New apple M1 chips - who's buying?
Discussion
The first Geekbench scores have surfaced, the M1 Air is faster than the 16-inch MBP apparently.
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/11/m1-macbook-ai...
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/11/m1-macbook-ai...
TimmyWimmyWoo said:
The first Geekbench scores have surfaced, the M1 Air is faster than the 16-inch MBP apparently.
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/11/m1-macbook-ai...
The figures look fairly astonishing to my admittedly untrained eye. How are intel and amd going to compete with that - at least in relation to laptops? https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/11/m1-macbook-ai...
ant1973 said:
TimmyWimmyWoo said:
The first Geekbench scores have surfaced, the M1 Air is faster than the 16-inch MBP apparently.
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/11/m1-macbook-ai...
The figures look fairly astonishing to my admittedly untrained eye. How are intel and amd going to compete with that - at least in relation to laptops? https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/11/m1-macbook-ai...
TimmyWimmyWoo said:
The first Geekbench scores have surfaced, the M1 Air is faster than the 16-inch MBP apparently.
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/11/m1-macbook-ai...
Geekbench is not reliable tool, for example for a long time Apple's A12X chip was rated as being faster at multicore performance than the AMD Epyc 7501 which is a 170w 32 core server chip. (Seems they've deleted the results for that now.)https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/11/m1-macbook-ai...
Cinebench or similar would be more useful. I was cautiously impressed that it was faster at compiling though. I am assuming they haven't cheated by compiling for different targets.
xeny said:
or more than one external monitor, or the ability to run x86 VMs, or use software that is CPU intensive (e/g/ makes heavy use of AVX(2) and not likely to be re-released for ARM.
They cover a large fraction of Mac laptop use cases but the corner cases will catch a fair few people out.
You will be able to run X86 VMs on M1 Macs. Parallels has already announced support for M1 Macs.They cover a large fraction of Mac laptop use cases but the corner cases will catch a fair few people out.
budgie smuggler said:
Geekbench is not reliable tool, for example for a long time Apple's A12X chip was rated as being faster at multicore performance than the AMD Epyc 7501 which is a 170w 32 core server chip. (Seems they've deleted the results for that now.)
Cinebench or similar would be more useful. I was cautiously impressed that it was faster at compiling though. I am assuming they haven't cheated by compiling for different targets.
Cinebench R23 has just been released with support for M1 so that should give a true comparisonCinebench or similar would be more useful. I was cautiously impressed that it was faster at compiling though. I am assuming they haven't cheated by compiling for different targets.
My wife has a 7-year-old Mac Book Air, which is due to be replaced. With a £1000 budget, I was pointing her to a refurbished 13" Mac Book Pro on the Apple website.
However, the new base Air is really interesting at that price.
Pros
- Better battery life
- Better performance
Cons
- Lesser screen resolution (Air is lower than MBP)
- Lesser storage (512gb MBP vs 256gb Air)
She's forever running out of room on her current machine, and the lovely Apple pricing model means an extra 256Gb is £250! At the moment I think the refurbished Mac Book Pro seems better value.
However, the new base Air is really interesting at that price.
Pros
- Better battery life
- Better performance
Cons
- Lesser screen resolution (Air is lower than MBP)
- Lesser storage (512gb MBP vs 256gb Air)
She's forever running out of room on her current machine, and the lovely Apple pricing model means an extra 256Gb is £250! At the moment I think the refurbished Mac Book Pro seems better value.
130R said:
budgie smuggler said:
Geekbench is not reliable tool, for example for a long time Apple's A12X chip was rated as being faster at multicore performance than the AMD Epyc 7501 which is a 170w 32 core server chip. (Seems they've deleted the results for that now.)
Cinebench or similar would be more useful. I was cautiously impressed that it was faster at compiling though. I am assuming they haven't cheated by compiling for different targets.
Cinebench R23 has just been released with support for M1 so that should give a true comparisonCinebench or similar would be more useful. I was cautiously impressed that it was faster at compiling though. I am assuming they haven't cheated by compiling for different targets.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16226/apple-silicon...
