Hacker News Reader

Comment by PartiallyTyped | Hacker News Reader

Doesn't say a lot. It's mostly speculation, the chip is listed here [1].

Notable info:

Still at 5nm; double the GPU cores. Reports up to 3 displays, so it's safe to assume 2+1 external/internal. 8 High perf cores and 4 little perf cores. PCIE gen 4, no idea about number of lanes.

[1] https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu-apple_m1x-1898

View on HN

Comparison: https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-apple_m1x-1898-vs-...

I am finding the numbers a little bit too perfect to put much faith into. Single core performance that is exactly identical between the two? Floating point performance exactly double? Seems a bit off.

The little "Buy this processor at Amazon!" icons next to each benchmark make the whole site seem a touch scammy.

The other thing is RAM. Apple still has delusions of gimping it's buyers into 16/32GB for "Pro" level machines. I'd probably buy a 16" MBP with this chip if I could get it with socketed 64/128GB. But Apple's going to solder it to the board and charge a premium even if they did.

Yeah, I'm calling it now - no chance of 128GB in a Macbook Pro. 64GB even is doubtful.

It'd be fun if they got 32GB parts with double the memory bandwidth (which could make sense with the doubled Firestorm and GPU cores).

Do we have perf counters that show how memory starved is M1 under pressure?

"Memory starving" a CPU is almost always a latency issue except with very specific workloads. A double wide memory controller would be very cool if they wanted to make a high performance integrated GPU though.

64GB is available on the current-gen 64GB, so not offering it would be a step backwards.

64GB was available on the previous Mac Mini, but they took a step backwards and capped the new one at 16GB, no reason they won't do the same with the MBP.

The Intel Mac Mini is still sold. If you need, you can get it with 64GB of RAM and 2TB of PCIe SSD.

Granted you'll feel bad if this leak is wrong and Apple shows an M1x with more than 16GB of RAM.

I literally have a previous Mac Mini with maxed-out RAM thanks to OWC and their RAM upgrades. Also one of the new Macbook Pros.

From my experience with both, I think you might be very unhappy in retrospect if you bet that more RAM is going to make the most recent Intel one come within shouting distance of even an 8GB M1 Mini. The old one was one of the best for single-core performance within its generation, but they're not even the same thing, not even close. Again, I own both machines with the Intel Mini maxed out as far as it can go with RAM.

My gut level reaction is, you could give the new one lots more RAM (in theory) and it wouldn't end up using it. So they're capping them, otherwise people will assume there's a benefit and that the 8GB and 16GB ones aren't workable for heavy processing.

I've also got a suspicion (possibly just a weird cynicism) that this is why the previous-gen Mac Pro runs so huge and expensive: they've overpriced and overdesigned it so hard that it's unattainable for nearly anybody, making it a sort of status object with Veblen pricing, specifically to avoid class action lawsuits when they release newer machines that outperform it at a tenth of the price.

You were never supposed to actually buy the monstro cheese grater Mac Pro or its screen with the thousand dollar stand, and if you did, (a) it's of symbolic value to you and (b) it's your own fault. When the real high performance computer comes out of Apple it'll be at Mac Mini prices, and meant to iPhone-ify desktop computing as a category.

Class action lawsuits?

Because there’s a ceiling on RAM capacity? If that’s your requirement there are many people happy to sell you a device that will satisfy you.

I started computing in the days when you could add your own instructions to your computer. I’m not suing anyone though that capability is no longer available

When the user guide prominently includes a wiring diagram for adding the memory necessary to run the product:

http://users.telenet.be/kim1-6502/6502/2ksa/2ksa.html

Cover:Schematics for a 5V, 3A regulated power supply and a 1K x 8 read/write memory block. The power supply and three such memory blocks can be added to the basic KIM-l microcomputer to provide the 4K RAM required by this assembler. Parts are available from Jameco Electronics.

You can still buy the Intel Mini for a reason. I don't think it's an unreasonable assumption to expect a mini that takes more than 16GB of RAM.

They just started the Apple Silicon transition. A bit early for the doom and gloom, no?

I suspect they'll release a faster mac mini with the M1x chip. They've got tons of space and an oversized PSU, so it would be easy to do.

You can't even get above 16GB with the M1. You can with the i9. It took me MONTHS to receive my 16GB M1.

Well, I got mine in 2 days, so...

Ordered mine end of December, got it last Thursday. Glad you had a better experience!

Ordered mine at the end of November and received it the week of Christmas. M1 Air with 16gb RAM and 1TB drive.

Yup, same specs here. It was due on the 29th of Jan, but somehow got delayed. I've had a few other friends relay the same experience. I wonder how some people are having much better luck. I had the same experience in the Spring last year when I tried to order a MacBook Air for my daughter with 16 Gigs. I left it for a few weeks and then finally went back to Apple and cancelled as it looked to be an eternity before they'd be able to ship it.

Definitely glad other people are having a better experience.

I'm not even in the US, we usually have worse delivery dates for everything, Apple or not. And the 16MB Pro is considered a "modification", but it was readily available in several resellers.

Three weeks ago I ordered a 1 TB/16GB MBA and picked it up the same day (!)

