complains if you don't
| have a CUDA device.
|
| A lot of things work out of the box with pytorch on mps, but
| not everything, and it can be frustrating to figure what
| works and what doesn't while you have a bunch of other moving
| parts shifting under your feet due to how fast the whole
| thing is moving.
|
| That said, llama.cpp (aka "ggml") on M1/M2 Mac is very
| robust. If you just want to run inference (as opposed to
| training) of models and you're comfortable with a Mac,
| there's really no reason to go out and by an nVidia card.
|
| FWIW, some numbers I found on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/
| r/LocalLLaMA/comments/16o4ka8/running...
| starshadowx2 wrote:
| Interesting that the Myst remake is being used specifically as an
| example, with how the original was created on Macs using
| HyperCard.
| brundolf wrote:
| Yeah, I thought that was a little poetic :)
|
| Especially since (and this just occurred to me), in a
| roundabout way the original may have been the first Mac game to
| ever use raytracing (in its pre-rendering)
| salzig wrote:
| That one, and Sketchup really confused me.
| fsloth wrote:
| Where's the SketchUp reference?
| baby-yoda wrote:
| 14 minute mark
| scrlk wrote:
| Base 14" M3 MBP comes with 8 GB RAM at $1599 USD. That's pretty
| stingy.
| nateb2022 wrote:
| Especially when a 13" M2 MBA with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD comes
| in at $1499.
| Willish42 wrote:
| And yet _still_ 8GB of RAM as the baseline. It's probably as
| profitable as it is evil / misleading.
| sosodev wrote:
| Calling it evil is a bit of a stretch.
| Willish42 wrote:
| I'll admit "evil" is a stretch but I was thinking in terms
| of the amount of e-waste this causes due to insufficient
| RAM hurting the longevity of a $~2k+ computer
|
| e.g. https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/technology-
| media-an...
| 3c6bYDXLMj wrote:
| Hyperbole like this is necessary for people to justify the
| extreme negative emotions they feel about a computer
| they'll never buy having specifications that they
| disapprove of.
| spacecadet wrote:
| Is it? Its pretty evil to overcharge and prey on a customer
| base who doesn't know any better, but would benefit from a
| more usable starting point, oh say 16...
|
| Tims a finance guy, they are kinda evil by default.
| Willish42 wrote:
| Yeah, Apple customers tend to also just "trust Apple" and
| get whatever the recommended product is for their price
| point. Half the reason I find this troubling is ewaste,
| the other half is I'm sick of having to try to explain
| RAM to my MIL and ask how many tabs they keep open when
| asked which computer she should buy. If they had a better
| baseline memory (16gb) or a simple inexpensive upgrade
| that's the second option in the lineup instead of the
| higher storage cost, it'd be a simple, one-sentence "get
| that one".
|
| Even having to upgrade the RAM is a hassle when price
| comparing etc. They know this and it's - by design -
| misleading to the type of affluent less-tech-friendly
| users who prefer Apple products.
| astrange wrote:
| No one should have to care how many tabs they have open,
| and since browsers kill/suspend background tabs these
| days, they probably don't have to care about it either.
| spacecadet wrote:
| Except all of the browsers are shit at it. I know someone
| with so many tabs open it just shows a :)
| renewiltord wrote:
| America is truly a blessed nation. Their richest evil
| people simply make the most powerful consumer appliances
| available for a reasonable price. Their good people must
| be truly saints.
| spacecadet wrote:
| Who? As far as I can tell every American is a
| psychopathic capitalist murder ready to drive their SUV
| over the next sand dune/forest/oil field/grandmas house
| you name it. Bought and sold in 1775 boy.
| sosodev wrote:
| It's a matter of perspective of course. I think if you
| claim that this makes Apple evil then you would also need
| to argue that most of capitalism is evil. Aren't the vast
| majority corporations just trying to make more money? I
| would disagree with that.
| Willish42 wrote:
| > I think if you claim that this makes Apple evil then
| you would also need to argue that most of capitalism is
| evil.
|
| I mean, surely a mixed bag, and I still participate in it
| regardless, but pretty much, yeah.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-mining-children-
| trfn/...
|
| https://www.culawreview.org/journal/child-labor-and-the-
| huma...
| spacecadet wrote:
| Exactly :)
|
| Im just some punk trying to have a good time with some
| spicy comments on HN. It's ok to both hate and exist
| within capitalism. It requires a certain level of pain
| (masochism) to survive that existence, or dare to enjoy
| it, while also raging against it.
| pxmpxm wrote:
| apple silicone doesn't need ram /half the people on HN
| flenserboy wrote:
| 8gb is pretty bad. I have an M2 Pro with 16gb, & that limit
| is regularly pushed, & that without regularly pushing things
| hard, resource-wise (then again, I've seen plenty of people
| on both PCs & Macs shut down whatever applications they
| weren't actively using when they switched between them. If
| testing shows that to be really common, I could see 8gb being
| plenty for the majority of users. Crazy user patterns, to be
| sure, but to each their own). If I get an M3, it will have 36
| (or whatever Minis will have available) just for the
| headroom.
| tanx16 wrote:
| It also supports exactly 1 external display.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Literally the only reason I can't use my work MacBook for any
| work that isn't just testing Safari support. I was even ready
| to tolerate the terrible ram quantity given it's so friggin'
| insanely fast at javascript.
| PedroBatista wrote:
| Hey don't be stingy yourself, Tim's people said "it's the
| perfect MacBook for students and aspiring musicians.."!
|
| Seriously, you can't make up this stuff..
| Spivak wrote:
| What do you mean, have you set foot on a college campus this
| decade? It's a sea of macbooks. A $1500 sticker price isn't
| stopping people.
| jordanreger wrote:
| I proudly use an M1 Mac Mini but the fact that they're so
| full of themselves constantly makes me laugh(?)
| nextos wrote:
| Here in EU, the price I get in the local Apple Store is 2029EUR
| = $2153.
| throwaway019254 wrote:
| You will need to convince your politicians to lower import
| duties and taxes.
|
| And that $1599 USD is without taxes. So not the whole US has
| this price. It was always worth for me to travel to Oregon to
| have zero tax.
| 3c6bYDXLMj wrote:
| I think you mean, convince politicians to allow for the
| ridiculous tax-excluded display pricing that's prolific in
| the US.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| Well the average VAT in Europe is about twice as high if
| not more than the average sales tax in the US.
|
| So I'd rather have to do some basic math but save 10% (of
| course different tax rates only partially explain the
| price difference, it still is significantly more
| expensive in Europe without VAT)
| sib wrote:
| Why is it ridiculous to allow for tax-excluded display of
| pricing? You couldn't run a TV or newspaper ad with tax-
| included pricing in the US since there are so many
| different taxing jurisdictions here (more than 13,000, as
| of early 2023).
|
| Perhaps what's ridiculous is that we have so many
| different taxing jurisdictions.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > ridiculous tax-excluded display pricing
|
| Why is that ridiculous? I don't pay sales tax, what else
| would you have them advertise?
| Detrytus wrote:
| I think this is brilliant: let the people know how much
| of the price actually goes to the company, and how much
| to the government. Helps people make an informed decision
| on who's to blame for high prices of everything.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| Even without the taxes it costs ~$200 more in the EU.
| Admittedly mandatory 2 year warranty might play a role
| Detrytus wrote:
| This, plus a risk of EUR/USD exchange rate going wrong
| way in the next year.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| It usually comes with a 2 year warranty, which adds to the
| costs.
| Macha wrote:
| Here's some example US->EU Markups for other laptops in the
| same (EU) price range, sold direct by manufacturers to
| Ireland (list price to list price, so tax excl in US, tax
| incl in EU):
|
| - Macbook Pro (M3, 8GB RAM, 512 GB Storage): $1549 ->
| EUR2049 ($2179) = 40% Markup
|
| - Dell XPS 15 (i3-13700H, RTX 4050, 16GB RAM, 512GB
| Storage): $1865 -> EUR1989 ($2110) = 13% Markup
|
| - Framework 16 (Prebuilt Performance Pro - Ryzen 7840HS,
| 16GB RAM, 512GB Storage): $1739 -> EUR1907 ($2023) = 16%
| markup
|
| Apple's EU markup is an outlier here.
| betaby wrote:
| USA/CANADA prices are without VAT/sales taxes.
| meling wrote:
| Is that with or without VAT? The US always gives prices
| without VAT, since different states have different rates.
| nextos wrote:
| With VAT, I think most EU countries mandate advertised
| prices to include VAT.
|
| Still, US sales tax is low. EU is >= ~20% almost
| everywhere.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Sales tax is usually ~7% or more, so $2,029 * 1.07 =
| $2,171.
| dottjt wrote:
| That's what happens when there's no competition. Come up with
| an equivalent product with more RAM at the same price and I'll
| buy it.
|
| Sadly (or perhaps gladly, depending on your perspective), there
| just is no equivalent to a macbook for many people.
| linguae wrote:
| Yup, it seems that the "Apple tax" has gone up quite a bit
| since Apple shifted toward soldered RAM and storage for their
| products. You get excellent Apple Silicon chips with their
| performance and energy efficiency, as well as the most
| polished desktop OS (macOS), but it comes at a steep price,
| especially at non-base configurations. There seems to be
| plenty of deals for base-config Macs at places like Amazon
| and Costco, but if you want 24GB or 32GB of RAM, it seems
| that no deals can be found; you must pay full price for a
| custom configuration from Apple.
|
| I was a long-time Mac user. I remember when my 2006 MacBook
| cost less than comparable PC laptops. My last Mac purchase
| was a refurbished 2013 Mac Pro I purchased from Apple in
| 2017; since 2021 I've switched to PCs. While I love the
| configuration choices and expandability of PCs, the operating
| system situation leaves much to be desired, in my opinion.
| The shenanigans Microsoft continues to pull with Windows as
| well as the Sisyphean development cycle of the Linux desktop
| ecosystem (systemd, Wayland, etc.) makes me peek at Apple
| whenever there's an announcement, but the steep prices for a
| Mac configuration that fits my needs are too much for me, and
| so I remain a PC user.
| dottjt wrote:
| Definitely the main thing preventing me from moving on from
| Mac is how bad Windows and Linux is.
|
| Around 6 months ago I actually bought a beefy desktop PC to
| play around with, dual booting both Windows and Linux and
| they were just terrible. The default keyboard shortcuts on
| Windows are a joke (not to mention, the lack of an
| additional modifier key which is present with mac, which
| makes shortcuts more difficult than it needs to be).
|
| Linux on the other hand, was so limited. People then argue
| that Linux is customizable, but I spent forever trying to
| customise it and half the time, the modifications literally
| don't work at all. I assume because there are so many
| distros and the eco-system is so fragmented that something
| is almost guaranteed to break.
| eviks wrote:
| What is superior about Mac shortcuts? They seem to be
| just as inconvenient and requiring a rebind on both
| systems (though given how relatively easy it is for the
| basics strange it's a barrier to switching)
| dottjt wrote:
| Having an additional dedicated modifier key is night and
| day in terms of creating shortcuts.
|
| I don't see how they're equivalent. F2 is vastly inferior
| to pressing the enter key to renaming a file. Alt + F4 to
| close a window as opposed to cmd + w.
|
| Can you name shortcuts that are more convenient on
| Windows than on Mac?
| eviks wrote:
| > Can you name shortcuts that are more convenient on
| Windows than on Mac?
|
| That wasn't my argument
|
| > They seem to be just as inconvenient and requiring a
| rebind on both systems
|
| But they exist: Screenshot with PrtScn (or even Windows
| key + Shift + S) is better than the 3/4 Mac ones
|
| > F2 is vastly inferior to pressing the enter key to
| renaming a file.
|
| It's actually close to objectively better (though not a
| good one):
|
| - Enter is a side-ways-stretch pinky key, so one of the
| worst keys out there (Backspace is worse since it's
| diagonal stretch)
|
| - F2 is a middle-finger vertical key, so more convenient
|
| Besides, this blocks opening files with Enter in the dumb
| Mac file manager, so add that to the downsides of
| superior Mac shortcuts
| dottjt wrote:
| Fair enough. I guess ultimately it comes down to what
| you're used to and what you prefer.
|
| I think more than anything, it's difficult to discredit
| something that you don't actively use and aren't
| completely familiar with. Like I'm just saying Windows is
| shit because it's not Mac, but that's disingenuous
| because I don't actively use Windows as my main OS. But
| hey, if you like Windows, use Windows. If you like Mac,
| use Mac.
| d3w4s9 wrote:
| I am sure if look closely at Windows laptops you can find
| plenty of competition. Of course the screen and the speakers
| are not as good and battery life is shorter, but if you can
| look over that (and I find most people outside HN don't
| really care) you can go pretty far with a premium Windows
| laptop (XPS/ThinkPad/HP EliteBook).
| m3kw9 wrote:
| It's actually enough for light work, but you can get more ram
| just pony
| sillywalk wrote:
| :(
|
| I think the base MBP from 2015 had 8GB.
| linguae wrote:
| What's even worse are the upgrade prices: $200 to go to 16GB
| and $400 to go to 24GB. Anything more than that requires
| upgrading to the M3 Pro model, which has a base price of $1999
| and a base 18GB of RAM. Upgrading to 36GB costs an additional
| $400.
|
| I waited for today's announcement because I'm in the market for
| a laptop with 32GB of RAM. Today's announcement looked really
| tempting! However, $2399 + AppleCare + sales tax for the 36GB
| M3 Pro MacBook Pro is too much for me, and so it looks like
| it's either a refurbished M2, a Framework laptop, or a ThinkPad
| for me.
| varispeed wrote:
| Given how much money Apple has, this is simple profiteering.
| Something governments should look at and come at Apple hard,
| given this behaviour is inflationary.
| seec wrote:
| I agree and I think it's going to happen eventually. At least
| something is going to happen. It already looks like customers
| have been a bit wiser and stopped buying the most egregiously
| priced models. They are running their computer division to
| the ground with their outrageous financial mastermind
| strategy. They put up a good marketing front for their
| proprietary technology but there is no serious advantage to
| their stuff anymore. Most prosumer performance focused
| customers are switching or are thinking about it.
|
| You just need patience and enjoy the fall. Just a few years
| and soon enough nobody is going to care developing stuff for
| their platform, it will be mostly empty shells, but at least
| they are pretty, I guess. Patience my friend, karma will do
| its thing eventually...
| adocomplete wrote:
| I purchased a fully maxed out M2 Max MacBook Pro when it was
| announced like 6 months ago. I knew it was going to be outdated
| eventually, but within 6 months, wow. Did not expect that.
| chii wrote:
| i mean, if the machine does the job you purchased it for, is it
| really outdated? Unless the job it is doing is to be the best
| and latest, as a status symbol...
| spike021 wrote:
| Yeah, I still have an M1 Mini and it does everything I ask of
| it pretty handily. The most intense work being rendering
| edited photos out of Lightroom while watching videos and web
| browsing around the same time.
| adocomplete wrote:
| Oh I'm super happy with it - it has handled everything I've
| thrown at it and then some and I'm not planning on upgrading
| anytime soon. But I feel like with the M2 Pro's having such a
| short shelf life, what that means for long term support.
| gumby wrote:
| Given Apple's history and California law, I wouldn't worry
| that your M2 will have a short lifespan.
| rl3 wrote:
| On the bright side:
|
| https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Feature-
| Support#m2-p...
| cjpearson wrote:
| I doubt it means anything. The 3rd gen iPad was superseded
| within 6 months, but it still had 7.5 years of support.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Lessens the resale value at the very least.
| artdigital wrote:
| I use a maxed-out M1 Max and have 0 complaints. There was never
| a task where I felt the memory or CPU performance was not
| enough
| moralestapia wrote:
| Same here, battery lasts for a long while and it never gets
| hot, which is a big deal for me as I use it on my lap for
| long periods of time.
|
| When I bought it, I knew it was going to be a laptop that
| I'll keep for at least 5 years. So far, it still feels like
| new.
| smith7018 wrote:
| I have the same M1 Max as a personal machine and just got a
| maxed out M2 Max for work. The M2 Max does feel faster
| through daily use but that could also be related to the new
| install?
| artdigital wrote:
| I periodically reinstall mine and keep the battery healthy
| mayoff wrote:
| You can feel slightly less bad. M2 Max was announced in
| January, 10 months ago.
| tomr75 wrote:
| I have an m1 max and I'm more than happy. Until local LLMs work
| really well on these chips I don't see a reason to upgrade
| nortonham wrote:
| depends on how you define "outdated" i guess
| jdprgm wrote:
| I don't understand why they don't update the entire lineup
| whenever a new chip comes out, especially if really only swapping
| the chip in the macbook pro and imac here.
|
| On a separate note does anyone have any insight on how unified
| memory compares to vram in the context of machine learning
| performance? Considering an H100 with 80GB costs like $30k a
| maxed out macbook pro with 128gb unified memory for $5k is
| interesting. Is it remotely comparable or compelling for large
| models considering realistically most prosumers are capped at the
| 24gb nvidia cards for anything resembling a reasonable budget.
| osti wrote:
| They just updated their macbook air and mac studios and mac
| pros like 6 months ago? If they updated right now, the previous
| owners would feel utterly screwed over.
| jdalgetty wrote:
| Yup I bought an m2 mbp about 3 weeks ago.
| TylerE wrote:
| Feels like it's moved super fast. I just bought an M1
| Studio earlier this year.
| nomel wrote:
| Almost four years now, for M1. I get the impression that
| people are used to Intel's stagnation that we were stuck
| with for some time.
| Jensson wrote:
| And more importantly, these improvements are mostly
| thanks to TSMC's progress. You could predict the M3
| already late 2022 when TSMC announced that they were
| starting mass production of their 3nm process. We knew
| that it would be a huge improvement based on the specs we
| had back then and roughly how long it takes to ramp up.
|
| https://pr.tsmc.com/english/news/2986
| icedchai wrote:
| Only 3, unless you're counting the developer boxes? M1
| machines were released in November 2020. However, M1 Pro
| and M1 Max were released only 2 years ago. Things are
| definitely picking up now...
| 01100011 wrote:
| Right but why did they just update them then? Why not do it
| earlier or wait for the M3?
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Not even. If you ordered a non-baseline M2 Ultra Studio at
| launch, you likely didn't receive it til the first week of
| August. So we're a week shy of three months. So I'm glad for
| not being screwed, I think. Although who is to say they're
| not just being sat on (M3 Max chips)...
| nomel wrote:
| This is a perspective that comes from stagnation. Tech is
| progressing again, finally. This is normal for tech, and a
| good thing.
| EthicalSimilar wrote:
| Right? I've just setup my office and for now I'm using my MBP
| hooked up to a couple of Studio Displays - which I adore for
| software development. I was planning on picking up a Mac Mini
| or Mac Studio so that I could still have the MBP spare.
|
| Maybe not. It's a bit of a pain having to unplug and replug
| everything in, not to mention having windows and such shuffle
| around each time.
| smith7018 wrote:
| It's probably due to a combination of the processor manufacture
| rate and the quarterly sales boost they get throughout the year
| Willish42 wrote:
| Speculating, but I'd wager it's to clear out existing inventory
| by phasing out the old chips on other SKUs over time. E.g., you
| start with the expensive Macbook Pro models when you have fewer
| M3 chips in production, since those will sell slowly, and then
| you clear out your remaining M2 inventory in the Air lines
| while waiting for a "refresh" when M3 production is more ramped
| up.
|
| I have no idea what Apple's sales are for the macbooks or if
| Airs sell more than Pros, etc., but they're definitely making
| profit this way to be this consistent in their approach.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Depends on if you're talking about training performance or
| inference performance. It's probably a decent deal for
| inference on such large models, but I doubt it's anywhere near
| competitive for training. In the 'consumer' space there's also
| the A6000 with 48GB for ~$4k.
| nateb2022 wrote:
| The M2 Ultra tops out at 800GB/s unified memory bandwidth. A
| 4090, on the other hand, has 1,008 GB/s. On the PC side, dual-
| channel DDR4-6400 offers a bandwidth of 102 GB/s.
| lukasb wrote:
| They're not really directly comparable due to the
| architectural differences, right? For pure rendering
| workflows I'm sure the 4090 is faster, but for anything that
| hits the CPU ...
| spookie wrote:
| Yes, the tiled-based architecture of their "GPU" is
| undeniably less performant. Even comparing to lesser GPUs.
| zeusk wrote:
| Nvidia is tile based since Maxwell
| spookie wrote:
| Yes, I should've been more specific. Mobile GPUs often
| employed in ARM architectures often use a technique
| called "Tile-Based Deferred Rendering" (TBDR). This
| involves not just splitting the frame into tiles but also
| delaying the actual shading operations. This two-step
| approach minimizes overdraw but can create bottlenecks in
| scenes with intricate geometry or advanced lighting,
| shadows, and reflections.
|
| Nvidia's approach doesn't have this.
| cztomsik wrote:
| Why exactly is tile-based a bad idea? Most rendering
| engines are tile-aware already.
| spookie wrote:
| See my response to the sibling post
| iAMkenough wrote:
| I guess the question is: in terms of performance per watt,
| how valuable is the "unified" aspect?
| spookie wrote:
| Bandwidth means much less if those numbers aren't crunched
| faster.
| wrsh07 wrote:
| I expect it's a combination:
|
| 1. Engineering bandwidth (it's work to upgrade a lineup! They
| probably need at least a year)
|
| 2. Manufacturing bandwidth - they probably spent the first half
| of the year manufacturing the 3nm iphone processor while
| researching the mbp processor. I expect it's difficult to ramp
| manufacturing on many chips simultaneously
|
| 3. Sure, consider the demand side. If my parents are going to
| buy a new laptop and a new phone this year, I think they would
| be more likely to do that 6 months apart. Similarly, I expect
| keeping a cadence of announce products a,b,c in this quarter
| and d,e,f in that quarter helps keep apple in the news (for
| good/exciting things)
|
| Wrt machine learning: I can't wait for the results to come out
| for this once we can get our hands on it
| ajross wrote:
| > 2. Manufacturing bandwidth - they probably spent the first
| half of the year manufacturing the 3nm iphone processor while
| researching the mbp processor. I expect it's difficult to
| ramp manufacturing on many chips simultaneously
|
| Sort of. It's that the whole concept of a "ramp" implies that
| manufacturing things (not just chips!) starts expensive and
| risky and get cheaper and reliable over time as people work
| out the kinks in the various processes.
|
| The M2 is mature. TSMC can make them reliably and in high
| quantity at low marginal price. Why would you *not* sell a
| product like that if there's a market for it?
| MBCook wrote:
| Also cost.
|
| Apple introduced the 15 inch MacBook Air on June 6th.
|
| If they upgraded it to the M3 right now that machine would
| have only lasted 4 months and 4 days.
|
| Sure they could do it, but how many sales are they really
| losing because they haven't? People buying the Air are not
| exactly looking for the absolute best in technology. They're
| probably much more likely to be price sensitive, and putting
| a brand new M3 in would likely make that worse.
|
| So if you consider that you have to make new boxes and
| manuals and new hardware and test it and change the lines and
| everything else... what are the chances you would come out
| positive after such a short amount of time?
|
| It would make some more sense for the 13 inch air which is
| about 18 months old, but again if you don't have to maybe you
| keep selling the M2 for another six months.
| CaliforniaKarl wrote:
| Besides wanting to clear out existing M1/M2 capacity, I don't
| there's enough M3 stock right now.
|
| I forget how many fabs TSMC has that have 3-nanometer
| capability, but it's gotta be low. Apple's supposedly got _all_
| of TSMC's capacity[0], but I doubt it's enough.
|
| [0]: Apple is saving "billions" on chips thanks to unique deal
| with TSMC | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37040722
| bmitc wrote:
| Regarding updating the lineup, I would guess that it is
| completely intentional to keep the carrot just out of reach
| across the lineup. Each new chip release rotates the product
| categories in just the right way to keep the consumers
| consuming.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| It makes a world of sense if you think of it from a logistics
| point of view, especially considering Apple sells insane
| volumes of everything they sell.
|
| It costs less to manufacture the current generation ship and
| the last generation chip concurrently, it allows them to push
| the newest generation chip out the door faster without running
| out of supply or having to open up excessive production lines.
|
| >H100 vs apple silicon
|
| while it's only one spec, H100 has over 2TB/s of memory
| bandwidth and Apple silicon caps out at 400GB/s. H100 in
| general kicks the pants out of Apple silicon performance and
| has far more support. These parts aren't really in the same
| league but Apple Silicon has become a popular hobbyist choice
| for LLM inferencing.
|
| Also see: The Jetson AGX Orin 64gb, Nvidia RTX A6000 48gb, AMD
| Radeon Pro W7900 48gb, two nvlinked 24gb 3090's.
| dcchambers wrote:
| My gut tells me the Macbook Air sales have been cannibalizing
| Macbook pro sales.
|
| For the M1 and M2 generations, the airs released in the fall
| and the pros a few months later in the spring. The airs have
| gotten so good that many people that would have gotten the more
| expensive (and more lucrative) pros got airs instead.
| ls612 wrote:
| M3 Max looks like the top tier GPU is a 40 series rival am I
| missing something?
| base698 wrote:
| Also, how's pytorch?
| foolfoolz wrote:
| driver and developer support
| choppaface wrote:
| It's not a 40 series rival without CUDA. Probably great at
| inference though.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Why do you say that? I'm sure its good but why do you
| specifically call out the 40s?
| babuloseo wrote:
| So MacBook Air chads win this round.
| throw0101a wrote:
| I'd prefer if there'd be higher RAM limits for each variant:
|
| * ~~Ultra~~ Max probably has an adequate limit with "up to" 128GB
|
| * Pro would be nicer to have "up to" (say) 64GB, rather than
| 'only' 36GB
|
| * Base perhaps "up to" 32GB, rather than 24GB
|
| There are some situations (running a VM or three with different
| OS(es)) where there really isn't a substitute for more bits.
| jshier wrote:
| Max is the one with the 128GB limit. We'll see what the limit
| is for the M3 Ultra, possibly 256GB.
| kube-system wrote:
| IMO, if I'm doing that heavy of a workload, I'd rather SSH to a
| server instead of trying to do it on hardware optimized to work
| on a battery.
| throw0101a wrote:
| It doesn't have to be "heavy": just running a browser in a
| different OS may need a minimal amount of RAM (even if the
| 1-2 assigned vCPU/cores are mostly idle).
| kube-system wrote:
| 24GB or 36GB can run a browser in a VM.
| hmottestad wrote:
| It's also nice to just run it locally. No need to move your
| code and data. Debugging is a breeze. And you don't need to
| pay for a server and a laptop.
|
| But naturally, if you want to run on 128 cores and 4TB of
| ram, then you can't do that in a laptop anyway.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| I would rather avoid swapping between machines because it's
| unnecessary complexity when laptops are already so fast.
| superkuh wrote:
| I just hope they stop selling 8GB variants entirely. All those
| do is make job security for tech support people.
| MBCook wrote:
| They didn't.
|
| Not surprised. But I agree with you. Especially for anything
| with the word "Pro" on it.
| smrtinsert wrote:
| Completely disagree. Happily run Intellij with various
| containers doing dev work on my 8gb m1.
| superkuh wrote:
| Yes, you're a tech person. I mean when non-tech people run
| them and try to use them for Adobe Suite and a browser at
| the same time, etc.
| amelius wrote:
| This is cool, where can I buy the chips and read their
| datasheets?
| kube-system wrote:
| "unveil" !== "give you datasheets and provide components"
|
| e.g. https://www.space.com/spacex-drone-ship-a-shortfall-of-
| gravi...
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I don't think the datasheets are available but you can buy them
| at https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| I just want the chip, not the computer.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I think the chip is the computer
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| That's the problem.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| What problem are you trying to solve?
| mepian wrote:
| The problem of using an Nvidia GPU, maybe.
| _zoltan_ wrote:
| it's really not. just a made up one on your side.
| coldtea wrote:
| It's even better, you can buy the whole machine, with a great
| monitor, connectors, a keyboard, and so on!
| amelius wrote:
| I want to build a cluster and run it in a data center.
| coldtea wrote:
| And I want a free pony, but nobody obliges!
| russelg wrote:
| Then wait for the M3 Mac Mini and get a fleet of those
| instead.
| amelius wrote:
| And let my sysadmin type their personal Apple ID password
| on all of them?
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| This question is in bad faith, and you know it. You know Apple
| doesn't sell chips.
| 300bps wrote:
| How did Apple become so successful making high-end CPU chips on
| their own so quickly?
| PedroBatista wrote:
| What is "quickly" for you?
|
| They don't "make" them, they design it.
| beckingz wrote:
| Probably billions of dollars in R&D and extremely clear
| executive guidance?
| sosodev wrote:
| They've been doing this for years. It was just mobile only at
| first.
| kccoder wrote:
| They've been designing the A-series chips in iPhone and iPad
| since the A4 in 2010.
| CodeArtisan wrote:
| A4 was still using ARM cores from Samsung. A6 was the first
| SoC with Apple cores.
| kube-system wrote:
| 20 years ago, Palo Alto Semiconductor was founded, and 15 years
| ago, Apple bought them in order to start building their own
| CPUs.
| jws wrote:
| Bring in people with expertise, buy outside expertise where you
| can, focus on the product you actually want instead of the
| product that will appeal to every possible use case for every
| possible customer that the chip marketing team can imagine,
| don't sweat where you can put the margin line between chip and
| system integrator, because they are both you.
|
| I suspect any $2,600,000,000,000 company could pull it off, if
| they moved first.
| christophilus wrote:
| It wasn't that quickly if you consider the years of iPhone
| chips leading up to it.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Not quickly. People have been predicting this since the PA Semi
| purchase.
| CodeArtisan wrote:
| Apple acquired PA Semi in 2008 then Intrinsity in 2010. They
| have been using their own ARM cores since 2012 with the A6 SoC
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.A._Semi
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsity
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A6
| jshier wrote:
| They first spent 10 years making their own mobile chips.
| tgmatt wrote:
| I don't think we're comparing apples to apples here (excuse the
| pun). These chips have something like 10% of the instructions
| that a typical x86 chip does. Once the big CPU players start
| producing the same kind of chips, I greatly expect Apple's
| power to performance advantage to drop significantly, if not be
| overtaken by the likes of AMD, etc.
| xcv123 wrote:
| > I greatly expect Apple's power to performance advantage to
| drop significantly, if not be overtaken by the likes of AMD,
| etc
|
| Nope. Apple and AMD both use TSMC for manufacturing. It's all
| made by the same factory. AMD does not have the advantage
| there. Apple buys the most capacity on the most advanced
| process nodes since they place much bigger orders (Apple also
| has 10x more cash than AMD).
| hbbio wrote:
| So quickly 10 years in the making.
| fidotron wrote:
| The iPhone chip was seriously competitive with laptops 2-3
| years before the M1, it's just that due to the software
| environment few people noticed what was going on.
|
| The real question is why Apple left it so long. They clearly
| wanted the first generation to be a clear success, but they
| could have probably pulled this off faster had they wanted to.
| addaon wrote:
| What's with the 36 GB option? The other memory configs (16 GB, 64
| GB) are still clean powers of two. Size suggests that they're
| using ECC-capable memory but using the extra width intended to
| support ECC for data... but why would this only apply to a single
| size? Part availability?
|
| EDIT: Digging this a bit, it's not (one or more) 72-bit wide
| busses with 2^32 words as I'd expect as a gray-beard, it's
| (probably) six 32-bit wide busses with 6 GiB per bus; and this
| use of 1.5 * 2^N deep memories has become relatively common with
| the use of IC stacking, with 12 power-of-two sized ICs stacked in
| a single package (instead of the more "comfortable" 8 high or 16
| high stacks of the same ICs giving powers of two).
