MacBook Pro with the M1 processor

[dogslobber]

My 2010 Mini had 16GB way back when it did. I just couldn't buy another computer with that limitation. My Mini has 32GB and can be upgraded to 64GB. Even my NUC7 from 2-3 years back can take 64GB in the 2 slots. I really think Apple are milking the first gen by holding back some of the expected features- 16GB as base config and 64GB being offered in the next gen I would think.

 

[Eric]

My 2010 Mini had 16GB way back when it did. I just couldn't buy another computer with that limitation. My Mini has 32GB and can be upgraded to 64GB. Even my NUC7 from 2-3 years back can take 64GB in the 2 slots. I really think Apple are milking the first gen by holding back some of the expected features- 16GB as base config and 64GB being offered in the next gen I would think.

If 8 is so crippling you have to wonder why they even sell it. I am surprised to hear that the memory is baked into the chip though I was really hoping to have the ability to expand if needed but hopefully there's some gain to it without the need to bus it, it does take the word proprietary to the next level though.

 

[dogslobber]

If 8 is so crippling you have to wonder why they even sell it. I am surprised to hear that the memory is baked into the chip though I was really hoping to have the ability to expand if needed but hopefully there's some gain to it without the need to bus it, it does take the word proprietary to the next level though.

The big issue for me is how bloated the windowing APIs are now. If you view the same tabs in Big Sur and Windows 10 of Chrome, there's like a 3x to 5x footprint difference. The footprint never gets smaller the newer the version of macOS.

 

[SuperMatt]

If 8 is so crippling you have to wonder why they even sell it. I am surprised to hear that the memory is baked into the chip though I was really hoping to have the ability to expand if needed but hopefully there's some gain to it without the need to bus it, it does take the word proprietary to the next level though.

I don‘t think it will be crippling. The iPad Pros have less than that and run very well. The SSD is also so fast that RAM paging is not as bad as with a hard drive.

 

[Eric]

The big issue for me is how bloated the windowing APIs are now. If you view the same tabs in Big Sur and Windows 10 of Chrome, there's like a 3x to 5x footprint difference. The footprint never gets smaller the newer the version of macOS.

Interesting, I know that when I run Chrome on my Microsoft Surface 3 (Windows 10) with 3 or 4 tabs open it pegs it and I can fry an egg on it, to the point the laptop becomes unusable.

 

[SuperMatt]

The SSD tests are starting to come in. The SSD’s are very fast, which might mitigate slowness from 8GB of RAM. Sorry, but I‘m linking to that other place....

Apple Silicon M1 MacBook Air SSD Really Is Twice as Fast as Previous Model

As customers are receiving their new Apple Silicon Macs, we're starting to see more benchmarks and testing being posted in our Apple Silicon...

www.macrumors.com

 

[Eric]

The SSD tests are starting to come in. The SSD’s are very fast, which might mitigate slowness from 8GB of RAM. Sorry, but I‘m linking to that other place....

Apple Silicon M1 MacBook Air SSD Really Is Twice as Fast as Previous Model

As customers are receiving their new Apple Silicon Macs, we're starting to see more benchmarks and testing being posted in our Apple Silicon...

www.macrumors.com

Awesome news! MR is great for Mac info.

 

[lizkat]

Awesome news! MR is great for Mac info.

(Yeah it's just PRSI may have gone downhill some thanks to your dragnet here man.)

The M1 seems amazing. Sometimes I'm still getting my head around the fact I used to code for mainframes in rooms that took up half a city block but you had to keep modules smaller than 32k bytes and personal computing was not even a thing yet in anyone's garage.

My grandfather only thought he lived in interesting times, seeing stuff like motor cars and flying machines come off the drawing board. I thought I'd seen it all after I booted my 512k Mac... and forgot at that moment that before that I had thought I'd seen it all when I booted a dual-floppy 38-pound luggable Compaq ,with no graphics capability and a year or so from having such a thing as a "hard card" tacked into it.

Still sitting on my wallet this year... but I'm paying attention.

 

[Renzatic]

Interesting, I know that when I run Chrome on my Microsoft Surface 3 (Windows 10) with 3 or 4 tabs open it pegs it and I can fry an egg on it, to the point the laptop becomes unusable.

You should be using Chromium Edge on a Windows device. It's effectively the same browser, but has been tweaked in a number of ways to be more efficient on ram.

On another note, when you get your MBP in, I was wondering if you could run a benchmark or two for me. I'm very, very interested in picking up a 2nd gen ARM Mac, probably when the 16" MBPs come out next year, and I want to see how this generation runs some things to give me an idea of what to expect.

 

[Eric]

You should be using Chromium Edge on a Windows device. It's effectively the same browser, but has been tweaked in a number of ways to be more efficient on ram.

On another note, when you get your MBP in, I was wondering if you could run a benchmark or two for me. I'm very, very interested in picking up a 2nd gen ARM Mac, probably when the 16" MBPs come out next year, and I want to see how this generation runs some things to give me an idea of what to expect.

You bet, I'm hoping to have it within a week but will let you know. Just give me the details of what you want me to do.

 

[JayMysteri0]

In the Verge's reviews of the Air & Pro, they do point out that Chrome on these machines is a hog.

Seems like a subtle way for Apple to steer you away from Chrome, or endure the hit.



I personally am more interested in the Mini, to possibly take the place of my 2014.

Apple Mac mini with M1 review: over-performer

The fastest Mac with an M1 chip.

www.theverge.com

 

[Renzatic]

You bet, I'm hoping to have it within a week but will let you know. Just give me the details of what you want me to do.

Cool deal! It's a bit complicated, but shouldn't be too difficult to get your head around.

