Apple Silicon M1 Macs do not support eGPUs
appleinsider.com
appleinsider.com
https://www.apple.com/au/macbook-pro-13/specs/
“Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display in millions of colours and: One external display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz”
I am not willing the entertain the idea "more RAM is no longer possible nor necessary", either. Software keeps creeping up as usual (MS Teams _by itself_ uses >2GB, and I have already complained dearly -- Teams is basically a glorified IRC client!). And next year if not this year already it's highly likely my phone will have 16GB of RAM. My phone! On my pocket!
It's just ridiculous that a $1200 laptop has 8 GB, and it is just unbelievable it maxes out at 16GB. Looks designed to be thrown away next year.
Apple still sells 13" Macbook Pros that go up to 32GB RAM, they're just Intel ones. If you need more than 16 GB in a Pro Mac, or a Mini you can still get it. So these options have not been taken off the table. The M1 machines simply offer a new tradeoff of smaller but faster memory if that works for you. Not every machine needs to offer every possible configuration.
Is it? Dell sells a $1499 laptop with 8GB. They also have 16GB models, but once you add specs equivalent to the new MacBook (at least i7, SSD, 13") the prices are $1299 and above (and you get a plastic box, not exactly the same build quality, trackpad, etc - though you do get a probabl better camera and more ports).
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/sr/laptops/inte...
But for a few months everything was running rather slow and I put it down to other causes.
One day I looked at the memory usage and saw it was using 10GB swap in addition to about 14.5GB RAM. And when I clicked things that responded slowly, the memory pressure meter was lighting up. Swapping was why it was slow.
It's pretty fast swap, being on SSD, but it was the reason for the slowdowns. Probably not doing the SSD any good either (they wear out if written to constantly).
Turns out Safari was using 8GB by itself. Restarting Safari helped (it's quick to restart which is nice). Safari, like Chrome, uses a lot of memory after opening a bunch of tabs because of using separate processes for each tab.
I also use Firefox, but it uses 6-8GB for me too.
Then there's my VM running my Linux dev environment. Now I only give it 4GB, which is a bit tight but I run some things remotely so it's ok. I had to shrink it from 6GB to get my performance back.
Sometimes I'm foolish enough to have LibreOffice or MS Word open to look at documents. They aren't memory hogs, but when you've lost most of it to the browser(s) and dev VM, little things like office apps push it a few GB over the edge.
I'm also running Emacs with quite a lot loaded into it, and many iTerms, but they use so little RAM compared with the big stuff, it barely registers.
Nowadays I pay more attention to memory use, mostly use only one browser at a time, and restart more often.
Even so, it's hovering around 5GB swap at the moment, and I haven't got much going on at the moment.
Based on this, I know I can live with 16GB but it is restricting what I use and how I work now. 32GB would be let me stop thinking about RAM again, and I expect in a few years it will be nearly full, as usage tends to grow over time (as I found already).
If I could buy a new MBP knowing I could upgrade the RAM I'd be happy to buy at 16GB, but as you can't upgrade, and I want a new laptop to last at least 5 years, I wouldn't be comfortable buying a dev machine at 16GB now.
Apple obviously knows that a lot of people rely on those power-user features, so I'm sure at some point you'll be able to buy an ARM Mac with 128GB RAM that you can hook 6 monitors up to.
I do think starting at the low end makes sense for Apple though. These machines will sell mostly to everyday folks who just use a handful of common apps - I wouldn't be surprised if Safari is the #1 app used on these machines. That gives Apple a start to this transition, without the reputational hit that might have occurred if they sold a bunch of machines to power users right away. We'll whine a little bit that the machines weren't what we wanted, and then we'll just wait for the M1X machines. But that's better than if we all bought M1X MacBook Pros yesterday and then were disappointed when a couple of crucial apps didn't work yet. This "flattens the curve" of application incompatibility reports if you will.