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| 64 GB chips that failed testing? That's one way to increase
| yield.
|
| Clive Sinclair did that trick back in the 80s.
| willk wrote:
| Intel and AMD do that now with processors.
| minimaxir wrote:
| Apple did binning back with the original M1. (either 7-core
| or 8-core models)
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Uncle Clive.
| addaon wrote:
| Doesn't look like it. Memory ICs are tested before packaging,
| and then are packaged in stacks. While I'm sure there's some
| loss in packaging, probably not enough to justify this level
| of binning; and most of the failures that would happen at
| this stage would potentially interfere with signal integrity
| for the whole stack.
|
| Instead, it looks like after the 8-high stacks that I knew
| about, manufacturers went to 12-high stacks. There are
| 16-high stacks available too, but looks like there's a lot
| more backside thinning needed to keep the same Z height so
| cost goes up disproportionately and 12-highs are a reasonably
| sweet spot for capacity per dollar.
| wtallis wrote:
| There are non power of two sized DRAM _dies_ in production
| these days; it 's not purely a matter of stacking (and
| stacking doesn't make it any easier to have something in
| between one die per channel and two dies per channel). You
| can get 24GB single-rank and 48GB dual-rank DDR5 UDIMMs
| compared to a year ago when the options were 16GB and 32GB;
| no stacking at all, just going from 16Gbit to 24Gbit per
| die. But LPDDR has been doing this for longer due to demand
| in the smartphone market.
| stetrain wrote:
| They've been doing more multiples of 6/12 lately, I supposed
| it's related to the available chip sizes for the LPDDR5X.
|
| M2 and M3 go up to 24GB
|
| M3 Pro is available in 18GB and 36GB
|
| M3 Max is available in 36GB, 48GB, 64GB, 96GB, and 128GB
| rickette wrote:
| Why do I need to select the most expensive M3 Max version
| (the one with 16 cores) to get 48 or 64 gigs of RAM. The M3
| Max with 14 cores only allow 36 or 96 gigs. Just let me
| choose 14 cores and 64 gigs.
| stetrain wrote:
| In previous gens they had different die sizes with
| different physical numbers of memory controllers and
| connections. Guessing it's similar here.
|
| Rumor is Apple bought all of TSMC's initial 3nm production.
| They are probably yield limited on full featured chips.
| spookie wrote:
| Most likely. Let's not kid ourselves, there would be more
| players sharing those if they felt it was worth it.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| You are in their target market of who they can really
| squeeze since you want something a little bit special.
| Their memory pricing has always been absurd. Even on an
| older MacBook it was often +$200 for something silly like a
| 16GB SODIMM that costs $50 at the store. I still think
| their build quality , screen quality and OS are pretty much
| unmatched.
| tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote:
| It's worse. The configurator is labeled with a relative
| price upgrade but an absolute RAM size. The actual deal
| is +$200 for +8 GB RAM which is outrageous.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| Sure, but they aren't charging you anywhere close to
| cost. It's painful for a company that size to add an
| option like this. Plus they know they can add a chunk on
| because if you're in the market for that option, they
| know how much you want it.
| turquoisevar wrote:
| The same discussion about cost/value comes up every
| single time.
|
| Often, people will search for a random part that fulfills
| the same function, sort by cheapest, and then let their
| indignation run wild, completely ignoring the difference
| in form factor, other properties, or even quality.
|
| That said, it's no secret that Apple adds a healthy
| margin _and_ an "inconvenience" tax.
|
| In Apple's ideal world, all people would purchase a
| handful of mass-produced configurations. This saves them
| in manufacturing costs, assembly costs, and logistical
| costs.
|
| Apple also spent an ungodly amount on engineering to
| "make more with less".
|
| In the long run, this saves them money on lower-capacity
| components, especially at the quality and with the
| ancillary properties they're purchased. This is why spec
| for spec their iPhones and Macs look underpowered
| compared to competitors while performing the same if not
| better.
|
| So, from their perspective, it's "fair" to upcharge the
| "spec peepers" and professionals who really need it. The
| latter is generally less price-sensitive.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Because you'll pay if you're in the market for that much
| memory.
| stetrain wrote:
| Wild guess but if the base chip has 3 channels and the
| higher binned chip has 4 channels:
|
| 3x6GB = 18GB
|
| 3x12GB = 36GB
|
| 3x32GB = 96GB
|
| 4x12GB = 48GB
|
| 4x16GB = 64GB
|
| 4x32GB = 128GB
| jxy wrote:
| But the bandwidth goes like, 100 GB/s, 150 GB/s, 300
| GB/s, 400 GB/s. Given either CPU or GPU alone can't
| saturate bandwidth (assuming M3 the same as M1 and M2),
| perhaps the memory controller or the chip layout is to
| blame.
| claytongulick wrote:
| This kind of blows my mind.
|
| I'm running the lowest spec m1 with 8 gigs of ram for my
| daily driver.
|
| I frequently have tens of chrome browser tabs open across
| multiple profiles, multiple chrome debuggers, at least two
| or three VS code instances, multiple high memory nodejs
| processes, video conferencing, screen sharing and building
| code all at the same time - and the thing runs smoothly
| without a hiccup. And does it on battery! For a full work
| day, at least.
|
| Weighs less than a pixie's fart.
|
| I can't even imagine the capabilities the new m3 max has
| with that kind of memory and power available.
|
| It's going to pinch, but I guess I'll be finding out in a
| few weeks.
| abhinavk wrote:
| What's your swap used and memory pressure in Activity
| Monitor? Regarding Chromium browsers, I have noticed that
| they tend to unload tabs more aggressively these days.
| Osiris wrote:
| I have the same one and it's neigh unusable. The memory
| is constantly maxed out and it freezes frequently while
| swapping. I can't use it. It's in a drawer somewhere.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Maybe it's either triple channel or bank switching? Mac Pro
| 5,1 were triple channel too.
| easton wrote:
| There's also a 18GB M3 Pro config of the MacBook Pro. Very
| unusual.
| isametry wrote:
| One and a half 12-chip?
|
| Or a 12 plus a binned 8?
| kccoder wrote:
| It also appears they've dropped the memory bandwidth from
| 200GB/s on the M1/M2 Pro to 150MB/s on the M3 Pro, and you have
| to upgrade to the tippy top M3 Max chip to get the full 400MB/s
| bandwidth experienced on the M1/M2 Max chips.
| gtirloni wrote:
| I remember getting one of those shiny aluminum MacBooks in
| 2009. Then MacBooks turned plastic and the aluminum ones
| became MacBook Pro's. Is this a thing Apple does? I'm not an
| Apple customer for many years now.
| nomel wrote:
| Apple hasn't had any plastic devices for some time now.
| gtirloni wrote:
| I'm referring to the 2010 polycarbonate one here:
| https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook/specs/macbook-
| cor...
|
| Not sure why my initial comment is -4 votes right now.
| What am I remembering wrong?
| dmix wrote:
| Nothing it's a perfectly fine question, just maybe off
| topic.
| amarshall wrote:
| The plastic MacBooks were only made 2006-2010.
| gtirloni wrote:
| I bought an aluminum one in January 2009 if my memory
| serves me right. It was a nice machine, wasn't it first
| aluminum MacBook?
|
| I don't think it was the Pro version (if it even
| existed). I certainly didn't have money to buy anything
| but the cheapest model.
| isametry wrote:
| (Just pointing out that all these numbers are in GB/s)
| ksec wrote:
| It has nothing to do with ECC. They are using LPDDR5X memory,
| and if you follow Android phones these number shouldn't be
| surprising.
| fastball wrote:
| I prefer that tbh. If I'm frequently saturating 16GB of memory
| in the previous gen and it is time for an upgrade, I probably
| don't need literally double the memory, but 24GB would be nice.
| LeSaucy wrote:
| OK they got me, time to upgrade off my i9 MacBook Pro.
| osti wrote:
| Pretty underwhelming a bit like the A16 release. They basically
| upped the frequency in A16 and that's how they got their single
| core performance improvement, not much of an IPC increase to
| speak of. Looks like the it will be the same story here given the
| performance numbers Apple gave. A16 also came with a power
| consumption increase so the 3nm process from TSMC is
| disappointing as well.
| frant-hartm wrote:
| Isn't this typical tick-tock move? Don't change too many things
| at once - they are moving to the new process so probably not
| too many changes in the architecture, only increase in
| frequency for same power consumption allowed by the better
| process.
| osti wrote:
| Now it's more like tick-tock-tock with m1, m2 and m3.
| faizshah wrote:
| It's kind of strange their benchmark for "Machine Learning
| Programmers" is "Simulation of Dynamical Systems in MATLAB."
| Seems like they could have capitalized better by using a
| generative ai inference benchmark.
| behnamoh wrote:
| Maybe they know M3 is not up for that kind of task.
| bredren wrote:
| Possibly this, but also consider Apple is playing major catch
| up with generative AI. I could see avoiding mention just to
| keep it a bit further from the mind of reviewers.
| behnamoh wrote:
| Could be, but people are already using M2 Ultra for LLM
| stuff and like it. Seems like Apple would double down on
| that.
| bredren wrote:
| I agree the machines have been good to run various ML
| models that aren't running on other PCs in their
| category. (Though, shrinking the resource requirements
| seems like a never ending exercise.)
|
| Apple likes to wait until it can announce something with
| a most around it. In this case, more compute isn't
| enough, I don't think.
| aurareturn wrote:
| iPhone 15 Pro NPU can do 35 TOPS. M3 can only do 18 TOPS.
| That's why they didn't focus on ML in the video.
| machinekob wrote:
| Its big question mark with 35 TOPS, because its extremly
| limited and hard to achive.
| anemoiac wrote:
| Can we use more than one external display yet?
| rwc wrote:
| Of course. Have been since M1 Max. My MacBook Pro M1 Max powers
| two external displays.
| anemoiac wrote:
| With a MBP, sure. I don't want a machine that large however.
| I have both a 14" Pro and a 15" Air that feels significantly
| smaller than its "smaller" counterpart...
| dml2135 wrote:
| Seemingly no. So far it looks like (someone please correct me
| if I'm wrong): - M3, 1 external display - M3 Pro, 2 external
| displays - M3 Max, 4 external displays
|
| This has to be a product differentiation decision at this
| point, right? Is there any serious technical limitation against
| more displays in the base chip, that Apple has not been able to
| solve in three generations?
| aduitsis wrote:
| Mac Mini with the M2 Pro can drive 3 monitors, Macbook Pro
| with the M2 Pro only 2.
| mritun wrote:
| M2 Pro can always drive 3. The MBP just has one display
| built-in, so can drive 2 more.
| dml2135 wrote:
| Unfortunately tho, iirc, clamshell mode does not get you
| the use of an additional external display.
| anemoiac wrote:
| It's frustrating. I wish they would just charge an extra $X
| for the privilege of using multiple external monitors. I like
| the form factor of the MBA as is... if I need to compromise
| on that, I might as well choose a different machine.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > I wish they would just charge an extra $X for the
| privilege of using multiple external monitors.
|
| They do, you have to pay more for an M3 Pro or M3 Max.
| jlokier wrote:
| The person you replied to wants the nicer form factor of
| the MBA with the ability to use multiple external
| displays.
|
| That combo isn't currently offered, and judging from
| today's M3 specs the next MBA won't likely offer it
| either.
|
| I assume the iMac has the same limitation, which is a bit
| of a downer for some uses. It would be nice to drive a
| second monitor and a wall-mounted TV or projector from an
| iMac in sleek a home setup.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| My bad, I missed that specification. I would agree with
| them, it would be nice if you could pay more for a
| MacBook Air with multiple external display support.
| d3w4s9 wrote:
| For context, you were able to do 2 external display with
| Macbook Air 2018-2020.
|
| ...and almost any Windows laptop at the same price point.
| dml2135 wrote:
| Same, the M2 MBA is all the power I need and I vastly
| prefer the smaller size, but the monitor issue is killer.
|
| I finally bit the bullet and bought a DisplayLink dock,
| which gets the job done, but just seems like a silly
| compromise when the Intel MBA could support 2 external
| monitors natively.
| d3w4s9 wrote:
| I hear the DisplayLink solution is very half-baked and
| has many issues. I'm going to skip mac laptops for as
| long as they don't ship a Macbook Air with dual external
| display support -- I am doing fine with Windows laptops,
| and they really have improved in performance and
| efficiency over the last few years.
| oliyoung wrote:
| I'm sitting here on an M1 Max with two external screens ..
| guax wrote:
| Careful when sitting on computers, they might brake!
| mkl wrote:
| Strange that they mostly compare performance to M1, not M2.
| Probably means it's not as much faster than M2 as they would
| like.
| EAtmULFO wrote:
| Exactly. I imagine most of the benefit of the new 3nm process
| is related to power draw. I'll bet the memory is the same stuff
| as the prior generation though, given those specs haven't
| seemed to change at all.
| ezfe wrote:
| They compared it to both, and most people upgrading will have
| an M1 so it's the more apt comparison (and of course, a bigger
| number).
| Angostura wrote:
| Don't forget that there are no M2 iMacs
| guax wrote:
| Its on the release linked. 15% faster than m2 for P-cores and
| 30% for e-cores, which is misleading, because it has 2 more of
| them so they're not necessarily that much faster.
|
| For me, still on m1 is good news, one more generation I can
| skip without feeling too much FOMO. Graphics improvement are
| irrelevant since im not gaming on them and cpu difference is
| fine for being just <40% overall.
| edandersen wrote:
| The new M3 base model, along with only supporting one external
| display also loses a Thunderbolt port. A new shell / chassis just
| to remove a port. Courage!
| ezfe wrote:
| The M3 base model replaces a computer with two thunderbolt
| ports. It now has MagSafe, 2 thunderbolt ports, HDMI, and SDXC.
|
| How is that a downgrade?
| hnburnsy wrote:
| >Rendering speeds are now up to 2.5x faster than on the M1 family
| of chips.1 The CPU performance cores and efficiency cores are 30
| percent and 50 percent faster than those in M1, respectively, and
| the Neural Engine is 60 percent faster than the Neural Engine in
| the M1 family of chips.
|
| WTH, was Apple sandbagging on the M1?
| chipgap98 wrote:
| These are the new 3nm chips from TSMC, right?
| Jensson wrote:
| They didn't say, but since their A17 is 3nm this is almost
| guaranteed to be 3nm. The 3nm process is the big improvement,
| the M1 and M2 were TSMC 5nm and 4nm which was basically the
| same thing.
|
| The performance improvements here is roughly what you would
| expect if you knew the specs of TSMC 3nm chips.
| Detrytus wrote:
| They DID say it, right at the beginning. All the M3 chips
| are 3nm.
| TillE wrote:
| The A17 Pro benchmarks are extremely disappointing, so I
| don't think 3nm is actually doing much.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| 5nm vs 3nm and three years of progress. Intel's e-cores have
| been seeing more generation over generation uplift compared to
| their p-cores so nothing about this strikes me as anything
| unexpected.
|
| When the m1 came out details about the m3 were well known and
| that this was going to be a pretty big generation for
| performance improvements. I think the surprising thing was that
| m2 got pretty close to m3 in situations which were not as
| thermally constrained.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| thx, good info.
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| > Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max, the most advanced chips
| for a PC
|
| Nice! When can I order these most advanced PC chips for my next
| build? Do they have any kind of upgrade path for existing
| AMD/Intel users? I don't mind starting over too! Exciting times.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _When can I order these most advanced PC chips for my next
| build?_
|
| If you have several billion dollars to convince them to sell
| them for you as standalone chip, very soon!
| mepian wrote:
| I'd be very interested in a standalone ATX board with M3,
| that's the only way I'm going to buy an Apple desktop.
| jmspring wrote:
| Am I the only one shaking my head that they kept comparing the M3
| chips against M1 chips skipping M2?
|
| Just like the last product release spent more time on huffing
| their own farts (the Apple Watch is the first of its kind carbon
| negative product), there is no real innovation or something to
| garner interest for me here.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| Way more people bought in to M1 than M2, so they're a bigger
| customer base to sell to. But didn't I see something about M3
| being 2x faster than M2? I'm sure that's some BS about it being
| 2x faster in a specific benchmark. But I'm sure it's still a
| good generational improvement.
|
| Edit: I _love_ seeing what HN will downvote. Absolutely
| hilarious.
| zamalek wrote:
| I guess they are seeing too many M1s in the wild - you're
| _supposed_ to upgrade to a new Apple device a d create e-waste.
| hotnfresh wrote:
| E-waste? Apple devices retain their value really well. If you
| don't hand them down, you sell them.
| wsc981 wrote:
| Not real innovation (when comparing with Windows world) but
| having support for hardware raytracing now is definitely nice
| for games.
|
| However, then on the information page they show Myst. Doesn't
| look spectacular to be honest, probably doesn't make use of
| hardware raytracing anyways. Having a short video of a fast-
| paced shooter with hardware ray-tracing support would be more
| impressive.
|
| I guess it will take some time until games will adopt new Metal
| graphic APIs for hardware raytracing.
| sosodev wrote:
| Myst supports ray-traced reflections. I agree that it's not a
| particularly good show piece though.
| sosodev wrote:
| Are they not supposed to make comparisons? I don't understand
| what alternative you would like.
| schneems wrote:
| I understood they wanted a comparison to the M2, the most
| recent version. Most people care about "what changed since
| last version" it's disingenuous to say "X faster!! (Than an
| model out date by a year)"
| olliej wrote:
| I assume the question is why there are comparisons to M1
| instead of only having M2 comparisons.
| jdprgm wrote:
| The focus seemed particularly on people still on intel macbooks
| and selling them on upgrading. I don't think they would usually
| reference a product that outdated at this point but they
| brought it up several times highlighting 11x faster.
| cstejerean wrote:
| I think it makes sense in that the people that bought M2 are
| not likely to be in the market for an M3. The people looking to
| buy an M3 are likely upgrading from either an M1 or an older
| Intel based MBP.
| lttlrck wrote:
| The mainstream marketing for iPhone 15 is only highlighting
| that's its made from titanium... I'm sure there is some
| innovation in manufacturing, and I do love my 15, but it's
| devoid of any innovation.
| cglong wrote:
| A few years ago, I tried to figure out the battery life of the
| latest iPhone. The comparison page would only say "2 more hours
| than iPhone X", "4 more hours than iPhone 8", etc. Eventually I
| worked my way backwards to the iPhone 6 where the battery life
| was just listed as "--".
| duskwuff wrote:
| https://www.apple.com/iphone-15/specs/
|
| Scroll down to "Power and Battery", about halfway down the
| page.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| They compare to M1 because that is their target audience
| upgrades not M2.
| Jensson wrote:
| The M2 was a tiny upgrade over the M1 since the 5nm to 4nm step
| was tiny, 4nm was basically 5nm. The M3 is probably running on
| TSMC's 3nm which is a huge improvement over both their 5nm and
| 4nm processes.
| mayoff wrote:
| There's the obvious, that they want to say higher numbers.
|
| But also, I bought a 16" MacBook Pro M1 Max when it was
| announced. The M2 Max replacement was announced only 15 months
| later and didn't seem like a big enough improvement to justify
| buying. Maybe they know there are a lot of M1 owners with my
| mindset, and we're who they're pitching.
| turtlebits wrote:
| There's a slide comparing them all.
|
| https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Scree...
| xnx wrote:
| In the same way that Wikipedians rush to update the pages of
| recently dead celebrities, I'm surprised there isn't a similar
| rush to update pages like
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_silicon around events like
| this.
| renewiltord wrote:
| We do. I was just at my day job. If someone else doesn't get to
| it this evening, I'll add something.
| clouddrover wrote:
| > _And, a new media engine now includes support for AV1 decode,
| providing more efficient and high-quality video experiences from
| streaming services._
|
| It's taken years but AV1 has ended up everywhere.
| Diti wrote:
| Sadly, only a handful of GPUs out there have hardware AV1
| encoding chips. If I read the product page correctly, that new
| M3 architecture still cannot encode AV1 from hardware.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Decode everywhere is still great.
|
| Encode for h264 and HEVC was slow too. It basically never
| even happened for VP9 outside of phones, AFAIK.
| _kb wrote:
| Which is likely fine. As a codec it's weighted towards
| distribution, not live encoding.
| melikeburgers wrote:
| My favorite part was when Tim Apple teased the new M3 parmesan
| cheese grater.
|
| https://i.postimg.cc/TYpx7SVf/Screen-Shot-2023-10-30-at-8-48...
| bischofs wrote:
| They kept mentioning performance relative to intel Macs which
| makes me think there is a large cohort of people sticking to
| their x86 rigs due to compatibility. Being able to run an x86
| linux or windows VM is still a requirement for me.
| jki275 wrote:
| I'm also still running an i9. I can't justify buying a new one
| since my 2019 model is still running strong!
| lbourdages wrote:
| I can't relate.
|
| I would probably have upgraded my i9 as soon as the M1 Pros
| were announced if it hadn't been my employer's property.
|
| I had constant thermal throttling from the instant I booted
| the damn thing. Worst laptop I ever had.
| goshx wrote:
| 2019 i7 here and I'm still very happy with it. I can't
| justify the purchase.
| pier25 wrote:
| Who knows but my guess is that the x86 requirement is probably
| for a minority of users.
|
| Lots of people are probably sticking to Intel Macs simply
| because the averege user doesn't care about performance and
| will keep using a computer until it dies.
| TillE wrote:
| It's only been 3 years since the M1, most people aren't buying
| new computers that frequently.
|
| Windows for ARM runs well on Apple Silicon, and has its own
| translation layer for x86 software. It should be fine unless
| you need specific x86-only drivers.
| MBCook wrote:
| I got a new Mac at work maybe 6 to 9 months after the M1
| generation came out.
|
| I would've loved one, but some of the tools I needed did not
| work without real Intel hardware yet and there were no
| workarounds.
|
| Today there are. But because of that I had to get a new Intel
| machine. And that's going to be my machine until it reaches
| the standard replacement cycle. So I'll still have it for a
| few more years probably.
|
| By the same token a family member bought a new (to them,
| refurb) iMac maybe six months before the M1 iMac came out.
| Again I think that would've been a better computer, but it
| didn't exist. And the old computer was on its last legs and
| needed replacing.
|
| That computer does not get heavy use and will last a long
| time. It will probably get used until Apple stops updating
| Intel OSes and it starts becoming a real problem for the
| user.
| millzlane wrote:
| I'm still using mine. Parallels can only MDM enroll the mac VM
| on the intel device. Apple silicon doesn't support the feature
| of changing the serial number. So for testing mdm profiles I
| have to use it or carry two devices around.
| upon_drumhead wrote:
| https://mac.getutm.app runs just fine with x86 linux vms. I'm
| running a few ubuntu ones as we speak. It's painless and quite
| reasonably speedy.
| sosodev wrote:
| What's the deal with "dynamic caching"? I wish they would have
| talked about it more. It sounds like they're reducing memory
| allocations by only allocating what is actually needed.
| iAMkenough wrote:
| You got it. Instead of letting software developers allocate a
| static cache with overhead that eats a little into the unified
| memory, the Mac gets to decide how to dynamically allocate and
| release cache for graphics. They said it would be "transparent
| to developers," but not really sure what that means exactly.
| MBCook wrote:
| It seemed like Metal was probably measuring it under the
| covers and adjusting things as opposed to asking the
| programmer to figure it out.
| teppic wrote:
| They said it was done in hardware, so not Metal alone.
| aurareturn wrote:
| I take "transparent to developers" as something developers
| don't have to worry about. It's done automatically.
| ribit wrote:
| From what I understand this is about assigning GPU resources
| (such as register files and other on-core memory) to shaders.
| Imagine you have a complex shader that has two paths, a
| frequently taken fast one that needs X bytes of on-chip memory
| to function and a rarely taken slow path that needs Y bytes (Y
| > X). Usually this stuff is statically partitioned, so you have
| to provision Y bytes for the slow path to run this shader. With
| dynamic partitioning, the shader will only allocate Y bytes if
| the slow path is hit, which frees the resources to load up more
| concurrent shader programs and improve the shader occupancy.
|
| This stuff is only really relevant if you are dealing with
| complex uber-shaders and recursive function invocations, both
| of which are fairly common in raytracing pipelines.
| boywitharupee wrote:
| in tinygrad, the llama2 model with Metal runtime produces 1k
| kernels. this means we have to compile them all, leading to
| both startup and runtime costs from repeated compilations and
| buffer bindings. someone suggested using one megakernel to
| call the rest. could dynamic partitioning help here?
| MisterBiggs wrote:
| It's frustrating that they don't refresh the whole line at once.
| I'm in the market for a new mac mini but now I feel forced to
| hold off until it gets its refresh.
| koito17 wrote:
| One thing that left me a bit confused was the comparison against
| Intel Macs. Although I am still using an Intel 16-inch MacBook, I
| really wanted to see how the M3 fared against the M2, not Intel
| and M1. I think it's no surprise the M3 exceeds the Intel Core
| i7-9750H in basically all of Apple's own benchmarking. My real
| question, which will probably be answered next week, is how it
| compares to the generation right before it.
|
| My work laptop is a 14-inch MacBook Pro and I've been impressed
| with the battery life considering all of the containers that run
| (on Kubernetes!) as part of my dev workflow. I guess Apple
| deciding to compare Intel and M1 was to try to convince existing
| MacBook users to upgrade to the latest generation CPUs.
| pram wrote:
| There were comparisons to the M1 and M2 in the presentation,
| and indeed the linked website.
| nblgbg wrote:
| The M3 chips are 30% faster than the M2 chips for efficiency
| cores and 15% faster for performance cores. The overall
| performance is still impressive and there is no alternative
| to M*s when compared with performance per watt. But others
| have caught up, for example
| https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-9-7940hs is
| very good.
| Jensson wrote:
| > But others have caught up
|
| You mean others now got to use TSMC's 4nm process? These
| new M3 chips are probably on the 3nm process, Apple is
| still a generation ahead here.
|
| It looks like Apples aim is to always stay a generation
| ahead of its competition, I wonder how long they can keep
| that up since they aren't running their own fabs.
| blovescoffee wrote:
| They are literally on the 3nm process. They say so in the
| video.
| Jensson wrote:
| Ok, so no probably, they are on 3nm. Anyway my point that
| they are a generation ahead still stands.
| boomfunky wrote:
| Apple signed a deal with TSMC to purchase nearly all of
| their available 3nm chips for the next year. Ethical or
| not, they positioned themselves to ensure almost no
| competitors could develop on 3nm until they did first
| since no fab on earth has the scale of TSMC. They could
| ride this plan for years if it pays them.
| giantrobot wrote:
| How is Apple buying all the production slots for a
| process in any way unethical? It's not like they're
| buying them and then burying the chips in a landfill.
| They paid TSMC's asking price for production slots. AMD
| or Intel could have bought those same slots but didn't.
| TSMC has limited capacity at 3nm, it was up for sale,
| Apple bought it. Where's the ethics question?
| lostlogin wrote:
| I've seen argument for 'business ethics' before from the
| losing side. It's sometimes part of a media campaign.
| It's likely cheaper than legal action.
| ksec wrote:
| >How is Apple buying all the production slots for a
| process in any way unethical?
|
| This has been the case on HN for more than 5 years. Intel
| Fabs used to sell their industry best node to only Intel
| themselves, and charges a premium for those newer CPU. I
| guess that is unethical too.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| How is Google buying search defaults on all iPhones in
| any way unethical? It's not like they're buying them and
| then burying the searches in a landfill. They paid
| Apple's asking price for search defaults. Microsoft or
| Brave could have bought those same search defaults but
| didn't. Apple has a limited amount of search defaults on
| iPhones, it was up for sale, Google bought it. Where's
| the ethics question?
| paulmd wrote:
| not only is outbidding the competition not unethical (as
| a sibling notes), apple actually is very involved in the
| early node work etc. a lot of this work is literally done
| _for apple_ , it is "exclusive games" in the "this game
| would not have been made without the sponsorship" sense.
| this literally would not have been brought to market on
| the same timelines if Tim Apple wasn't signing a couple
| billion dollars a year to TSMC right upfront.
|
| Apple pays lavishly to support TSMC's early node
| research, and they get their say in what happens in the
| R&D process, and very early insight into the node and
| their say on how it would work for them as they do their
| rollout. TSMC gets carried through the research phases
| much faster than their competitors can do, and it's led
| them to be on an absolute tear starting with 7nm. And
| they absolutely cannot fill the same level of demand with
| the same level of R&D funding from any of their
| competitors.
|
| It's been a healthy, productive long-term partnership,
| TSMC is maybe the only supplier Apple can't boss around
| and Apple is certainly a client that is always too big to
| fire. Doesn't mean every apple product is good (and TSMC
| can still flub, and their competitors are catching up a
| little bit) but Apple can move whatever they need to lol,
| they are _masters_ of supply chain managment. They can
| cover TSMC 's mistakes if needed, and they have insight
| into exactly what is happening as the node is developed
| and how they need to maneuver their product stack around
| to exploit it.
|
| Engineers study designs, CEOs study logistics. Also true
| of NVIDIA btw lol, they are very logistics-oriented
| because they make up such a large marketshare. How many
| companies on the planet are ordering big bulk runs of
| GDDR? Well, if we are ordering 20% of the planet's GDDR
| on a fixed timetable then maybe we can get a custom
| version, micron, right? (9 months later, GDDR5X/6X is
| born lol)
|
| It is an interesting contrast to Intel - this is almost
| the same kind of synergistic relationship as intel's own
| fab and IP side have historically had together. Did intel
| fail because they had a tight fab-design coupling, or did
| they fail because they had a rotted internal culture and
| then the fab slipped a bunch?
| bee_rider wrote:
| Not running their own fabs makes it easier, right? They
| presumably pay a premium for being the first to use a
| generation, but not anywhere near as much as the full
| cost of developing it, since TSMC can sell that capacity
| to everybody else when they are done with it.
| hajile wrote:
| Oryon seems to have caught up in performance despite
| being on N4 (which is just 5nm++), but it's an ARM design
| from the guys who made M1 in the first place.
|
| M3 seems like it generally underwhelms. A17 had like a 3%
| increase in IPC. They didn't discuss battery much and I
| suspect that's because ramping the clockspeeds to over
| 4GHz isn't so good for the battery benchmarks.
|
| The most worrying part is the transistor count. M3 Max
| gets quite a bit higher transistor count, but M3 is only
| 37B transistors while M1 was 33.7B. Apple and/or N3
| absolutely suck here.
