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Comment by Shivetya | Hacker News Reader

I really hope some of the limitations we are seeing with the M1 chip being from a slow roll out to the new technology and not some sign of a new wall.

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?

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> are the controllers for these also all integrated in the chip?

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.

I wonder if it would be feasible to release a product with different classes of memory. So you'd have the 8GB or 16GB in the M1 chip + an extra 48 GB elsewhere one the board.

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?

Xeon Phi's had that - up to 16GB of ridiculously fast memory in-package and the ability to drive external memory at more pedestrian speeds.

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.

Yes the Thunderbolt controller etc are integrated into the SoC of the M1

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

> I also await their on dGPU solution.

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.

Dedicated/external GPUs are 10x as powerful as internal ones. Apple doesn't have a miracle technology that can make a fanless 2080 Ti. AMD and Nvidia arent stopping improving cards just because M1 exists

I haven't said anything about Apple GPU architecture being a miracle fanless technology. Right now they ship SoCs with 7 or 8 graphics units, what happens when they put 64 of them?

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.

If you want GPU performance to match a dedicated GPU, you can't fit it in a Macbook (or any Mac except the Mac Pro, for that matter). Even if the M1's graphics units only used 50% as much power as an equivalently-powerful Nvidia or AMD dedicated GPU, putting enough graphics power onboard to match even a midrange GPU would immediately overwhelm the cooling abilities of the computer.

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.

I don't understand your argument at all. You realize Apple does put dedicated AMD GPUs in their Macbook Pros?

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?

Unless I'm mistaken, this isn't about the GPUs inside the MBP but about the external ones you can connect separate power and a Thunderbolt cable to.

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.

In theory there's nothing stopping Apple from making a large single die that contains a desktop-class CPU and desktop-class GPU. There are also rumors that Apple is designing their own "Lifuka" discrete GPU that would presumably be a larger version of the same design that they use in their SoCs.

i dont think the memory is on die, its just chiplets on the same substrate ala ryzen.

This is correct. One distinction is that AFAICT they are not stacked, a decision that improves the thermals immensely.

I think you (and users like you) are simply not the target customer for Apple anymore. They used to aim for the professional market segment, where people are using multiple displays, need external GPU for creative work and other external gear, and computers that don't throttle their CPU that easily.

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.

Bit of a problem if you want to write iPhone or Mac apps though...

It's a good thing their Intel machines go all the way to 28 Xeon cores and 1.5TB if RAM then...

Sure, and I imagine the ARM ones will in time - but it moves the MBP further along the admittedly already in progress line of it not really being a Pro machine anymore.

For some definitions of "Pro" ;-).

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.

Overreaction much? Last I checked the vast majority of their devices are sold with Intel chipsets. So if having multiple displays while running your MacBook Air for "professional work" is a deal-breaker then you can just get a different Mac. M2 chips and later will obviously support multiple external displays. Not everyone needs to be an early adopter. Sheesh.

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.

No overreaction, just sharing what I'm seeing in the European film industry already. Film professionals couldn't care less if it's Mac or PC, as long as it runs the software they want to run, that it won't make them lose their mind with performance issues and won't cost similarly to a semi-fancy car.

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.

> (max 16GB of memory, really?)

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.

Apple hasn't made anything clear. These are entry level devices. They don't have anything to do with the customers you describe. Some other variants of Apple Silicon will address those customers. No data available yet to draw any conclusions.

>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.

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.

It's plenty professional, just not portable. The problem is that just like with the iPhone, the pro line has just become the high class line so people buy it for the bling factor. They need to make a dev or nerd line or whatever marketing decides to call it. This would be more configurable and not thin and light just for the sake of being thinner and light that last year's model.

What PC are you thinking about that is both powerful and portable?

> just not portable

That's because the base model doesn't come with Apple Wheel. They're only 700$.

This is the third time I read this comment and lightly smiled. Wasn't until now that it occurred to me that "Apple Wheel" might actually be a real product. Lo and behold, it's 4 cart wheels that retails for $699, I'm not even joking. https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MX572ZM/A/apple-mac-pro-w...

Yeah, I'm mostly picking on Apple and their ardent refusal to use articles ('on [an] iPhone...', 'We've made [the] iPad xxx times faster') which drives me crazy for some reason, and also nodding to The Onion's aardvark 'Macbook Wheel' spoof. It could go either way.

the pretentiousness of it bugs me too, and I use an iPhone, an iPad, and Mac.

In euros they sell it for €849, or about $1k.

But this product segmentation is not at all new. Apple has never had a "pro" workstation-style laptop like the Thinkpad P. The MacBook Pro line has always been relatively-thin, relatively-light, not-very-upgradable: going back almost fifteen years.

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".

> Apple has never had a "pro" workstation-style laptop like the Thinkpad P. The MacBook Pro line has always been relatively-thin, relatively-light, not-very-upgradable: going back almost fifteen years.

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.

They were just as thin and upgradable as the other PowerBooks/MacBook Pros.

32gb l4 cache + however much normal ram?

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