It was a pleasant shock. I ended up returning it as it turns out I really do need at least 32GB of RAM, but it was VERY difficult to take it back.

Even if this rumor is way overhyped, I still can't wait for a MBP that can take at least 32GB of RAM. I'll be there with bells on!

Benchmarks have shown negligible performance difference between 8 and 16GB models for editing multiple 4K video streams and other pretty intensive tasks. What kind of software do you run?

The M1x will almost certainly have 64 gb support, possibly 128. Apple has left Intel Macs in the lineup for customers who need features that the M1 has not replicated, like large RAM capacity and 10 gb Ethernet. The M1 macs are still better for 90% of customers, but the intention is to only fully phase out Intel Macs in a product line when Apple Silicon is better for 100% of customers, as they did with the Air. The M1x will fill out the remainder of the Macbook Pro and Mac Mini lineup, which requires 64 gb support. It is likely (though not a guarantee) that the M1x will also fill out the entire iMac line (excluding the education M1 iMac they have not yet released). That would require 128 gb support.

People seem to be under the mistaken impression that supporting higher memory capacities is hard. It's not. It's trivial. The only reason the M1 doesn't is because of how it's packaged, and they only chose to package it that way because the products they were intending to replace it with only need 2 memory chips. They did what made sense for the M1, and they will do what makes sense for the M1x.

I'd add that they also appear to lack EEC support.

I wonder if the shorter bus won't somehow reduce the error rates.

Errors can be at the cell level of the memory, given the very high density they are now.

I know. I just wanted a reality check on where erros originate from.

I know. I just wanted a reality check on where erros originate from.

Best. Typo. Evar.

Sometimes my spell checker is confused between English and Portuguese.

Yeah it's really annoying that 8/256 is the base still. It's been like that for years - I think that's been the same since around 2016.

Would be much better if the base model was 16/512, but that's $500 of nearly pure profit apple would lose.

It's just annoying that the others are BTO - you can't just pick up a replacement. I was expecting to for over 3.5k for my new laptop. It was half for the 16gb/1tb

256 GB is more than enough for many people. Consider work laptops that are mostly used in meetings, or personal laptops for folks who live in the cloud.

I've recently used a 100 GB partition on my personal laptop for client work and it was fine.

(I'm not trying to defend the price of Apple's SSD upgrades.)

It's a textbook example of price discrimination on Apple's part. They know that the 8/256 model is not enough for several classes of Pro users, so they can sell the 16/512 model at a premium (while increasingly locking down their devices to prevent after-market upgrades).

Rules change. I've got one of the 16GB RAM Macbook Pros. They've got it acting like it's L2 cache instead of RAM as we know it, so the place where you need more than 128G becomes, well, the SSD, your mass storage.

These things already don't act as if it's RAM as we're used to considering it. They could probably have shipped the first ones with 4G RAM and had 'em act relatively normal… with heavy stuff like 4K video editing. Not great, but normal. So they did 8G RAM to have 'em act more impressive… like doing said editing smoother with fewer dropped frames than far more powerful Intel machines with a lot more RAM.

Do you have any evidence for this claim? The actual concrete performance numbers for the M1 and Zen3 don't agree with you at all:

M1: https://images.anandtech.com/doci/16252/latency-m1_575px.png

Zen3: https://images.anandtech.com/doci/16214/lat-5950.png

If anything the M1's ram has _higher_ latency than the Zen3.

(Can't reply to the sibling comment but Intel's numbers are even better: https://images.anandtech.com/doci/16214/lat-10900.png)

> like doing said editing smoother with fewer dropped frames than far more powerful Intel machines with a lot more RAM

Just noting Zen3 is not Intel.

Well exactly how are you defining latency?

Is it random accesses you want to test? Or TLB thrashing?

The R per RV prange benchmark accesses memory randomly, but in a TLB friendly pattern (TLB thrashing real world workloads aren't particularly common). The M1 gets 30ns, the 5960X is 55ns and still climbing at the max array size.

The 5950X does better on "full" random, although that's unclear if that's a faster TLB, or the testing with a different page size. With Linux for TLB thrashing workloads you can always use HUGE pages, not sure if the M1 hardware supports that though.

>They've got it acting like it's L2 cache instead of RAM....... These things already don't act as if it's RAM as we're used to considering it.

Please stop this non-sense on HN. DRAM is DRAM. L2 Cache is L2 Cache. Doesn't matter how good its 8-Channel LPDDR4X Memory Architecture sitting next to the Die in the same package it is still just DRAM.

As someone that runs Kubernetes on my work laptop, all the "the memory architecture is different, so 8GB is enough" nonsense just doesn't hold up. I need a ton of memory FULL STOP. It sounds just like the nonsense Apple was spewing about MMS messaging on the original iPhone.

>I need a ton of memory FULL STOP.

Then buy something else, full stop.

You might be confused. I wasn't asking for purchasing advice. I'm pointing out Apple's history of downplaying something that they have not yet implemented.

Apple is not selling MB Airs or 13" Pros for users who are running massive workloads like Kubernetes. It is the reason they left intel models in the current line up. The M1 models are for more pedestrian users and users with moderate video editing workloads.