An entry-level laptop not supporting dual 4K screens (for whatever reason) sounds more tame, especially if the vendor has statistics that show that a tiny minority use theirs with such a setup even in the Intel version that does support it...
The 16GB max memory is another problem, but again mostly not for the kind of users the machine is intended for.
For Apple it is. And for most other companies (Dell, Lenovo, Razer, etc).
When you configure any kind of developer-class or workstation-class machine, it gets way above $2000 soon regardless of vendor.
I wanted to try a Lenovo or Razer with compatible specs to a high end MacBook Pro 16 (to use if as a high end Linux workstation), and it gets into the same ballpark very quickly as you narrow the specs down.
The sub €600 category Apple doesn't cater to.
Dell: https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/sr/laptops/insp...
Lenovo: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/ideapad-100-ser...
In a pedantic way yes, but not on the casual axis I was talking about.
Workstations are not merely "different" configurations that can be equally cheap to an entry level consumer machine, they are also typically much more expensive.
For us that remember the era of the actual workstation (HP, Sun, SGI, IBM, Dec, etc), it wasn't just some "completely orthogonal concept", it was "hella high end, hella expensive, 3-10 times your average PC" reality...
And when we talk about machines worthy to be called workstations, for graphics, video, 3D, etc, this remains so...
Single displays driven as two half panels over MST has been supported since 10.9.3, including the UP2414Q that I mentioned. Otherwise, DisplayPort 1.2 could only give the screens enough bandwidth to run at 30 Hz.
> MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) or Mac Pro (Late 2013) also support 60 Hz displays using multi-stream transport (MST). These displays need to be manually configured to use MST. Follow the steps below to use the display's built-in controls to enable this feature.
> [display specific instructions omitted]
> Your Mac will automatically detect an MST-enabled display. However, your display may require a firmware update to support 60Hz operation. Please contact your display vendor for details. If your specific DisplayPort display is not listed above, check with the display’s manufacturer for compatibility information.
Having used that Dell screen on both OS X and Windows, I can tell you this MST capability was better supported on Mac than it was on Windows. On a Mac it worked perfectly. On Windows you'd frequently get half of the screen either black or shifted sideways, creating several visible seams in the image.
Not my screenshots, but see here for examples: https://www.dell.com/community/Monitors/UP2414Q-Rev-A03-Wake...
I suspect what macs may become to many of us is the trusted machine we buy for child/spouse/parent, then run off to our linux machine.
I was going to say windows for games, but it seems I wasn't paying attention and linux machines run lots of games well nowadays.
The Apple slotted these M1 macs into the entry-level position for their lower-end models. One thing that lets them do is focus on fundamentals of this migration first and take on more sophisticated use-cases over time.
Support for more RAM, more external displays, etc. is coming.
I was considering the 13 inch until i noticed only 2 Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports. There is a $100 discount from the equivalently configured Intel Pro. I guess that is for the external USB4 hub you'll need. The lack of a 32 GB option also gives me pause.
Looks like I am holding out for the 16 inch with the M1X...
Finally I discovered it was my external monitors - I have have 2 4k monitors connected and I use display scaling on both. This apparently strains the integrated GPU, heats up the system, and caused the throttling. As ridiculous as it was to purchase an external enclosure and video card - that solved the issue. Now the system runs flawlessly.
M1 (or at least the macbooks) only supports a single external display, problem solved!
The 2019 16" MPB made this problem far worse, raising the minimum dGPU to 18W, making external displays almost completely unusable for more than 1hr at a time unless you put the laptop aside in an external cooling solution (stand and fans) where you can't ergonomically use the integrated keyboard.
I really don't understand how this isn't more of an issue for Apple. Surely theres a lot of pros out there using external monitors. Two external monitors is pretty standard - in my previous life as an IT guy we set that up for probably half of our clients.
I run a 4K monitor, 1440p gaming monitor, and the internal monitor without issues. Lots of scaling on all of them.
My windows computer has an issue with the 4K monitor. The cursor has notice ticks and other weird refresh issues. I even bought a 2070 and the issues remain.
