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

[nicksoph]

(2) 2 Displays total

Or run up to 5 of them over USB3 -

 

[Justcurious1]

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.

While the overall thrust of your comment is correct, M1 is running at 10 to 15 TDP. You have to factor that into the equation. One size does not fit all. M1 looks like it is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing and no PC presently matches it for battery consumption and power. Yes, Apple has a very nasty habit of holding on to old processors for much too long, but maybe this was an Intel issue?

 

[scottkendall]

Never thought of doing that. If noise levels don't matter, that is one way to squeeze more performance out of the older Intel based minis.

I would hardly call it loud even at 4000rpm more like a mild humm! I would say that at 700 RPM the blower in my Vega is louder. The EGPU was def louder.

 

[huug]

What can we say, Apple nailed it, Intel blew it. I'm referring to cooling systems

The commercial genius of Apple is shining once again, as they are tempting every pro user to buy some of the cheap MacBooks and minis first, knowing they'll upgrade to the top of the line later (probably sooner than we think). Double money in the pockets.

 

[HackintoshFanN99]

While the overall thrust of your comment is correct, M1 is running at 10 to 15 TDP. You have to factor that into the equation. One size does not fit all. M1 looks like it is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing and no PC presently matches it for battery consumption and power. Yes, Apple has a very nasty habit of holding on to old processors for much too long, but maybe this was an Intel issue?

Like you just said One size does not fit all, and honestly I don't see this ARM chip going for big Apple machines. What I mean by that? Well when you factor in the raw power and the performance of the Mac Pro, I don't believe that they will go ARM at least for this one.
But maybe they can compensate the lack of raw power with software, so maybe I'm wrong. I just don't see their ARM computer beating an AMD Ryzen top of the line ever.

 

[scottkendall]

While the overall thrust of your comment is correct, M1 is running at 10 to 15 TDP. You have to factor that into the equation. One size does not fit all. M1 looks like it is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing and no PC presently matches it for battery consumption and power. Yes, Apple has a very nasty habit of holding on to old processors for much too long, but maybe this was an Intel issue?

Apple has released a new processor almost every year for the iPhone/Ipad/Etc. since the first. I see no reason now they have moved onto their own processor why they would not continue the trend with their computers. The iMac has received a refresh pretty much every year for the past 4 years Starting with the Intels Gen 6 CPU, there was kind of a small delay where 8th and 9th gen CPU were released in the same refresh of the iMac for different costs. The Mac mini kind of got a refresh in 2019 but only when it came to hard drive space. The iMac Pro did not get a CPU upgrade but it received a video card update, and the base model went from 8 to 10 cores. The Mac Pro is a year old and while it did not receive a processor update this year alternate video card options were added. So while Apple has been guilty of not updating stuff for long periods of time in the past they have done a reasonably good job over the past 4 or so years.

Like you just said One size does not fit all, and honestly I don't see this ARM chip going for big Apple machines. What I mean by that? Well when you factor in the raw power and the performance of the Mac Pro, I don't believe that they will go ARM at least for this one.
But maybe they can compensate the lack of raw power with software, so maybe I'm wrong. I just don't see their ARM computer beating an AMD Ryzen top of the line ever.

You realize the fastest super computer in the world is ARM? if it was as you say ARM will never beat Ryzen then why didn't they build the super computer with Ryzen processors? I am pretty sure when Apple decides to bring their SOC to the Mac Pro it will have all the RAW power you speak of. ARM is not weaker than X86 it is just different.

 

[pastrychef]

I just don't see their ARM computer beating an AMD Ryzen top of the line ever.

Here's Amazon's Arm based Graviton2 vs AMD Epyc CPUs.

Amazon's Arm-based Graviton2 Against AMD and Intel: Comparing Cloud Compute

www.anandtech.com

 

[xplo]

The idea I'm seeing that Hackintosh is just about over is silly. Maybe if you only want to run on the cutting edge, but...

Let's say you build a new Hac now. Or next year. (I'm actually thinking next year.) It will be able to run the current MacOS and current versions of whatever apps you like.

Time will pass before they phase out Intel Power Macs. 2 years? 5 years? Dunno.

