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

[pastrychef]

Ah, get your point.

Agree that the approach to clocking does allow for scaling up by increasing TDP (this is one approach to binning, as I understand it - they test to see which can handle the higher speeds/heat reliably). Interesting that they provided almost zero information on frequency of this first chip. (I wonder if there's a technical reason, like other parts of the SoC don't lend themselves to this change, or just being secretive - probably the latter).

I'm not sure that apple's approach to combining lots of different functionality in a single SoC lends itself as well to just adding additional cpu cores. Part of what I'm saying is (I think) apple's specific approach may change the technical/economical hurdles on this. Of course hopefully I'm wrong and they'll start coming up with 12, 16, 24, 48 etc cores, with lots of performance and pricing differentiation.

But it's striking to me they brought out two really high-volume laptops - core products - AND their only consumer mac without a monitor, and all three use the same processor/system on a chip. Not to mention it looks like in a power/capability range that would be perfectly fine for an iMac, too. (It could be though that there are other reasons for this, like on the manufacturing/design side, and made more sense to do one barnstormer first time around and only modify it afterwards).

My guess is that the decision to stack so many components on to a single SoC is to reduce manufacturing costs and reduce points of failure.

Apple has been trying to eliminate MHz and GHz as a form of comparison for years. I don't find it surprising at all that they omit any mention of it here. However, in looking at the Geekbench results, it appears the M1 is running at 3.2GHz. Assuming this is true, they are achieving really great IPC from these CPUs!!

 

[trs96]

Who is the new M1 Mac mini built for ? Two of the biggest volume buyers are MacStadium and Macminicolo.net

Genuine Apple Mac Infrastructure as a Service

MacStadium Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is rented dedicated, genuine Apple hardware hosted in MacStadium data centers. MacStadium IaaS is more affordable than on-demand hosting providers and more reliable and scalable than managing your own Mac hardware.

www.macstadium.com

macminicolo: Mac Mini colocation | Mac mini hosting

macminicolo.net

One of the two is already advertising these on their website. The reason Apple started with this barebones version with only two TH3/USB4 ports, much lower power consumption and a $100 lower price is to keep customers like this happy and buying their products. When they buy thousands or tens of thousands that lower price affects their bottom line quite a bit. The savings in electricity and reduced noise and heat levels related to an M1 mini help them save even more. Obviously two more TH3 ports and 10Gb ethernet are of no use to them when hosting Mac minis in the cloud.

For someone that needs 64GB of ram and a 6 core CPU they still offer the Intel based Mac minis on their website. Will there eventually be a mini with a more powerful, higher core count M chip and 4 TH3/USB4 ports ? I think so.

 

[mrbiggwigg]

So do you think Intel chips will go down in price, current ones at least, it may be time to upgrade my old hack,
would you guys recommend buying a new hack setup vs a new macmini?, not too excited about the 512gb internal, and very little connections. I think it would be worth it to have for the next few years- until the price of mac pro will drop significantly because of the new chips

 

[Armoured]

My guess is that the decision to stack so many components on to a single SoC is to reduce manufacturing costs and reduce points of failure.

Apple has been trying to eliminate MHz and GHz as a form of comparison for years. I don't find it surprising at all that they omit any mention of it here. However, in looking at the Geekbench results, it appears the M1 is running at 3.2GHz. Assuming this is true, they are achieving really great IPC from these CPUs!!

Yes, being able to go large volumes must reduce their cost of manufacturing tremendously - plus the volume (even if somewhat different) due to commonality with the phones and ipads.

3.2 Ghz is impressive. Can't help but wonder what the practical limit may be for higher frequencies though.

 

[trs96]

it may be time to upgrade my old hack,
would you guys recommend buying a new hack setup vs a new macmini?

I would wait until the new 2021 Mac mini models with more cores and I/O come out. There's no guarantee of this but I do think it will happen. Apple has sold a lot of the 6 core Intel models over the last two years. The Mac mini they announced on Tuesday isn't likely going to be the only option, it's more like a developer's kit version for consumers. It's the one desktop they could get ready quickly enough to meet the "end of 2020" deadline. Now that they no longer have to wait for Intel to get the new CPUs out to them, refreshes will come more quickly than ever.