|
| Looks like I might be keeping my M1 system for yet
| another upgrade cycle.
| paulmd wrote:
| the backstory here is that TSMC N3 is a trainwreck, it's
| now separated into two different nodes, N3B (for bad) and
| N3E (enhanced). N3E gets the promised step that was
| originally for N3, but it only enters volume production
| next year. Supposedly it will actually bring costs down
| (and yields up) because this is where some additional
| steps go EUV. Both TSMC and Samsung have been fucking
| around with their marketing around nodes to try and say
| they're first in volume 4nm production, but both are
| having problems with the final bosses of FINFET at 3nm
| and after this both TSMC and Samsung do GAAFET and solve
| a different set of problems. Past that lies... nothing.
| Hyper-NA seems dead.
|
| In the meantime, M3 is on N3B despite very low yields,
| which surely applied design pressure to keep size down,
| and the power gains are not as good, and also the density
| is worse than promised. Apple also surely feels pressure
| to keep prices high (bait-tier M3 base option with 8GB
| lol) and honestly they probably are going to be tough to
| justify on a performance/efficiency basis compared to
| very fierce ARMv8 competition (we are now testing the
| thesis there's no difference lol). Apple still has
| advantages but man do they take you to the cleaners for
| the result, a loaded apple laptop is obscene. I chose to
| go for an older loaded M1 Max instead of waiting for M3,
| because I could actually get a nice laptop that wouldn't
| impose limits on a prosumer etc. 1TB is all anyone can
| afford still and that's really silly.
|
| (SSD prices in particular are absolutely inexcusable lol.
| Mandate a M.2 NVMe 3.0/4.0/+ port please, EU, it's time.
| Don't care how it works, slot it into the side or
| whatever if you want, it can be single-sided 2230 or 2242
| if you want (or caddy-loading, the icy dock standard
| lol), but it's time.)
|
| https://global.icydock.com/products-c5-s48-i0.html
|
| https://global.icydock.com/vancheerfile/images/mb873mp-
| b_v2/...
|
| I also wonder if losing a bunch of the PA Semi team to
| whatever startup (it may have been nuvia or tenstorrent
| lol) may also have hurt apple's velocity on A16/A17.
| There were a lot of apple silicons before M1, after all.
| But certainly TSMC is a bunch of the problem here.
|
| I think they'll hustle to refresh it and do M3+ as a fast
| follow in 6-12 months with N3E, the cost economics are
| very favorable to jump as soon as there's the volume.
| That doesn't mean MBP gets refreshed immediately though,
| they'll ramp on the phones (iphone 16/16 pro, etc) and
| base-tier M3+ or whatever first.
| ksec wrote:
| >the backstory here is that TSMC N3 is a trainwreck, it's
| now separated into two different nodes, N3B (for bad) and
| N3E (enhanced).
|
| Without N3B, there will never be N3E.
|
| It was the same with N7. And none of these are new to a
| new node generation.
| photonerd wrote:
| > But others have caught up
|
| Then you proceed to link to one that... hasn't? (it's good,
| yes, but it's not caught up at all)
| zik wrote:
| I note that if those performance numbers are correct it'll
| still be a lot slower than Intel's Core i9-13980HX laptop
| CPU. The M2 Max was between 50% and 80% of the speed of the
| 13980HX on most benchmarks. A 15%-30% uplift will get it
| closer to the Intel part but still not reach it.
| runeks wrote:
| Good point.
|
| However, when they're that close in performance, I think
| power usage should be taken into account. It's a laptop
| CPU after all. Maybe I'd rather have 80% of the
| performance at 4x the battery life
| runeks wrote:
| Did you account for the M3 Max having four extra
| performance cores (12 versus 8 for the M2 Max)?
| spacentropy wrote:
| Yeah, but the problem is that 13980HX has 24 cores, 32
| threads and incredible 157W Turbo Power. That means it
| will be really slow when on battery. And when connected
| to the mains, it'll be as loud as an airplane taking off.
|
| The perf per watt claims still apply.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Not just that, but if you're not running ARM images then it's
| running a VM for your docker images to boot. It's just mind-
| blowing how many containers I have running and my laptop is
| cool to the touch, and at full battery.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Do note that cool to the touch is a bad thing if the
| internals are otherwise hot
| soulofmischief wrote:
| If the all-aluminum chassis remains cool to the touch
| despite boiling internals, that's impressive in its own
| right :-)
| 0x6c6f6c wrote:
| This isn't as much the case anymore. There are typically
| arm64 images available for the more popular images, and
| anything you build locally is native, unless you're trying to
| build x86 software.
|
| Redis, Memcached, PostgreSQL, MySQL- it's all native arm64
| images now.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| > if you're not running ARM images
| mat_epice wrote:
| The point was that there is rarely a reason to not run
| ARM images, since they're widely available.
|
| If I'm running M3 images on my Ryzen, performance is
| gonna be horrible, but why would I?
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Today? Sure. Thus my statement, which came with a caveat
| about not running ARM images, the implication being that
| it's a rare thing today.
| mr_toad wrote:
| Even using ARM images you still need a VM because the MacOS
| kernel is not a Linux kernel, and containers rely on
| features of that kernel.
| steve1977 wrote:
| That only really helps if you also want to deploy on arm64.
| Developing on one architecture and deploying on another
| would kind of destroy on of the advantages of containers.
| hk1337 wrote:
| You're running a VM either way on a Mac. Docker without a VM
| is only available on Linux.
|
| _EDIT_ I get your intent though because it runs better when
| the images match the host.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Yep! But at least it can leverage hyperkit and vastly
| reduce overhead when running images of matching
| architecture.
| sigjuice wrote:
| hyperkit does not run on ARM Macs $ brew
| install hyperkit hyperkit: The x86_64 architecture
| is required for this software. Error: hyperkit: An
| unsatisfied requirement failed this build.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Oh I didn't realize, thanks for pointing that out. I
| guess they'll have to rely on the new virtualization
| framework going forward.
| SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
| MacOS can run MacOS containers natively, but I understand
| that's not much help for most people.
|
| https://macoscontainers.org/
| hk1337 wrote:
| That's interesting. It's in 0.0.1 version though but it
| seems like a possible drop in replacement
| chupasaurus wrote:
| Without network, IPC, PID and cgroup namespaces
| replacements it's not even close. How Windows Server does
| it? By using parts of Hyper-V.
| mbreese wrote:
| Yeah, but that also requires disabling SIP, so you still
| might want to run it in a VM.
| irusensei wrote:
| Aw. I wish there was a way to isolate corpoware crap like
| Citrix into its own little jail. Kinda like
| {tool,distro}box on Linux.
| pjmlp wrote:
| And on Windows while running Windows containers.
| als0 wrote:
| Before anyone else gets confused...Windows containers are
| only for Windows applications. If you have a Linux
| environment in your Docker image, then it's running on a
| VM. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/virtualization/windowscont...
| pjmlp wrote:
| Of course, what is there to be confused about?
|
| It say it clearly on the name, _Windows containers_.
| ezfe wrote:
| I still know a number of my colleagues who haven't jumped onto
| the Apple Silicon machines despite our 2019 Intel machines
| being out of warranty (and thus eligible for replacement) for
| two years now
| andrewprock wrote:
| I'm still using a 2015 macbook for my personal daily driver.
| I have to plug it in regularly, but otherwise it works just
| fine for everything except video editing.
| latchkey wrote:
| Any reason for not upgrading?
| rewmie wrote:
| > Any reason for not upgrading?
|
| Why is this sort of question always framed as if people
| have to provide a justification for not buying a new
| model, as if spending money on the new shiny without any
| reason is normal or desirable?
|
| We live in a day and age where hardware bought a decade
| ago still packs enough punch to run most of today's
| software without any hiccup. Why would anyone waste their
| cash to replace something that works without having any
| compelling reason?
| latchkey wrote:
| It is an honest question.
|
| For some background in my thinking, it is because today's
| announcement really focused on Intel users. My semi-
| educated guess is that Apple did a whole bunch of user
| studies and realized there are a lot of people out there,
| like the OP, who haven't upgraded yet, hence the focus.
| As a result, I'm genuinely curious why this person hasn't
| upgraded.
|
| And for my own personal experience, the upgrade/switch
| from intel to m*, is night and day better ergonomics as a
| developer. It isn't just some shiny new toy or a waste in
| cash. For the same reason professional mechanics in F1
| don't use shitty tools to work on their cars. Or tour de
| france racers aren't using 30lbs Huffy bikes.
|
| TLDR: I don't give a f'ck if you don't happen to upgrade,
| that's your choice. I'm just curious about why.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| This isn't Huffy bikes vs F1 racers. Unless your workload
| is heavily CPU bound. And even then it's probably more
| like a 20yo F1 car vs a new one.
|
| We also live on a finite planet. And then energy savings
| for many desk jockeys is unlikely to be worth it for a
| few decades more, if one considers the literal tons of
| material and energy in manufacturing.
| latchkey wrote:
| That's totally not my experience at all.
| rewmie wrote:
| > And even then it's probably more like a 20yo F1 car vs
| a new one.
|
| This thread is literally about the decision to buy an
| M3-based MacBook Pro to replace M2/M1/Intel MacBook Pros.
| We're talking about hardware launched in the past 4/3/2/1
| years.
|
| That's hardly "20yo" anything.
|
| Also, you failed to provide any concrete, objective
| reason to buy a M3. None at all. Is it that hard to put
| together any argument to justify the move?
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| > That's hardly "20yo" anything.
|
| My car comparison was trying to propose an alternative
| metaphor since comparing a top-of-the-line racing car to
| a child's bicycle struck me as absurdly out of
| proportion. Cars are generally maintained and kept in
| service longer than computers, so I picked 20y out of
| thin air.
|
| > Also, you failed to provide any concrete, objective
| reason to buy a M3. None at all. Is it that hard to put
| together any argument to justify the move?
|
| My point is for most people there is no justification to
| move. Unless one has a device beyond repair, so old its
| software cannot be kept up-to-date, or the very rare need
| for the latest performance then stick with what you have.
| threeseed wrote:
| > My semi-educated guess is that Apple did a whole bunch
| of user studies and realized there are a lot of people
| out there
|
| Apple has telemetry from macOS. So they knew exactly what
| percentage of users are still on Intel Macs.
|
| And it's low-hanging fruit to go after them then try and
| convince existing Windows users.
| latchkey wrote:
| Telemetry doesn't answer the important "why" question.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| For the same reason professional mechanics in F1
| don't use shitty tools to work on their cars.
|
| They also probably don't buy new wrenches every time new
| wrenches are released, if their current wrenches are
| completely sufficient and not holding them back in any
| way.
| latchkey wrote:
| > _if their current wrenches are completely sufficient_
|
| That's a fantastically entirely subjective opinion.
| rewmie wrote:
| > That's a fantastically entirely subjective opinion.
|
| That's the point: objectively, there is absolutely no
| concrete reason that justifies replacing a MacBook bought
| in the past 3 or 4 years with the M3 ones. None at all.
|
| In fact, it boggles the mind how anyone could justify
| replacing any MacBook pro with a M3 one by claiming "pros
| don't use shitty tools", as if MacBook Pros packing an
| Intel core 7/M1/M2 suddenly became shitty laptops just
| because Apple released a new one.
| georgespencer wrote:
| > That's the point: objectively, there is absolutely no
| concrete reason that justifies replacing a MacBook bought
| in the past 3 or 4 years with the M3 ones. None at all.
|
| Again, what you mean to say is that _you_ cannot think of
| a reason that would make _you_ upgrade from a 4 year old
| MacBook to a new M3 one.
|
| > objectively
|
| Do you understand that what you say is literally,
| definitionally, subjective? It's one thing to make
| primitive and clumsy generalisations, but quite another
| to be confusing subjectivity and objectivity.
|
| > it boggles the mind
|
| Starting to believe there isn't a lot of mind to boggle
| here...
|
| > how anyone could justify replacing any MacBook pro with
| a M3 one by claiming "pros don't use shitty tools"
|
| I haven't noticed anyone making this argument, but I know
| many people who upgrade their tools -- whether computers
| or otherwise -- to the latest and greatest whenever they
| can, because working faster and more efficiently is a
| concrete benefit, and it really would take an inestimable
| moron to, say, argue that late Intel-era MacBooks can do
| the same things that M-series MacBooks can.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I haven't noticed anyone making this argument
|
| Yeah, you haven't read this thread.
|
| Not that you missed anything of value. A previous poster,
| latchkey, quite literally made that argument:
| "the upgrade/switch from intel to m*, is night and day
| better ergonomics as a developer. It isn't just some
| shiny new toy or a waste in cash. For the same reason
| professional mechanics in F1 don't use shitty tools
| to work on their cars. Or tour de france racers aren't
| using 30lbs Huffy bikes"
|
| As to this assertion: it really would
| take an inestimable moron to, say, argue that
| late Intel-era MacBooks can do the same things
| that M-series MacBooks can.
|
| In terms of raw performance and power efficiency,
| obviously the Apple Silicon laptops trounce the Intel-
| based Mac laptops.
|
| But if you spend some time learning about our industry
| you'll realize that not all development workflows are
| identical, and not all have the same bottlenecks, and for
| many tasks an Intel-powered Mac is not a bottleneck.
| Surely you can understand that, or aspire to understand
| that.
|
| I would certainly agree with a more generalized and
| reality-based version of what you and the other poster
| seem to be attempting to say: If your current hardware is
| bottlenecking you in any way, you should most definitely
| address that if at all possible. A hardware upgrade that
| unbottlenecks you and improves your developer ergonomics
| will almost certainly pay for itself in the long run.
| That is sane and profitable advice and something I've
| always done.
| georgespencer wrote:
| Thanks, I had missed that. It contains the phrase "don't
| use shitty tools", but I'll leave it to you to decide
| whether OP honestly recapitulated the same argument in
| their passing reference. The two seem somewhat different
| to me.
|
| > As to this laughable claim [...]
|
| This is a response to a specific point which rewmie has
| made several times. They seem to genuinely believe there
| is literally no difference between M-series and Intel
| chips:
|
| > There is absolutely nothing I can do with my M2 laptop
| that I cannot do well with my cheap old Intel laptop.
| Nothing.
|
| > there is absolutely no concrete reason that justifies
| replacing a MacBook bought in the past 3 or 4 years with
| the M3 ones. None at all.
|
| > it boggles the mind how anyone could justify replacing
| any MacBook pro with a M3 one by claiming "pros don't use
| shitty tools", as if MacBook Pros packing an Intel core
| 7/M1/M2 suddenly became shitty laptops just because Apple
| released a new one
|
| I likely disagree with your position, and believe you
| have made some bad faith arguments, but you're at least
| compos mentis.
|
| > But if you spend some time learning about our industry
|
| Whoops.
|
| > you'll realize that not all development workflows are
| identical, and not all have the same bottlenecks, and for
| many tasks an Intel-powered Mac is not a bottleneck.
| Surely you can understand that, or aspire to understand
| that.
|
| Would you mind restating what you believe my argument to
| be? Because this reads as a patronising non-sequitur to
| me, and I'm sure you're not intending for it to land that
| way.
|
| (If you are pushed for time, I'll do it: nearly everyone
| spending thousands of dollars to upgrade their computer
| has what they consider to be a good reason for doing so,
| whether that reason be boosting their self-esteem by
| having the latest toy, or a mild performance boost in
| their day-to-day work. You may not find their
| interpretation of "a good reason" to be persuasive, but
| there are likely to be many areas of your personal
| spending which they would see as imprudent or rooted in
| tenuous reasons. This thread is full of people incapable
| of understanding the reasons others have for upgrading
| and making emphatic sweeping statements. Everyone is
| different. News at 11.)
| JohnBooty wrote:
| "There is absolutely nothing I can do with my M2
| laptop that I cannot do well with my cheap old Intel
| laptop"
|
| Well, I took that one in good faith and interpreted it to
| mean that the old Intel laptop was perfectly adequate for
| _their personal needs._
|
| The alternative interpretation, that they believed there
| was no objective difference in capability between Intel
| and Apple Silicon laptops, was so absurd I couldn't
| imagine anybody expressing it or believing it. I think I
| made the correct interpretation but it was definitely an
| extrapolation on my part and definitely fits the HN
| guideline of "assume best intentions."
|
| To be clear, the Apple Silicon laptops certainly trounce
| the Intel MBPs and I think most developers will find them
| well worth the upgrade for most things -- I just didn't
| like the assertion that anybody still using an Intel Mac
| was equivalent to somebody riding the Tour de France in a
| Huffy.
| georgespencer wrote:
| > I took that one in good faith
|
| I tried to, but found it hard given that OP also
| challenged people to provide "concrete reasons" to
| upgrade, and said things like "there is absolutely no
| reason". Everything OP says indicates to me that they
| actually meant this as evidence for their generalisation.
|
| > The alternative interpretation, that they believed
| there was no objective difference in capability between
| Intel and Apple Silicon laptops, was so absurd I couldn't
| imagine anybody expressing it or believing it.
|
| I agree it's a head scratcher... and yet here it is,
| before our very eyes, time and time again. I even
| recapitulated the argument in more reasonable terms ("I
| think what you meant to say is..."), but they seem
| resolute in their belief that there are no reasons to
| upgrade from a "late 2010s" MacBook to a new one.
|
| > I just didn't like the assertion that anybody still
| using an Intel Mac was equivalent to somebody riding the
| Tour de France in a Huffy.
|
| Heh, yeah that gave me pause too. I actually think that
| the example of the F1 mechanic slices the other way
| entirely: I can't imagine an F1 mechanic _not_ taking an
| interest in the latest marginally improved wrench, given
| the narrow margins by which they succeed or fail in
| competition against other teams, and other mechanics.
|
| You are right that many Intel machines are still highly
| capable. One could buy an Intel Mac Pro until earlier
| this year, for example.
|
| But the trigger for Mr/Mrs/Mx "No difference between
| Intel Macs and the M-series" was another commenter
| benignly asking someone why they hadn't upgraded ("Any
| reason for not upgrading?") from a 2015 Intel MacBook
| Pro.
|
| I said this elsewhere, but it seems like a fair question
| to ask someone on a computer/programming forum,
| particularly when the machine in question is close to EOL
| and has been blown away by a new technology. Don't get me
| wrong, if this was someone using a 2006 Core Duo in 2012,
| I'd think it was much of muchness, but the M-series does
| change things somewhat.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Replying to this one since I think we reached max
| nesting. Regarding as to why somebody might not be in a
| hurry to upgrade a 2015 Mac to an M2:
|
| https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-apple_m2_8_gpu-
| vs-...
|
| To put it in fully objective terms, a lot of development
| tasks (for many people) are still dominated by single-
| core performance.
|
| The M2 has roughly 2x single-core performance, which is
| going to be absolutely awesome if you're spending a lot
| of time waiting for the CPU. But if that's _not_ really a
| bottleneck, and the things you do are already completing
| at a speed that doesn 't disrupt your flow state or
| otherwise consume significant amounts of your day.
|
| I'm working (on my 2018 MBP) on some Python software that
| does science stuff. The single core perf delta between my
| CPU and the M2 is even smaller for a lot of tasks, more
| like 50% instead of 100%. And I'm not doing anything that
| would really benefit from more than 6 cores.
|
| I'm currently planning an upgrade, but it's just not a
| pressing need as $2K-$3K is a significant investment for
| me at the moment. I can't imagine an F1
| mechanic not taking an interest in the latest
| marginally improved wrench
|
| F1 teams have mandated cost caps. I'm not entirely sure
| if that includes tooling, but even if not, budgets are
| not infinite and there is a time cost required to
| research and acquire new tools. Time and money spend
| getting wrenches are time and money not spent elsewhere.
| So I would think there is a constant pressure (like in
| any business) to identify real bottlenecks, not just
| spend unlimited amounts of money on increased
| capabilities that may or may not have any bearing on
| actual performance. Presumably this is why a developer
| might choose a regular M2 or M3, but not necessarily the
| maxxed-out M3 MAX with 192GB of RAM and 8TB SSD for
| $10,000 or whatever (I know I'm exaggerating). Yes it's
| more performance, no it won't matter for many workloads.
| georgespencer wrote:
| There is no daylight between us on any of these points.
|
| My position is not that there aren't good reasons to have
| not upgraded from a 2015 Mac, or that I'm having trouble
| imagining what they are, but rather that it's a
| reasonable question to ask of someone in this specific
| forum.
|
| > F1 teams have mandated cost caps...
|
| We're not really arguing the point here. OP was not
| trying to pass an exam about the specific details of how
| F1 teams operate.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| You... don't think that mechanics on a racing team are
| qualified to know if their current wrenches are
| sufficient?
| georgespencer wrote:
| I suspect that OP thinks, as I did, that you've
| constructed an inane straw man.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| User latchkey, the one you're agreeing with, is the one
| who very literally claimed that a developer using an
| Intel laptop is quite equivalent to an F1 mechanic using
| "shitty tools" or racing the Tour de France in a 30lb
| Huffy.
| georgespencer wrote:
| I'm not agreeing with latchkey's statement about
| developers and "shitty tools". I'm agreeing with them
| that when you say this...
|
| > if their current wrenches are completely sufficient
|
| ... you are not making an honest argument, because it is
| _entirely_ subjective as to whether their current
| wrenches are "completely sufficient".
|
| The dog I have in this fight is not upgrade cycles or
| Intel vs. M1, it's "argue the fucking point without
| descending into high school rhetoric and logical
| fallacies".
| JohnBooty wrote:
| A wrench has a finite set of objective qualities. Grip,
| length, strength, weight and maybe some special-case
| properties like being non-magnetic or spark resistant.
|
| It's surprising to me that you think that cutting-edge
| racing mechanics don't have objective criteria for these
| things and that it's all some sort of subjective dark
| art. But it's a bad analogy to begin with and it's not my
| analogy.
| georgespencer wrote:
| I totally agree it's a bad analogy, and whether I succeed
| in defending it or you succeed in knocking it down, it
| doesn't really help us understand each other in greater
| fidelity.
|
| The one thing I do admire about the person who offered it
| is that they are at least trying to persuade by offering
| different lenses through which to interpret their
| perspective, instead of repeatedly shouting THERE IS NO
| GOOD REASON TO UPGRADE LMAO.
| latchkey wrote:
| > _The one thing I do admire about the person who offered
| it is that they are at least trying to persuade by
| offering different lenses through which to interpret
| their perspective, instead of repeatedly shouting THERE
| IS NO GOOD REASON TO UPGRADE LMAO._
|
| That nails it on the head.
| georgespencer wrote:
| Sorry you're being downvoted for pointing out specious
| arguments.
| andrewprock wrote:
| The honest reason is that there is no practical reason to
| upgrade. The computer works, and despite the various FUD
| you might read, the attack surface for external attacks
| is quite small for personal computers.
|
| That said, if anyone would like to send me $4000, I will
| absolutely upgrade to a new 14" Macbook in a heartbeat.
| coin wrote:
| > better ergonomics
|
| The newer 16 inch MacBook Pros are half a pound heavier
| than the Intel one.
| latchkey wrote:
| I'm weird, I sit on the floor on a cushion with my back
| against a wall. I have a folding table over my lap that
| the laptop sits on. The keyboard actually works unlike my
| old Intel ones with the crappy butterfly. I hardly travel
| these days, but throwing it in a backpack isn't the end
| of the world.
|
| That said, I was actually thinking ergonomics in terms of
| performance of development. The thing is so fast that
| commands complete faster than I can deal with them. My
| IDE can keep up with me. I can run a ton of apps and it
| doesn't slow down or glitch. It doesn't get nearly as hot
| and there is rarely fan noise. The screen is higher
| quality. The speakers sound better. Magsafe is back! The
| button for my fingerprint works very well. No more stupid
| touch bar. Function keys!
|
| I could keep going...
| VancouverMan wrote:
| I've been holding off on upgrading some older Intel Mac
| minis I have while waiting for the memory situation to
| improve, but so far it hasn't.
|
| Ideally, I'd consolidate these older systems into one new
| Mac mini, or even a Mac Studio.
|
| I'd like at least 64 GB of memory, at a reasonable price.
|
| The latest Mac mini maxes out at only 32 GB of RAM, if
| I'm remembering it right.
|
| I think the latest low-end Mac Studio could be upgraded
| to 64 GB of memory, but the last time I priced it, this
| upgrade cost more than I'd been expecting. It also put
| the overall cost above what I'd prefer to pay.
|
| While I'd like to keep using a Mac, it's looking more and
| more like I'd be better off just building a PC, where I
| could likely get comparable enough processing
| performance, but far more memory (and storage) at a lower
| cost.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I'm rocking a 2017 MacBook Air and it's great--really the
| only down side is that Apple stopped supporting it in
| macOS past Monterey. Almost all of my past and present
| Apple hardware has long outlasted software support, which
| is my biggest complaint with the company.
| fastball wrote:
| Because the productivity gains from upgrading can be
| quite large relative to the cost of upgrading, esp when
| you factor in the average salary in this community.
|
| I spend 8-10 hours on my Macbook every day. The amount of
| time I've saved / productivity I've gained by things just
| running faster and by being more mobile (much longer
| battery life) is huge compared to the $2000 price tag.
|
| Frugality is good but there are some things in life
| (depending on your personal circumstances) where it does
| in fact make sense to upgrade for clear benefits.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Really depends on what you're doing.
|
| I spend 8-10 hours a day coding on my 2018 MBP (web apps
| - Postgres and Rails or Python) but almost none of that
| is really CPU-bound in my case. The meat of my work, the
| actual coding and iteration, is not limited by the aging
| CPU.
|
| The one thing that's painfully slow is rebuilding Docker
| images, but we don't do that too often. Less than once
| per week.
|
| I actually _am_ upgrading soon, but it is not going to
| make an amazing difference for me in terms of
| productivity in my current work.
| rewmie wrote:
| > Because the productivity gains from upgrading can be
| quite large relative to the cost of upgrading, esp when
| you factor in the average salary in this community.
|
| You see, this is simply not true. At all. By far.
|
| I have a cheap Intel laptop released 8-10 years ago. It
| shipped with 8GB of RAM and 4 cores. I bought it on a
| clearance sale for around $500. I use it still to this
| day to work on webapps, including launching half a dozen
| services with Docker Compose. The only time I experience
| any type of slowdown is when I launch IntelliJ.
|
| I also have new kit, including a M2 MacBook.
|
| There is absolutely nothing I can do with my M2 laptop
| that I cannot do well with my cheap old Intel laptop.
| Nothing. The only issue I have with my old laptop is
| battery life, and that's just because I don't bother
| replacing it.
|
| Please do point out a single concrete example of
| "productivity gains" that I would get by spending $2k on
| a new laptop.
| karolist wrote:
| I love responses like this, we should think hard first
| why NOT to upgrade, instead of doing reverse.
| xxs wrote:
| The only downside would be struggling with 8GB, which
| should be upgradable just as well. 10y old would have a
| cd/dvd tray - that can be replaced by an SSD for 4TB of
| goodliness (SATA but still good enough).
|
| My spouse has a 12y old laptop that has had pretty much
| everything (but the soldered GPU) upgraded - CPU, memory,
| HDD->SSD, CD-SSD, WiFi (to support 5GHz), keyboard
| (replaced), fan & heatsink, battery (replaced, might
| rebuild one w/ LG's 18650 MJ1). Unfortunately pre-Sandy
| Bridge memory is capped at 8GB, so it shows its age -
| still an amazing thing.
| fastball wrote:
| Why do you have an M2 Macbook?
| georgespencer wrote:
| > There is absolutely nothing I can do with my M2 laptop
| that I cannot do well with my cheap old Intel laptop.
| Nothing.
|
| [...]
|
| > The only time I experience any type of slowdown is when
| I launch IntelliJ.
|
| I can't tell if you're a serially dishonest interlocutor,
| or whether your fetish for making very emphatic
| generalisations with lots of intensifiers makes you seem
| like one, but once again this is very weak reasoning. You
| have yourself pointed out something you cannot do with
| your Intel laptop which you could with an upgrade.
|
| > Please do point out a single concrete example of
| "productivity gains" that I would get by spending $2k on
| a new laptop.
|
| You can run IntelliJ smoothly and have no battery life
| issues. (Literally from your own post... it's just so sad
| to see this utter lack of self awareness.)
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| Because capitalism, that's why. Capitalists have
| convinced people it is a moral imperative to continue to
| spend constantly.
| astrange wrote:
| The mode of production doesn't affect the fact that you
| have to do production. If nobody's continually demanding
| laptops from the laptop maker, they will stop making
| laptops.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift
| ndriscoll wrote:
| If people don't need new laptops because their current
| ones already do everything they need, then reducing
| laptop production is good. Fewer resources and less
| pollution spent on things people don't need.
| astrange wrote:
| Not if it meant there are none when they do need a
| replacement.
|
| Similarly, buying cheap used cars only works because
| someone else bought them new.
| threeseed wrote:
| I am sure that 16yo girl buying an iPhone is thoughtfully
| postulating about the juxtaposition of morality and
| capitalism.
|
| And not because it's shiny, fun and lets her socialise
| with her friends.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > thoughtfully postulating about the juxtaposition of
| morality and capitalism
|
| I don't know how you managed to read the comment you
| responded to as suggesting that.
| irusensei wrote:
| > sir this is a wendy's
| josephcsible wrote:
| Because hardware vendors don't provide security updates
| forever, and they refuse to open-source enough of their
| code that other people can do it for them.
| MBCook wrote:
| Some people have experienced downsides you might want to
| know about.
|
| For example as you passed 2016-2019, not only did you
| have the butterfly keyboard mess but each generation
| reportedly got hotter and thus louder.
|
| My 2015 was quieter/cooler than my 2019.
|
| So if you're happy it may turn out that even though the
| newer machine has better performance it feels like a
| downgrade for other reasons.
|
| (I don't think that's the case here)
| karolist wrote:
| 2019 16" no longer used the butterfly keyboard, they have
| a physical Esc key and something Apple called "magic
| keyboard", really a scissor based mechanism that's really
| pleasant to type on and doesn't stop working with a tiny
| bit of dust under the cap.