At that point, security updates and other support will probably continue for a few more years.

Apps that run on that OS/hardware will continue to do so. Even after Apple drops support, developers supporting a varied install base will maintain support for as long as they can practically do so.

It could well be 2030 or later by the time a Hac gets frozen in time by the cessation of all soft/driver support - at which point it will still do everything it ever did until it physically fails.

Sure, as time goes by there will be more pressure to upgrade - cool new apps that only use the new APIs, or OS updates with new features, etc. Maybe you'll eventually want hardware support you can't get any other way.

But if that new Hac lasts over 10 years, that's more than respectable, and you'll have all that time to decide if you want to bite the bullet and fully buy into Apple's overpriced and controlled ecosystem, or bail out and transition to something like Windows or Linux - which you'll already have the hardware for if you want to migrate or dual-boot.

 

[trs96]

I don't see this ARM chip going for big Apple machines. What I mean by that? Well when you factor in the raw power and the performance of the Mac Pro, I don't believe that they will go ARM at least for this one.

Apple has made A series CPUs for about ten years now. They have the best engineers in the world. It won't be any problem for them to make a faster and more powerful CPU for the iMac Pro and Mac Pro. They will easily beat the performance of any Xeon based computer. The big ? is whether they can make their own discrete GPU for an iMac Pro or Mac Pro that can outperform what Nvidia and AMD are offering. This is an area where they don't have 10 years of prior experience and have never brought a discrete GPU to market. This is the primary reason why the Mac Pro will be the last new Apple Silicon Mac to be released to the public/pro market. They've got a lot of work to do yet to make a discrete Apple GPU good enough for pro use. I don't know this for certain, but I'd guess they have hired some of the best people away from AMD to work on this so they probably will succeed in making a powerful discrete GPU customized for their Pro computers.

 

[pastrychef]

The idea I'm seeing that Hackintosh is just about over is silly. Maybe if you only want to run on the cutting edge, but...

Let's say you build a new Hac now. Or next year. (I'm actually thinking next year.) It will be able to run the current MacOS and current versions of whatever apps you like.

Time will pass before they phase out Intel Power Macs. 2 years? 5 years? Dunno.

At that point, security updates and other support will probably continue for a few more years.

Apps that run on that OS/hardware will continue to do so. Even after Apple drops support, developers supporting a varied install base will maintain support for as long as they can practically do so.

It could well be 2030 or later by the time a Hac gets frozen in time by the cessation of all soft/driver support - at which point it will still do everything it ever did until it physically fails.

Sure, as time goes by there will be more pressure to upgrade - cool new apps that only use the new APIs, or OS updates with new features, etc. Maybe you'll eventually want hardware support you can't get any other way.

But if that new Hac lasts over 10 years, that's more than respectable, and you'll have all that time to decide if you want to bite the bullet and fully buy into Apple's overpriced and controlled ecosystem, or bail out and transition to something like Windows or Linux - which you'll already have the hardware for if you want to migrate or dual-boot.

I can't see myself still with a hackintosh in 2030. Heck, I highly doubt I'll still be on my hack in 2025. Sandy Bridge was released in 2011. How many people are still using those today? I used my 2010 MacPro5,1 until about 2015 and started feeling its age and became envious of newer tech. I also got tired of it causing street lights to flicker when I turned it on and the insane amount of heat it was spitting out of the rear.

Knowing that it's a dead end, I also have to wonder how much longer devs will continue to develop tools such as Clover and OpenCore up to date and working with future versions of macOS.

Some people will argue that Big Sur (and older) is working great and will continue to indefinitely. I remember seeing the same argument from people claiming Mountain Lion or High Sierra were the best versions of macOS and they would stay on it. There were also people who decided that it was more important to have Nvidia cards and stay on High Sierra. How many of those people do you think are still on those old versions of macOS? I don't know about you, but I want to be on the latest version of macOS. People still have Vic-20s in their closet that work great, you think they use them everyday?

When it comes time to upgrade, there's no way I'll be investing in a hack over an Apple Silicon Mac. For me, Windows or Linux are not options.