New Apple Silicon Macs: MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini

[scottkendall]

I didn't say that the M1 Macs are overpriced; at least not until you try to spec them up, which many might be forced to do, due to the complete lack of upgradeability. The point I was trying to make, which I probably failed to convey, is that this vertical integration and performance/efficiency, seems to be veering towards an increasingly locked/restrictive ecosystem, within which price gouging is known to occur.

When Microsoft released .net 20 something odd years ago everyone one began the slow decent to bring computers back to what they originally were a terminal work station. As time progresses the hardware you require in your home will be reduced down to almost nothing till all you have is a monitor.

Also about the Dell workstation; this is off-topic and has been discussed ad nauseam, so I'll only say that it's impossible to make a true apples to apples (heh) comparison, but for a somewhat comparable Dell system, you'd looking at around $3,000-3,500 (if you want, you can have a look at Dell's configurator)

Maybe when it comes to the base model, but you do not get that pretty skyscraper design engineering case and 1k PSU with Dell. If as I said you want to max it out fully very close in price. The biggest deal is the Memory and the CPU and it looks like dell has dropped their price a bit but here is a invoice:

The 28 core xeon cpu is 3k alone and 1TB of memory is 15-20k

I didn't forget it; I mentioned apps specifically tailored to the M1's specialized hardware. From what I've read, the T2 accelerates h.265 8-bit encoding, so if you do that, you'll get a big boost.

It accelerates pretty much everything related to video and for the person I was responding to in the first place that is what they are doing photo and video editing the things the T2 excels at.

Depending on the workload, it might be 5%, 30% or 0%. What I was trying to say is that an external SSD isn't a replacement for a proper internal m.2 slot and it's not like there's no space inside the Mac mini (half of the enclosure is empty).

Maybe for a system where the TB, Memory, CPU, etc. are not on a SOC in the case of the new M1 I would expect 0-5%

Even If they offered slots for their own SSD modules, then that'd be great too, but not at $600 for 1TB of "dumb" flash modules. I mean, come on!

If your work load is so great that you are bogging down the TB3 that much then you probably a company that needs a Mac Pro not a Mac mini for the market that is a Mac mini the user is not going to see the very low performance issue.

Thanks for digging the scores up. It more or less confirms what I mentioned. Faster at single, slower at multi. So I wouldn't call that absolutely stomping a 9900K. Where it does comprehensively stomp it though, is in power efficiency. It's embarrassing for Intel really. In a few days when proper reviews come out, we'll know more.

13% is so negligible expecally when you consider it is likely 4cores;4 threads vs 8 cores;16 threads. You also got to remember my comparison was to someone who was doing photo and video editing.

 

[trs96]

Now they want to make it small again?

I can guarantee that a new 1/2 the size Mac Pro won't sell for half the price or $3000 for a base model. On the higher end specced machines they probably won't reach over 50K like the 2019 Xeon MP models did. The 24 and 28 core Xeons added a lot to the price.

Since they will now be using Apple Silicon I don't think they'll charge such a steep premium for more cores. They also likely won't offer an upgrade to 1TB or more of ram. That would be simply crazy for most professionals using these.

 

[Sofronis]

Aren't they addressing the thermals with cooler, more efficient CPUs?

Isn't dropping Intel addressing their previous thermal issues?

Yes, exactly. So now under the same heatsink that was cooling 28 cores before, you can put 64 high efficiency cores or you can make the heatsink much smaller and only cool e.g. 16 cores.

Wouldn't the former be better than the latter for a performance oriented machine? Shaving a couple of liters or so of case volume, should be of little concern here, I think.

 

[pastrychef]

Yes, exactly. So now under the same heatsink that was cooling 28 cores before, you can put 64 high efficiency cores or you can make the heatsink much smaller and only cool e.g. 16 cores.

Wouldn't the former be better than the latter for a performance oriented machine? Shaving a couple of liters or so of case volume, should be of little concern here, I think.

Well, that remains to be seen...

We have no idea how big or small the next Mac Pro will be.
We don't know how much cooling a 5nm Apple Silicon CPU in a Mac Pro will need.

Personally, I live in a tiny apt and smaller footprint = better for me.

 

[scottkendall]

On the higher end specced machines they probably won't reach over 50K like the 2019 Xeon MP models did.

They will if the share holders have anything to say about it, and well Apple is all about pleasing the share holders!

 

[nicksoph]

First user benchmarks coming thru

 

[Bustycat]

First user benchmarks coming thru

Apple Silicon M1 MacBook Pro Earns 7508 Multi-Core Score in Cinebench Benchmark

The new M1 Macs are now arriving to customers, and one of the first people to get the new M1 13-inch MacBook Pro with 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, and 8GB...

www.macrumors.com

It’s over 1000 higher than my 9600K...

 

[nicksoph]

The latest Intel Air SSD speeds for comparison - 1319 MB/s - read, 1007 - Write
M1 read - 2674, write - 2190

And a report on Final Cut rendering - shows
Exporting H.264 Sony 10 bit 422 footage -
- 11 minutes and 30 seconds on iMac Pro with Vega 56 and 128gigs of ram.
- 10 minutes and 20 seconds on the M1 MacBook Pro with 8gigs of ram.

 

[bombardier10]

Yes benchmarks are good but this is not a revolution. Look at mobile CPU/GPU
AMD Ryzen 7 4800U or Ryzen 9 4900 HS with higher benchmarks .
For example Asus Zephyrus G14 with RTX 2060 graphic...

So now Apple show only ONE chip with limited memory. But every year intel/AMD
released new gen CPUs. Every year new possibilitie and more power.

Apple make new computer and use this same CPUs/GPU for a few years (MacPro
was product 6 years with no change !). So probably new macmini/Macbook M1 will be product
for a few years with no change . A year ago 28 core MacPro (late 2019) was the fastest macos
machine ever. Today was outperformed by hackintosh with relatively cheap i9-10980XE CPU...

Apple dont support nvidia graphic for a two years. So best nvidia graphic was unavailable for us.
Now Apple move to ARM and and in the future dont support Intel CPU.
Its a very risky game. Yes if apple product CPU/GPU will compare with highend Intel, AMD, Nvidia
it will win this game. And remember that Intel usually lowers the price but Apple never lower price.

 

[nicksoph]

It’s over 1000 higher than my 9600K...

Cpu Monkey has some still incomplete compares but shows the top of the range Intel chips still have the lead in compute power but then looking at the power consumption Intel looks less impressive. Ive been happily using a well spec'd DS3H as my desktop machine since it came out - the base Air blows it (and its RX 580) out of the water. However far Intel came in those 10 years, Apple have jumped it in one.