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Comment by klelatti | Hacker News Reader

> At the cost of thermals and power usage

Isn’t this the whole point? Sure if you give Intel a bigger thermal envelope it will do better than the M1 but that really is Apples to oranges.

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It’s down to brute force raw power and performance per watt nowadays. Apple mostly wins the latter but the former is inevitably going to kill demand for those climate unfriendly servers due to cooling and powering problems. We await the high end Mac systems with much interest.

Since those high-end Mac systems won't be able to run in datacenters, what's the point there? You're pretty much at the mercy of whatever Intel, AMD and other ARM manufacturers release.

> Mac systems won’t be able to run in datacenters

https://aws.amazon.com/pm/ec2-mac/

These are seemingly MacOS only which doesn’t really qualify for the vast majority of data center uses. They’re here to build software for Apple devices and that’s pretty much it.

From that link, the use cases are:

> Developing, building, testing, and signing iOS, iPadOS, macOS, WatchOS, and tvOS applications on the Xcode IDE.

I thought it was more for when you don't have a choice (Apple forces you to) than general usage. Are things going to change?

IIRC the MacOS EULA forbids anything else

but ..

When Linux boots natively on these systems that restriction will fall away.

Well not sure about your data center comment. But it has gotten those making purchasing decisions asking about ARM based and their alternatives. Apple doing ARM lends legitimacy to other ARM vendors where previously the topic could lead to ridicule.

Apple should license the M1 core architecture to someone to make server chips with it. They'd make some extra money and lose nothing... in fact they might gain since it would build market share around the architecture.

So obvious, and yet apple is worth $3tr...

If the massive bandwidth shared CPU / GPU memory approach is optimum on the desktop for many workloads then one would think that there would be a sizeable market for that in the cloud - after all many desktop workloads (video editing) for example are moving to the cloud.

Can’t see it being Apple but feels like an opportunity for someone.

Because Apple wasn't interested in doing that some engineers left to found their own company doing Apple style cores for serves. It was called Nuvia. It was eventually bought by Qualcomm who decided to try to use those cores in Mobile despite the actual designs not being suited for that. I feel like I shouldn't just spill Charlie's scoop on exactly why[1] but it doesn't look good.

[1]https://semiaccurate.com/2021/12/01/how-is-the-qualcomm-nuvi...

My suggestion it to watch the investor day meeting along with Ananadtech reporting on the issue. As usual not sure what Charlies is on about.

>who decided to try to use those cores in Mobile despite the actual designs not being suited for that. I

Not sure where that idea came from. It was designed with similar wattage in mind as current A15.

If your machine is perpetually sitting on your desk then that doesn't really matter. For personal use, power and thermals are only a serious concern away from your desk.

My 3950x runs circles around the M1 work has me use. I use both for the same task. Apples to apples.

But it’s one of those things where you might change your behaviour or priorities if something becomes possible. In this case, having all day battery life on a laptop while also having maximum performance.

Same way we started using laptops for all our work. Desktops are always more powerful in absolute terms and cheaper to boot. But most people don’t even buy desktops for home use.

> priorities if something becomes possible.

A CPU isn't the only reason there is to use a desktop/fixed setup. While Apple has truly fantastic monitors, there's also the keyboard to consider.

Horse is a lot faster than a motorcycle if all you've got for fuel is oats, hay, and water.

Adding in some gasoline would be apples-to-oranges.

More like a Tesla vs a gas guzzling rocket car. Rocket car may be technically faster under optimal conditions - but everything else about it sucks.

It's not clear to this reader which of Intel or Apple you mean for each of your examples.

"Everything else about it sucks" certainly seems like it doesn't apply to either.

I’d guess it’s obvious to others (and probably you) given one in the example is a lot more efficient, but for clarity the M1 Max was the Tesla.

Your analogy made perfect sense to me - I’m still trying to understand the whole horses and motorcycles thing!

Something that does not perform well when operated in an environment it is ill-suited to: trying to run a motorcycle on oats. Or an Intel processor on a laptop that sacrificed adequate cooling for aesthetics. Or a Tesla in a place without many electric charging stations.

None of these condemn the device, but do indicate the specific use case wasn't well thought out.

Depends if you feel the thermal constraints are inherent to the form factor, or simply sloppy engineering.

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