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-   -   Apple M1 vs Intel chips (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/gadgets-computers-software/229989-apple-m1-vs-intel-chips.html)

A major milestone: Apple just destroyed intel’s domination with their new M1 chips.

If you looking for a laptop purchase, do consider the new MacBooks as they are significantly faster and value for money than any other laptops in the market due to the game changing M1 chips.

The new entry level Mac book outperforms the top end intel powered desktop performance with 64 gb memory and dedicated GPU and consumes only 5 watts instead of 125 watts :Shockked:

See this video for the full story:

https://youtu.be/OuF9weSkS68

MacBook is value for money than a dell nowclap:

https://youtu.be/QgFd_w2n1es

The power coupled with the battery life is truly transformative. This is an iPhone moment for laptops. Can't wait for them to launch the MacBook Pro 16 with their own chips. I wonder how good that would be, if their base fanless MacBook Air is utterly amazing.

What is your opinion on this article?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrick...t-to-pass/amp/

Thanks, great article!
This is the norm these days with most tech gadgets - release before it is ready with bugs and problems and then fix problems at leisure, if at all. You can be sure software bugs will be mostly fixed, but bugs in hardware will ensure a good market for the next iteration of the product. :D

Valid points but as with most things Apple, it has massive early adopters to fire up the sales. Others who need productivity to make a living will wait for application support to improve, which is bound to improve - I am already seeing the new chip option in download pages of popular application. You can be sure that most companies have been very busy developing support for the new chip.

Most Macbook owners remain within Mac ecosystem forever and these people would be very happy to see Macbooks stepping up the game. I am curious to know how much impact the new chip will have in forcing windows users to switch. It is certainly bad news for "mid-range" windows like XPS/X1/Surface. I wonder if "top range gaming" windows computers will also be impacted.

Thanks a lot . If there is issue with dockers then I have to drop it from my list :(

I had read this article soon after the usual reviews had popped up on YouTube and the review does raises very valid argument. After all its your hard earned money and you are (Probably) not an apple share holder / brand ambassador, thus peddling all sorts of positivity around a device shouldn't be the goal. However if you dig a little deeper and compare comments of many other reviewers (barring the everything max / ultimate group), they have recommended Air over the Pro so that brings down the price point first of all.

Secondly the article is majorly covering corporate workflows around specific software however with everything corporate, extensive testing is done before including any new hardware or software in existing use cases so I think that will be a non issue.

Now coming to the mango / vanilla user who checks out the reviews and decides to go for apple silicon instead of the windows brethren, for them I doubt there will be much of an issue since most of the apps will run or will run in very near future like - browsers / office suite / video calling apps and for them it will be much better than most of the windows machines at similar price point (Unibody designs for windows machines are usually north of 1000 dollars) in terms of stability and longevity with light work loads of couple of spreadsheets / word documents / ppts / video calls and browsing (Considering apple's support for their silicon on iPhone, its shouldn't be a stretch to see the same on mac side as well). As for USB peripheral support - I think that ship has sailed long back when usb-a was ditched and usb-c was embraced and as mentioned above for software, driver support shouldn't be far behind for existing USB-c peripherals. Lastly, the existing walled garden has received massive reinforcements with this move to proprietary silicon.

Considering how well the first gen air sold / still being sold in India with ancient hardware at 55-70K price point, I do not have doubt that the new air with apple silicon will be a hit. However as always, recommending first gen devices from any manufactures should be avoided but if you are in the market for a new one right now IMHO MacBook air or mac mini should be a risky bet however if you can wait for an year or two, my advise will be to go for the second gen devices. Secondly, AMD is also bringing in heat from all sides which should wake up intel as well so all in all good times ahead for the PC/Mac buyers :)

Yes there are compatibility issues with certain apps now. I am not an expert but I feel these will be fixed as some of these companies such as Adobe has confirmed that they will make their apps compatible to the new apple chips. It makes sense to check compatibility of the apps before plunging in. However let’s say in a couple of years, I hope most apps will run without issues.

The performance difference of the new M1 chips is too significant that eventually all the new app developments/upgrades will be pushed to focus on Apple ARM silicon than x86 based architecture.

I guess if someone is cautious it is better to wait for a year atleast.

First - Intel has been getting destroyed on the desktop and mobile side by AMD for a while now. They are hamstrung by the 14nm process.

