The M1 is dead

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ISSUE 21.11 • 2024-03-11 APPLE By Will Fastie With no fanfare, Apple announced two new MacBooks. The reason for the lack of fanfare is that Apple had
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abbodi86, fisher75, DLivesInTexas, rc primak

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It should be kept in mind that in the M2 and M3 chips, the CPU and GPU cores are not the same as cores in Intel and AMD chips. For one thing, each core may be a Performance Core or an Efficiency Core. P-cores are for performance and are more powerful compared with the e-cores, which are for efficiency. Gamers often turn off the e-cores to get better gaming performance if their games don’t take advantage of the e-cores.

GPU cores in the M2 and M3 chips similarly are not individually very powerful, but like all GPU cores they do hyperthreading. But unlike more traditional GPUs, these GPU cores have no dedicated VRAM, relying on system RAM instead. Hence the need for extra system RAM in Apple computers.

Finally, there are Neural Processors in some Apple computers, as is the case with some Intel and AMD 13th and 14th Gen chipsets. But Apple may not be using onboard NPUs the way Intel does. The neural processing functions may be on a separate chip on Apple systems.

All of which makes benchmarking for the M1, M2 and M3 architecture very different form benchmarking for Intel and AMD systems. Numbers are not comparable, so beware of Apple’s claims of superior performance.

This said, Apple is still preferred among video editors and film makers, and they would know better than anyone how well different architectures perform in real-world demanding graphics and video environments.

Just don’t be fooled into thinking that ARM core counts are comparable to Intel and AMD core counts. Apples vs. oranges, so to speak.

-- rc primak

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Will Fastie, AlexEiffel

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Hi Will:

Your headline, “The M1 is Dead” is a rather interesting way of turning a non-event into an opportunity to draw in readers.

Otherwise your article would have said something like “Apple’s M1 chip reaches end of life, nothing new here,” instead of leading a passing potential reader to speculate, “Oh, maybe Apple is abandoning its own PC chipmaking to focus on making AI chips,” or something.

I guess this is the nerd’s definition of “clickbait.”   

— AWRon

 

 

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Will Fastie

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AWRon wrote:

turning a non-event into an opportunity to draw in readers.

Okay, because you caught me in the act, I should fess up. It’s not clickbait for the readers, it’s clickbait for the search engines.

I think our readers go past the title and read at least the lead and the first couple of sentences. I tried to make my intent clear.

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rc primak, AWRon

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Good one!

I agree about our readers.  I personally read everything you write, and I suspect I’m far from alone.

Hope your ploy is successful.

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I read an article about this last week, it had a misleading headline, “Choosing between the M2 or M3.” Dummy me, having spent 16 years in the Army, I thought it was about the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

 

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Myst

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Having used Mac’s since the Power PC days. I see a similarity with Apple silicon. Apple has solidified their products with their own hardware now including the CPU/GPU. I think if anything it proves that keeping things in house can produce big results. In the PC world there is a sense that trying to optimize hardware for each PC is a struggle. Always some compromises. My only concern with Apple’s ecosystem is that you become entrenched in that ecosystem.

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