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/guide/butterfly-keyboard-vs-
| scisso...
| ksec wrote:
| The new magic keyboard or new scissor keyboard has a key
| travel of 1mm, for me I wouldn't describe it as really
| pleasant.
| hot_gril wrote:
| 2019 MBP mostly fixed the issues introduced in 2016. But
| lack of USB and HDMI was enough for me to pass on it.
| Also, the 2015 one is prettier.
| karolist wrote:
| Ah I miss the lit up Apple logo.
| olliej wrote:
| It would depend on workload. On my old intel MacBook, I
| was looking at an hour or so to build, and it could only
| complete one build on the battery if that. Testing took a
| similarly absurd amount of time.
|
| The M1 dropped both times by in the region of 30 minutes,
| could do multiple rounds on a single charge _and_ didn 't
| make a tonne of noise while doing so.
|
| The amount of time savings you get from the improved CPU
| perf is quantifiable, and you can assign a monetary
| amount to that time.
|
| Now if your use case is not performance (cpu, battery,
| etc) limited then of course there's no reason to upgrade,
| ever really, but that would apply to any laptop or pc not
| just Macs.
| georgespencer wrote:
| > Why is this sort of question always framed as [...]
|
| OP didn't frame it any way at all as far as I can tell,
| but either way it seems like an entirely reasonable
| question to ask of someone on a forum which is largely
| comprised of computer and programming enthusiasts who has
| not upgraded their daily driver for nearly a decade.
|
| > as if spending money on the new shiny without any
| reason is normal or desirable?
|
| Every single person who spends their money on "the new
| shiny" has a reason. You may not find the reason
| edifying, but that's irrelevant to your stated argument.
|
| > Why would anyone waste their cash to replace something
| that works without having any compelling reason?
|
| As you were doubtless aware when you specifically
| constructed a straw man argument predicated on an
| entirely false premise and laden with your own subjective
| judgements about "waste" and things that "work" and
| "compelling" reasons, nobody does this.
|
| I suspect what you really mean is that you believe people
| upgrade their machines without what _you_ consider to be
| a good reason. You think people are too quick to upgrade
| when their machine isn't the very latest, or when it's
| got a dent, or when it's slowing down a little.
|
| If you'd written what you really believe -- that people
| should not upgrade as rapidly as they do -- you'd
| probably have pulled on the thread for a further 0.02s
| and realised that everyone has different values and
| priorities, and you likely "waste money" in others' eyes
| across multiple line items of your annual budget. So it's
| terrific luck, really, that the internet's various
| competing interpretations of a "compelling reason" can't
| stop you from spending your money however you'd like.
| rewmie wrote:
| > (..) it seems like an entirely reasonable question to
| ask of someone on a forum which is largely comprised of
| computer and programming enthusiasts who has not upgraded
| their daily driver for nearly a decade.
|
| Are professionals expected to mindlessly throw money
| around at the new shiny without having absolutely no
| compelling reason to do so?
|
| I think my post was rather straight-forward: people buy
| things only when they feel there is a clear upside to it.
| If you made that purchase 2 or 3 or 4 years ago, you need
| a very good reason to just throw it away and buy a new
| replacement. You need to at least make a valid case for
| it, otherwise you are just wasting your hard-earned money
| for nothing at all.
|
| > Every single person who spends their money on "the new
| shiny" has a reason.
|
| Why was OP framing that question on whether no reason was
| needed then, and instead people had to justify why
| weren't they wasting their money on the new shiny? Why is
| being new and shiny such a strong rationale that the onus
| of not buying is placed on not buying?
|
| These are simple questions. In fact, all it would take is
| provide a single compelling reason why it would be a good
| idea to waste money on a M3 Macbook Pro when you already
| own a M2/M1 Macbook Pro, or even a late 2010s Macbook
| Pro. Hell, why on earth would you even waste money on a
| M3 Macbook Pro if you already have a M2 Macbook Air?
|
| If you cannot answer this question, why would it be
| anything than absolutely foolish to pretend that people
| should justify not buying a M3?
| georgespencer wrote:
| > Are professionals expected to mindlessly throw money
| around at the new shiny without having absolutely no
| compelling reason to do so?
|
| Once again you're loading an incredibly tawdry straw man
| argument here with your own inane value judgements. The
| only difference is that this time you've undermined your
| argument with a typo: it's otherwise as self-evidently
| vacuous as your original comment.
|
| Just look at this epistemological nightmare you
| enumerated with apparent sincerity:
|
| > why on earth would you even waste money on a M3 Macbook
| Pro if you already have a M2 Macbook Air? If you cannot
| answer this question, why would it be anything than
| absolutely foolish to pretend that people should justify
| not buying a M3?
|
| Putting aside haplography (I guess if your argument is
| just begging the question a dozen times it gets hard to
| write coherently), it seems that you're literally
| incapable of considering that other people have
| fundamentally different values and priorities to you.
|
| Read this sentence you wrote:
|
| > In fact, all it would take is provide a single
| compelling reason why it would be a good idea to waste
| money on a M3 Macbook Pro when you already own a M2/M1
| Macbook Pro, or even a late 2010s Macbook Pro
|
| It is axiomatic that there can be no "compelling reason
| why it would be a good idea [sic]" to "waste" money on an
| M3 MacBook Pro. It's a waste of money, so there cannot be
| a good reason. What you presumably intend to write is: "I
| cannot think of a single compelling reason for a person
| to upgrade to an M3 MacBook Pro if they already own an
| M2, M1, or late-2010s MacBook Pro."
|
| And that's it. You can't think of a reason. People in
| this thread have given you both examples of reasons to
| upgrade, and clear-eyed explanations of why your
| inability to suspend your disbelief in this area is not
| the incisive general argument you think it is.
|
| Much of the work I personally do will be made
| significantly faster by upgrading from the M1 to the M3
| Max, which I will upgrade to. I upgraded to the M1 from
| an Intel Core i9.
|
| You might think that this is a compelling reason --
| wanting one's work to be faster and more efficient. You
| might not. It doesn't matter. It's a good enough reason
| for me to upgrade, and that's the rub. Everyone has a
| reason to upgrade, you just disagree with how compelling
| those reasons are. And again, the great news for everyone
| else is that your handwringing serves only to make you
| seem enormously judgemental and narrow-minded. You remain
| free to spend your money as you wish.
| JCharante wrote:
| They mentioned their coworker and most companies have
| upgrade policies. Just fill in a form every x years and
| you get a shiny new laptop (and depending on where you
| work, you'll get to keep your old one as a gift)
| rewmie wrote:
| > They mentioned their coworker and most companies have
| upgrade policies.
|
| Upgrade policies aren't driven by new requirements, or
| performance improvements. Some companies have mandatory
| hardware replacement policies which mostly serve to allow
| their tech support staff to standardized on a small
| number of devices. Getting a M3 MacBook Pro replacement
| just because your employer doesn't want to maintain an
| Intel MacBook Pro is hardly indicative that a M3 is worth
| spending money on, let alone replace a M2 or even M1
| MacBook Pro.
| rokkitmensch wrote:
| Fiscal prudence?
| josephcsible wrote:
| To me, "personal daily driver" sounds like where you'd do
| online banking. A MacBook from 2015 can't run any OS
| newer than Big Sur, which is EOL right about now. And it
| sounds _really_ imprudent to do online banking from an
| insecure device.
| tom_ wrote:
| My 2015 MBP is supported in macOS Monterey.
| josephcsible wrote:
| The "Pro" makes a difference there. The Air and Pro from
| 2015 both got Monterey, but the regular MacBook from the
| same year didn't.
| ac29 wrote:
| It should still be able to run an up to date web browser
| though, right?
|
| If one is that concerned about someone exploiting an OS
| level security flaw to exfiltrate their online banking
| credentials (wildly unlikely), they should just be doing
| that stuff in a VM or similarly isolated environment
| anyways.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > It should still be able to run an up to date web
| browser though, right?
|
| For a while, yes, but the browser being up-to-date
| doesn't make an EOL OS safe to expose to the Internet.
|
| > If one is that concerned about someone exploiting an OS
| level security flaw to exfiltrate their online banking
| credentials (wildly unlikely), they should just be doing
| that stuff in a VM or similarly isolated environment
| anyways.
|
| Just doing sensitive stuff in a VM isn't good protection
| at all, since a malicious host can trivially compromise
| the guest.
| astrange wrote:
| Many US bank websites have so few features I'm not even
| sure what hacking mine could get someone. They can
| transfer from my checking to my savings account?
| andrewprock wrote:
| I assure you, I take security quite seriously. The
| version of MacOS I'm using is nowhere near the top
| security risk.
| type0 wrote:
| > A MacBook from 2015 can't run any OS newer than Big Sur
|
| It can, Ubuntu runs just fine on it
| josephcsible wrote:
| You're right, I should have been more precise. But you
| still won't get security updates to firmware anymore that
| way.
| rokkitmensch wrote:
| If this is your personal threat model, I commend you on
| an exciting life well-lived that appears to entail
| sophisticated personal protection of the GPG keys and
| Bitcoin you need to run your business empire securely.
| eviks wrote:
| It can run the latest OS with the open core project
| rokkitmensch wrote:
| The problem from another angle: I wouldn't trust anything
| made in the last decade for my airgap box.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| >it works just fine for everything except video editing
|
| would be my guess
| tpmx wrote:
| x86-64 docker containers?
|
| https://github.com/docker/roadmap/issues/384 is still
| open. :(
| edp wrote:
| I don't know exactly why this bug would still be open,
| but you can use x86-64 images on an ARM64 Mac :
|
| https://docs.docker.com/desktop/release-notes/#4250
|
| I have been using it for a few months (in beta) and it
| works great !
| tpmx wrote:
| Ah, just out of beta a few days ago. I'll try it out!
| ksec wrote:
| Not OP, but
|
| The new Magic Keyboard ( or Scissor 2.0 ) just doesn't
| suites me. 1.0mm Key travel is so so much worse than the
| 1.3/1.5mm old scissors on my 2015 MBP.
|
| I actually dont _need_ the seamless, ultra large
| trackpad. Which gets false positive from time to time.
| This has never been the case on a sane trackpad size.
|
| My Workload is memory limited, and rarely CPU limited.
| Upgrading wouldn't bring a lot of benefits unless I have
| more memory, and Memory upgrade is expensive.
|
| Did I mention keyboard or trackpad?
|
| I just had a battery swap on this MBP earlier this year,
| hopefully it will last another 4 - 5 years or whenever I
| cant update Safari. Although I guess I could still use
| Firefox.
| MBCook wrote:
| I thought the same, but ended up upgrading to an M1 Air due
| to a hardware failure.
|
| Sure it feels 100x faster. But more than that it's DEAD
| SILENT (no fan in the machine!) and completely cool.
|
| The temperature/noise, if I had experienced it myself
| first, would have probably gotten me to upgrade.
|
| I use a 2019 Intel MBP at work. It's much faster than my
| old 2015 too, but with the additional heat and noise I
| didn't really want one.
|
| I would have taken the noise/heat of the M1 + 2018 or 2019
| performance. Instead I got heat/noise of the M1 and far
| better performance, for a fraction of what my 2015 cost
| (unadjusted) new.
|
| Amazing upgrade.
| pantulis wrote:
| I got an M2 Pro Mini a couple of weeks ago to replace my
| 2018 i7 MBP and while it is obviously snappier and you
| feel it's more powerful without running benchmarks the
| main difference is that: it is silent. I only got it warm
| to the touch rendering video with Da Vinci, when CPU temp
| usage quickly went to 75oC.
| internet2000 wrote:
| I imagine the amount of people upgrading from an M2 Mac will be
| close to 0, while there's a lot of Intel stragglers out there.
| elif wrote:
| I think the point is more that "is it worth buying this new
| m3 or should I buy a secondhand m2 for half the price?"
| photonerd wrote:
| more like "a hundred bucks less". The M1's go for maybe
| half... if you're lucky. Most are more.
| OJFord wrote:
| Because there's a newer model, which is now true for the
| M2 ones too?
| jki275 wrote:
| I don't think you're going to find any M2s for half the
| price. They hold their value pretty solidly.
| kimixa wrote:
| They won't if the M3 turns out to be a _significant_
| upgrade.
| stouset wrote:
| That's honestly just not how Apple hardware resale value
| has ever worked. The new M3 hardware could double the
| performance of the previous generation and they would
| only drop in price by _maybe_ a few hundred.
| philistine wrote:
| One big outlier; the recent Intel Macs have dropped far
| more in value than expected.
| kimixa wrote:
| And that outlier is the last /significant/ difference in
| performance.
|
| M1->M2 wasn't that big, generally seen as a small
| incremental improvement at best, and the last few Intel
| updates barely moved the needle between them.
| jug wrote:
| Or should I buy a brand new M2 Mac Mini for half the price
| of iMac M3 if I already own a monitor. Or a M2 Pro for the
| same price where iMac M3 doesn't even have a counterpart.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Intel straggler here. And I'll remain one until Linux runs
| flawlessly on the newer generation. I have an older Thinkpad
| as my main workhorse and a now quite old Macbook air for on
| the road, it's battery has been shot for a long time but it
| still works quite good when plugged in and I'm too much of a
| miser to have it replaced. But if there is a way to run a
| full Linux distro on the newer hardware then I'll _probably_
| buy one. But I 'm under no illusion that Apple makes their
| hardware to cater to me and that's perfectly fine.
| Grimburger wrote:
| > it's battery has been shot for a long time but it still
| works quite good when plugged in and I'm too much of a
| miser to have it replaced
|
| Consider a battery pack? I have a Bluetti K2 and get far
| more hours running heavy workloads than people report on
| M1. It's never bothered me carrying it around, though some
| might care I guess.
|
| My only regret is that it's slightly over the amount that
| is legal on planes in most jurisdictions.
| justinclift wrote:
| Guessing using two smaller capacity battery packs instead
| isn't workable?
| Bitnotri wrote:
| Check out asahilinux.org - I have archlinux arm running as
| my main OS on Air M1 for a year now.
| marci wrote:
| They're a small team, they can only handle/reverse-
| engineer the M1 as of now.
|
| edit: looks like they are make bigger strides than I
| thought on M2 as well
| https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Feature-
| Support#m2-p...
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| I recommend sponsoring Hector Martin here:
| https://github.com/sponsors/marcan
|
| Yes, he's continuing to work on the long tail of drivers
| needed for Linux on Apple silicon. Looks like lately he's
| working on speakersafetyd, a daemon that will monitor
| audio levels and keep the builtin speakers from being
| damaged: https://github.com/marcan?tab=overview&from=2023
| -09-01&to=20...
| bscphil wrote:
| How many hours of battery life do you typically get when
| running Linux on the M1?
| weberer wrote:
| I'm still holding out for HDMI output support so I can
| use it with the dock at work. But otherwise the project
| looks really good.
| wrycoder wrote:
| Replace it yourself using iFixit instructions and parts.
| Just screws and plugs, easy peasy.
| drcongo wrote:
| I don't know if this is at all helpful, but I have Ubuntu
| running nicely inside Orbstack on a Mac Studio. Obviously
| it's all running inside MacOS though, but it works.
| takinola wrote:
| I'm curious. I run Ubuntu in a VM Fusion VM on my (Intel)
| Mac. Would that not work on a M-series Mac?
| jeffdn wrote:
| Absolutely! VMWare Fusion supports Apple Silicon (as do
| several other VM software, like Parallels.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| my intel died last week. had to get an m2 pro and THIS drops
| today. kinda salty that my intel couldn' have held out till
| the M3 was available
| vidoc wrote:
| unless you went second hand, you should still be covered
| with the 30 day return policy no?
| vidoc wrote:
| wow it's 14! definitely need to hurry up :)
| evanmoran wrote:
| This is what returns are for! It is definitely worth the
| hassle for a better chip
| phonon wrote:
| Apple has a 14 day return policy. Don't need a reason.
|
| https://www.apple.com/shop/help/returns_refund
| goerz wrote:
| "Last week" is well within the 2-week return window.
| fastball wrote:
| I bought a top spec Intel mac a month before the M1 came
| out. Just sold that computer for 1/3 it's original price :\
| solardev wrote:
| 1/3 is pretty good for a used computer, TBH.
|
| I usually get like 20% or less... sometimes they're hard
| to even give away.
| fastball wrote:
| Fair, this one was in literally perfect condition though.
| No scratches / damage and a brand new battery.
| solardev wrote:
| It's like buying a car. The moment your Mac walks out of
| the store, the ghost of Steve Jobs comes and personally
| curses it to 2/3 of its value that very instant.
| gmac wrote:
| Except with cars, that loss is against the sticker price.
| So if you get a good enough deal on your new car, it can
| in fact lose nothing when you drive it away (I got close
| to 1/3 off a new car in 2018, using a web-based buying
| agent, in the UK).
|
| It's very hard to get anything like that much off a Mac,
| since Apple appears to have pretty tight control over
| prices, even as charged by third parties.
| michaelteter wrote:
| I don't recall if the M1 was a secret/surprise (I doubt
| it).
|
| Before buying any Apple hardware, it's worth looking up a
| couple of sites that suggest when the next release cycle
| will be for a given item and what specs are expected in
| the next release. The one I use is
| https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/
| 1000100_1000101 wrote:
| M1 was not a surprise.
|
| After years of waiting for a non-butterfly keyboard, they
| released a working Intel based MBP, but almost
| immediately made it worthless by announcing the migration
| to Arm. They even "rented" prototypes using A12Z chips
| for developers to use to prepare their apps nearly a year
| in advance. Hardly a stealth endeavour.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| I'm one of them. For work, come and grab my 2019 16in from my
| cold dead hands - it may not have the battery lifetime of my
| private 2022 M2 MBA, but at least I don't have to fight weird
| issues with x86 Docker images (especially anything involving
| a JDK runtime, i.e. Tomcat, tends to act up). And no,
| converting these images to ARM isn't an option, the source
| image doesn't come from us, and we need to reproduce the
| exact software environment to reproduce bugs.
|
| And for me as a Samsung phone user, I'm pretty annoyed that I
| have to drag out a win10 machine every time I want to update
| the firmware of my phone because Odin is only available on
| Windows and UTM can't use Rosetta to emulate a Windows VM at
| any acceptable speed or stability.
| robbintt wrote:
| I have 1 of these for work and 1 for home. I'm waiting 5
| years from release, so about 2024-2025. Computers got
| really good around 2017, and the only reason to upgrade is
| the heat and fan. I use remote VMs anyways, so chrome is
| really my limiter.
| karolist wrote:
| 2019 16"cher here too. These are great machines just
| eclipsed by all the Apple silicon hype. Yes they suck
| comparing to performance, power use and heat to Apple
| silicon, they're still amazing x86 laptops compared to
| whatever other x86 machines are out there.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| So an occasional firmware upgrade is holding you back? If
| you install the guest drivers, windows is superfast under
| UTM.
|
| The docker thing is nonsense if you're using orbstack for
| example.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| Intel straggler here. My laptop just completed 5 years. It
| says battery needs replacing which I've been putting off for
| a year. The thing is I have 32G which is quite good IMO so
| I'll probably use it for two years at least.
| vessenes wrote:
| You're just hurting yourself. Even the M1 Pro is like 3x
| faster than that Intel laptop. Plus so many tiny things
| like sleep/wake, power management, heat.. I really can't
| stress enough what a tectonic change the M1 was over Intel.
| stouset wrote:
| It really, really was. I'd been used to barely-noticeable
| performance gains for a decade or more. The
| responsiveness under load of the M1s made them feel like
| a decade of performance improvements overnight.
| ravetcofx wrote:
| This was especially true with Apple/Intel thermal
| envelope, I don't know of any other manufacturer that
| purposefully ran their CPUs to the point of throttling
| just to keep fan noise down, and in such thin machines
| with wafer thin heatsinks for design aesthetics. I think
| they made the last few gens of Intel they used worse than
| they were (to be fair Intel did have poor TDP till recent
| 12th Gen)
| karolist wrote:
| Depends on what they're doing with the machine. For
| casual use, Intel is perfectly fine and you do get some
| x86 benefits too. I have M1 Pro for work, personal M2 mac
| mini and typing this on 16" Intel MBP, watched the
| presentation live and still not convinced I need to
| upgrade my casual browsing and light programing machine
| this year. Battery is at 500 cycles and 84% health, still
| lasts 4 hours.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| Exactly! I have a 2012 MBP and a 2015 MBP that are still
| kicking and work perfectly for my kids playing Roblox or
| Minecraft and any web browsing we want to do with a
| proper keyboard.
| shusaku wrote:
| But how will I ever survive without my touchbar?
| ncr100 wrote:
| Maybe an aftermarket keyboard? I know you're not serious
| but aftermarket keyboards some of them have little OLED
| inside the keys. Also somehow the Apple vision Pro
| headset might provide you with that one extra awkward
| step needed to accomplish a task interface that it seems
| like you might be humorously craving.
| hot_gril wrote:
| I've got an M1 mini already, so it's good to have the
| Intel MBP around for occasional x86-only stuff. Built-in
| USB-A is also convenient.
| huytersd wrote:
| I'm an Intel strangler because it's the only way I can have
| Mac and Windows on the same machine. Am I the only person
| that really needs this? Parallels has trash performance.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| You can run ARM Windows under Parallels, which is good
| enough for me.
| huytersd wrote:
| Ah just updated my comment. I really dislike how slow
| Parallels is.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| Funny, I never notice that.
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| For gaming sure... but anything else... hypervisors are
| very good these days.
| huytersd wrote:
| I need it for windows only CNC software. It's pretty
| terrible for that purpose.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Hilarious typo -- I picture someone throttling an Intel
| machine (which sadly throttles you right back).
| huytersd wrote:
| Ha I just noticed it!
| lookitsnicholas wrote:
| have you tried using VMware Fusion at all?
| jwr wrote:
| I bought a cheap Windows crapbook just to run the two
| Windows-only apps that I need (terrible apps for alarm
| systems and photovoltaic inverters).
|
| Apple Silicon laptops are _so_ much better than Intel-based
| machines, there is really no comparison.
| Condition1952 wrote:
| Parallels is an overpriced rubbish with stupid limitations.
| I'm switching to WMWare or VMWare as of right now
| bouke wrote:
| Parallels used to be front-runner with better support for
| new macOS features. vmWare used to lag behind with weird
| issues. This is why I switched from vmWare Fusion to
| Parallels Desktop a few years back. What are these
| limitations you speak of? And what makes it rubbish?
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| Probably the biggest complaint is fusion is now free (for
| personal use) and Parallels is a subscription.
|
| Also you can get other free vm managers on Macs now since
| it ships with a hypervisor and vm framework.
| Condition1952 wrote:
| 8 GB max of RAM is a software limitation not present in
| the more expensive tier. I suspect it is not a technical
| limitation, just greed.
| Clubber wrote:
| I got a NUC for whenever I need windows and just RDP in it.
| It mostly collects dust.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| I'm still running Windows on my Mac mini. I used to use
| Bootcamp but don't do so much Windows stuff now so can get
| away with VMWare. After June next year I can drop Windows
| completely so will likely upgrade then.
|
| I'm not sure how VMWare compares to Parallels but
| performance isn't as good as Bootcamp. I wouldn't want to
| use it all day long.
| rafaelmn wrote:
| Intel straggler here ! When M1 hit I was certain I would get
| a M Apple in a year or two when they iron out the transition.
| It was just leaps and bounds ahead of others and the pricing
| was great.
|
| Now I think AMD and Intel caught up enough, Apple didn't keep
| the momentum, and they do standard Apple pricing
| discrimination - I think I'll take a gamble on Framework AMD
| version. I really like the idea behind the self-repairable
| upgradeable device and want to support them. If I was able to
| work on my Apple Intel i9 overheating PoS for past few years
| I'll be better off with anything, might as well support the
| stuff I like.
| turblety wrote:
| > Now I think AMD and Intel caught up enough
|
| Interesting. I don't really like Apple, mainly because of
| how they handle the app store vendor lock in stuff, and I
| hate macOS. But I use an M2 MBP purely because I can't find
| any other laptop that has the same fast performance, long
| battery life, quiet fan noise, no heat.
|
| Can you recommend an AMD/Intel or anything that comes
| close? I'd switch in a heartbeat. The closest that comes to
| mind is the ThinkPad X13s.
| leonroy wrote:
| I just bought a Thinkpad T14S Gen3 after evaluating a
| bunch of notebooks.
|
| Compared to my Macbook Air the Mac excels in a couple of
| areas which Thinkpad is lacking in. Like ambient light
| sensor, port quality (ie. how recessed the USB-C port is
| and how much strain it can take), audio output quality
| (Macs have powered headphone jacks for high impedance
| headphones) and of course speaker quality which on Macs
| is second to none.
|
| The Thinkpad by comparison has poor quality speakers, no
| ambient light sensor so it doesn't auto adjust the screen
| or keyboard backlight. Its USB-C ports are also not very
| strong so the any strain on them or wiggle will cause
| them to disconnect - they certainly feel very fragile.
|
| I hear the Thinkpad Z13/Z16 is more comparable to a
| Macbook but again it doesn't have little details like an
| ambient light sensor which seems an odd omission in a
| luxury laptop and price wise it's practically the same.
|
| That said, the new AMD Ryzen 7840HS and 7940HS chips are
| pretty competitive with an equivalent Apple M2:
|
| https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/amd-
| ryzen-9-7940hs
|
| https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/mac14-15
| LtdJorge wrote:
| And GeekBench is a pretty bad benchmark.
|
| There's also the 7945HX which is a 16 core CPU, but only
| comes with big dedicated GPUs, sadly.
| pb7 wrote:
| > I don't really like Apple, mainly because of how they
| handle the app store vendor lock in stuff, and I hate
| macOS. But I use an M2 MBP purely because I can't find
| any other laptop that has the same fast performance, long
| battery life, quiet fan noise, no heat.
|
| Buying their products for the same reason everyone else
| does is "liking Apple".
| simjnd wrote:
| You can like or use a product without liking the company
| making it or its practices
| pb7 wrote:
| Your only relationship to the company is via the goods
| and services it sells to you. If you buy their products,
| you like the company and their practices. The product is
| the culmination of all of their practices.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| "I don't like being a galley slave but if I stop rowing,
| they whip me"
|
| "Rowing for the same reason everyone else rows is 'liking
| slavery'".
|
| Counter-proof by reductio ad absurdum.
| toyg wrote:
| So you admit of being a prisoner in an ecosystem built to
| ruthlessly exploit you...?
| specialist wrote:
| True. eg "For my last project, I used JavaScript, in
| anger."
| rafaelmn wrote:
| I use my laptop as a portable workstation so I rarely use
| built in keyboard, touchpad, battery, etc. From what I
| see AMD 7840 CPUs deliver similar performance to M2.
|
| I think I'll get an Framework 16 or 13 with AMD in a few
| months, will make sure Linux drivers are in order before
| ordering.
| commandersaki wrote:
| I have a 12th gen Framework 13", 13" M1 Air, and a 15" M2
| Air.
|
| I use the Framework laptop for work because I need to use
| Linux.
|
| The Framework laptop is mediocre just like pretty much all
| PC laptops. The hinges are awful, if you pick up the laptop
| upright, about 50% of the time the screen falls flat 180
| degrees.
|
| The trackpad is arse in Linux.
|
| If you're lucky you can probably get 5 hours battery life,
| but on a realistic workload you're looking at 2-3 hours.
|
| The keyboard is pretty nice, but I wish ctrl/fn is swapped
| like Apple and it has the inverted mini-T keyboard arrows
| (or at least I wish someone would make a swappable keyboard
| for the Framework).
|
| The speakers are bloody awful.
|
| Display/Webcam/Mic are fine.
|
| I would like more ports over modular ports, but I
| appreciate the design that went into the modular ports.
|
| Speaking of modular ports, sometimes they abruptly stop
| working and require removing and reseating.
|
| All these small nits really add up and it just feels like a
| mediocre experience. It is my work laptop, but I try my
| best to avoid using it over my PC with WSL2 or either Air
| laptop, but I try my best not to mix work and personal.
|
| Both the 13" M1 Air and 15" M2 Air are just amazing
| compared to the Framework, and I suspect PC laptops in
| general. They have their drawbacks, price (gouging in some
| ways), less ports, can't drive dual displays, but their
| trackpad, finish, speakers, etc. are just amazing. I
| personally prefer MacOS to Linux for a desktop experience
| as well.
| rafaelmn wrote:
| Thing is I use integrated keyboard/trackpad maybe a few
| times a week in conference rooms, same for battery - 5
| hours is plenty for presentations and meetings.
|
| I want a portable workstation that I can occasionally use
| as a laptop, so build quality and laptop stuff isn't that
| big of a deal to me. I'm always using a screen via USBC +
| dedicated keyboard and mouse. Performance and noise are a
| factor - I'm hoping that AMD versions deliver on that.
|
| I'm leaning towards framework because if my current MBP
| dies I can't do anything about it since it's been out of
| warenty for years. And upgrading it eventually with next
| gen CPU without having to change storage/RAM, etc. sounds
| nice.
| Clubber wrote:
| The big thing I like about the M's is how quiet they are. I
| hate fan whirr in my old age.
| Rapzid wrote:
| Wasn't AMD pretty much right behind in single thread perf
| and a bit behind in peak perf TPU, but always ahead in
| multi-core perf options?
|
| I'm very happy with my Ryzen 7 6800U.
|
| Matte screen? Check.
|
| Lots of full perf cores? Check.
|
| USB A and C? Check.
|
| Really good battery even though I'm plugged in all the
| time? Check.
|
| X86-64? Check.
| bertil wrote:
| I was more surprised not to see any AI-specific benchmarks--
| sure, the most popular open-source models are from avowed
| competitors, but there should have been a way to define a re-
| training task that would be relevant for the wave of ML
| programmers.
| outside1234 wrote:
| It won't excel at this. It is a mobile GPU and won't be able
| to put up remotely similar numbers to a desktop GPU with
| massive amounts of power and cooling.
| aurareturn wrote:
| They didn't improve the neural engine. M3's NPU is half the
| speed of the A17 Pro in iPhone 15 Pro.
| jsight wrote:
| I had the same thought. It seems like the improvements there
| weren't worth talking about.
|
| AFAICT, the biggest benefit is just the unified memory model
| at this point.
| rrrurueuururu wrote:
| For years now, Apple's biggest competitor is Apple from five
| years ago. One of their biggest threats is that sales flatline
| because people are still using their perfectly good laptops and
| phones from several years ago. And that's a hard problem to
| deal with when you advertise your products as high-end goods
| that will last a long time.
| zacmps wrote:
| This shouldn't be a problem, and the answer is to refresh
| devices less frequently.
| aroman wrote:
| It objectively is a problem for Apple as a corporation
| though, as they are expected by their shareholders to to
| continue to grow and increase profits year over year.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Only in a modern capitalist society etc etc. One thing
| Apple diversified in in the past years is its non-
| hardware offering; iCloud earns them billions and Apple
| TV is churning out massive productions, a 3.5 hour
| Scorsese flick in cinemas for example.
| orthoxerox wrote:
| The whole company is sized to a specific revenue stream,
| and this revenue stream requires a specific sales volume.
| Apple could get off Mr. Bones' wild ride, but this would
| require remaking how the whole company works:
|
| - less frequent laptop releases mean lower sales (do you
| want this 2020 Mac or this 2023 Dell?)
|
| - lower sales mean lower revenue, lower revenue means lower
| costs
|
| - so now Apple has to spend less on R&D and at the same
| time convince its board of directors that lower sales don't
| mean Apple is failing
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Why would they do that? It wouldn't solve the problem
| @rueeeeru stated. They need to remain competitive and you
| can't do that by sitting on your backside for four or five
| years between products.
| anentropic wrote:
| They have solved this though by periodically introducing
| incompatible macOS updates, so that eventually you can no
| longer install the current macOS and then after a while you
| won't be able to install latest version of applications and
| you start to feel stronger need to upgrade...
| wilg wrote:
| Six year OS support, plus security updates past that.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Not as long as Windows support but still good enough.
| cusx wrote:
| Out of curiosity, how much RAM do you have on your MacBook to
| run containers?
| OJFord wrote:
| How much RAM do you want to give the containers on your
| MacBook?
|
| I'm being facetious, but it's an unanswerable question.
| _joel wrote:
| However much you set on the slider, so not quite so
| unanswerable.
| OJFord wrote:
| I mean the person I replied to asked the unanswerable
| question. How can we say how much memory they need in
| their computer 'for containers' without knowing where
| they want to set those sliders (and how many of them
| there are), and then it's not really worth asking, or it
| would be a question about runtime overhead or something.
| GoofballJones wrote:
| I think this is squarely aimed at people who are holding onto
| their Intel-based Macs with an iron grip. There are always
| people out there that don't ever want to move to another
| architecture. I saw it going from Motorola 68030s to PowerPC. I
| saw people not wanting to upgrade from PowerPC to Intel. Now
| we're still seeing the people who don't want to migrate to
| Apple Silicon. They may have legit reasons and what-not. But
| time is ticking.
|
| So I think it's mostly aimed at the Intel hold-overs.
| johnklos wrote:
| Nobody _has to_ upgrade. m68030 Macs still worked after the
| PowerPC transition. I used my Mac mini G4 for years after the
| Intel transition, and still use both an m68030 Mac and that
| G4 mini with NetBSD now.
|
| Currently I'm running Sonoma on a 2010 MacBook Pro. I'd love
| an ARM-based Mac, but can't afford one yet. I'd have to
| disagree about the idea that "time is ticking"...
| kar1181 wrote:
| Intel ride or die here. My 2019 i9 mbp is trucking along
| still - and this time of year the heat helps keep the room
| hospitable.
|
| Was looking towards M3 for a big leap, but apart from heat
| and power (I use my MBP plugged in 95% of the time) there
| still isn't that compelling a reason to deal with some of the
| issues (thunderbolt / multiple displays) for my use case.
|
| At 4 grand (sterling!) for comparable spec to my intel mbp, I
| just can't bring myself to take a plunge.
| prmoustache wrote:
| A container that is idle and do not serve any request only
| really as memory in its footprint. There is no reason having
| tens or hundreds of processes not occupying cpu and i/o time
| would affect battery life in a significant manner.
| klohto wrote:
| Bro and where do you think the containers and scheduler run?
| There is a whole linux underneath running all the time
| prmoustache wrote:
| Only one kernel and scheduler for all the containers, that
| doesn't have a lot to do if most of the processes are idle.
|
| And I am not your bro.
| klohto wrote:
| Your whole argument is containers will not occupy CPU or
| I/O. Which is not true, you're running a full fledged VM,
| not just a kernel.
|
| And presumably the person running k8s is probably not
| running them to have them idle. They are technically
| knowledgeable enough to be aware how much resources do
| they consume, and be excited for such comparison.
| prmoustache wrote:
| A linux VM with only a kubernetes/docker with most
| workloads idling doesn't use a lot of resources, except
| memory, probably less than the typical open browser tab
| full of unoptimized js.
|
| When you have kubernetes on your laptop, that is to test
| your code alongside a set of other microservices
| functionnally representative of a prod deployment. That
| doesn't mean your containers will have much load appart
| from your own punctual testing.
| manmal wrote:
| In case you are not already using orbstack, that might give you
| even more battery life (not affiliated, just a fan).