It takes my M1 a little while longer to stitch together 4K videos than my 2017 MPB 16". My 2017 MBP screams and throttles down the CPU down to 60%-75% as soon as editing starts.

If I have 20GB of data and 16GB of RAM, it's simply never going to fit and will have to page to disk. That page will always be slower than RAM.

Even if the RAM were as fast as L1 cache, it still wouldn't do a thing for the SSD bottleneck.

Yeah, I heard this too and nope - the M1 is not some magical RAM negating beast. If you actually need more RAM you still need more RAM even with the M1. I ended up returning mine (with much difficulty - me not really wanting to; Apple was more than willing to take it back) because if you need more than 16 you still need more than 16.

>The other thing is RAM. Apple still has delusions of gimping it's buyers into 16/32GB for "Pro" level machines.

I'm pretty sure Apple knows what machines it sells, including to video and audio pros, and knows how many of them buy the 32GB options where they're available (in Intel).

Besides "Pro" is just a branding, not a class of machines designed for specific tasks with any specific guarantees.

Up until now, "pros" did just fine with 16GB or up to 32GB max on their Intel Mac laptops, so I'm not sure how "twice as fast" machines, at lower price, with the same 32GB RAM (but much more efficient use of it, closer to the CPU) will suddenly be a problem.

Especially if hardly any buy PC laptops with 64GB of RAM anyway -- and Apple doesn't, and has never, competed with custom tower PC rig makers, but to people looking at the sweet spot of portability, power, battery life, size, weight.

> "Pro" is just a branding, not a class of machines designed for specific tasks with any specific guarantees.

I agree, and to be fair, there are plenty of professional use cases that are totally serviceable with one external monitor and 16GB of RAM. Not every professional is a YouTuber or big data engineer.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I do like it when the name of a product actually means something, because it gives me confidence in the honesty of the vendor.

Memory latency often has a bigger impact on performance than capacity. Your CPU spends a lot more time waiting around than you'd expect.

With NVMe, I'd rather have 16GB LPDDR4X than 64GB low-JEDEC, high latency DDR3 memory. More RAM is still good in many cases, but it's not vital like it was 15 years ago when you'd end up in swap hell or OOMing constantly over a GB or two.

When I first got a laptop with 8gb of ram 10 years ago, I thought it was an absurd amount, and to be honest it was- ever since I have never wanted for ram on my personal computers.

I'm not quite sure where why people seem to be clamoring for more RAM, it seems like a non issue these days. I don't really game these days, and when I do it's on older "steam sale" titles so maybe gamers need it, but even for dev stuff, I just don't see the issue.

We have a lot of artists who ask for MPBs with 64GB RAM, and when I ask for work samples, there's not even enough memory pressure to swap on their 16GBs. When I ask why they need it, and they always give some variation of "it renders too slowly".

It's not my job to help people pick out computers better suited to do the work they were hired for, but I really enjoy seeing the characteristics of and where the bottlenecks are in new generations of hardware.

I believe the problem is that apple has stuck with LPDDR memory for performance (33% more memory bandwidth keeps integrated GPUs happy) and to hit power/efficiency targets (variable frequency).

Instead of a DIMM, LPDDR basically puts an entire DIMM on one chip soldered to the board (or package on the M1). LPDDR topologies tend to be limited in how many ranks of memory you can have, which limits the total capacity.

I think if Apple really wanted to mac a "HEDT SoC", they would switch to "quad channel" (256bit wide) memory, which along with the jump to LPDDR5 would let them sell 64GB/128GB machines. The only existing SoCs with wide memory controllers is the Tegra Xavier though.

>Reports up to 3 displays, so it's safe to assume 2+1 external/internal.

M1 Macs have been shown to drive 6 displays, so this "3 displays" means "3 4K/5K displays" I supposed.

(I don’t really know what I’m talking about)

I just hope it isn’t internal + Touch Bar + 1 external

That would be a downgrade from current chip, so it's very unlikely.

Unlikely, the M1 page [0] says "2 displays" and I'm pretty sure the MBP supports internal display + Touchbar + external display. And even that is based on high-res displays, I think it could support more external displays at FHD [1].

[0]: https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu-apple_m1-1804

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqINozYxDK8

I wonder if their new GPU somehow is limited on display support (and they basically have to "add cores" to get more displays).

My current 16" MBP has no problem driving a total of five displays and 16,041,600 pixels - and I'd be hard pressed to go back to just two external displays.

It’ll happily drive significant numbers of pixels although the resources used by Window Server do appear to scale somewhat proportionate to what you hook up:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210754

I’ve found a Pro Display (6K) and two other Dell 4K works fine, additional to the internal display (it’s a MBP 16” and not running in clamshell mode).

MacBook 16”: 3072x1920

Pro Display: 6016x3384

Dell U2718Q: 3840x2160 (x2)

Total Pixels: 42,845,184

Modern hardware is frankly amazing. I remember the 22” Trinitron CRTs of years ago and owning and driving one of those was a feat, now we have multiple displays with PPI such that with average visual acuity everything is so incredibly crisp.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com