Right now, some people in the Blender Foundation have seeded some alpha builds for the M1 chip. I was wondering if you could run it, play around with it a bit to see how it performs, and maybe do a benchmark or two. I'll ask you to do some random stuff to see how it runs when you grab it.

Like the guy says, it's an alpha, and it isn't necessarily a good watermark to use for predicting performance, but still, I'm curious.

Link to the Blender build.

Grab the Car Demo under the Cycles header for a good render benchmark.

 

[DT]

If 8 is so crippling you have to wonder why they even sell it. I am surprised to hear that the memory is baked into the chip though I was really hoping to have the ability to expand if needed but hopefully there's some gain to it without the need to bus it, it does take the word proprietary to the next level though.

Apple hasn't had upgradable RAM in notebooks for some time, and there are absolutely technical advantages behind that decision. No biggie.

The performance numbers coming in for the 3 new M1 based machines is stunning. Again, this is the __entry__ level, and it's faster in several capacities than anything else in the product line, including higher end notebooks and iMacs.

The performance to power ratio is just off the charts, and it's a massive GPU increase over the previous comparable models. This is just the 4+4 (perf + efficiency) CPU, and 8 core GPU, but of course, the really clever thing is offloading certain tasks to chip specific duties, like the neural engine, DSP, HDR decoders, etc., especially as developers learn to make use of the latter.

Now think about a 8+4 or a 16+8 with like a 24 core GPU.

 

[Eric]

In the Verge's reviews of the Air & Pro, they do point out that Chrome on these machines is a hog.

Seems like a subtle way for Apple to steer you away from Chrome, or endure the hit.



I personally am more interested in the Mini, to possibly take the place of my 2014.

Funny you post this, I was JUST watching it. According to those guys the M1 is game changing, they loved it.

Cool deal! It's a bit complicated, but shouldn't be too difficult to get your head around.

Right now, some people in the Blender Foundation have seeded some alpha builds for the M1 chip. I was wondering if you could run it, play around with it a bit to see how it performs, and maybe do a benchmark or two. I'll ask you to do some random stuff to see how it runs when you grab it.

Like the guy says, it's an alpha, and it isn't necessarily a good watermark to use for predicting performance, but still, I'm curious.

Link to the Blender build.

Grab the Car Demo under the Cycles header for a good render benchmark.

Sure, I'll let you know when it comes. I still haven't gotten a shipping confirmation from Costco yet.

 

[DT]

The other really cool thing (discussed in that Ars review): there's two primary types of MacOS apps: 1) is a universal app that contains both ARM and Intel binaries, meaning, your new machine will be running a fully native app. Then there are all sorts of existing Intel only apps (i.e., x86_64 binaries), and your machine can run these by translating the code into ARM code using Rosetta 2. Apparently this is still incredibly fast, and more or less seamless, so that really makes the transition to ASi that much smoother.

 

[Eric]

The other really cool thing (discussed in that Ars review): there's two primary types of MacOS apps: 1) is a universal app that contains both ARM and Intel binaries, meaning, your new machine will be running a fully native app. Then there are all sorts of existing Intel only apps (i.e., x86_64 binaries), and your machine can run these by translating the code into ARM code using Rosetta 2. Apparently this is still incredibly fast, and more or less seamless, so that really makes the transition to ASi that much smoother.

Looking at the video Jay posted above it sure sounds like it based on their testing. Can't wait to try this thing out.

 

[Renzatic]

Just saw this on my link above...

In Handbrake, which tests the speed of the GPU when converting a 4K video file to 1080p, the Air completed the task in 8 minutes and 52 seconds. The Dell (17:24) was no match, and even the Lenovo (9:04) lagged behind. Rendering a 3D image in Blender, the Air took 6:24 using its CPU and 7:54 with its GPU. Again, those times easily beat the XPS 13 (9:47 for CPU and 10:50 for GPU) and the IdeaPad (9:37 for CPU and 9:09 for GPU) with their competitive chips. This is particularly impressive because Blender isn’t actually optimized for the M1, which means it was running on Rosetta 2, Apple’s emulation software that provides support for Intel-based Mac apps. That meant the MacBook Air wasn’t just exceptionally faster than its competitors in Blender, but it did it while also running an emulation layer.

This is just insane. I'm pretty much settled now. Once the 2nd gens come out, my next machine is going to be a Macbook.

 

[thekev]

The other really cool thing (discussed in that Ars review): there's two primary types of MacOS apps: 1) is a universal app that contains both ARM and Intel binaries, meaning, your new machine will be running a fully native app. Then there are all sorts of existing Intel only apps (i.e., x86_64 binaries), and your machine can run these by translating the code into ARM code using Rosetta 2. Apparently this is still incredibly fast, and more or less seamless, so that really makes the transition to ASi that much smoother.

If it's fast, it's likely due to calling dynamically linked Apple apis for expensive sub-routines. Otherwise, no matter how optimized, you have the cost of implementing an entire instruction set architecture. I'll admit, I have wanted to see ARM make inroads in something that could be used as a dev box for some time.

 

[iMi]

Agree. This is 2021. Never go below 16Gb RAM.

I’m not so sure. I just got the new iMac i9, 5700XT, 64GB memory... I am now getting the Mini and will compare. There are some differences in the way the architecture handles memory usage. Early benchmarks are showing that already. I’ll let you guys know how things go when the Mini gets here. I plan to return the iMac if all goes well.

 

[Clix Pix]

Ah, such a dangerous thing for me to do, watching that Verge video!!!!!! AAAAIIEEEEEEEE!!!!! My 12" MacBook, who had thought she was safe, is now getting anxious again..... Ooooh, this is SO, SO tempting!!!!