This Mac mini form factor originated back in 2010, that's even 2 years longer than the ancient 2012 iMac design has existed. I'm predicting there will be a 2021 redesign that makes it smaller, yet they will still be able to keep it cool enough to have more cores and use more power in the smaller chassis. When there's all that empty space you know that Apple will make the chassis smaller and thinner. It's what they've done all through the history of Apple. I know that their target market for the mini is Pro developers and Music/Audio pros. Those pro customers will certainly need at least 32GB of ram and 4 TH3/USB4 ports. I think that's what the next (M1X or M2) SoC will offer next year in 2021. The Pros that need even more than that can opt for the 2022 ? Mac Pro ASi refresh to meet their power and ram needs.

Look at the older 2018 Mac mini logic board for comparison.

__

 

[pastrychef]

would you guys recommend buying a new hack setup vs a new macmini?

Personally, I would not invest in an X86 system at this point.

 

[revevs]

These are Apples first Mac chips, and as such the slowest they will ever make, and the benchmarks are superb.
I can't wait to see how the M1X/M2 whatever they call the faster chips perform!

Something to keep in mind -

• Apple have known this was in the pipeline for years
• They spent years creating the Mac Pro and have said they are committed to it
• They will fully transition to Apple Silicon in 2 yrs

... so it's going to be really interesting to see the Apple Silicon Mac Pro. I think its safe to assume it will be faster that the current one, and have all the expandability and desktop benefits. Otherwise Apple spent a ridiculous amount of money and time building a Mac Pro they knew would only exist for a very short amount of time - which I don't believe they would have done.

 

[Armoured]

So do you think Intel chips will go down in price, current ones at least, it may be time to upgrade my old hack,
would you guys recommend buying a new hack setup vs a new macmini?, not too excited about the 512gb internal, and very little connections. I think it would be worth it to have for the next few years- until the price of mac pro will drop significantly because of the new chips

Obviously depends on how much use you will get out of a machine in the near term. Personally I'd wait and see how these systems work in real world and not buy an intel based machine. But if you really have the immediate need, sure - just that it won't be as useful as long as in the past. About the only specific case I see for build your own intel right now is ability to trick out with many drives and lots of memory.

And I say that having just built a hack, frankly was kind of silly but specific situation.

Note of course that it'll take several months for developers to roll out software updated for the new chips and see how the performance is for the stuff you need.

That said, I really doubt that the price of macpro will drop significantly. Apple didn't drop the price of these new machines. They want to keep the margins high but with better performance compared to competitors.

 

[AppleMacIdiot]

I’ve been skeptical of this transition, but I understand exactly why and what Apple are trying to do with this move and it’s probably the right call. Having said that, and having used Mac products since the 80s, I’d warn anyone thinking of migrating to the new silicon against it. These transitions are brutal and almost always leave the average user in the lurch within a year or two and very badly burned.

Unless you are an Apple hardware collector, or need the absolute latest tech for development purposes, avoid like the plague. These transitions usually follow a hop-step-jump approach. The hop and step models are often virtually redundant the day they hit shelves. Sure Apple “supports” them for some years, but the hoops you have to jump through and headaches that come with it are not for the feint of heart.

Also note that they’ve effectively killed native Windows support with the migration to the new silicon. We’ve been dual booting our Intel-based Macs and hacks to Linux and Windows for so long now, we’ve all but forgotten the dark days before 2006. Virtualization/emulation might bridge that gap to some degree, but it’s absolutely no substitute for native bare metal support. Period. So unless you are of the “one operating system to rule them all” school of thought, then the dark days are back, baby!

My 2013 MacBook Pro runs Windows better than most PC notebooks I’ve used in the last 7 years. Now that it’s just fallen off the Big Sur support list it’ll become my dedicated Windows notebook until it dies, while my “Windows” laptop is due to become my dedicated Hackbook Pro until the dust settles on Apple Silicon in the next few years! Just another upside-down, back-to-front, topsy-turvy casualty of 2020 I guess. Madness I tell ya! Madness!

 

[TurbineSeaplane]

I believe in that future. Apple is playing a big game with the new M1. We will still have a few years with our Hackintoch. The question now is to follow up and see how far it will go.

We may have a few years to go for sure…

But for me at least, it is going to be hard to stay on a hack much past 2021. The envy of all the performance that I’m going to be seeing getting touted will be a lot to handle.

I have a feeling our minds are all going to be changing quickly once we ever get a chance to try these new machines ourselves, particularly ones they release next year.

For me I already know my hack days are numbered at this point. Between performance on the legit side and what they will probably continue to do to lock things down now that they can control the whole stack… It’s just a matter of time