Edited by budgie smuggler on Thursday 12th November 14:19
page3 said:
Thinking of the Air for my 12 year old. With the ability to run iOS apps I think it’ll be the perfect machine for him, especially as he won’t accept Windows.
I will (on the other hand) carry on with my 2012 Air. Probably hacked to run Big Sur.
He won't accept Windows? I will (on the other hand) carry on with my 2012 Air. Probably hacked to run Big Sur.
If I'm buying it, he gets what he gets.
budgie smuggler said:
Just seen that AnandTech have tested it using SpecInt2006 and found it's bloody fast, bettering a i7-1185G7 ... while only drawing 10w!
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16226/apple-silicon...
That's a benchmark to the A14 in the iPhone 12/iPad.https://www.anandtech.com/show/16226/apple-silicon...
Edited by budgie smuggler on Thursday 12th November 14:19
The M1 has more 2 more 'performance' cores, and as the single core speed is already reported to be to be faster than the A14 you can assume the multi-core score will probably double too.
Edited by mmm-five on Thursday 12th November 14:39
mmm-five said:
That's a benchmark to the A14 in the iPhone 12/iPad.
The M1 has more 2 more 'performance' cores, and as the single core speed is already reported to be to be faster than the A14 you can assume the multi-core score will probably double too.
Whoops you're right thanks. If the figures are accurate in real world use, this could be a game changer!The M1 has more 2 more 'performance' cores, and as the single core speed is already reported to be to be faster than the A14 you can assume the multi-core score will probably double too.
Edited by mmm-five on Thursday 12th November 14:39
ThisInJapanese said:
My wife has a 7-year-old Mac Book Air, which is due to be replaced. With a £1000 budget, I was pointing her to a refurbished 13" Mac Book Pro on the Apple website.
However, the new base Air is really interesting at that price.
Pros
- Better battery life
- Better performance
Cons
- Lesser screen resolution (Air is lower than MBP)
- Lesser storage (512gb MBP vs 256gb Air)
She's forever running out of room on her current machine, and the lovely Apple pricing model means an extra 256Gb is £250! At the moment I think the refurbished Mac Book Pro seems better value.
Would it not make sense to get her 2TB cloud storage? You would get 3 years for £250...However, the new base Air is really interesting at that price.
Pros
- Better battery life
- Better performance
Cons
- Lesser screen resolution (Air is lower than MBP)
- Lesser storage (512gb MBP vs 256gb Air)
She's forever running out of room on her current machine, and the lovely Apple pricing model means an extra 256Gb is £250! At the moment I think the refurbished Mac Book Pro seems better value.
plasticpig said:
You will be able to run X86 VMs on M1 Macs. Parallels has already announced support for M1 Macs.
You could run Windows with Virtual PC on G4/G5 Macs back in the PowerPC days. Performance was from dire to barely acceptable depending on how fast your Mac was.These days I have a quick Windows machine for work so quite tempted to pick up an Air for all the non-work stuff.
Edited by sjg on Thursday 12th November 16:33
ThisInJapanese said:
nikaiyo2 said:
Would it not make sense to get her 2TB cloud storage? You would get 3 years for £250...
Yes it would, however, as a concept it doesn't work for her...cobra kid said:
page3 said:
Thinking of the Air for my 12 year old. With the ability to run iOS apps I think it’ll be the perfect machine for him, especially as he won’t accept Windows.
I will (on the other hand) carry on with my 2012 Air. Probably hacked to run Big Sur.
He won't accept Windows? I will (on the other hand) carry on with my 2012 Air. Probably hacked to run Big Sur.
If I'm buying it, he gets what he gets.
I am very very tempted to get an Air just to see how usable it is, I had one last year in 'top spec' but it was horifically slow for what I wanted to do. Very excited about the new chips, if the leaked Geekbench 5 scores are accurate and they don't suffer from crazy thermal throttling, they'll rewrite the thin and light handbook. The scores indicate it outperforming my i9 16" Pro!
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