What GPU enclosure do you use?
It completely stopped once I ran the 4k monitors at native resolution, and when I got the eGPU setup.
The enclosure I purchased is the Razer Core X Chroma. One silver lining is it basically acts like a dock - has USB, wired NIC, and powers the system. Video card is a Radeon RX 580.
Wish Apple would reintroduce those with the M1. Awesome form factor, held back by Intel's anemic Core M CPUs.
That will give them loads of data to smooth out the kinks out of Rosetta and the rest of software chain while having enough time to work on the M2.
I expect the first "real" Apple silicon hardware will be in November 2021 staring iMac and MBP 16.
Then 2022/2023 for the MacPro where Apple really goes all out, deprecate the last of their x86 line up but at this stage we are at the M4 and nobody cares anymore.
But yeah, I agree they must have a roadmap past these limitations. When we get a 16” MBP I’d bet on it having more RAM and 4 thunderbolt ports. They’ve launched the low end machines with M1 first because this is a first step in the M-processors, and it’s the first time they’ve had any sort of thunderbolt controller with this architecture.
Makes me wonder if any of these changes will make their way back to the iPad Pro. Right now they’re USB-C without thunderbolt, but the new iPad Air is getting awfully close to the iPad Pro’s territory. Thunderbolt support and being able to drive a 6K display would be an interesting differentiator.
Apple is shipping an integrated Thunderbolt controller before Intel does with Tigerlake.
Do we know whose IP they use? And is it integrated on die, or integrated in the package of the SoC?
I'm pretty sure they'll support more RAM and more ports and more displays in the future, but I'm worried about the eGPU support. Pulling a GPU into the SoC might make them think they've got that covered, but it won't be enough.
More pro machines (e.g. 16" MBP) will probably get announced Q1 - Q2 2021. These will also have more available RAM, support more displays, etc.)
the biggest concern to me is the on die memory. while nice from a performance perspective I do not understand how they will do this going forward for true Pro models where users want 64g or even more memory. I also await their on dGPU solution.
A few users have also commented on the lack of ports and while I have not dug into this, are the controllers for these also all integrated in the chip?
But if the last few years of Apple's new hardware is telling us anything, is that Apple is now strictly casual-oriented, and if you're in any capacity a professional, you need to start thinking about getting a PC again.
Every professional group has different bottlenecks. For me, the amount of memory is more of a problem than CPU speed and I couldn't care less about GPU, although I like having more screens. These Pros would be a tight fit for me, but other people may want a faster CPU more than large memories, so everyone's mileage may vary. I suppose the next generation will bump it up to 32 or 64GB, so they may be more comfortable for me.
One thing I'd love would be more low-power cores. I don't do heavy lifting on VMs and, because of that, these cores seem like perfect for that little MySQL container. Also, the lower the single-thread performance, the sooner you'll see concurrency issues.
As a "professional", getting a PC is a deal breaker. It's not a Mac. It doesn't run macOS. That's the whole point.
Apple currently is making it clear that they are not actively targeting those people anymore (max 16GB of memory, really?) and professionals are finally noticing, which is why in the last few years you see more and more professionals moving back to PC after being on macOS for many years.
Again, this is the first iteration of the M1 chip. Again, you can buy a different Mac and spec it out to 32GB if you have that requirement.
I'm a professional. I'm "noticing". I'm still buying a Mac.
Was the new Mac Pro not 'professional' enough for you? Up to 28 core CPU, 1.5 TB of RAM, capable of driving six 6K monitors and so on? Even the iMac Pro is absurdly overpowered for 'casual' usage.
That's because the base model doesn't come with Apple Wheel. They're only 700$.
I agree that Apple isn't trying to serve the market for "portable workstation", but they never really have, so why do you say they have lost their way?
It's also worth saying you can still buy a 16" MacBook Pro with an 8-core i9 processor, 64GB of RAM, a Radeon Pro 5600M with 8GB of RAM, 8TB of SSD storage - a specification that's hardly "casual".