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| The comparison with M2 is not very useful at this point.
| Throughout the presentation, the gains were something like
| 15-20% in some areas.
|
| Even if they do their own chips, Apple cannot achieve a
| revolutionary performance gain year over year, that's why
| between two generations we'll see something like this for a
| long time. And since their idea is for people to be using Macs
| for many years, it makes sense to compare it to older
| generations to try and persuade people to do the upgrade.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| It shows the comparison right on the chart, what else you need?
| But you should get m3 most times if you want to use it for the
| longest period.
| graphe wrote:
| Just as Qualcomm shows it's chips are getting better, Apple
| pounces! The layout looks very different from m2, it must have
| been delayed. Does anyone know if it's using HBM3?
| BirAdam wrote:
| Nah, it's LPDDR5X
| varispeed wrote:
| That looks impressive, but why they show animations at so low fps
| as a demonstration of performance?
|
| Surely they should play it at 60 or more fps...
| antipaul wrote:
| Not sure exactly, but the whole thing was "shot on iPhone" so
| maybe related
| miohtama wrote:
| > With the M3 family of chips, hardware-accelerated ray tracing
| comes to the Mac for the first time. Ray tracing models the
| properties of light as it interacts with a scene, allowing apps
| to create extremely realistic and physically accurate images.
| This, along with the new graphics architecture, allows pro apps
| to deliver up to 2.5x the speed of the M1 family of chips.
|
| Does this mean we can finally play Cyberpunk 2077 on a laptop? Is
| it going to be anywhere near as powerful as desktop Nvidia cards?
| etchalon wrote:
| No. It's nowhere near as powerful as desktop Nvidia cards.
|
| It's about as powerful as a PS5.
| ranguna wrote:
| I'd be impressed if it was as powerful as a ps5.
| etchalon wrote:
| The PS5 gets around 10.28 teraflops, while the M1 Max, from
| two years ago, was getting about 10.4.
| guax wrote:
| It could be theoretically as powerful as a ps5 but not nearly
| as performant. Game studios are not spending any time
| optimising for apple silicon and dumping tons of dev hours to
| make sure it runs smooth on the console.
|
| Sony uses its custom graphics API (GNM and GNMX) and custom
| shader language and x86 platform. Xbox uses DirectX. Apple
| went in on its own route with Metal. That widens the gap.
| KAdot wrote:
| The performance is not that great, but you can already play
| Cyberpunk 2077 on a M2 Pro laptop using Game Porting Toolkit
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPJpkRmsceU Keep in mind, it
| has to do x64 -> ARM64 transition and translate Direct X into
| Metal. I would expect a native version to work better.
| spookie wrote:
| It's impressive, but still ways to go. Impressive
| nonetheless.
| chmod775 wrote:
| Pretty cool but that isn't enjoyable. Those are minimum
| graphics settings with heavy upscaling and it still barely
| manages 40FPS with extreme lag spikes in combat (and
| slowdowns?).
|
| Also having played the game, I can tell you the scenes chosen
| there (pretty much all of Act 1) are some of the best
| optimized/least demanding areas. Especially the DLC is going
| to be unplayable with that performance.
|
| Certainly looks like with just a bit more hardware power and
| development it could be getting somewhere though.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Do you mean at max raytracing settings? Alienware laptops
| should run Cyberpunk at 60, just not maxed out.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| > Does this mean we can finally play Cyberpunk 2077 on a
| laptop?
|
| My 2020 14" RTX 2060 laptop played it just fine, with decent
| settings (and copious DLSS). At 4K!
|
| In the state I played it (earlier this year), it was great
| looking even without raytracing.
| quyleanh wrote:
| So they remove MacBook 13 inch and replace with MacBook 14 inch
| as base. Many people will see the $500 off. Good selling
| strategy.
|
| Btw, I didn't see the comparison with M2 chip. Could anyone give
| me the reference for that? Thank you.
| xuki wrote:
| They had multiple slides for M1/M2/M3 in the video. M3 is
| around 15% faster than M2 in most benchmark (according to
| Apple).
| quyleanh wrote:
| Thank you.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| I just felt the continued existence of the 13" MacBook Pro was
| just confusing because it was very arguably worse than the 13"
| MacBook Air even without considering the price.
| lhl wrote:
| Apple launched M2 MBPs only in January. I wonder if Qualcomm's
| Snapdragon X Elite (benchmarking now, but not in products until
| mid-2024) drove some of the timing on this launch:
| https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/laptops/qualcomm-bri...
| b0b10101 wrote:
| other way around i suspect. qualcomm knew this event was coming
| and wanted to front-run's apple's announcement.
|
| especially as the macs ship much sooner...
| re-thc wrote:
| M2 was late rather than M3 being early.
| BirAdam wrote:
| From what I've heard from folks connected with Apple, M3 was
| designed some time ago and TSMC delays on 3NM are why M2
| happened at all. So, Apple is releasing M3 later than they'd
| have liked, and I expect we will see the M4 refresh faster than
| we would have otherwise.
| hajile wrote:
| Oryon seems like it's going to be very competitive with the
| very underwhelming M3 design.
| threeseed wrote:
| ARM on Windows is going to be irrelevant for at least a decade
| likely forever.
|
| There is a long-standing culture with the Mac that (a)
| backwards compatibility is minimal, (b) developers need to
| always keep their code current and (c) users should expect
| constant turnover in the platform. None of that exists on
| Windows. And when we last saw Windows on ARM the outcomes were
| that this wasn't going to change.
|
| Which means it will never be a transition rather a
| fragmentation of Windows ecosystem into two equal parts. Making
| it far less compelling for everyone.
| tbihl wrote:
| The reports of emulation and native apps on Windows seem
| pretty compelling to me, and the battery life improvements
| are substantial. For people who live in browsers (most
| people), it's not that hard.
|
| The more compelling reason for fragmentation is that AMD and
| Intel will stay with x86 as long as they can, and high prices
| from Qualcomm will keep people from shifting over en mass.
| Kye wrote:
| It's shiny but I think I'll stick to my upgradable RAM and two m2
| slots + a RTX 3070ti and i7-12700H for a fraction of the price.
|
| Something at Apple broke when they switched to their own silicon
| outside iPad and iPhone. They turned around the slow march toward
| parity on price:performance/RAM/storage and went screaming in the
| other direction. I really wanted to switch to mac when I was
| shopping for a new system earlier this year, but the prices were
| and remain ridiculous.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| I tried to find a laptop with the specification you just
| mentioned that could last 20 hours on battery. Didn't.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Yep. But, me and everyone I know keeps their laptops plugged
| in most of the time at work or at home, so not everyone needs
| all day battery life.
| blep-arsh wrote:
| I didn't care much about the battery life but not having to
| be tethered to the nearest wall wart is unexpectedly
| convenient even when working from home. I also appreciate
| the laptop not being a hot air blower.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| I use laptop at my desk at home or my desk at the office
| where the power cable is within reach so it's always
| plugged in.
|
| What use would be 20h of battery life for me?
|
| I don't do the whole coding in the coffee shop or on the
| beach lifestyle, and even if I did, 8h of battery life is
| plenty for that since I can't spend 20h in the coffee
| shop.
|
| There's probably a bunch of workers who are always on the
| road like contractors for whom this is a benefit.
| blep-arsh wrote:
| I'm not on the road, I just tend to move around even when
| at home/in the office. Lower power consumption also means
| the laptop is silent and barely warm, and a tiny 30W
| charger is perfectly sufficient. Unrelated, but another
| thing about the Macbook Pro is how unexpectedly good its
| mics, speakers, and camera are. I used to have quite an
| AV setup but I can't complain about the built-ins
| nowadays.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> I'm not on the road, I just tend to move around even
| when at home/in the office._
|
| I don't. I only work at my desk as that's where I have
| the best ergonomy from height adjustment desk, chair,
| keyboard, mouse and large monitor on adjustable arm that
| give me the healthy posture I want for long session of
| deep work and focus.
|
| I can't understand how people can get work done hunched
| over their tiny laptop on the couch or kitchen table
| while getting a crooked neck/back, when that's what desks
| are meant to prevent. That's just not me, nor anyone I
| personally know.
| gtirloni wrote:
| I'm personally always near a wall socket. My laptop is mostly
| a desktop. When I'm out and need to use the battery, it's
| only for a few hours. Do people really need >8h battery life?
| nomel wrote:
| I've never taken my charger to work with me. It was an odd
| experience the first week. I'll never go back to plugs.
| surge wrote:
| I never either but that's cause I have USB-C docks at
| work.
| MBCook wrote:
| A Thunderbolt dock for a one-cable setup for everything
| is amazing. Power, video, peripherals, network, etc all
| with one little cable.
|
| I never wanna go back. I know some PCs can do it too.
| It's just so much nicer than having to plug in two or
| five or eight cables. It doesn't seem like a big thing if
| you only plug-in and unplugg once a day but it is.
| jwells89 wrote:
| Long battery life isn't strictly necessary no, but it's
| nice. A lot nicer than one might expect. It can make the
| difference between needing to bring a charger or not, plus
| it's one less mental background daemon to keep running
| (thinking about how much life is left, where the nearest
| outlet is, etc).
|
| Arguably the bigger impact of long battery life is how it's
| no longer necessary to throttle the system when it's
| unplugged to not burn through battery in an instant. The
| performance of plugged and unplugged is identical.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| There are a lot of things people don't need on average. But
| when you do need it, or you have a particular use case,
| well, then you need it.
|
| These comparisons are always based on raw performance
| numbers or price. Which isn't useful.
| cmcaleer wrote:
| It's a huge nice-to-have. Moving from a decently beefy
| laptop to a MacBook has been night and day for me in terms
| of (a) not worrying about windows smart sleep (or whatever
| it's called) waking my laptop so it's warm and dead when I
| go to use it a few hours later and (b) not worrying about
| my laptop being dead when I open it after the weekend.
|
| (a) should have been fixed years ago but _still_ randomly
| happens on my partner's laptop. (b) is a pain to deal with
| when you just want to get in to work. No longer having wall
| wort proximity anxiety every time I go to use my MacBook is
| really nice.
|
| I'll move back when laptops catch up though since I miss
| dual booting.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > (a) not worrying about windows smart sleep (or whatever
| it's called) waking my laptop so it's warm and dead when
| I go to use it a few hours later
|
| MacBooks can run into the same problem if you have
| AirPods. I don't know WHAT the exact logic is, but the
| number of times I've used my AirPods at night, with the
| last pair being to my phone and the AirPods now
| connecting to my work laptop instead, causing a series of
| blares from MS Teams, Outlook and a ton of other
| notifications, people on Teams seeing me being "active"
| despite it being middle of the night... annoying as fuck.
|
| I don't get why it seems to be impossible to tell the
| MacBook to not wake up from _any_ kind of Bluetooth
| event. I get that this is the default because Apple wants
| trackpads, keyboards and mice to wake up a laptop... but
| I 'd REALLY love to be able to turn that off because I
| don't use either of these three.
| morbicer wrote:
| For years I am a happy user of Kill Bluetooth On Sleep
| (KBOS) https://github.com/alb12-la/KBOS
| Johnny555 wrote:
| At work, I'm in meetings much of the time, and I was lucky
| to get 4 hours of my my old MBP, if I didn't charge it over
| lunch, it wouldn't last the day. (there are chargers in
| meeting rooms, but only a few, so can't always count on
| getting one).
|
| At home, I work in a few different seats (one of them is a
| desk with a big monitor, but for emails/reading, I prefer
| to sit elsewhere, including on the back deck in nice
| weather), all but one does have an outlet, but it sure is
| nice to be able to get up and move around without
| constantly plugging/unplugging the laptop. Magsafe does
| make that easier though, only takes a second to plug in and
| no big deal if you stand up without unplugging, it doesn't
| pull the laptop out of your hands or the charger out of the
| wall.
| musictubes wrote:
| I find the extra battery life his nice but it is really
| just a side effect of the machines not getting hot. That is
| an amazing feature if you ever have to actually use it on
| your lap. That also means that it stays silent the vast
| majority of the time.
| gtirloni wrote:
| I think this is a great advantage, regardless of battery
| life, like you said.
| nortonham wrote:
| whats the point of having a laptop, even at home, if you
| can't be away from a wall socket without worrying about
| battery life
| Kye wrote:
| This is a desktop replacement due to no room for a desktop.
| It's always plugged in. I have a nice iPhone for writing and
| making music on the go.
| speed_spread wrote:
| What job do you have that requires you to work non stop for
| 20 hours away from a wall socket? I understand the need for
| autonomy but there are diminishing returns. It's ok to start
| looking at other decision factors past a certain point.
| nomel wrote:
| 20 hours isn't full CPu usage, of course. The last intel
| laptop I had lasted a couple hours. My M2 gets me through
| the workday.
| filleduchaos wrote:
| People don't only use their laptops for work. People also
| don't all sit at a single desk throughout the day.
|
| Not to mention that you can cut most laptops' rated battery
| lives in half or even worse if you're doing anything
| moderately demanding, _and_ that those demanding workloads
| often cause them to throttle pretty badly when on battery
| power, so it 's not a simple question of "X hour battery
| life".
|
| A high-spec laptop that's actually autonomous for daily use
| (from weight to screen quality to battery life) _and_ does
| not turn into a radiator or a turbine when it 's being put
| through its paces should be a reasonable enough value
| proposition for anyone to understand even if they
| personally don't want it; I don't understand why people are
| always so eager to snidely bring up devices that don't meet
| those criteria whenever Macbooks are mentioned.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| With a 3070? Unless you have a backpack with a battery that's
| completely unreasonable to expect. External battery packs
| that plug into USB-C are actually pretty small and affordable
| and easily 3x the battery capacity
| d3w4s9 wrote:
| That's true, however I realized I personally don't actually
| need > 6hr battery life in a laptop, like, ever. There is
| always an outlet near me, and the charger & cable are small
| enough to easily carry around. If I am on a trip, well the
| same charger can be used to charge my phone and other
| devices, so I am not packing more than I would have
| otherwise. Why do I need to worry about battery life?
|
| P.S. both you and I know that the 20 hour number is not real.
| killerdhmo wrote:
| You know they announced a price cut right?
| minimaxir wrote:
| The price cut is the new starting model with just the M3 as a
| new SKU. The old comparible SKUs are about the same.
| goosedragons wrote:
| It's arguably also a price increase over the outgoing 13"
| M2 MBP model it replaces which was $1300.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| It doesn't really replace the 13" MBP. That was a weird
| in-between relic with the old screen, a TouchBar and a
| fan that the CPU didn't really need. Essentially an Air
| with a bunch of semi-useless upgrades. Both the actual
| 13" Air and the real 14" Pro were significantly better,
| more focused machines.
| goosedragons wrote:
| It does because it's the low-end MBP with the base M
| chip. The 14" M3 has a fan too.
| icedchai wrote:
| The low end "MacBook Pro" without a "pro" chip and only 8
| gigs of RAM cannot seriously be considered a "pro" machine.
| That is a marketing gimmick.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| You only need to bump the RAM to 16 GB to get a nice,
| quiet, efficient dev machine, similar to an Air, but with
| the significantly better screen, speakers and longer
| battery life.
| icedchai wrote:
| I've reconsidered and there is a some truth to this. I
| have a 14" M1 Pro and it's the best screen I've seen on a
| laptop! I honestly don't need the "Pro" chip for what I
| use it for.
| d3w4s9 wrote:
| No they didn't, look closely. I was also fooled at first.
| hcnews wrote:
| Would be interested in a link to a model if you have one handy!
| Kye wrote:
| https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1746503-REG/lenovo_82.
| ..
|
| B&H doesn't stock it anymore, but it looks like other places
| still sell it with updated specs.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| That could be any gaming laptop from any manufacturer., those
| are the only ones who still ship with upgradable RAM and dual
| M.2 slots.
| Kye wrote:
| Finding one with a decent screen for anything other than
| gaming is the trick. I linked it up there, but this is IPS
| with 100% sRGB, more brightness than most people need,
| 16:10 (vertical space is nice!), 165Hz, and _matte_! Most
| gaming laptops are...not that. Maybe 50% sRGB on a dim
| glossy TN screen.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Most gaming laptops are...not that. _
|
| Then you haven't been looking close enough. Cheapo gaming
| laptops yes, but Lenovo Legion, Asus G14 plus most other
| more premium models from other manufacturers have very
| good screens.
| Daneel_ wrote:
| Lenovo Thinkpads? You can absolutely have two m2 slots
| with a good screen and a solid graphics card. https://psr
| ef.lenovo.com/Product/ThinkPad/ThinkPad_P1_Gen_6
| TastyFossil wrote:
| I think any midrange gaming laptop in 2023 has that plus
| much better response times compared to apple laptops
| frant-hartm wrote:
| Workstation laptops from Lenovo and Dell have upgradeable
| RAM and have been offering 128 GB RAM for something like 6
| years.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| People have never bought Apple because of the hardware. They
| buy it because of the software, the aesthetics, the label, the
| support (It's easier to find an Apple repair shop than repair
| shops for any other brand anywhere in the world), and the
| integration with Apple's services. Comparing spec to spec is
| missing the point.
|
| Also while this is niche, at the high end (M3 max + 128gb) you
| end up with a laptop that can literally just do things no
| Nvidia laptop can do right now due to the gobs of memory
| directly addressable by the GPU. I'm not saying 99.9% of people
| are going to take advantage of it, but it is a thing.
| tapanjk wrote:
| > People have never bought Apple because of the hardware.
|
| Actually, a lot of people do. Here's one famous example [1],
| and I also know people in my network who love their MacBooks
| for the hardware.
|
| [1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/linus-torvalds-
| uses-...
| kfajdsl wrote:
| > People have never bought Apple because of the hardware
|
| Hardware was the primary reason for me buying an M2 MBP. I've
| been primarily a Linux user for years, but I bought a MBP
| after my ThinkPad T14s just died and became completely
| unresponsive in the middle of a work day. The screen is
| gorgeous, the trackpad is great, the keyboard is decent, but
| the battery life is incredible. My ThinkPad was advertised to
| have a 12 hour battery life, but I'd be lucky to get 8. I can
| go nearly two days without charging my MBP.
|
| I don't love macOS though. I had to install several third
| party apps to get basics like window snapping and a middle
| click, but I'm mostly okay since I just swap between Emacs
| and Chrome. Once Asahi gets DP over USB-C support though,
| I'll probably switch.
| sharms wrote:
| It looks like these models won't be as useful for LLM inference
| which are heavily memory bandwidth constrained. The Macbook Pro
| page shows M3 at 100GB/s,150GB/s, and 300GB/s vs M2 at 200GB/s
| and 400GB/s. 400GB/s is available for M3 if you opt for the high
| gpu config, but interesting to see it go down across all of these
| models.
| minimaxir wrote:
| The presentation mentioned dynamic GPU caching: that seems like
| something transformer models would like.
| monocasa wrote:
| Could be, but I'd like to hear more information about what it
| actually entails.
|
| My gut feeling is that it's kind of like Z compression, but
| using the high amount of privileged software (basically a
| whole RTOS) they run on the GPU to dynamically allocate pages
| so that scare quotes "vram" allocations don't require giant
| arenas.
|
| If that's the case, I'm not sure that ML will benefit. Most
| ML models are pretty good about actually touching everything
| they allocate, in which case, lazy allocations won't help you
| much and may actually get in the way startup latency.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| In addition to what mono said, llama.cpp allocates everything
| up front with "--mlock"
|
| Llama.cpp (and MLC) have to read the all the model weights
| from RAM for every token. Batching aside, there's no way
| around that.
| kivlad wrote:
| A few things I noticed, as I'm seeing the variety of SKUs
| becoming more complex.
|
| - Note that memory bandwidth is down. M2 Pro had 200GB/s, M3 Pro
| only has 150GB/s. M3 Max only has 400GB/s on the higher binned
| part.
|
| - Just like the low-spec M3 14" has one fewer Thunderbolt port,
| it also doesn't officially support Thunderbolt 4 (like M1/M2
| before it)
|
| - The M3 Pro loses the option for an 8TB SSD. Likely because it
| was a low volume part for that spec.
|
| - The M3 Pro actually has more E-cores than the Max (6 vs 4).
| Interesting to see them take this away on a higher-specced part;
| seems like Intel wouldn't do this
| polishTar wrote:
| In addition to the reduced memory bandwidth, the M3 pro also
| loses 2 performance cores for only 2 more efficiency cores.
|
| M2 pro: 8 performance cores + 4 efficiency cores.
|
| M3 pro: 6 performance cores + 6 efficiency cores.
|
| Not a great trade... I'm not sure the M3 pro can be considered
| an upgrade
| photonerd wrote:
| Depends. Is it faster? Then it's an upgrade.
|
| Has the CPU industry really managed to pull off it's attempt
| at a bs coup that more cores always === better?
|
| I thought we'd learned our lesson with the silly Mhz Myth
| already?
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Let me re-write your post with the opposite view. Both are
| unconvincing.
|
| << Depends. Is it faster? Then it's an upgrade. Has the CPU
| industry really managed to pull off it's attempt at a bs
| coup that more MHz always === better?
|
| I thought we'd learned our lesson with the silly cores Myth
| already? >>
| akerl_ wrote:
| I think you're misreading the comment you're replying to.
| Both "more cores is always better" and "more MHz is
| always better" are myths.
| photonerd wrote:
| Yup, exactly what I was saying.
| leereeves wrote:
| That makes less sense because the MHz marketing came
| before the core count marketing.
|
| I agree with GP that we should rely on real measures like
| "is it faster", but maybe the goal of exchanging
| performance cores for efficiency was to decrease power
| consumption, not be faster?
| photonerd wrote:
| Probably a balance of both tbh, as it appears to be both
| faster AND around the same performance per watt.
| photonerd wrote:
| That's... the same view, just applied to a different
| metric. Both would be _correct_.
|
| Your reading comprehension needs work, no wonder you're
| unconvinced when you don't even understand what is being
| said.
| dimask wrote:
| Yes, but the number of cores in similar cpus do provide a
| good comparison. For example, with base M2pro at 6 p
| cores and base M3pro at 5 p cores, one would want ~20%
| faster cores to compensate for the lack of one core in
| parallel processing scenarios where things scale well. I
| don't think M3 brings that. I am waiting to see tests to
| understand what the new M3s are better for (prob battery
| life).
| rewmie wrote:
| > Depends. Is it faster?
|
| The devil tends to be in the details. More precisely, in
| the benchmark details. I think Apple provided none other
| than the marketing blurb. In the meantime, embarrassingly
| parallel applications do benefit from having more
| performant cores.
| photonerd wrote:
| oh absolutely, I can't wait to see the benchmarks. Per
| the (non-numerical data) benchmarks in the video tho - it
| _is_ faster. So... until other evidence presents itself,
| that 's what we have to go on.
| grupthink wrote:
| Heh, I recall seeing many posts arguing against
| benchmarks when all Macs equipped with an M2/8GB/256GB
| SSD scored much, much lower than the M1/8GB/256GB SSD.
| People said the synthetic benchmarks were not
| representative of real world use and you'd never notice
| the difference. 'Twas a battle of the optimists,
| pessimists, and realists. In reality, 'twas just Apple
| cutting costs in their newer product.
| rewmie wrote:
| > Heh, I recall seeing many posts arguing against
| benchmarks (...)
|
| It's one thing to argue that some real-world data might
| not be representative all on itself.
|
| It's an entirely different thing to present no proof at
| all, and just claim "trust me, bro" on marketing
| brochures.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Faster than what? M1 Pro? Just barely.
| meflou wrote:
| Reference should be M2 pro
| saagarjha wrote:
| I suspect it's about equal or perhaps even slower.
| photonerd wrote:
| Based on what? The event video says it's faster.
| saagarjha wrote:
| M2 Pro was about 20-25% faster than M1 Pro, M3 Pro quotes
| a similar number. It has faster cores but a weaker
| distribution of them. Seems like a wash, but we'll see
| exactly how close when benchmarks are out.
| photonerd wrote:
| 2.5x is "just barely"? lol k.
| saagarjha wrote:
| 20%
| selcuka wrote:
| > 2.5x is "just barely"? lol k.
|
| That's only rendering speed, and M3 Max vs M1 Max (not
| Pro). M3 Pro is only 30 percent faster:
|
| > The 12-core CPU design has six performance cores and
| six efficiency cores, offering single-threaded
| performance that is up to 30 percent faster than M1 Pro.
| polishTar wrote:
| I guess we'll have to wait for benchmarks but I did find
| this interesting:
|
| Apple's PR release for M2 pro: "up to 20 percent greater
| performance over M1 Pro"
|
| Apple's announcement for M3 pro: "up to 20 percent faster
| than M1 Pro" (they didn't bother to compare it to M2 pro)
| fastball wrote:
| Sure, that's the title, but at least in this PR they
| immediately show a graph with a comparison to both.
|
| Presumably it makes more marketing sense to compare to
| the M1 family up front because most people that bought an
| M2 last year are probably not going to be upgrading to
| M3. They are speaking to the people most likely to
| upgrade.
| parl_match wrote:
| fwiw, i cant remember the last time i saw a company go
| back more than a generation in their own comparison.
| Apple is saying here as much as they're not saying here.
| M2->M3 may not be a compelling upgrade story.
| sudhirj wrote:
| It's absolutely not, and that's fine. The video has
| statements that the machines are made to "last for years"
| and they want to save natural resources be making long
| lasting machines.
|
| I'm currently at 4 to 5 years on laptops and 3 to 4 years
| on phones, and even then I hand them over to
| kids/friends/family who get a bit more use out of them.
| parl_match wrote:
| > they want to save natural resources be making long
| lasting machines.
|
| Apple always comes from a position of strength. Again,
| they're saying as much as they're not saying.
|
| Also, if they really cared about long lasting machines:
| slotted ram and flash please, thanks!
