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Comment by petesergeant | Hacker News Reader

> featuring M4 Max and new M3 Ultra

I hate that this naming shit has gotten so bad

Has it? These names are basically (architecture version, amount of compute) tuples. Much better than what AMD, Intel, Nvidia, etc. are currently doing.

Which is a bigger amount of compute, "max" or "ultra"?

This question is trivially answered by visiting Apple's website, which is---to my point---not generally true for their competition. If you have some further point to make, I recommend stating it more clearly so we can avoid wasting time here.

Why is the "Ultra" more powerful than the "Max"? I would expect "Max" to mean "maximum" in this context but it seems to mean "directly subordinate to that which is the maximum". This is pretty obviously a point of confusion. Just because other CPU manufacturers do goofy stuff with naming doesn't mean that Apple is exempt from criticism for doing something so obviously bereft of common sense.

Well then, it's a good thing I didn't say anywhere that they should be exempt from criticism. Incidentally, it's not something I believe. But I do think they are still doing a much better job at naming than other CPU manufacturers, despite the obnoxious Pro/Max/Ultra stuff.

I suppose I commented here because I think people are letting their subjective distaste for those terms sway their opinion of a superior naming scheme.

I would expect the M4 being a newer generation of the chip to be faster than a M3, but apparently that's not what Apple did.

Why would you expect that? Also, the M4 is faster than the M3, but that doesn't mean Apple couldn't or didn't want to fuse two of them together for an M4 Ultra.

Is an Intel 10700K faster than a 12400F? The generations are different but the chips have vastly different capabilities and features.

M4 is the generation. The modifier modifies the generation. M4 Pro is an M4 with some extra pizzaz. M4 Max is an M4 with lots of extra pizzaz.

The M3 vs M4 thing makes sense, but pro vs ultra vs max is ???

…a modifier to the generation, denoting core count and feature set?

Those names don't make it clear.

ultra means beyond. so it can make sense if you choose to. but the choice does suck, imo.

> This question is trivially answered by visiting Apple's website, which is---to my point---not generally true for their competition.

wtf are you talking about? Intel, Nvidia, and AMD all absolutely have complete specs for their products readily available on their respective websites. Much, much more complete ones than Apple does as well.

I guarantee you that a quick scan of any of those companies' websites will not equip one with a useful general understanding of the naming scheme they use for their products, in the sense that one can see a product name and immediately know where it falls in their lineup and what workloads it's meant to handle. That is what "the fuck" I am talking about.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/processor... is pretty clear

This page really just proves my point. I'm glad their conventions at least can be explained, but it's all quite complicated!

Intel desktop options are quite simple. My only complaint is on laptops, where the i3, i5, i7 thing conflicts with U vs H, and almost seems intentionally misleading. Like, why does i7-U even exist?

But the nice thing is you search the model name, and Intel gives you all the specs upfront.

I like how the table of suffixes hasn't been updated to add "V" but the section on Core Ultra uses 288V as an example. The document's too big to stay in sync with itself.

Same with Intel and others, but it's still annoying.

An Ultra is two Maxes. A Max is two Pros.

Ultra. Ultra consists of two Max chips operating as one.

The bit I found confusing is that I don't immediately understand what's more performant in various scenarios, M4 Max or M3 Ultra. The former has higher architecture version but lower amount of compute, the latter is previous arch but more compute.

Fair, but it's not like other CPU/GPU manufacturer naming schemes give you that either. At least Apple's scheme clearly tells you e.g. "previous arch but more compute".

Different tiers within the same generation are much easier to compare than across gens. Apple could benchmark them all and name them accordingly, but even that's misleading because it can be workload-dependent.

If you think that's bad, have you looked at Intel and AMD's naming scheme lately?

Or.. USB naming schemes..

Consider, if you will, ARM7 and ARMv7.

Agree. This ship is adrift.

Remember when it was just a MacBook, or air, or pro and it had a year.

It’s really not that complicated guys.

It’s definitely a little odd to have M3 Ultra > M4 Max, but I feel like anyone complaining about this must have never bought any other manufacturers’ wares in their lives. Obtuse complication is kind of the norm in this industry.

Oh, but things were far worse back then, in terms of knowing what you were getting. For instance, let's say you bought a 13" MacBook Pro in 2016. Do you have a dual core or quad core processor? Depends on whether you have a touchbar!

(For reasons best known to themselves, Apple made two completely different 13" MBPs that year, both new, with the loathed butterfly keyboard, weighing a different amount, with different processors, and the same name.)

Literally not even the same thing you're comparing. There were more processor and graphics options. Want an i5, i7, or i9 and what about a RX 580, 5300, 5500, 5700, or 5700XT?

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