This M1 chip is about on par with an AMD 4800u running at 15w. Faster in single core workloads, slower in multicore workloads. However this is inspite of the fact that AMD's chips are on TSMC 7nm while Apple is on 5nm. Also this is comparing it to 2019 chips from AMD. The newer Zen3 based low power laptop chips aren't out yet and expected soon.

Second on full load, the M1 chip consumes around 20w not 5w. Not so efficient now is it lol:.

More details and actual benches here:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020...competitor/#h3

Its a decent first attempt and single core performance is excellent. However it still has some way to go.

I think the hype and hoopla for M1 is not only 'cos it's faster and better than Intel, it is because this is the first computer chip from Apple. Imagine if this is what they achieve in the first generation, what will they achieve in the coming years!
The A series chips in the iPhones already smoke the Qualcomms and the Kirins of the world. If the trend carries over to the M series, Apple is going to be the world's top SoC manufacturer as well.

I am excited with this development. Apple is only going to motivate others to push the envelop.

For an average consumer like me who uses a computer for browsing and office productivity. Looks like most apps are compatible with M1.

Here is the website which shows the status of compatibility of different apps.

https://isapplesiliconready.com/for/productivity

Now we have a separate thread for this !
The performance they are comparing against, the Intel chip is not the latest or greatest. Still a custom hardware with tight software integration will always perform better.

Better still if the main processor is used for generic operations and do specific operations on a custom co-processor/engine on the SoC. I dont see other generic desktop makers being able to do this. Apple should also disclose what the equivalent retail cost would be for this chip for the right comparisons

Best is for Intel to do also the same things. They have been doing that on the server side Xeons. They are being slow on the manufacturing side while the world is moving ahead with TSMC rapid upgrades

Forbes has a hatred for Apple for some reason and I have never read any positive press from Forbes about Apple. Here is a hot take which will answer most of your questions. Watch 12:00 min onwards if you dont want to watch the full video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3wndhU3Yy4

Someone put it well on twitter - "Imagine if Apple launched a new MacBook Air at the same $999 starting price that came with a Core i7 10750H and RX 560 graphics, but they did it without a fan and added 6 hours more battery life. That’s basically what they did." - The level of performance plus battery life is truly transformative.

I'd go as far to say that even if the only improvement was 50% more battery life in the same chassis, it would have been a big deal!

And this an entry level chip which runs in a fanless thin and light notebook with 18 hour battery life and is the cheapest Apple laptop. This is not meant to be a performance laptop and yet it beats the best from Intel hands on including the integrated graphics. It has the same single core geekbench scores as intel while running in emulation over Rosetta 2 and 25% more if running natively while sipping less than 10w of power! Its bonkers!

This is his main gripe:

Which is probably quite relevant. Hell, to some extent it is relevant to current/old MacBooks as well. Backwards compatibility has always been an issue with all PC< but in particular with Mac’s.

I love my MacBook Pro. I am into my second MacBook since 2009. My current one is only 4-5 years old, so I won’t be upgrading anytime soon yet. It is running fine, except the odd start up problem with the screen. Need to get that checked. But man, these MacBooks are really, really expensive. Yes they last and last, but my current MacBook Pro (15” Retina, 2,8GHz, Intel Core 17, 1TB flash storage) cost a truly staggering Euro 4000,-- five years ago!

On the upside; I have just bought myself the new iPad Air 4th generation and I am waiting for my new iPhone 12 to be delivered in the next few weeks. Apple-gadget wise I am not complaining. :)

But still, this looks very very tempting!!

Jeroen

With all these reviews, we must not forget this is only the first generation of M1 chips. To ensure that it works smoothly, they wouldn't have gone all out, and for compatibility reasons, they would have only limited to 16 GB RAM and two thunderbolt 3 / USB 4 ports. Within a year or two, most of the niggles will be sorted out, and most apps will be optimized for Apple silicon.

So, what we are seeing here, with these insane battery life and performance improvements is the worst version of Apple silicon. It will only get better and better, and I can't wait to see what they do for the 16 inch MacBook Pro and the iMacs.

Intel is a garbage bloated chip manufacturing company and I am happy to see that they are loosing out to the likes of AMD. They have had a huge market share without constantly innovating and improving their chips from generation to generation, and they have had delays with their recent generations, without much improvement in the performance or efficiency.