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| I have no excuse for flash, but memory can't really be
| slotted anymore since SODIMM is crap. High hopes for CAMM
| making it's way into every other machine 2024!
| sudhirj wrote:
| Huh. So they used to do this, but looking at the M series
| chips it seems like the architecture assumes the CPU-GPU-
| RAM are all on the same chip and hooked into each other,
| which enables zero copy. Someone more well versed in
| hardware could explain if this is even possible.
|
| Expandable internal storage would be nice, yeah. But I
| get the sealed, very tightly packed chassis they're going
| for.
| strangetortoise wrote:
| They haven't made slotted ram or storage on their
| macbooks since 2012 (retina macbooks removed the slotted
| ram afaik). It might save on thickness, but I'm not
| buying the slim chasses argument being the only reason,
| since they happily made their devices thicker for the M
| series cpus.
| pbmonster wrote:
| > It might save on thickness, but I'm not buying the slim
| chasses argument being the only reason
|
| Soldered memory allows higher bus frequency much, much
| easier. From a high frequency perspective, the slots are
| a nightmare.
| pdpi wrote:
| Yup. I've been looking at the Framework laptop, and it's
| barely any thicker than the current MacBook Pro.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| > get the sealed, very tightly packed chassis they're
| going for
|
| The Dell XPS 17 is only 0.1 inch thicker yet has fully
| replaceable RAM and 2(!) m2 slots. I'm pretty sure what
| Apple is going for is maximizing profit margins over
| anything else..
| dijit wrote:
| The issue is often comparing apples (heh) to oranges.
|
| I understand the desire for slotted RAM, but the major
| limiting factor for nearly 10 years was _CPU support_ for
| more than 16G of RAM. I had 16G of ram in 2011 and it was
| only 2019 when Intels 9th Gen laptop CPUs started
| supporting more.
|
| The Dell XPS 17 itself has so many issues that if it was
| a Macbook people would be chomping at the bit, including
| not having a reliable suspend and memory issues causing
| BSOD's. -- reliability of these devices, at least when it
| comes to memory, might actually be worse and cause a
| shorter lifespan than if it had been soldered.
|
| Of course it always feels good to buy an underspecced
| machine and upgrade it a year later, which is what we're
| trading off.
|
| But it's interesting that we don't seem to have taken
| issue with BGA CPU mounts in laptops but we did for
| memory, I think this might be because Apple was one of
| the first to do it - and we feel a certain way when Apple
| limits us but not when other companies do.
| angoragoats wrote:
| There's a lot of flat-out wrong information in this post.
| For one, even the low-power (U-series) Intel laptop CPUs
| have suported 32GB+ of memory since at least the 6th
| generation[1]. Many machines based on these CPUs
| unofficially support more than that. I have a Thinkpad
| with an i7-8550u and 64GB of DDR4, and it runs great.
|
| On top of that, the higher-power laptop SKUs have
| supported 64gb or more since that time as well.
|
| Secondly, it's silly to claim that having RAM slots
| somehow makes a computer inherently more unstable.
| Typically these types of issues are the result of the
| manufacturer of the machine having bugs in the BIOS/EFI
| implementation, which are exacerbated by certain
| brands/types of memory. If you don't want to mess around
| with figuring that stuff out, most manufacturers publish
| a list of officially-tested RAM modules which are not
| always the cheapest in absolute terms, but _are_ always
| night-and-day cheaper than Apple's ridiculous memory
| pricing.
|
| [1] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/
| 88190/i...
| dijit wrote:
| Sorry, you're entirely mistaken, there is no business
| laptop that you could reasonably buy with more than 16G
| of RAM. I know because I had to buy a high end
| workstation laptop (Dell Precision 5520 FWIW) because no
| other laptop was supporting more than 16G of RAM in a
| thin chassis.
|
| No Dell Latitude, Elitebook, Thinkpad X/T-series or even
| Fujitsu lifebook supported a CPU that was permitting
| greater than 16GiB of memory.
|
| I know this because it was something I was looking at
| _intently_ at the time and was very happy when the
| restrictions were lifted for commercially viable laptop
| SKUs.
|
| Citing that something exists predisposes the notion of
| availability and functionality. No sane person is going
| to be rocking into the room with a Precision 7520 and
| calling it portable. The thing could be used as a weapon
| and not much else if you had no power source for more
| than 2hrs.
|
| Also, socketed _anything_ definitely increases material
| reliability. I ship desktop PC 's internationally pretty
| often and the movement of shipping unseats components
| quite easily even with good packing.
|
| I'm talking as if I'm against socketed components, I'm
| not, but don't pretend there's no downsides and infinite
| upgrade as an upside, it's disingenuous, in my experience
| there are some minor reliability issues (XPS17 being an
| exceptional case and one I was using to illustrate that
| sometimes we cherry pick what one manufacturer is doing
| with the belief that there were no trade offs to get
| there) and some limitations on the hardware side that
| limit your upgrade potential outside of being soldered.
| angoragoats wrote:
| > Sorry, you're entirely mistaken, there is no business
| laptop that you could reasonably buy with more than 16G
| of RAM.
|
| > No Dell Latitude, Elitebook, Thinkpad X/T-series or
| even Fujitsu lifebook supported a CPU that was permitting
| greater than 16GiB of memory.
|
| Here are the Lenovo PSRef specs for the Thinkpad T470,
| which clearly states 32GB as the officially-supported
| maximum, using a 6th or 7th gen CPU:
|
| https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkPad/ThinkPa
| d_T...
|
| This is not a behemoth of a laptop; I'm writing this on a
| T480 right now, which supports 32GB officially and 64GB
| unofficially, and it weighs 4lbs with the high-capacity
| battery (the same as the T470).
|
| I can't tell if you're trolling or what, but if you're
| serious, you clearly didn't look hard enough.
|
| Edit: since you mentioned Latitudes, Elitebooks, and
| Fujitsu lifebooks:
|
| - Dell Latitude 7480 (6th gen CPUs) officially supports
| 32GB: https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-
| us/latitude-14-7480-...
|
| - HP Elitebook 840 G3 (6th gen CPUs) officially supports
| 32GB: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05259054
|
| - For Lifebooks, I couldn't find an older one that
| supported 32GB, but this U937 uses 7th gen CPUs, and has
| 4GB soldered and one DIMM slot which supports up to 16GB.
| This is a total of 20GB, again, breaking the 16GB
| barrier: https://www.fujitsu.com/tw/Images/ds-
| LIFEBOOK%20U937.pdf
|
| I believe these are all 14"-class laptops that weigh
| under 4 pounds.
| angoragoats wrote:
| One more thought: you might be getting confused here with
| the LPDDR3 limitation, which was a legit thing that
| existed until the timeframe you're thinking of.
|
| Any laptop which used LPDDR3 (soldered) typically maxed
| out at 16GB, but as far as I'm aware, this was due to
| capacity limitations of the RAM chips, not anything to do
| with the CPUs. For example, the Lenovo X1 Carbon had a
| 16GB upper limit for a while due to this. I believe the
| 15" MacBook Pro had the same limitation until moving to
| DDR4. But this is entirely the result of a design
| decision on the part of the laptop manufacturer, _not_
| the CPU, and as I 've shown there were plenty of laptops
| out there in the ~2014-2016 timeframe which supported
| 32GB or more.
| nobleach wrote:
| I have an XPS 15. And while I liked that I could bring my
| own SSD and RAM, the build quality is nowhere near a
| Macbook Pro... like not even in the same galaxy. I had to
| have it serviced multiple times within the first few
| weeks. It had to be sent to Texas, and when it returned,
| one WiFi antenna wouldn't plug into the card, and the
| light on the front was permanently broken. I could have
| demanded Dell fix it - and I'd have been even more weeks
| without my main work laptop. So, by pure numbers/specs?
| Sure. By real world quality, no way would I favor Dell.
| layer8 wrote:
| Given that there is a legally mandated 2-year warranty
| period at least in Europe, I would be surprised if any
| laptops weren't made to "last for years".
|
| The problem with Apple, however, is that their hardware
| will long outlive their software support. So if they
| really want to save natural resources by making long-
| lasting machines, they should put much more effort into
| sustained software support.
| CharlesW wrote:
| The vast majority of Mac users go years between upgrades.
| For any other vendor it might seem weird to show several
| comparisons going back multiple generations (M1 and x86),
| but for the macOS ecosystem it makes perfect sense since
| only a very tiny slice of M2 users will be upgrading.
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| and what makes you think windows users update their
| devices every single generation?
| coldtea wrote:
| Windows users buy whatever, from so many brands, that it
| doesn't matter how often they upgrade, they're likely to
| not upgrade from the same vendor anyway (so that the
| comparison to its older generations to be meaningful in
| the first place).
| acdha wrote:
| Windows has distinct groups: the people who buy whatever
| costs $700 at Costco every 10 years / when it breaks
| don't care but there's also a vocal enthusiast community
| who do upgrade frequently. That group gets more attention
| since it's a profitable niche and gaming generates a lot
| of revenue.
| andrewprock wrote:
| I used buy a $700 Windows laptop every 18 months in the
| 2000s. Then I got fed up with them just falling apart and
| switched to Macbooks. My 2013 purchase is still alive and
| being used by the kids.
| acdha wrote:
| Yeah, the quality of PC laptops has improved but that
| really just means you can get closer to equivalent
| quality at equivalent pricing. I've heard people claim to
| have saved a ton but every single time I used one there
| was some noticeable quality decrease, which I find kind
| of refreshing as a reminder that the market does actually
| work pretty well.
| schizm wrote:
| Did you treat the MB differently because you paid more?
| If so, that may have yielded longer life in addition to
| quality design, etc.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _and what makes you think windows users update their
| devices every single generation?_
|
| They don't, but the difference is that Windows users
| generally don't know or care about processor generations.
| In contrast, it's common for Mac users to know they have
| an "old" Intel-based Pro, an M1 Air, etc., and to use
| that knowledge to help determine when it might be time to
| upgrade.
|
| You can test this by asking Windows users what CPU they
| have. For the few who know and who have an Intel CPU, you
| can ask what their Brand Modifier1 (i3/i5/i7) is. If they
| know that, you can ask what the 5-digit number following
| the Brand Modifier is -- the first two digits are the
| Generation Indicator1. I'd be surprised if more than
| 0.01% of Windows users know this.
|
| 1 Intel's name
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| man, that's a whole lot of mental gymnastics to justify
| scummy benchmark practices from apple.
| CharlesW wrote:
| How are they scummy? The M3 vs. M2 performance
| improvements they showed looked pretty modest.
|
| My interpretation while watching the event is that this
| is a company persuading x86 holdouts to upgrade to Apple
| Silicon, and maybe some M1 users as well.
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| like everything you said could apply to nvidia gpus as
| well
| sgerenser wrote:
| Intel's CPU naming strategy used to drive me nuts when
| trying to talk to anyone at work who knew "just enough to
| be dangerous." Why is X so slow on this machine, it's got
| an [6 year old, dual core] i5! It runs fine on my laptop
| and that's only an [1 year old, quad-core] i3!
| photonerd wrote:
| The majority of MacBooks out there are still intel based.
| This presentation was _mostly_ aimed at them & M1
| owners.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > i cant remember the last time i saw a company go back
| more than a generation in their own comparison
|
| Apple likes doing that quite frequently while dumping
| their "up to X% better" stats on you for minutes.
| henriquez wrote:
| Nvidia did it when they released the RTX 3080 / 3090
| because the RTX 2000 series was kind of a dud upgrade
| from GTX 1060 and 1080 Ti
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Given how strong they emphasised the performance over the
| Intel base - who now have had their machines for 4 years
| and are likely to replace soon (and may be wondering if
| they stay at Apple or switch over to PCs), it is pretty
| obvious that they also want to target that demographic
| specifically.
| fsloth wrote:
| Plausibly they thought market is saturated with M1:s and
| targeted this to entice M1 users to switch.
| runeks wrote:
| That's not what it says. Actual quote:
|
| > The 12-core CPU design has six performance cores and
| six efficiency cores, offering single-threaded
| performance that is up to 30 percent faster than M1 Pro.
| sigmoid10 wrote:
| Ok, so then the M3 pro is _up to_ 1.3 /1.2=~8% faster
| than the M2 pro? I can see why they wouldn't use that for
| marketing.
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| Depends who they are marketing to I think is the point.
| If the biggest group of potential buyers are not M2
| users, then it makes sense not to market to them directly
| with these stats.
|
| I've got an M1 Max 64GB and I'm not even tempted to
| upgrade yet, maybe they'll still be comparing to M1 when
| the M10 comes out though.
| sigmoid10 wrote:
| I'm also far from replacing my M1. But if someone from an
| older generation of Intel Macs considers upgrading the
| marketing is off as well.
| trostaft wrote:
| I find that frustrating with how intel markets its desktop
| CPUs. Often I find performance enhancements directly
| turning off efficiency cores...
| nabakin wrote:
| > Has the CPU industry really managed to pull off it's
| attempt at a bs coup that more cores always === better?
|
| I thought this at first then I realized the cost-
| performance benefit gained from adding more cores often
| outweighs just improving the performance of single cores.
| Even in gaming. I think this is what led AMD to create
| their Ryzen 9 line of CPUs with 12 cores in 2019.
|
| That being said, I abhor the deceptive marketing which says
| 50% more performance when in reality, it's at most 50% more
| performance specifically on perfectly parallel tasks which
| is not the general performance that the consumer expects.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| E cores are ~30% faster and P about 15%. So the question
| would be how much the Es assist when Ps are maxed on each
| chip. In any other situation, more/better E cores should
| outperform and extend battery. I'm not saying that means you
| should want to spend the money.
| greesil wrote:
| Could you not resolve these questions with benchmarking?
| polishTar wrote:
| I love Apple's E cores. It just sucks that the M3 pro gains
| so few given the reduction in P cores.
|
| Apple's E cores take up ~1/4 the die space of their P core.
| If the M3 pro lost 2 performance cores but gained 4-8
| efficiency cores it'd be a much more reasonable trade.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| I'd like to see that. Good point about die space.
| dontlaugh wrote:
| I'm sure the difference is GPU.
| raydev wrote:
| Functionally, how does this impact observed performance on
| heavy loads like code compile or video manipulation? I doubt
| it's not much, and these are the low/mid-tier priced machines
| we are talking about.
|
| If you bought a $2k M2 machine and traded it for a $2k M3
| machine, you may gain better battery life with no
| concessions, except for benchmark measurements (that don't
| affect your daily work).
| spookie wrote:
| These are not low/mid tier machines when talking about
| "consumer-grade".
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Yeah.
|
| $2K-3K is what my 3090/7800x3D sff desktop cost
| (depending on whether you include the price of the
| TV/peripherals I already own).
| duped wrote:
| Then why do they come with (low end) consumer level
| storage and memory capacity?
| 3c6bYDXLMj wrote:
| Different people have different needs. I certainly need a
| MacBook Pro for my work, but I use next to no storage.
| I've never purchase beyond the minimum storage for an
| Apple computer. I did however up the processor on my
| current MacBook Pro.
|
| Minimum 8GB RAM is more universally egregious but I'm not
| going to sit here and justify my own exception whilst
| discounting the possibility that 8GB works for others.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| The cost for adding an extra 8GB would be insignificant
| for Apple, though. The only reason they don't is to
| upsell higher tier models
| raydev wrote:
| Within the MacBook Pro lineup, they are objectively the
| low and mid-grade pricing tiers.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Indeed, but that's a bit of an oxymoron as any Macbook
| Pro is not a "low/mid-tier priced machine"
| 3c6bYDXLMj wrote:
| We all know what is meant by "low/mid-tier". This is
| pointless pedantry. Next someone is going to come by with
| the throwaway comment complaint about how OpenAI isn't
| "open".
| spookie wrote:
| Fair enough, I was just arguing even Mac users might not
| have the cash or the patience to commit into another
| machine.
|
| We've seen the same with Nvidia's GPUs going from the 10
| to 20 series. If people don't perceive higher gains
| without compromises, they won't buy it.
| jug wrote:
| This makes going Mac Mini M2 Pro over iMac M3 feel real
| compelling. The respective prices of these models are in fact
| the same, so if you happen to have a good monitor already...
| (also the iMac M3 curiously doesn't even have a Pro option.)
| Dunedan wrote:
| Depends on what you consider an upgrade. As M3 cores perform
| better than M2 cores, I expect the M3 configuration to
| perform similar to the M2 one, even though it trades
| performance cores for efficiency cores. Apple apparently
| believes that its users value improved efficiency for longer
| lasting battery more than further improved performance.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| The new efficiency cores are 30% faster than M2, and the
| performance ones 20% faster, so lets do the math:
| M2: 8 + 4 M3: 6*1.2 + 6*1.3 = 7.2 +
| 7.8
|
| That's nearly double the M2's efficiency cores, a little less
| on the performance ones.
|
| They do say the system overall is up to 65% faster, and has
| lower power consumption at the same performance level.
| polishTar wrote:
| You're not considering the difference in performance
| between the p and e cores. The math should be something
| more like: M2 pro = 8*3 + 4 =28 (the *3
| representing that the performance cores contribute ~3x more
| to total system performance than the efficiency cores)
| M3 pro = 6*3*1.15 + 6*1.3 =28 (apple claims 15% more
| performance for the p cores not 20%)
|
| > They do say the system overall is up to 65% faster, and
| has lower power consumption at the same performance level.
|
| They don't claim either of those things. They claim the
| performance is 20% faster than the M1 pro. Interestingly,
| they made that exact same claim when they announced the M2
| pro.
|
| Energy efficiency might be better, but I'm skeptical till I
| see tests. I suspect at least some of the performance gains
| on the p+e cores are driven by running at higher clock
| rates and less efficiently. That may end up being more
| significant to total energy consumption than the change in
| the mix of p/e cores. To put it another way, they have more
| e cores, but their new e cores may be less efficient due to
| higher clock speeds. Total energy efficiency could go down.
| We'll just have to wait and see but given that apple isn't
| claiming an increase in battery life for the M3 pro
| products compared to their M2 pro counterparts, I don't
| think we should expect an improvement.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| If you wanted to be even more accurate, you'd also have
| to take into account that most tasks are executed on the
| E cores, so having more of those, or faster, will have a
| much greater impact than any improvement on the P cores.
| It's impossible to estimate the impact like this - which
| is why Apple's performance claims[1] are based on real-
| world tests using common software for different
| workloads.
|
| In summary, there is supposedly improvement in all areas
| so the reduced P core count doesn't seem to be a
| downgrade in any form as the OP suggested.
|
| [1] https://www.apple.com/nl/macbook-pro/
| nabakin wrote:
| I wouldn't trust Apple's marketing on that if it's where
| you got those numbers from
| mastercheif wrote:
| > Just like the low-spec M3 14" has one fewer Thunderbolt port,
| it also doesn't officially support Thunderbolt 4 (like M1/M2
| before it)
|
| I believe this is due to the TB4 spec requiring support for two
| external displays on a single port. The base spec M series SoCs
| only support one external display.
|
| I'd expect the ports to work identically to a TB4 port in all
| other aspects.
| lathiat wrote:
| I really, really wish they would fix this silly display scan-
| out limitation. I gave them a (frustrating) pass on the M1
| given it was the first evolution from iPhone/iPad where it
| wouldn't have mattered. But seems silly to have made it all
| the way to the M3. Wanting to dock onto two displays even at
| the low end doesn't seem like such a niche use-case.
|
| I'm sure there is some kind of technical explanation but both
| Intel and NVIDIA seemed to managed 3+ scanouts even on low
| end parts for a long time.
| stouset wrote:
| > Wanting to dock onto two displays even at the low end
| doesn't seem like such a niche use-case.
|
| I mean, it almost certainly is? I would guess a majority of
| the low-end SKUs are rarely if ever attached to _one_
| external display. Two would be rarer still.
| timschmidt wrote:
| Intel has supported three external displays on integrated
| graphics since Ivy Bridge in 2012.
| stouset wrote:
| I'm not sure what that has to do with it being a niche
| use-case or not.
| timschmidt wrote:
| Niche or not, being more than a decade behind the
| competition is gauche.
| stouset wrote:
| On one somewhat niche feature, on the lowest SKU in that
| particular product lineup.
|
| I can pick areas where Apple is beating Intel. Different
| products have different feature matrices, news at 11.
| bee_rider wrote:
| They also don't show any signs of catching up to the
| Raspberry Pi's on GPIO capabilities.
| timschmidt wrote:
| They did with https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark
| /products/series/... but sadly seem to have killed off
| that product line.
| bee_rider wrote:
| That was Intel, not Apple.
|
| It does seem like a shame, though--Intel's IOT department
| seems to try lots of things, but not get many hits.
| reactordev wrote:
| Apple does not compete on checkboxes. If they deemed is
| necessary to remove, there's a reason. Not saying I
| agree, just that's how they operate. If there isn't a
| need to support 3 displays then they won't, regardless if
| the "competition" did it years prior.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _there's a reason_
|
| they operate 100% on profitability, not what's
| technically feasible. They are extremely focused on
| making money. Yes, there is a reason after all.
| reactordev wrote:
| Exactly my point. It's technically feasible to do many
| things. Apple will do what Apple does. Try to upsell you
| into the higher tier hardware.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| > there's a reason. Not saying I agree, just that's how
| they operate.
|
| Almost always it's maximizing profit margins rather than
| anything else.
| d3w4s9 wrote:
| If that were true Apple would have stopped bragging about
| battery life.
| nerdbert wrote:
| The longer battery life is genuinely useful to a wide
| range of people in a way that being able to connect 38
| external monitors is not.
|
| I recently went on a 5-day trip and forgot to bring the
| charger for my M2. The first day I thought I'd have to
| rush around and find one. By the fourth day I still had
| 8% and then finally realized I could charge it via USB-C
| instead of magsafe.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| > connect 38 external monitors
|
| Just 2 would be enough. Which seems like a basic feature
| their competitors are are capable of supporting for a
| very low costs.
|
| They in fact are competing on checkboxes, specifically
| they are probably using this limitation to upsell theirs
| more expensive models.
| reactordev wrote:
| Can you not connect 2 monitors on a Mac?
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| Not on those with a non-pro M chip.
| nerdbert wrote:
| Even if you use one of those Thunderbolt/USB-C expansion
| dongles?
| d3w4s9 wrote:
| It has nothing to do with niche use-case or not. This is
| a regression compared to their own Intel Macbooks.
| justinclift wrote:
| At a ~recent work place the entire floor of developers
| had (Intel) MacBook Pros with dual 24" monitors.
|
| Some of them were trying out Apple Silicon replacements,
| though I'm not aware of what they did monitor wise.
| Probably used the excuse to buy a single large ultrawide
| each instead, though I don't actually know. ;)
| stouset wrote:
| Which workplaces are these that buy low-end laptops for
| their employees but shell out for dual monitor
| workstations?
| walterbell wrote:
| External displays can be used for multiple generations of
| laptop hardware. Unlike CPUs, displays are not improving
| dramatically each year.
|
| MacBook Air is a world-leading form factor for travel,
| it's not "low-end".
|
| MBA with extra storage/RAM can exceed revenue of base
| MBP.
| stouset wrote:
| We're still talking the low end of this product line. If
| you're buying two monitors for your employees, I'm not
| sure you're skimping on the cost between an M3 and an M3
| Pro.
| walterbell wrote:
| As stated, it's not about cost.
|
| The travel form factor of MBA is not available for MBP,
| for any price.
| justinclift wrote:
| What's Apple high end laptop product line?
| justinclift wrote:
| > low-end laptops
|
| Heh, that's not how I would describe MacBook Pros. ;)
| daft_pink wrote:
| Is a 1,599 laptop a low-end laptop? An M3 Macbook Pro 14"
| that costs $1,599 can only drive a single external
| monitor according to the spec. A $1,000 Dell XPS 13 can
| drive 4 monitors via a single Thunderbolt 4 Dock that
| also charges the laptop!
|
| Honestly, I'm an accountant and everyone in my office
| uses 2-3 monitors with $1,200 business ultrabook.
| datadeft wrote:
| I think this use case is probably not the majority.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| So? Intel doesn't seem have any issues supporting it
| regardless of that.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _low-end laptops_
|
| you're saying they're low-end because Intel? if you've
| got your macbook connected to two monitors, you're not
| very concerned about battery performance.
|
| So isn't Intel silicon competitive speedwise? I thought
| the M[0-4]s were OK but sort of hypey as to being better
| in all regards.
| 3c6bYDXLMj wrote:
| Not a chance. Moving from an Intel MacBook Pro to an
| Apple Silicon MacBook Pro was absolutely revolutionary
| for me and my very pedestrian 'interpreted language in
| Docker web developer' workloads.
|
| I'd seriously consider not taking a job if they were
| still on Intel MacBooks. I appreciate that an arch switch
| isn't a piece of cake for many many workloads, and it
| isn't just a sign of employers cheaping out. But for me
| it's just been such a significant improvement.
| dimask wrote:
| I have worked in plenty i5-i7 windows/linux laptops
| before and a macbook m1 air with 16gb of ram is miles
| better in everything. Nothing like them.
|
| And even if you do not care about battery, you still care
| about throttling.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| More like cheap out on monitors such that devs want two
| crappy monitors instead of one crappy monitor
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| I work at Motorola and we get M1 airs unless you
| specifically request a Linux laptop. I wouldn't call it
| low end though. Low end is an Intel i3.
| whynotminot wrote:
| What dev shop gives their engineers base model machines?
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Where are you getting that impression from the parent
| post? Maybe they were on a 2, 3, or 4 year upgrade cycle
| and still had a bunch of Intel MBPs when Apple Silicon
| hit the market. That'd be extremely typical.
|
| What dev shop immediately buys all developers the newest
| and shiniest thing as soon as its released without
| trialing it first?
| justinclift wrote:
| Yeah, they were running Intel Macbook Pros because that's
| what everyone was used to, and also because production
| ran on x86_64 architecture.
|
| At least at the time, things worked a bit easier having
| the entire pipeline (dev -> prod) use a single
| architecture.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Yeah, that was my experience. The early M1 adopters at my
| previous company definitely ran into some growing pains
| with package availability, etc.
|
| (Overall the transition was super smooth, but it wasn't
| instant or without bumps)
| Fomite wrote:
| We stuck with Intel MBPs for awhile because people needed
| machines, but the scientific computing infrastructure for
| Apple silicon took more than a little bit to get going.
| whynotminot wrote:
| Huh? He was talking about dual monitor situations being a
| problem.
|
| If the company bought Pro or Max chips and not base
| models, it wouldn't be a problem.
| lathiat wrote:
| Doesn't need to be a dev shop. Go into any standard
| office and most productivity office workers will be
| running dual monitors now.
|
| But with the general power of the base model Apple
| Silicon I don't think most dev shops really need the
| higher end models, honestly.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| It's a bit funny though that their competitors don't seem
| to have any issues supporting this on pretty much all of
| their products.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Well the number with two screens would be zero, because
| you can't do it. That doesn't mean people don't want to
| do it because 0% of the laptops do it. They're just
| unable to.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Display pipelines are expensive and take area.
| frutiger wrote:
| Easy to say but hard to prove. How much more expensive
| would an MBP be if they supported it? How many fewer
| units would they shift?
|
| Those are harder questions to answer. We could assume
| Apple crunched the numbers. Or perhaps they just stuck to
| the status quo.
|
| Only an insider or decision maker (maybe that's you)
| knows.
| saagarjha wrote:
| I mean they are physical things and you can look at how
| big they are. But sure the rest of how that factors into
| cost and sales is harder to figure out, yes.
| whynotminot wrote:
| I think their assumption is that if you're the kind of
| pro that needs that many monitors, you'll upgrade to the
| better chips they sell.
|
| But it's a frustrating limitation and remains one of the
| only areas their old intel based laptops were better at.
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| An assumption they are so unsure about, that they kind of
| force that decision on their users.
| d3w4s9 wrote:
| For the past 3 years, including with the latest laptops,
| "better chip" means 14" M* Pro starting at $1,999. $1,299
| M1/M2 or $1,599 Macbook Pro does not support that. When
| you can find support for dual external display on $600
| Windows laptops, or Intel Macbooks since at least 2012.
| By any standard this is an embarrassment and a
| regression.
| BonoboIO wrote:
| It's a money thing. Apple wants to upsell. The production
| cost would be negligible, but now you have to buy the
| next level of the product.
| Sakos wrote:
| The CEO is a supply chain guy. They've been optimizing
| their profit margins ruthlessly since he took the helm. I
| don't think any savings are too small, particularly if
| comparatively few users are affected and it motivates
| upselling.
|
| I think it's weird though how far people go to defend
| Apple. It's objectively making (some) users worse off.
| Apple clearly doesn't care and the people defending them
| also clearly don't. But the affected users do care and
| "but money" isn't really a good excuse for them. It also
| doesn't solve their problem of not being able to use two
| external monitors anymore without spending significantly
| more money.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| Unless you're Intel?
| spiralpolitik wrote:
| The technical explanation is that on the base M1/M2 SoC
| there is one Thunderbolt bus that supports 2 display
| outputs.
|
| On the MacBook Air one output is connected to the internal
| display leaving one output for an external display.
|
| (The Mac Mini that uses the same SoC is limited to 2
| external displays for the same reason)
|
| To support more displays they would have to add support for
| a second Thunderbolt bus to the base SoC.
| walterbell wrote:
| Allow the user to turn off the internal display in favor
| of 2 external displays. That would be a usable docked
| configuration.
| shanghaikid wrote:
| you are right, but apple won't do this.
| walterbell wrote:
| independent repair technician demo video to mux MBA
| internal and external display?
| richardg_ wrote:
| Is this an actual hardware issue though? One issue is
| MacOS has never supported DisplayPort MST (Multi-Stream
| Transport) EVER as far as I can tell. MST allows for
| multiple display streams to be natively sent over a
| single connection for docks or daisy chaining monitors.
| Back on Intel Mac's if you had a dock with 2 displays or
| daisy chained 2 together you would get mirrored displays.
| The exact same Mac/displays in boot camp MST would work
| perfectly. 1x display per Thunderbolt 4 port is the
| worst!
| AlphaSite wrote:
| You can get multiple displays from a single port, the
| hubs are just expensive.
| daft_pink wrote:
| You can't do it with a base model M chip. Not supported
| on Mac unless you go with displaylink and displaylink has
| weird issues on mac like no hdcp support and screen
| recording enabled that make it a really bad experience
| compared to mac.
| lathiat wrote:
| Right, but why can't you disable the internal display to
| run 2 external displays? That wouldn't be an unreasonble
| compromise but seems not possible.
| paulmd wrote:
| M1/M2 only has 1 native HDMI pixel pipe in any form, I
| think? Apple uses the HDMI PHY to drive the screen on
| tablets, and the screen on laptops. Base-tier M1/M2 also
| only have a single displayport pixel pipe, and Pro/Max
| get +1/+2 respectively.
|
| The base-tier chips are designed as high-volume tablet
| chips first and foremost, with ultramobility crossover
| capability.
|
| Using DisplayLink or certain kinds of thunderbolt
| multimonitor are possible while running outside the pixel
| pipe or running multiple monitors on a single pixel pipe
| (this is not MST which is multiple pixel pipes on a
| single stream). But yeah it's ugly especially on a base-
| tier processor with this eating cycles/dumping heat.
| You're running the hardware encoder at least.
|
| Discord had this weird error if you tried to enable the
| screen/audio capture, it tries to launch something and
| fails and the solution is you need to manually install
| "airfoil" because it's an audio capture module that
| discord licensed. you don't have to fully install it but
| the audio driver is the part that discord uses and that
| goes first (has to be allowed as a kext, ie non-secure
| mode). theoretically a kernel-level capture like that
| could be a ton faster than userland, I think that's the
| on-label use of airfoil.
| numpad0 wrote:
| There's no reason a whole Thunderbolt _bus_ is needed for
| every two displays. It 's just Apple's decision to build
| their GPU that way.
|
| And to not support industry standard NVIDIA GPU on ARM
| Macs, too. 1 GPU typically supports 5 output over as
| little bandwidth as PCIe x1.
| chx wrote:
| Not with nVidia, no, they are 4 displays, always has
| been. The NVS810 8x display card is using two GM107 GPUs.
|
| AMD is 6 displays. You see this rarely on consumer boards
| but the ASRock 5700 XT Taichi for some inexplicable
| reason did expose all six -- with four DisplayPorts to
| boot, too. I do not think there has been 4 DP or six
| output customer cards since.
| numpad0 wrote:
| There are couple 900-, 10-, 20-, 30-Series NVIDIA with 5
| outputs. 700- and below had up to 4. IIUC it's more like
| up to (x px, y px) max with up to N independent clocks
| without external adapters or something along that.
| mciancia wrote:
| Just because there are X outputs on GPU, doesn't mean it
| will work with all of them at the same time
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _I 'm sure there is some kind of technical explanation_
|
| I'm sure it's a marketing explanation: they make bigger
| margins on more expensive machines, and they need some
| feature differentiators to nudge people to move up. 2 extra
| displays is a poweruser/pro feature.
|
| They make their own silicon, it's not like they're shy
| about designing hardware, if they wanted to stuff features
| into the lower end books they easily could.
| saagarjha wrote:
| It's because they don't want to put a Thunderbolt controller
| on the right side of the computer
| happymellon wrote:
| Is this a change to the spec, or did they skirt around that
| previously, because I didn't think they supported more than
| one screen per port on the M1/2?
| sillywalk wrote:
| The 2x USB/Thunderbolt ports are on the same side. :(
| bufo wrote:
| It was pretty hard to saturate the memory bandwidth on the M2
| on the CPU side (not sure about the GPU).