The 17" lunch trays were that product, and were bought by people who wanted to edit photos in the field or get a lot of spreadsheet cells on the display. They had the highest performance as well.
Yes, in the unveiling video they showed the thunderbolt controller as one of the things they'd put in the SoC. I'm not sure if this is reflected in the documentation, but in the video itself it was pretty clear.
Obviously the M1 memory would be faster, but e.g. Xbox series X has 16GB memory of which 10GB is considerably faster than the remaining 6GB.
So I guess it becomes a software challenge then... can they make the necessary changes to MacOS to manage different classes of memory efficiently?
IIRC the 16GB could be configured as an "L4 cache" for the rest of the memory.
I assume the same approach could be taken.
OTOH, it shouldn't be too complicated to just add more memory dies to the package as higher densities become available.
Yesterday's models just replace the Air and lowest spec Pro
Seems likely that next year or so there would be an "M1X" chip with more RAM to support the higher end Pro models - the 16" and rumoured 14", hopefully both with four ports
Genuine question from someone who doesn't know hardware architecture that well:
It seems clear that we'll see non-PoP variants of their SoC's, for instance to support multiple RAM configurations in the high-end models.
However, at this point, if Apple's own GPU scales well, should we except 3rd party dGPU at all? Can't Apple ship SoCs with multiple times the M1 core count and graphics units, package 8 or 16GB of fast memory (GDDR or HBM), and call it a day? They're going to push their own software stack anyway, why bother with AMD GPUs fabbed on a previous generation TSMC process.
Look at the architecture of AMD SoCs in the PS5 and Xbox. Obviously Apple cannot get away with unified memory in the higher-end machines, but what would make them prefer an AMD dGPU when it seems they have everything they need internally. Again, assuming the GPU scales well.
Apple could absolutely choose to make better cooling, but they've demonstrated time and time again that they'd rather just let thermal throttling happen and trust that their users will continue to buy a product that doesn't live up to its spec sheet's promises.
Any cooling that could support dedicated-GPU-level performance would require making the chassis dramatically thicker - take a look at some of the gaming laptops out there today with desktop-class GPUs, they can get be like 2 inches thick in pursuit of cooling good enough to support a full-power GPU without massive throttling.
The Radeon Pro 5600M with 8GB of HBM2 has a pretty significant power envelope, and is coupled to 6 or 8 core Intel H series that are equally power hungry.
The fact 16" MBPs are undercooled is beyond the point. Apple ships laptops with a ~95W TDP. Why would they not ship a SoC with 16/24/32 graphics units for high-end laptops and iMacs?
In that case, you're not talking about a Radeon Pro 5600M but rather a desktop-class RTX 3090 with 24GB of high-performance RAM and a TDP of 350W. A MBP couldn't hope to power or cool one of those with a built-in GPU, never mind come close to matching the performance or supporting CUDA without nVidia sueing Apple out of existence.
But as TB is PCIe this comment isn't intended to contradict your core point.
I'm not supporting a device that will give the EU the power to force removal of apps that don't have an encryption back door [1]. Same goes for apple's app store. At least I can still side load android apps for now.
Thanks to Apple and everyone copying these "for security" features we are rapidly loosing our democracy and freedoms. 1984 is already here and most want it.
Sadly no one seems to realize that in these last few acts of terrorism in France and Austria the purpatraitors where known. In fact some where already in prison before. Reading their IMs wouldn't have made any difference with the amount that was known and the incompetent government bureaucracy. Killing encryption won't fix that.
I will however say there is a legitimate, non-crippleware reason: Secure Boot (device boot/kernel integrity).
Before we had basic constructs like TPMs it was quite trivial to long-term rootkit a box or specifically a network security appliance.
Secure Boot with the keys in the hand of the owner of the hardware is a very useful tool to ensure you aren't silently running an owned kernel/etc.
But it is like any story: A useful tool immediately becomes a weapon.