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

[scottkendall]

put a 911 engine in a Beetle

This was kind of common.

 

[MacOrDie]

What do I think?
For $699 one can get a Mac Mini M1 that stomps Intel desktops costing 6X more, not to mention the M1 performance per/watt in laptops is going to give users amazing battery life.

The M1 is just getting going and it will have a good 10-year run, only getting faster with more cores.

My hat is off to the silicon guys at Apple.

It sucks that the Apple marketing weenies don't allow any internal upgrades but Apple is looking at computers that same way it looks at phones and iPad now.

So far the first M1 chip is turning out to be a rockstar.
Buying more Apple stock tomorrow.

 

[trs96]

My hat is off to the silicon guys at Apple.

But wait, there's more... See the following post for what Apple may be releasing next year. Now it's easy to see why Intel has lost all it's revenue from Apple's Mac business. I think they still buy something from Intel that goes into iPhones.

How many cores will the next 2021 Macs have ?

Mark Gurman is saying that it's going to be way more than anyone had ever imagined. Apple may really outshine Intel and even AMD Zen based PCs at the higher end. That is in terms of CPU and GPU performance. Renee Ritchie examines the Gurman article.

www.tonymacx86.com

 

[scottkendall]

But wait, there's more... See the following post for what Apple may be releasing next year. Now it's easy to see why Intel has lost all it's revenue from Apple's Mac business. I think they still buy something from Intel that goes into iPhones.

How many cores will the next 2021 Macs have ?

Mark Gurman is saying that it's going to be way more than anyone had ever imagined. Apple may really outshine Intel and even AMD Zen based PCs at the higher end. That is in terms of CPU and GPU performance. Renee Ritchie examines the Gurman article.

www.tonymacx86.com

I wish there was more information on memory in the future. The chip is already flaming fast with 4 efficiency cores 4 performance cores. Anyone can extrapolate the improvements made if they just added more performance cores. The performance is so good that it has been the nudge I needed to make myself learn new software to move away from windows completely. Albeit I can not do it cold turkey but I have already started my newest project in Vectorworks.

 

[trs96]

I wish there was more information on memory in the future.

I'm pretty sure they won't offer anything close to the 1.5 TB ram upgrade of the 2019 MP. From what I've seen demonstrated in YT videos you can already do a lot with just 8 or 16GB of ram and the M1. So my guess is that the next Mac laptops will offer at least a 32GB upgrade and the iMacs at least 64GB (maybe 128) for the 27"/32" models. As for the next Mac Pro who knows. Maybe they'll go as high as 512 GB although I'd find it hard to put that much ram on the SoC. If they stay with the Unified Memory approach in the iMac Pro and Mac Pro it's going to demand a lot more ram for the high end GPU those will have. Currently the iMac Pro offers a 256 GB ram upgrade. I don't see that model being continued though because the non-Pro iMacs will probably be good enough for Pro users. We'll find out in 2021.

I really doubt whether Apple has sold many of the 1.5TB ram upgrades that alone cost as much as some new cars.
I'd guess that the $3,000 192GB ram upgrade would be enough right now for even the most demanding Pro users.

 

[scottkendall]

I'm pretty sure they won't offer anything close to the 1.5 TB ram upgrade of the 2019 MP. From what I've seen demonstrated in YT videos you can already do a lot with just 8 or 16GB of ram and the M1. So my guess is that the next Mac laptops will offer at least a 32GB upgrade and the iMacs at least 64GB (maybe 128) for the 27"/32" models. As for the next Mac Pro who knows. Maybe they'll go as high as 512 GB although I'd find it hard to put that much ram on the SoC. If they stay with the Unified Memory approach in the iMac Pro and Mac Pro it's going to demand a lot more ram for the high end GPU those will have. Currently the iMac Pro offers a 256 GB ram upgrade. I don't see that model being continued though because the non-Pro iMacs will probably be good enough for Pro users. We'll find out in 2021.

I am not looking for 1.5 TB I do not even have 1.5TB in files for my life work!

If I do not have to run a VM I could make do with 32 however, 64 would give me a comfortable overhead. I give my VM 32 of my 64 but I normally only use 16GB on windows. On the Mac side with rendering software open and in action I am pushing about 20 so if you subtract the overhead from windows 4.5 that gives me 11.5+20 puts me at 31.5! I understand that the new memory is supposed to give you more threw put and do more with less but still slightly concerned since it has been years since I have actually had to use swap.

As for the iMac Pro not getting carried over might be a mistake People like flashy stuff just saying I have a iMac Pro sounds better then an iMac to those people.

 

[tabarus]

fewer cores

The Apple store shows 8 Cores for the either :

Buy MacBook Air

Trade in your eligible Mac for credit towards a new MacBook Air laptop. Select a model or customise your own. Free delivery. Buy now at apple.com.

www.apple.com

So for internet surfing and social media the entry level MBA is fine.

How about making music on the 8 Core MBA ?

 

[trs96]

The Apple store shows 8 Cores for the either :

Buy MacBook Air

Trade in your eligible Mac for credit towards a new MacBook Air laptop. Select a model or customise your own. Free delivery. Buy now at apple.com.

www.apple.com

@UtterDisbelief is talking about the GPU cores. You can see it says 7-Core GPU.

 

[trs96]

I am not looking for 1.5 TB

Never thought for a moment you would be. I'm just using that extreme example to make the point that Intel systems are going to use a lot more ram than the new M series chips (SoCs) are ever going to need. Once the next Mac mini refresh comes out and it offers 4 USB4 ports and either 32 or 64GB ram upgrades, give it a try and you'll now for certain how much will work for you. I'd start with 32 gigs and try to make the new mini slow down by pushing it to the limits.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

It's been touched on before because it's important to any upgrader - Virtual Machines.

At present Apple store states Parallels, their only recommendation, runs on an M1 Mac (check the specs). Well it may load itself but can't actually run anything yet.

There are promises that an Intel-emulating host is on the way. We have to wait and see.

At the moment, for Intel clients, there is:

Crossover 20 - in my own tests it has run just one of my old Windows apps (obviously through Rosetta 2). It ran perfectly but one app isn't enough yet.

DOSBox 64 - Yes it works! See WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS in all its glory!

Sigh...

Luckily being a long-time Mac user most of my day-to-day software is macOS anyway.

All that aside, it's true that the M1 is as smooth and responsive as my i5-9600k, RX570 and 32gb RAM. Even running Rosetta 2.