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| The GPU can saturate it for sure.
|
| Llama.cpp is a pretty extreme cpu ram bus saturator, but I
| dunno how close it is (and its kind of irrelevant because why
| wouldn't you use a Metal backend).
| sunpazed wrote:
| Well, Metal can only allocate a smaller portion of "VRAM"
| to the GPU -- about 70% or so, see;
| https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/tech-talks/10580
|
| If you want to run larger models, then CPU inference is
| your only choice.
| __loam wrote:
| Aren't these things supposed to have cores dedicated to
| ml?
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| > Note that memory bandwidth is down. M2 Pro had 200GB/s, M3
| Pro only has 150GB/s. M3 Max only has 400GB/s on the higher
| binned part.
|
| Is this because they are not populating all the memory
| channels, or just using lesser memory ICs?
|
| If its the former... thats annoying. It just makes their
| products worse for artificial segmentation and very little cost
| savings.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| I'm wondering now if Apple tracks this sort of stuff in their
| released machines. I know my iPad always asks me if I want to
| send stats to Apple (and I always say no). So let's say that
| enough people do, then do they have a good idea of how often
| all the performance cores are used? Max memory B/W consumed?
| Stuff like that. Back when I was at Intel there were always
| interesting tradeoffs between available silicon/thermal/margin
| resource and what made it into the chip. Of course Intel didn't
| have any way (at that time) to collect statistics so it was
| always "... but I think we should ..." not a lot of data.
| threeseed wrote:
| Apple shares anonymous usage data by default on all their
| operating systems and users are asked again on every major
| update.
|
| Given that there has never been any public incidents about it
| and what we know about similar defaults I would be surprised
| if Apple is getting less than 95% opt-in rate.
|
| But I suspect at high-end they only really care about the
| performance of a few dozen professional apps e.g. Logic or
| Final Cut. And at the low-end it's likely just efficiency.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| > Given that there has never been any public incidents
| about it and what we know about similar defaults I would be
| surprised if Apple is getting less than 95% opt-in rate.
|
| A 95% opt-in rate is INSANELY high for any type of usage-
| stat opt-in, everything above 50% is usually outstanding.
|
| What is known about "similar defaults"?
| yipbub wrote:
| It seems like the comment above is describing out-out and
| the it pesters you to opt-back in if you opt-out.
| ballenf wrote:
| That's not how it works. You get asked the question again
| on every update, regardless of what you chose the last
| time.
|
| So there are people who were opted-in that change their
| minds. My friends and family opt-in rate is <50%. And
| most of them are non-technical.
| 55555 wrote:
| It honestly doesn't matter. We're talking about hundreds
| of millions of devices sending data in either case. A
| hundred million more provides no additional value.
| dmix wrote:
| Major updates are infrequent maybe once a year if you
| always update, it's not pestering you. And the UI makes
| it very easy to skip unlike some designs.
| plussed_reader wrote:
| Unless there is a flurry of network vulnerability
| updates, then a bespoke fork is set in the road for them.
| dmix wrote:
| Security/minor updates don't prompt for this AFAIK
| 3c6bYDXLMj wrote:
| It's a step in a setup wizard. Whilst it's explicitly
| asked, and far from dark pattern territory, it's designed
| in such a way that I wouldn't be surprised by a 95% opt-
| in rate.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| I would be VERY surprised.
|
| To someone with experience in that area of UX, a 95% opt-
| IN rate is ridiculously high.
|
| A 95% consent-rate would already be hard to achieve as
| opt-OUT.
|
| For opt-in a 95% rate would require both attention AND
| consent from 95% of the audience at this stage in the
| setup wizard.
|
| I highly doubt that it can achieve 95% attention, let
| alone 95% consent.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| But it's not quite opt in our opt out in this case. The
| user is _required_ to opt for _something_. Apple
| literally has 100% attention, because otherwise the user
| can 't move past the screen.
| marpstar wrote:
| To add to this, it's not like a mailing list, either.
| Marketing opt-in is lower because it's annoying. A lot of
| people don't want emails.
|
| Anonymized stats from your machine? Most normal people
| (who don't use computers like we do) do not care and just
| click the most affirmative option so that they can move
| forward.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| I think that was kind of the OP point. "Pro" users are
| _significantly_ more likely to be opt-out in this
| scenario, unless they are not Pro users but just want the
| Pro machine for conspicuous consumption, making a much
| more dramatic swing in the usage data that is collected.
| GenerocUsername wrote:
| The word Pro in the product name really doesn't separate
| consumers as well as you might think.
|
| Every college kid has a Mac Book Pro, yet they are by
| definition not Pros
| rickdeckard wrote:
| I was actually more genuinely interested to learn about
| the "similar defaults" mentioned in the OP, the 95%
| comment was just a side-note to a huge overestimation on
| how easy consent is achieved.
|
| > But it's not quite opt in our opt out in this case. The
| user is required to opt for something. Apple literally
| has 100% attention, because otherwise the user can't move
| past the screen.
|
| Thing is, you don't even have 100% of the users'
| attention in this case. The user wants to use the device,
| you're just standing in the way.
|
| The scenario is this: You force the user to take a
| decision between option A and B. Regardless of his
| decision he will achieve his immediately desired outcome
| (move to the next screen / use the device).
|
| Getting 95% to vote for 'A' would require some quite
| aggressive dark pattern, to the point that option 'B'
| would need to be almost invisible and actively
| discouraged.
|
| Even if the UI would be a pre-checked check-box and the
| user would just have to select "Next" to Continue (=opt-
| out), your rate of consent would not be 95%. As
| mentioned, everything beyond 50% is already outstanding
|
| Or, let's rephrase: If Apple would have 95% opt-in rate,
| they wouldn't bother chasing for consent again on every
| SW-update
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| It's more like 15% opt in. I know because it controls dev
| access to analytics on their apps.
| aatd86 wrote:
| Wait telemetry is opt-out?
|
| And I've never heard people complain?
|
| Genuinely surprised as it seems to be quite a commonly
| controversial thing amongst devs.
| benterix wrote:
| Well, Apple generally has so much info about your every
| step people stopped caring a long time ago.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I think you are talking about Google, not Apple.
| schizm wrote:
| No, both of them actually. Don't trust them too much.
|
| This calls out some soft spots that were exposed during
| the Hong Kong riots:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ9LR8homt4
| The_Colonel wrote:
| Yeah, that's kind of surprising, given that Apple is
| often hailed as a privacy champion.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| It's not really opt-out or opt-in: it's an explicit,
| informed choice you have to make when you start up your
| Mac after first purchase or major upgrade.
| u320 wrote:
| No the default action is to do nothing (ie do not install
| the OS). You have to actively consent or reject.
| stephen_g wrote:
| It's not exactly 'opt-out', they ask you on first boot or
| after major upgrades, and you either select "Share with
| Apple" or "Don't Share with Apple". It's just that the
| "Share" button is coloured blue so _looks_ more default
| since it 's more prominent (at least on iOS, I think it's
| basically the same on macOS).
|
| It's not like it's enabled by default and you have to
| know to go and find the setting to turn it off or
| anything..
| nicoburns wrote:
| It's opt-out, but it's not enabled silently. It's a pre-
| ticked checkbox on a screen you have to review when you
| first setup the machine (and when you do a major version
| OS upgrade).
|
| IMO that's quite different to something that's just
| silently on by default, and requires you to set an
| environment variable or run a command to opt out.
| ballenf wrote:
| On a phone there is no box at all. It's two options to
| select. The opt-in is highlighted, but there is no "next"
| button -- you have to select an option.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| I don't think it's pre-checked, is it? I thought it was
| Yes/No buttons
| gosub100 wrote:
| > asks me if I want to send stats to Apple (and I always say
| no)
|
| so you like them enough to pay them thousands for the premium
| product, but not enough to tell them how much CPU you use?
| cowsup wrote:
| I have no idea what information they're collecting on me,
| and it seems very few people do (given that nobody was able
| to answer the above question).
|
| Could be "how much CPU does this user use?" but could also
| be "when prompted with a notification that a user's iCloud
| backup storage is low, how long did they hesitate on the
| prompt before dismissing? How can we increase their odds of
| upgrading?"
|
| Also, my willingness to provide information does not
| correlate to how much I "like" a company's products. If I
| buy a sandwich from a deli, and they ask for my email for
| their newsletter or something, I won't give it. That
| doesn't mean I don't like their company or their sandwich.
| Could be the best sandwich in the world, they don't need my
| email.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > The M3 Pro loses the option for an 8TB SSD. Likely because it
| was a low volume part for that spec.
|
| That's not super surprising to me. Apple loves to charge stupid
| prices for storage and memory. Maybe it's worth it for lots of
| people to have the convenience of built in storage at the lower
| levels, but I have to imagine that most people would want 8TB
| of SSD would rather just get an external solution for... much
| less.
| bdavbdav wrote:
| Yeah I can imagine that's an incredibly niche setup. Maybe if
| you were editing on the go or similar, but even then, TB
| drives seems like a more pragmatic choice.
| masklinn wrote:
| > seems like Intel wouldn't do this
|
| Wouldn't do what? Intel has more E-cores than P-cores on most
| of their range, and especially on the higher end e.g. on raptor
| lake S the i9 all have 16 E and 8 P, the i7s have 8:8, only the
| lower end of the i5 (below 13500) have more P than E cores. And
| the i3 have no E cores.
|
| The story is somewhat similar on mobile (H and HX), a minority
| of SKUs have more P than E, and none of them in P and U.
|
| In fact that was one of the things which surprised me when
| Intel started releasing asymmetric SMT, they seemed to bank
| heavily on E cores when mobile and Apple had mostly been 1:1 or
| biased towards P cores.
| 3c6bYDXLMj wrote:
| Well, when your P is still quite E, I guess it's a different
| equation :).
| globular-toast wrote:
| I think you confirmed what you were replying to. Intel makes
| the numbers get bigger as you go up, regardless of whether
| that makes the most sense.
| masklinn wrote:
| Oh yeah I misread the comment.
|
| Although that's not quite true either e.g. on raptor lake
| H, the upper i5 (13600H) has 8 E cores while the low range
| i7 (13620H) has 4, but the i7 has 6 P-cores versus 4. The
| base frequencies also get lower as you move from i5 to i7.
| And you have less GPU EU (80 -> 64).
| signa11 wrote:
| > Note that memory bandwidth is down. M2 Pro had 200GB/s, M3
| Pro only has 150GB/s. M3 Max only has 400GB/s on the higher
| binned part.
|
| just contrasting this with the recent TR4 announcements from
| AMD, apparently their PRO variants top (theoretically at least)
| at around 325GB/s (non-pro versions are half of this), so just
| from that perspective alone M3 Max's might be better ?
|
| i always have the naive assumption here that keeping the-beast
| i.e. the cpu fed with data is much better for overall
| performance than _just_ clock-rates etc.
| delfinom wrote:
| The SKUs are becoming more complex because they are probably
| learning why Intel/AMD have so many SKUs. Making complex chips
| at scale results in a range of less-than-ideal chips. This
| drives a the need to segment and bin chips into different SKUs
| to reduce losses, rather than trying to sell one SKU and throw
| awaying the anomalies.
| cwingrav wrote:
| I think what Apple is pushing for is computing efficiency. It
| still gets faster but with much less power. Focusing on
| performance solely would be the wrong way to evaluate these
| chips. https://www.tomsguide.com/news/apple-m3-chip
| nordsieck wrote:
| I think it's a bit more nuanced than that.
|
| There's a reason they didn't just stick an A series chip in
| their laptops and call it a day - they want more performance
| even if it comes at the cost of efficiency. It's probably
| better to say that Apple is pushing performance within a
| relatively restricted power envelope.
|
| Just to illustrate my point - if m3 had exactly the same
| performance as m1, but with 1/2 the power draw, I don't think
| many people would have been happy even if it would have been
| an amazing increase in computing efficiency.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| This drives me crazy. Apple plays the market like Nintendo.
| Pick something that no one cares about, do it better than
| anyone else, and make a big deal about it.
|
| I dream of a world where instead of a marketing company
| becoming a top 3 tech company, a tech company would have.
| Wonder what they would have done for their laptop...
|
| Or maybe this is just an inevitable outcome of
| capitalism/human biology where a veblen goods company will
| become a top player in a market.
|
| (I have my own Google and M$ complaints too)
| musictubes wrote:
| So Apple is the most successful company because they
| prioritize things that no one cares about?
|
| I dunno, if a there was marketing company that could design
| the likes of the M series chips along with the mobile
| versions, develop a full technology stack from programming
| language and compiler, custom chips, through to shipping
| whole devices at unimaginable scale would make me wonder
| what technology companies were doing.
|
| What other "tech" company really compares from a hardware
| perspective? Samsung? Dell? AMD? Love them or hate them,
| there's no denying that Apple has serious technical chops.
| One day people will only hate Apple for reasonable things,
| today's not that day apparently.
| etchalon wrote:
| It's probably fairer to say "Apple builds products focused
| on things I don't care about."
|
| Obviously, other people care.
| addicted wrote:
| Apple develops its own OS. Apple develops its own
| development stack, frameworks, etc. Apple develops its own
| CPU/GPU architecture. Apple develops its own battery
| architecture. Apple develops its own tooling to manufacture
| a lot of their products. Apple develops its own tooling to
| dispose off their products.
|
| There are very few companies that have as much first party
| Tech in their products from start to finish.
|
| I think Apple under prioritizes sdvanced functionality but
| if they're not a Tech company than it's hard to see what
| is.
| selimnairb wrote:
| Wish that you could get the 16-core CPU with the smaller Max
| GPU, but alas I just ordered one anyway.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| The max is probably only going to be in desktops, so better to
| use the die area for other things than E cores
| paulpan wrote:
| The new M3 14" MBP seems to be a red herring - why does it even
| exist? Why not just refresh the MBA instead?
|
| An obvious rule of thumb is for "Pro"-branded laptops to only
| use "Pro"-branded chips. It's what they follow for the iPhone
| lineup, but I suppose iPad Pros also use non-Pro chips. Just
| seems like a very confusing SKU to create, and definitely
| something Steve wouldn't approve of.
| mrcwinn wrote:
| I personally struggle with the 14". It feels too small to be
| productive on, at least for coding. Anyone else experience
| this?
|
| And yet, the MBA's screen in comparison is serviceable and
| nice, but nothing outstanding. That's the case for the MBP 14
| (when the 16 is just too large and bulky).
| jonpalmisc wrote:
| I find it to be the perfect size actually. Easily in a
| backpack and is light, and can use it on the couch, etc.
| comfortably. I'd never buy a 16" laptop.
| anoother wrote:
| I find the 14" perfect, but I also find a tiling window
| manager (universally) vital.
| soupdiver wrote:
| > I personally struggle with the 14". It feels too small to
| be productive on, at least for coding. Anyone else
| experience this?
|
| absolutely not... working for 10 years on 13/14 and never
| _felt_ that way I get this is personal ;)
| davepeck wrote:
| Absolutely love my 14" M2 pro and use it daily for coding.
| Perfect size/weight for the backpack, and endless battery
| at the local coffee shop.
| Joeri wrote:
| It replaces the 13 inch macbook pro with m2. Apple always has
| a "pro" macbook at that price point and it is one of the
| better selling macbooks, because not all "pro" users have a
| need for cpu grunt. A lawyer, for example, probably wants a
| "pro" class of hardware but doesn't need more than an 8 gb
| m1. You could argue they should get a macbook air, but this
| 14 inch macbook pro is effectively that but with a better
| screen and more ports, which is exactly what that kind of
| buyer needs.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| The most popular Macbook Pro?
|
| Look, I'm a 16" guy myself, I even carried one of the 17"
| cafeteria trays back in the day... but it's clearly the sweet
| spot for _most_ people.
| totallywrong wrote:
| What I really miss in my work issued M1 Pro isn't more power,
| it's the keyboard in those 2010s models.
| chi_features wrote:
| I agree. And the longevity of them specifically for me. My M1
| (MBP and MBA) keyboards shine after a few weeks' of activity
| whereas no shining on older MBPs with a decade of use - it
| reeks of a quality degradation.
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| 100% this. My work-M2 MBP is barely a few month old, but the
| keyboard already looks very worn out :(
|
| OT: I love my M1 MBA and really hate the new style which
| seems to cut into my wrists and arms :(
| NoPicklez wrote:
| 110% I still use my Macbook Pro from 2011 and when using brand
| new Macs, I can't help my miss my home Macbook pro
| Zetobal wrote:
| Selling a tick for a tock.
| mdasen wrote:
| An interesting thing about the M2 Pro and M3 Pro is that they
| shifted away from being mostly performance cores. The M1 Pro was
| either 6+2 P+E or 8+2 P+E. The M2 Pro was either 6+4 or 8+4. The
| new M3 Pro is either 5+6 or 6+6.
|
| Apple has been shifting away from performance cores with each
| generation. M1 Pro: 75-80% P-cores; M2 Pro: 60-67% P-cores; M3
| Pro: 45-50% P-cores.
|
| This shows up when you look at Geekbench results. A 10-core M2
| Pro (6+4) gets 12,100 while a 10-core M1 Pro (8+2) gets 12,202.
| The 12-core M2 Pro (8+4) gets 14,221. That's a 16.5% increase
| from having 20% more cores. In some ways, this feels like an odd
| result. Adding two additional M2 P-cores gets Apple a
| comparatively small result over the 10-core M2 Pro (less than the
| average core performance). However, adding two efficiency cores
| over the M1 Pro gives them the same 16.5% boost over the 8+2 M1
| Pro.
|
| If I had to guess, maybe it's thermal throttling when running the
| benchmark. If the additional P-cores can't truly be P-cores under
| 100% load, then their impact shows up less. Likewise, if the
| E-cores can match P-core performance under heavy thermal load,
| then it could show up as being roughly equivalent in the
| benchmark.
|
| I wonder if real-world scenarios end up differing from benchmarks
| in a meaningful way around this. For example, core-pinning can be
| useful for warm caches and in a real-world scenario you might
| have a process the OS tries to pin to P-core-1 that has spikes in
| utilization while another process is pinned to P-core-2 with
| similar spikes. So both get the performance of a P-core and warm
| caches while the thermal load isn't that high so the P-cores are
| still at their peak performance (unlike a benchmark that's trying
| to use all cores as much as possible at the same time).
|
| Maybe this is a business decision more than something based
| around how the chip performs. The big selling point of the M1/M2
| Max was graphics (maybe the extra RAM as well). You could get the
| same CPU in the Pro or Max. Now the M3 Pro is a 5+6 or 6+6 CPU
| while the M3 Max is 10+4. 67-100% more performance cores becomes
| a selling point for the M3 Max even for those who might not care
| about graphics as much.
| TillE wrote:
| > maybe it's thermal throttling
|
| The GPU is a very large fraction of the thermal output these
| SoCs are engineered to handle, so there really shouldn't be any
| throttling if you're only loading the CPU.
| jeffybefffy519 wrote:
| Its the same package tho, so if the GPU gets hot then the CPU
| thermal throttles as well.
| pier25 wrote:
| Yeah but it's not very often that you will push both CPU
| and GPU to the max.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Geekbench does though.
| dansalvato wrote:
| I think your last paragraph sounds about right. The Max is a
| compromise on battery life for those who want the absolute most
| possible performance, but I think Apple is seeing a much wider
| audience get the Pro chip. Anecdotally, whenever I see a tech
| person mention their Apple silicon device, it's almost always a
| Pro chip. I'm sure only a small fraction of that user base is
| hitting all cores with a full load on a regular basis, but a
| majority are certainly enjoying a killer battery life.
| runeks wrote:
| I chose the M1 Max over the M1 Pro only to get 32GB RAM. I
| couldn't care less about the GPU (which makes it annoying to
| have to pay for it).
| lionello wrote:
| I have an M1 Pro with 32GB
| jwr wrote:
| I'll be buying the Max this year, upgrading from an M1 Pro.
| The Max actually started making sense, because there are more
| performance cores and memory bandwidth is bigger. I don't
| much care about GPU: I wish Fusion 360 ran faster, but
| Autodesk doesn't seem to care much about Mac performance.
| What I do care about is CPU for Clojure development work, and
| for that the new Max actually makes sense.
|
| In the M1 generation there was no benefit from going from Pro
| to the Max.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Significantly easier to get benefits from scaling GPU cores
| than CPU cores.
| knodi wrote:
| Can i just have fucking 3-4 monitors support on the bottom line
| pro model. ffs apple
| jchook wrote:
| On the power consumption vs performance ratios, every chart
| showed the M3 cranking at higher overall power usage than the M1
| when under load.
|
| One of my favorite things about my M1 is the battery life. I
| wonder how the actual battery life will compare for the different
| market segments.
| nomel wrote:
| You can always turn on low power mode. I do this for extra long
| days.
| qaq wrote:
| Would be fun to see pgbench for M3 Max mbp
| coverband wrote:
| And still starting at 8GB of RAM... Disappointed.
| paustint wrote:
| Seriously.... My 16gb MacBook pro M1 work machine runs out of
| memory constantly. I had a MacBook air 8gb and it was useless,
| it would freeze constantly and have crackly audio. I found that
| 24GB ram is really the minimum that is usable on M-series when
| doing any type of basic work.
|
| Likely an output of so many electron based apps which are
| memory hungry, but if the memory is supposedly "really fast"
| then I would expect better performance. Never had the issue
| with Intel.
|
| But with a nice bit or memory, the performance is really nice.
| skybrian wrote:
| A contrasting data point: I have an 8gb M2 and haven't
| noticed any problem yet that made me wish I had more memory.
| I'm not using it for work, though.
| kanwisher wrote:
| You are only person in thread that says this. I still have
| one laptop is a M1 air 16gb. Still fastest computer I have
| ever owned outside of my MBP, I really only mbp for AI
| training everything else runs great on air still
| sgt wrote:
| I'm on 16GB which seems plenty - running many JetBrain's
| IDE's at the same time, browsers, VM's etc. I know people
| with the 8GB version and they are fine too. Could be that
| your machine is faulty somehow and that it's not the RAM but
| something else.
| wickedsickeune wrote:
| I'm using Unity (uber wasteful) and Rider (Java) and an M1
| air with 8GB is fine, no slowdown whatsoever* (compared to my
| desktop with 32GB on Windows). RAM is not the bottleneck in
| *NIX OSes, unless you do something that specifically requires
| a lot of RAM (eg machine learning)
|
| *compiling is slower, but the desktop has a much faster CPU
| Toutouxc wrote:
| > 24GB ram is really the minimum that is usable on M-series
| when doing any type of basic work
|
| M1 Air with 16 GB RAM. I have RubyMine (JetBrains IDE), an
| application server running Rails, MariaDB, MongoDB, Redis,
| Slack, Safari and Apple Music running, and DxO PhotoLab 7
| loaded on the non-work desktop space and clicking through
| some photos I took yesterday. Memory pressure green, laptop
| chilling at 30 degC.
| asadm wrote:
| Not sure what workflow you are on but I have a few IDEs,
| simulators, electron apps, etc. on my 16gb m1 pro. I haven't
| ever had memory issues.
| turquoisevar wrote:
| You might want to get that checked out
|
| I've got a 8GB Mac mini, 16GB iMac and a 64GB MBP, all on
| Apple Silicon. In 99% of the cases I can't tell a difference
| in responsiveness or use and my main use is app development
| in Xcode and high resolution photo and video editing.
|
| Even when actively monitoring things I mainly see a
| difference in memory compression, not so much in swap.
|
| As for Intel, before Apple Silicon I had the most tricked out
| Intel MBP and I'd rather chop my left arm off and be stuck in
| a bunker for a year with just the 8GB Mac mini than have to
| use that the Intel MBP is had. Unless perhaps the bunker has
| no heating, in which case I might have to reconsider.
| shpx wrote:
| You're saying people shouldn't be able to buy 8GB RAM Macs,
| which is crazy. I had to check how much memory my laptop has,
| and it's 8GB and I've never noticed.
|
| I guess you're just complaining about what you get for the
| lowest price.
| guax wrote:
| The lowest price is still a very high price that justifies
| the low end being 16. This is not a baseless complaint.
|
| And no, it's almost 2024, people should not be able to buy
| 8gb RAM computers when they're soldered in and 1k+ in price.
| daveoc64 wrote:
| For the price and a supposedly "Pro" model, having 8GB of
| non-replaceable RAM is ludicrous.
| flippy_flops wrote:
| Am i the only one who is frustrated with the mac monitor options
| these days? I don't know anyone who uses a 27" desktop monitor,
| much less a 24". What year is it? And $5k for a 32" is insulting.
| etchalon wrote:
| You can use non-Apple monitors with a Mac.
|
| Apple's monitors are only worth getting if you're incredibly
| picky about very specific things.
| yreg wrote:
| The "correct" retina resolutions are 4k at 24", 5k at 27" and
| 6k at 32".
|
| Apple won't make a display that doesn't align to that, since
| macOS doesn't handle anything else perfectly.
| flippy_flops wrote:
| the new iMac is 4.5k at 24"
| elseless wrote:
| In my opinion, the biggest problem with Apple's external
| displays is their 60 Hz refresh rate. That's half of what their
| own iPhone (!) and MacBook pro models support, and is a far cry
| from the 240 Hz (albeit at lower resolutions) displays that are
| starting to pop up from other manufacturers.
| artimaeis wrote:
| What size monitor do you believe to be most common? Anecdotally
| it seems the 27" monitor is finally overtaking the 24"
| monitors, but those seem to still be standard at more corporate
| companies.
|
| I wish Apple had succeeded in getting 27" monitors to be 5k
| resolution across the board -- but that ship seems to have long
| since sailed.
| bmitc wrote:
| "the most advanced chips for a personal computer", says Apple.
| This is not an objective statement.
| Detrytus wrote:
| Name the more advanced chip then... Intel and AMD fall short.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| Like another commenter said, what is the definition of
| "Advanced" in this context
| bmitc wrote:
| Wouldn't make more sense for Apple to define and backup what
| they mean as the most advanced? Also, Apple's products never
| hold up to the specs they quote in their marketing material
| any way. I'm not sure why you are taking their own post as
| fact, when Apple is one of the most blatant over marketing
| companies around.
|
| And even if it was true, it doesn't matter because Apple is
| obsessed with placing their chips in the most thermally
| constrained form factors as possible.
| aurareturn wrote:
| Apple routinely sandbags their performance in marketing
| slides. The actual performance is usually 1-2% better
| actually. Probably because they're the most visible company
| in the world and don't want to get sued.
|
| AMD/Intel meanwhile will cherry pick benchmarks and way
| overpromise.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| > Apple's products never hold up to the specs they quote in
| their marketing material any way
|
| For example?
| postalrat wrote:
| What's the budget?
| etchalon wrote:
| What is the objective definition of "advanced"?
| Retr0id wrote:
| There isn't one, that's the point.
| BirAdam wrote:
| Well, if you consider the entire package rather than CPU alone,
| I can see it. Still a misleading claim, but if stretch the
| definitions of "advanced" and "chip" you can do it.
| mr_toad wrote:
| > This is not an objective statement.
|
| Rick and Morty did it before.
| pier25 wrote:
| So what about that Cinema4D rendering performance that showed 2x
| vs the M2 Max?
|
| Was that GPU or CPU?
| vidoc wrote:
| I suspect most of the side by side comparisons, including this
| one, were GPU.
| etchalon wrote:
| Apple's biggest problem may be how good the M1 laptops were. I
| have a 14' M1 Max and there's no task in my workflow that's slow
| enough that I feel any real need to upgrade.
| shanghaikid wrote:
| M3 should not be in the macbook pro line. it only support one
| external display, should this laptop be called 'pro'
| Toutouxc wrote:
| What does the number of external displays have to do with the
| laptop being "pro", whatever that means? My Air drives a single
| 43" screen at home, I literally can't fit more screens on my
| desk. At the office anyone can grab a screen (they're nice, 4K
| and around 27-30" I think), some people use them, some don't
| (e.g. people with 16" MacBooks).
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| Love the improvement on the CPUs, but I was hoping for bigger
| iMacs and smaller Macbooks. I work at home on a 27" iMac, and on
| the road on a 12", 2 pound Macbook. We are years into the M
| generation of chips, and iMacs are still stuck at 24", and
| laptops are minimum 3 pounds and 13".
| yreg wrote:
| I feel similar to you, but I don't think we are going to see
| another high end iMac. Apple wants us to get Studios.
| MBCook wrote:
| I wonder if it didn't sell well enough. I know it was
| extremely popular with a lot of us tech people, but the
| numbers may not have been there.
| daft_pink wrote:
| I feel very disappointed that the laptops lack decent i/o. They
| spend all this time talking about how advanced the GPU is, but
| it's a $1,600 laptop that can only power one external display or
| a 2,000 laptop that can only power two displays?
|
| Plus they are nerfing the desktops by only offering the all-in-
| ones with m2, so you can walk into a store and want to buy any
| other desktop now you are paying a huge premium for outdated tech
| :(
|
| I was really hoping for FaceID and better display support, but I
| don't feel there was any compelling reason to upgrade anything.
| If you preferred Windows before, you probably still prefer
| Windows. If you have an M processor there is no compelling reason
| to upgrade. If you were thinking about getting a Studio or a
| mini, you should probably just wait until they update the
| processor.
| mdavidn wrote:
| > Plus they are nerfing the desktops by only offering the all-
| in-ones with m2
|
| I'm confused by this statement. The iMacs leapfrogged M2. The
| new models shipping next month will have regular M3 chips,
| replacing M1 models.
| daft_pink wrote:
| sorry, it's a typo and it won't let me edit it now. I meant
| that they only desktop they upgrade to m3 is the iMac and all
| the other desktops are thousands of dollars with the old
| processor... so like Mac Studio for $2,000 that I need to buy
| to power all my monitors now is using an old outdated
| processor.
| rexf wrote:
| > I feel very disappointed that the laptops lack decent i/o.
| They spend all this time talking about how advanced the GPU is,
| but it's a $1,600 laptop that can only power one external
| display or a 2,000 laptop that can only power two displays?
|
| yep. powering 2+ screens on a mac is not a straightforward
| process. for the prices Apple is charging on their "pro"
| machines, it should be simple to plug in 2 or even more screens
| to get work done.
| niek_pas wrote:
| Genuinely curious: what is your workflow that it requires
| more than 2 external monitors? Pro video?
| toxik wrote:
| A lot of people use three screens. I don't, I use one, but
| people do.
| Halen77 wrote:
| One screen for intellij, one screen for tests, one screen
| for browser or email, for instance
| alberth wrote:
| Black MacBook
|
| Some folks are going to lose their marbles that Apple released a
| black MacBook Pro.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| "The industry's first 3-nanometer chips for a personal computer
| debut a next-generation GPU architecture and deliver dramatic
| performance improvements, a faster CPU and Neural Engine, and
| support for more unified memory"
|
| This reads horribly in my opinion
| d3w4s9 wrote:
| That's Apple's hyping as usual. Apparently the improvements are
| not that "dramatic" when you look at numbers, at least not any
| more than M1->M2.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| I'm not interested in the content, it's the readability of
| the sentence
| Aloha wrote:
| Well, thats annoying. I just bought a M2 Max 16" MBP in mid
| September.
|
| I wouldn't have expected a new revision in the same year. I also
| swear apple used to have a policy for this situation, but I can't
| find it now.
| yreg wrote:
| Always check this page before purchasing Apple hw
| https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/
| Aloha wrote:
| I mean, I did.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230912190332/https://buyersgui.
| ..
|
| Neutral looked pretty good to me.
| lucasyvas wrote:
| As someone who prefers the MacBook Pro feature set (Pro Motion,
| namely), but doesn't need the best processor, I'd be fine with
| the 14 inch Pro, M3.
|
| But that model doesn't come in Space Black. Well played, you son
| of a bitch. Well played.
|
| They've mastered the art of the pricing ladder and it's fairly
| aggravating.
| geodel wrote:
| Well, you mention you mainly care for feature set. What kind of
| feature is body color that would affect functionality. In fact
| I feel any kind of scratch would be worse on space black as
| compared to gray or silver.
| webprofusion wrote:
| If it doesn't run Windows, is it really a PC?
| jlokier wrote:
| PCs and Windows are not synonymous.
|
| PCs didn't start running Windows until they were nearly 10
| years old, and then Windows was just an option. Shortly after
| Windows became popular, Linux emerged too and some people were
| running Linux on their PCs instead. There have been many other
| OSes on PCs over the years.
|
| I've owned and used many PCs, yet hardly ever needed to use
| Windows. Even when I developed software that ran in Windows,
| including games, I used Linux to do the development :)
| avereveard wrote:
| Can they drive two monitors this time?
| fckgw wrote:
| The 14" and 16" Macbook Pros have always been able to drive 2+
| displays. The new ones updated today continue this feature.
| Hope this helps.
| avereveard wrote:
| Not at all. Version of MacBook Pro with the M1 and M2 base
| chip can only drive one external monitor.
|
| And 600$ upgrade for the privilege of having a second
| external monitor is one hell of a step.
| foldr wrote:
| You're talking about the 13" model (now retired). As the
| previous poster said, the models that have been upgraded
| here have always been able to drive two displays.
| russelg wrote:
| The new base Macbook Pro M3 cannot drive two external
| displays. If you get all nit-picky you can say it drives
| two displays, as long as one of them is the internal
| display.
| foldr wrote:
| Ah, I see. I think this corresponds to the price drop,
| right? You can now get a 14" M3 MacBook Pro without a
| 'Pro' chip, whereas previously that price point was
| occupied by the 13" model. So essentially, for a given
| price point, your external display options have not
| changed much.
| avereveard wrote:
| There is no "now", this was the case for the M1 and M2
| MacBook Pro with the base tier of CPU.
| foldr wrote:
| But that was the 13 inch model, no? I think all the 14
| inch models had 'Pro' or 'Max' M1s and M2s. Now that the
| 13 inch model has gone, there are some cheaper 14" models
| that also have the base chip, and hence can only drive
| one external display.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Is this still ARMv8?
|
| I think ARMv9 SKUs from others are just around the corner, and
| that's going to be a pain point for Apple.
| amusingimpala75 wrote:
| Just wait for M3 Ultra which in past generations is literally
| just 2 Maxs. Imagine 256 of GB unified RAM (oh and I guess the
| 32-core CPU and 80-core GPU, though those aren't as impressive).
| Really would love to know how much that is going to cost
| tpurves wrote:
| The ultras don't make a lot of sense for most professionals
| when, at that price point a threadripper and a 4090 would still
| eat it for lunch.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| While that may be true, it's not really an apples to apple
| comparison.
|
| The m2 Mac Studio right now at $2400 for the 64gb model is
| cheaper than most anything new if you want 64gb unified pool
| of gpu memory other than the $2000 Nvidia 64gb Jetson AGX
| Orin which is much slower.
|
| A threadripper based system is physically freaking large, and
| loud, and incredibly vram constrained. It of course is going
| to absolutely destroy the Mac Studio in most situations
| because it's better than the Mac Studio in most metrics, but
| honestly I'm very excited by the prospect of future Macs with
| gobs of memory, although I'm concerned at how Apple isn't
| generationally improving memory bandwidth.
| pentagrama wrote:
| The M1 bar here shouldn't be at the middle?
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/2023/10/Apple-unveils-...
| whycombagator wrote:
| No, that would be 100% if it was
| yreg wrote:
| I miss the 27" iMac. It was (is) such a neat mac and it was even
| a reasonable deal considering it came with a nice screen.
| davidcollantes wrote:
| I was hoping--if not expecting--to see a refresh of the 27"
| iMac; I was ready to buy one! It disappointed me they simply
| upgraded the current 24".
|
| The new 24" are lovely, but I will miss the real estate (still
| using a "Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015" one).
| brendannee wrote:
| Which M3 configuration is the best price/performance option for
| an average developer? Is there an obvious best choice?
| bredren wrote:
| Not that I can see. I spec'd this:
|
| SoC: 11-core CPU, 14-core GPU, 16-core NE Memory: 18 GB Disk
| Space: 1 TB SSD Power: 70 Watt Price: $2199
|
| I personally would go for the 36GB Ram on this, bump the
| processor to the 12/18 core set and go for 2TB drive but the
| price skyrockets with these additions.
|
| FWIW, MBA M2 fully loaded is a very sound laptop.
| aurareturn wrote:
| For an average dev, I'd honestly skip the M3 and go buy a 15"
| MBA with 16GB RAM.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| Literally every single Apple Silicon MacBook with 16 GB of RAM
| can easily run your IDE, one or two VMs and/or some containers,
| your messaging app of choice and your browser. That's more than
| enough for most dev jobs out there. If your job actually
| requires more RAM or CPU grunt, you'll probably know. SoC, RAM
| and storage upgrades are kind of expensive from Apple, so the
| base models are always the most cost effective.
| nxobject wrote:
| On a related note, and on a personal level, my heart goes out to
| Johny Srouji and the Apple team in Herzliya. War is horrible, and
| I hope every reservist called up comes back to do magic at Apple.
| crawsome wrote:
| Letting Apple lead things in the market has gotten us to a very
| ugly space in personal computing. These are prohibitively
| expensive devices that for 95% of the use cases, a chromebook
| would be better-suited.
|
| All those intel machines that were so impressive in 2019 are
| running like crap now. All going according to plan, I'm sure.
|
| I manage a fleet of about 200 of these things. They are easy to
| manage, and oh-so-nice to look at, but boy, they are a huge waste
| of money.
|
| These things should only be used by engineers and creatives.
| Yawn.
| ptmcc wrote:
| Right, that is what the "Pro" moniker in Macbook Pro means
| maverick11 wrote:
| I'm looking for advice as I was planning to purchase the 14" M2
| Pro MacBook, but I've noticed that the M3 Pro MacBook Pro has
| been recently released. I'm uncertain about which one to choose,
| and I'm seeking assistance in making a decision.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Is it me, or does the "space black" not look that dark? I have a
| Macbook Air in "midnight black" or whatever it's called, and it
| seems darker than this hue, at least from watching the video.
| gnicholas wrote:
| "No matter what your passions are in work or in life, there's a
| Macbook Pro that's perfect for you."
|
| For the vast majority of Apple customers, Macbook Airs are plenty
| powerful. They're also lighter weight, and significantly cheaper.
| trekkie1024 wrote:
| Looks like the latest MBA is only 0.1 lbs less than the
| equivalent MBP at 3.4 lbs. Feels like they used to be lighter.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| They also used to feel a lot thinner, with the taper at the
| front edge.
|
| I don't like my M2 MacBook Air nearly as much as the M1, in
| terms of the physical feel and dimensions.
| bredren wrote:
| I had four or five gens of MBA over the years and generally
| agree. The new form factor is just not the same. It is much
| more like a how I'd envision design on some modern
| "Macbook" proper.
|
| But the Air brand has been so successful, I think they just
| called it that knowing it would help move units.
|
| That said, I use MBA M2 for my main machine and its so
| powerful and has such a fantastic battery life it is still
| the best Mac I've had since 2015 MBA.
| coder543 wrote:
| How are you determining "equivalent"? I don't agree with your
| conclusion at all.
|
| My M2 MBA is 2.7lbs. The 14" MBP starts at 3.4lbs. That is a
| _very_ noticeable 26% increase.
|
| 0.44 inches thick versus 0.61 inches thick is also
| noticeable.
|
| I have a 14" MBP for work, so I have plenty of first hand
| experience with both devices.
|
| The screen sizes of the relevant laptops are as follows:
| MBA (13in): 13.6 inches MBP (14in): 14.2 inches
| (+0.6in vs 13in MBA) MBA (15in): 15.3 inches (+1.1in
| vs 14in MBP)
|
| The 13-inch and 14-inch are significantly closer in size than
| the 14-inch and 15-inch.
|
| To add an additional spec for clarity, by my math the
| relative screen areas are as follows: MBA
| (13in): 84.36 square inches MBP (14in): 91.63
| square inches (+8.6% vs 13in MBA) MBA (15in): 106.24
| square inches (+16% vs 14in MBP)
|
| Why would the "equivalent" be the 15-inch MBA? Even though I
| obviously believe the 13-inch MBA is a closer match (as the
| specs above clearly show), the 15-inch MBA does still manage
| to be thinner and (barely) lighter than the 14-inch MBP, even
| while offering a significantly larger screen, which is
| impressive to be sure.
| nickpp wrote:
| The resolutions and brightness are also relevant:
| MBA (13in): 2560 by 1664 at 500 nits MBP (14in):
| 3024 by 1964 at 1000 nits MBA (15in): 2880 by 1864
| at 500 nits
|
| I also would compare the 14" MBP with the 15" MBA" closer
| weight, closer display. If price wasn't a factor, the 14"
| MBP wins for me.
| epolanski wrote:
| M1 Max 16 GB struggles for my use cases, ram is way too low for
| how much I paid for it.
|
| Then I look at the new line up and they are starting at 8GB
| still? And please don't BS me with "it's enough for most
| users", because this is a stupid argument, gonna tell you what,
| so is my macbook 2013!!!
|
| An 8gb upgrade then costs me 300 euros? This is crazy, 8gb ddr5
| memories at Apple volumes is 15$ expense at best.
|
| The fact that Apple keeps gouging software engineers and
| professionals that will always take the upgraded model (as my
| employer and virtually all I know does) makes me say yet again:
| those models can sit on the shelf for me.
|
| I'm not opening my wallet for such a greed.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Yeah that's crazy for their Pro line to even offer that
| option. Only the lightest users of MBAs should be buying a
| new machine with 8GB RAM.
| smeagull wrote:
| But it's not a PC, it's a mac.
| keyle wrote:
| The best feature to me is really the battery life and the
| quietness of the laptop. That's a game changer for me. I can work
| from anywhere comfortable, without burning my palms or legs and
| in silence.
|
| I remember working on a PC laptop years ago and as soon as you
| pressed F5 the fans came on cranking for a couple of seconds, it
| was farcical.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| There are Windows laptops with fantastic cooling setups. My old
| G14 can run fanless, and they've improved the cooling even more
| in subsequent generations.
|
| The thing Macs really excel at atm is long, sustained workloads
| on battery... Other than gaming.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| And still no 27 inch iMacs. Strange decision, that's a great
| size.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Interesting that the whole presentation was shot on an iPhone.
| I've been wondering when they'd make that leap.
| alphanullmeric wrote:
| Somehow Apple never has supply issues, meanwhile the good half of
| Lenovo's ryzen 7040 series is not available in North America.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Graphics-intensive games like Myst have incredibly realistic
| lighting, shadows, and reflections, thanks to the next-generation
| GPU of M3.
|
| I thought this was funny considering the original Myst can run on
| a modern toaster. I'm guessing they're referring to a new Myst
| re-release?
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| Yeah, it's pretty pathetic they keep bringing up Myst. I
| definitely highlighted it as a laughing point when summarizing
| it to others.
| PakG1 wrote:
| I got a new M2 Pro 16" just a few weeks ago. I was pissed when I
| discovered that a new M3 Pro was coming out. Reading all the
| comments here, I feel a bit better.
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| You missed out on black though.
| Detrytus wrote:
| Yes, the black is the "killer feature" of those Macs, I'm
| thinking about upgrading from my M1 Air solely for this
| reason :)
| RIMR wrote:
| "Graphics-intensive games like Myst have incredibly realistic
| lighting, shadows, and reflections, thanks to the next-generation
| GPU of M3"
|
| This is the funniest thing I have ever seen in an Apple press
| release. Myst came out in 1993, and the "graphics-intensive"
| version of Myst that they are demonstrating is clearly realMyst
| which came out in February 2014, just a few months shy of a
| decade ago.
|
| Meanwhile, my wife is happily playing Baldur's Gate 3 on her M1
| Mac. Could they really not get the sign-off from any other studio
| but Cyan on this? No shade against Myst, it is one of the best
| games ever produced, but this is not how you do a graphics
| demo...
|
| ----
|
| EDIT: Just now learning that there is yet another Myst remake
| from 2021 made in Unreal. It turns out I have played this
| version, but I did it on a Meta Quest 2, so I thought I was just
| playing a VR port of realMyst because it looked equally bad.
| zoogeny wrote:
| Finally time to upgrade my 2017 i7. For over 1 year the battery
| meter has said "Service Recommended" and in the last 2-3 months
| multiple key caps are literally falling off and regularly get
| jammed while I try to type.
|
| I figure the 16" with M3 Max and 64 GB is a good machine that
| will last me 5-6 years but I'm not sure if I should pony up for
| the 2TB storage upgrade.
|
| I just pray this revision won't have some unexpected problems.
| I'm actually glad it seems to only be a spec bump so I won't be
| taking on any new tech. Hopefully any issues have been shaken out
| from the M1 and M2 releases.
| brailsafe wrote:
| It's harder than ever to be excited to spend money on an
| upgrade, despite the overall machine being better than ever.
| RAM and SSD upgrades are comically expensive in Canada, maybe
| the former of which being slightly more justifiable. $500 for
| the ram upgrade $750 to ugrade _from_ 512gb to 2tb, so really I
| 'd be paying something like $1000 on just basic storage. It's
| kind of insulting.
| zoogeny wrote:
| Yes, totally agree, which is why I'm waffling over the
| upgrade. From 1TB to 2TB is $500 CAD _extra_. It is just so
| insanely out of line with the actual cost of the memory. I 'm
| looking at Amazon NVMe SSD and a decent looking 2TB drive is
| in the range of $150 CAD! I don't care how high quality
| whatever it is they are using is ... that is ridiculous
| markup. And since everything is soldered nowadays it isn't
| practical to buy and install oneself.
|
| My current HD is 500 GB and I have ~140 GB free. But I've
| also turned up the iCloud offloading feature, stored larger
| media files like videos on an external SSD and a few times
| gone through folders removing files to clean up space.
|
| I suppose if I want to play around with ML models then I
| should just bite the bullet and get more space. Fair play to
| Apple knowing how to squeeze every last cent out of their
| wannabe pro users.
| brailsafe wrote:
| I priced out a 14" and chose the minimum options that
| enable 64gb, and it comes to $4974 before tax _with 512gb
| of storage_. 512 to 1TB is that aforementioned $250 extra,
| or the $750 extra for 2TB, bringing it to nearly six grand
| before tax. Going from 64gb to 128gb adds an additional
| $1000.
|
| A lot of that price comes from the required upgrade of the
| base model cpu to the best cpu.
|
| I'll give them some credit and say that a very mid-tier
| upgrade from my 16gb ram intel mbp 13" to the now baseline
| 18gb 14" wouldn't be excruciatingly expensive and probably
| a great machine, but ram is being eaten up harder and
| faster than ever. At minimum, as a non-ML (unemployed)
| software dev, the 36gb is minimum I'd expect to be
| practical over the next 5 years
| whatever1 wrote:
| I think the M series laptops were the first full manifestation of
| the laptop idea.
|
| Instant sleep/resume, great input devices and monitor, cpu power
| at will without overheating or loud fan, super fast shock
| resistant storage, 20+ hours of battery life, no battery drain
| when off.
|
| It took us 30 years but we finally have it.
|
| Now let's hope WIntel can also catch up soon.
| znpy wrote:
| It seems that the 13" macbook pro (m1, non air) is gone for good?
| adrianmsmith wrote:
| And with it the touchbar I guess?
| densh wrote:
| Good riddance. No matter how much they pushed it was an utter
| failure that should have never left their research lab.
| jnsaff2 wrote:
| Whats the point of re-parroting Apple PR and include: "the most
| advanced x" for each new generation something Apple?
|
| I get it that they must say it but for the rest of us it's pretty
| obvious that they would say and it would make sense to develop
| something that will be less advanced than the stuff you already
| have.
|
| You might make different trade offs but you surely would not do
| whatever the equivalent of de-growth be in computing.
| gigatexal wrote:
| What an underwhelming event especially since the M3 is worse than
| the M2 in some aspects.
|
| I was hoping for some Mac Pro news or an iMac Pro or other such
| things.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > The CPU performance cores and efficiency cores are 30 percent
| and 50 percent faster than those in M1
|
| ...or 15% and 30% faster than M2 according to their graph further
| down, so it's basically another M2-level upgrade.
| Cloudef wrote:
| Apple should develop framework motherboards. Also their
| ridiculous upselling practices are in the full swing again.
| 1f60c wrote:
| It's strange that Vision Pro suddenly no longer has the current
| chip. (But it's possible that they announced it with the M2 and
| started working on putting in the M3 as soon as it became
| available internally.)
| mlajtos wrote:
| I think AVP will have M3. All of the new features screams AVP.
| hendry wrote:
| Will Maccy be as fast as dmenu on my old Thinkpad is what I need
| to know as a M1 Pro user
| jl6 wrote:
| I'm sure I remember Apple using Myst to sell Performa Macs in
| 1995. Some things never change.
| icemelt8 wrote:
| I so wish these beautiful beasts ran all the games for windows
| like Proton / Steam Deck :(
| unclejack wrote:
| These are still going to be used in laptops with soldered flash
| chips for the SSD. Apple's laptops aren't meant to be used by
| people who expect to repair their laptop when the storage fails.
| Many people don't have access to replacement chips and services
| to have the flash chips found on the board replaced. It's as if
| their hardware is meant to be e-waste.
|
| The RAM is still not ECC. They focus so much on the shallow
| marketing without shipping anything which makes a difference.
| benterix wrote:
| The point is, they don't want people to fix or upgrade their
| hardware, and they will fight to defend this strategy. Give me
| one reason why they should to it, from their perspective. If
| they have them glued, the equipment has shorter life and
| customers need to purchase a new one quicker. And since they
| can't replace components themselves, they have to pay
| exorbitant prices for 16 GB RAM or 1 TB storage that is cheaper
| than ever.
|
| These are nice machines, though, and I buy one for building iOS
| apps every couple of years - but usually 1-2 generations later
| so that the pricing is more reasonable.
| unclejack wrote:
| This puts the dot on the i quite nicely. It's all about the
| sales.
| rollcat wrote:
| > It's as if their hardware is meant to be e-waste.
|
| But the chassis is made from 100% recycled aluminum!~
|
| On a serious note, Apple has a simple and working strategy, to
| which they're 100% committed: repair only in authorized service
| points, otherwise recycle. Making devices user-repairable adds
| costs and compromises on specs; you can't put a number on the
| disks being replaceable as easily as you can put a number on
| size, IO bandwidth, or number of write cycles, and numbers is
| what looks good on benchmarks.
|
| You also have to consider Apple's scale: they have literally
| billions of deployed devices (everything from AirPods to Mac
| Pros) that they need to support, so what could work for a
| different vendor won't necessarily work for them.
|
| (I don't necessarily agree with that strategy from end-user
| POV, merely pointing out the context.)
| unclejack wrote:
| I've looked at their hardware. I would've bought if it
| weren't for the soldered down flash chips. I've seen plenty
| bad SSDs.
| 015a wrote:
| My Windows desktop has generated significantly more e-waste per
| year than the Macs I have owned. Full stop. I've upgraded SSDs
| from 500gb to 1TB to now 2TB, upgraded graphics cards, and
| replaced a massive broken aluminum and copper heatsink. All in
| the last two years.
|
| I've had the same MacBook, in a similar timeframe. It gets just
| as much use. Its still rock-solid.
|
| Your concern is a hypothetical one. The inability to upgrade
| has, in a VERY REAL sense, meant for me: I overbuy specs
| upfront, so I don't have to upgrade (and thus, generate
| e-waste). It also experientially means that the machines are
| more reliable. The least wasteful machine is one that doesn't
| have to be upgraded; not one that can be and needs to be. The
| 500gb of storage I have in my MacBook sometimes feels limiting;
| but the cost of upgrading (a whole new machine) has stopped me
| from actually going out and doing it; and thus less e-waste is
| generated.
|
| Eventually I will brainstorm what to do with this machine once
| its outlived its useful life as a laptop. I'm thinking, server
| rack. We've got Asahi, its got thunderbolt so wiring up super
| fast storage drives is a cinch.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| Why are your old parts getting wasted? You can sell or
| repurpose them.
| unclejack wrote:
| That's not hypothetical at all. You might want to look into
| issues people have encountered with the apple SSDs and how
| much swapping is involved on the lower specced units.
|
| Regardless, I choose my non-Apple hardware how you choose
| your Apple hardware. I buy something which won't have to be
| upgraded or replaced for a long time.
|
| Being able to repair hardware matters. It's fine if it
| doesn't matter to you and to others.
| epolanski wrote:
| Not buying an 8GB laptop in 2024, and I have zero intentions of
| paying the 300 euros markup to double it.
|
| Those macbooks can stay on the shelf for me.
| thomastraum wrote:
| no one does any heavy graphics work a mac anymore. especially for
| their showcases of rendering... its all nvidia GPU based for
| creation and rendered on farms anyway. Same with resolve.
|
| Apple is so dumb.
| creativenolo wrote:
| Definitely not no one. Nvidia and the likes of Redshift
| democratised heavy 3D rendering. Here we are now with Apple
| using Redshift in their promotional pitch. There are plenty of
| cloud options for 'heavy graphics' but for the act of creating
| with feedback loops it seems to suffice.
| esseti wrote:
| So among all the Mac now, what's the best buy?
| therealmarv wrote:
| Wonder if the unified memory (up to 128GB) makes it much better
| for machine learning / AI things? On a Windows laptop you get
| maximum a Nvidia 4090 and with 18GB of RAM for the GPU.
|
| Do I miss something? I wished I had more insight on Apple
| architecture support from the AI frameworks out there.
| irusensei wrote:
| I have an 16GB M1 Pro and it's a great machine. I want to jump
| the shark on a M3 max. Feels like some computer that should last
| 4-5 years much like my m1. However I keep an ugly ass full AMD
| Asus ROG laptop running Linux for gaming.
|
| I want to wait for the dust to settle on the Proton-like
| compatbility layer feature. I know crossover exists but past
| experiences lead me to believe is not as compatible as Proton.
| Back in 2021 I've tested various programs that worked well on
| Proton but not so well in Crossover. Hopefully the Metal
| enhancements fix it.
| bbkane wrote:
| Hopefully, but at least from my (non-professional) perspective,
| Apple makes it difficult to make software for macOS
|
| - no support for cross platform gfx apis (opengl, vulkan
|
| - requires physical Mac to publish, no support for emulation
| ukd1 wrote:
| Ya I'm on an M1 Max with 64G of ram, and it's still great. I
| know the M2 and M3 now (for Max) have more memory bandwidth,
| which is attractive, but otherwise...meh.
| wslh wrote:
| Really love the pace of Apple innovations. Nowadays, I am biased
| towards battery and weight (MacBook Air) if it is for portability
| and the other line of notebooks are converted into desktops via
| TB exactly because of weight and battery life. I feel the
| difference in battery use from one to the other. The Air seems
| like it has "infinite battery" evn when the others use Mx
| processors.
|
| Also waiting for a great Linux port battery/weight wise.
| kmlx wrote:
| i've had the 16gb ram macbook air for 3 years now and it's
| still an incredible machine considering lightness, battery, and
| passive cooling.
| wslh wrote:
| Ah! Thanks! I forgot to mention passive cooling. I am old
| enough to receive the heat of a new notebook. This is when
| "mechanic physics" tend to zero.
|
| I would add that my MacBook Air received an smoothie of
| strawberry, mango, and orange over its keyboard and also fell
| off a few times from more than a meter.
|
| BTW, I don't consider myself an Apple fan but really
| appreciate different form factors and real innovations. Hope
| others to follow. I think using several operating systems
| opens your mind.
| subpixel wrote:
| Other than the fact that I can't upgrade the OS and increasingly
| vendors only support M-series chips there is nothing wrong with
| my Intel MacBook Pro.
| Gast wrote:
| If you are not running latest, your system might not be fully
| patched: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/apple-
| clarifies-secu...
|
| So there are downsides to not upgrading.
| subpixel wrote:
| Oh I know - my complaint is that the hardware is good to go,
| but I'm forced to buy new hardware. The obsolescence is
| built-in.
| sourabhv wrote:
| Seems like apple's software is lagging far behind their hardware.
| To this day I can't reliably use Facetime for a call. Often times
| its ringing on my mac but the other use gets nothing. Maybe take
| some time to fix your software as well, apple?
| katspaugh wrote:
| All the videos on that page are so slow and choppy on my 2019
| MacBook Pro 16" in Safari.
|
| If not intentional, their marketing should do it every time they
| want customers to upgrade.
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| Stockholm Syndrome?
| Sporktacular wrote:
| I want to see low level instructions baked in to allow reliable,
| performant and efficient real-time emulation of win/x86 software,
| especially games. As in, I don't care about what chip is inside,
| I want my game library to just work.
| Fethbita wrote:
| I have found some deals on M1 Max Macbook Pros with 10-core CPU,
| 32-core GPU, 64GB RAM and 2TB storage. Does it make sense to go
| with those or with base M3 Pro with 11-core CPU, 14-core GPU,
| 18GB RAM 512GB storage which is the same price?
| whynotminot wrote:
| FWIW I dev on an M1 Max MacBook Pro and it's the best computer
| I've ever owned.
|
| Maybe the best thing about these M3 chips is that they're
| making those older machines more affordable.
| febrianrendak wrote:
| No, keep the M1 Max. M1 Max has bigger RAM & better GPU
| compared to M3 Pro.
| semireg wrote:
| Fwiw, I have a 16" M2 Pro and had a close call with losing it
| to water damage, so I picked up a M2 Air and it is FASTER than
| the Pro for most of my jobs (electron/Xcode dev). The Air is so
| much lighter that I much prefer it to the Pro. The Pro now
| lives at my desk via TB, and the Air in my backpack for pretty
| much everything else. Weirdly, when I look at GeekBench browser
| I see that the M2 Pro should be faster, but at the time I've
| got screenshots of it being a Pro @ 2.7 GHz and Air @ 3.5
| GHz... and I just checked again right now (at my desk) and the
| Pro is running at 3.29 GHz, so the dynamic CPU scaling must
| have had an effect. Yet, the actual work doesn't lie, and
| everything feels super snappy on the Air. Truth to YMMV.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| I've been wanting to upgrade my 2018 Air but I'm not sure if I'm
| ready to take the plunge on this new architecture and what I may
| not be able to do with it... the intel Mac's keep getting
| cheaper, and more tempting... has anyone found they couldn't do
| something important or even fun on the new M chip? Clearly you
| can't run Windows as a virtual machine, which I may seriously
| want to do for Visual Studio if I get a much more capable Mac.
| selectAll wrote:
| It's quite impressive that the event was filmed on iPhone 15
| Pro[1], although it involved professional lighting and various
| equipment, which is not typical for the average user.
|
| With the ability to capture in Log, it's possible that the next
| iPhone release might be filmed using the very phone that's being
| unveiled.
|
| [1] Source: https://www.youtube.com/live/ctkW3V0Mh-k?t=30m02s
| SillyUsername wrote:
| Tldr; Much better than M1, we don't want to compare it to M2
| because that highlights it's only an incremental upgrade.
| binarymax wrote:
| "Games like Myst have incredibly realistic lighting, shadows, and
| reflections"
|
| Am I missing something here? Is it 1994?
| quux wrote:
| There's an updated remake of Myst with a proper 3d engine and
| free movement etc. Even so that remake is a few years old now.
| It's a really odd choice when talking about cutting edge
| graphics.
|
| Maybe Myst was the first game to get an update to adopt the new
| APIs?
| lowercased wrote:
| Why do some of the chips (m3 pro only?) have 18g and 36g models,
| vs more traditional 16g and 32g? Can't find any explanation for
| it, just a lot of reposting of the specs in various sites.
| jonpalmisc wrote:
| Also curious about this.
| quux wrote:
| See this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38078282
| seems to be based on available LPDDR5X chip sizes?
| dang wrote:
| Related ongoing threads:
|
| _Apple unveils the new MacBook Pro featuring the M3 family of
| chips_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38078065
|
| _Apple supercharges 24-inch iMac with new M3 chip_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38078068
| calini wrote:
| Apple Magic Keyboard, Mouse and Trackpad are stil Lightning, I
| cannot believe it
| markjonsona989 wrote:
| I hear the complaints about incremental updates and not enough
| reason to upgrade. My opinion is that it doesn't need any updates
| as it's nearly perfect the way it is. What it needs is a 3 year
| release cycle instead of yearly. Less e-waste and more visible
| spec change.
| cududa wrote:
| No, people just need to learn self control. You don't need a
| new laptop every year or every 2 years.
|
| My current MBP is nearly 8 years old, cost $4,500, and is
| finally in need of replacement. I just purchased a $4,300 M3.
| Why should I have to purchase a 3 year old M1
| markjonsona989 wrote:
| You wouldn't. You would purchase a 0 year old M3.
| someonehere wrote:
| I really hope Apple doesn't do a yearly cadence with new chips.
| From all the comments I'm reading here there's a lot of confusion
| and misunderstandings about why new chips that seem to
| underperform or lackluster performance. Maybe Apple should just
| do every other year for chip upgrades.
| BearOso wrote:
| > "Games like Myst have incredibly realistic lighting, shadows,
| and reflections."
|
| So we've finally come full circle. Next step, bring the old CEO
| back in an advising capacity.
| lexarflash8g wrote:
| I'm waiting for the reviews until making a decision --
| unfortunately I have a corporate laptop M1 MBP so can't use a
| personal laptop for work
|
| As usual Apple will charge arm+leg for 32gb/1tb config -- and I
| don't need the graphics really
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