Apple Ignites the Industry with the M1 Pro and M1 Max

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BoredSysadmin

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Mar 2, 2019
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Stick a fork in Intel. It's done!
Luckily for the rest of us, Apple's CPUs are exclusive to Apple computers, and last I checked, Apple doesn't make servers anymore.
That said, if you are somewhat platform agonistic (ie: If for example, 90% of apps you care about are web-based), then apple laptops do make A LOT of sense due to high performance AND excellent battery life.
 

amalurk

Active Member
Dec 16, 2016
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Wake me up when I can buy an M1 or its successor with a motherboard that takes RDIMMs and has the other standard connectors.
 

WANg

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Jun 10, 2018
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Huh. Apple went back to the 2015/Retina MBP design language for the next set of machines. That was a somewhat pleasant surprise.

That 800 dollar premium for 64GB of unified memory (on top of the M1 Max mandate) made it really difficult to convince the missus that it’ll be the right path to take on my next major tech toy purchase (especially when I just got 64GB of DDR4 on my new Framework laptop for 225). I guess the next challenge in system design would be to make the memory controller extra-wide to allow for bandwidth like this (pretty much taking a page off a game console at this point). The fact that anything at or above the 10CU GPU version requires a 96w brick makes me wonder if all the efficiency gains from the ARM arch just went directly to feeding those GPU cores, memory controllers and interconnect fabric.
 
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ErikAnd

New Member
Jan 11, 2018
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I don't understand the 400 GB/s bandwidth. I understand that the M1 Max got 4 memory channels and with a bandwidth of about 50 GB/s for each DDR5-6400 I get a total bandwidth of 200 GB/s. Do Apple sum write and read bandwidths?
 

unwind-protect

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Mar 7, 2016
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The big question is who gets 8 channels. Obviously the M1 max, but does it require 64 GB RAM? Does the 32 GB version have 8-channel memory?
 

unwind-protect

Active Member
Mar 7, 2016
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The fact that anything at or above the 10CU GPU version requires a 96w brick makes me wonder if all the efficiency gains from the ARM arch just went directly to feeding those GPU cores, memory controllers and interconnect fabric.
There is a new fast charge mechanism. So the 140 watts don't go into just running the thing.
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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A bit sad they didn’t also release a Mac mini with the same CPU’s. (Hold on, it’s not I don’t really ‘need one’ )
If I didn’t have a perfectly good 2017 15” I would be buying for sure, now if only they would make a follow on to the 12” MacBook that would be perfect.
Damn those ssd upgrade prices though I know i should expect that but it hurts for bigger capacities.
 

SDLeary

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Aug 4, 2015
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The big question is who gets 8 channels. Obviously the M1 max, but does it require 64 GB RAM? Does the 32 GB version have 8-channel memory?
Looks like the all Max models do. All documentation that I've seen bases the memory bandwidth on the version of chip, so all Max models appear to have the 8 channel memory.

SDLeary
 

WANg

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Jun 10, 2018
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There is a new fast charge mechanism. So the 140 watts don't go into just running the thing.
The fast charge mechanism only works for the first 30 minutes...I think that 96w USB-C charger (the same as the existing setup) is definitely needed - Apple didn't increase the number of CPU cores on the bigger Pros, only the GPUs. The question is...would Apple's thermal engineering be up to the task or will it throttle like that Coffee lake i9 MBP16 model from 2018...
 
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WANg

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Jun 10, 2018
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A bit sad they didn’t also release a Mac mini with the same CPU’s. (Hold on, it’s not I don’t really ‘need one’ )
If I didn’t have a perfectly good 2017 15” I would be buying for sure, now if only they would make a follow on to the 12” MacBook that would be perfect.
Damn those ssd upgrade prices though I know i should expect that but it hurts for bigger capacities.
Eh, well, maybe a Mac Mini Pro is in the works - I am pissed that you can't get 64GB of unified RAM on the M1 or the M1 Pro...and the pricing premium is..50 miles north of ludicrious.

*ugh*. I have a 2015 Macbook 12 sitting next to me - a 1.3Ghz 5Y71 model with 512GB of SSD - something that was abandoned by a self-described sales guru (more like a prima-donna) at my gig and begrudgedly inherited by me, probably to be used later as a trade-in with apple for a better machine. It's easily one of the worst "road apples" out there. The keyboard was the first gen butterfly, (ticking liability), the Broadwell Core-Ms don't perform all that well, thermally speaking (it's usually throttled) , everything is on a single SoC with a single USB-C port, and it's slower than my 2014 Macbook Air 11. It was slow, uncomfortable to type on, and has none of the endearing qualities of the Retina MBP or pre-Retina MBAs. If Apple makes a smaller Macbook, please for the love of everything decent, don't bring back that Macbook 12 chassis. That thing was a pug.
 

gigatexal

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Nov 25, 2012
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Wake me up when I can buy an M1 or its successor with a motherboard that takes RDIMMs and has the other standard connectors.
For me it's build quality. My 2013 decked out Macbook Pro 16 still works today.

If I were in the market (see also had enough disposable income) I'd be buying one of these laptops in a heartbeat. Likely a 14 inch with 2TB of space (hello 7.5GB/s reads!) and 64GB of ram with the M1 Pro likely choosing the full-fat GPU because the difference between it and the 24-core GPU isn't that big.

Re: the server market. Imagine the pain it'd bring to Qualcomm and the Nuvia folks if Apple brought back the XServe's with say M1 Max chips in them.
 

WANg

Well-Known Member
Jun 10, 2018
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For me it's build quality. My 2013 decked out Macbook Pro 16 still works today.

If I were in the market (see also had enough disposable income) I'd be buying one of these laptops in a heartbeat. Likely a 14 inch with 2TB of space (hello 7.5GB/s reads!) and 64GB of ram with the M1 Pro likely choosing the full-fat GPU because the difference between it and the 24-core GPU isn't that big.

Re: the server market. Imagine the pain it'd bring to Qualcomm and the Nuvia folks if Apple brought back the XServe's with say M1 Max chips in them.
As does my 2013 Retina MBP13 - although, they made the 2021 machines very close to the Retinas (Magsafe 3 or USB-C charging, which is a slight win), to the point where I actually contemplated buying one on my own dime - 3600 dollars for the full 64GB of unified RAM with a mandatory M1 Max, though....that's a bit of a bridge too far, heh.

Eh, don't give Apple ideas. It's not much of a stretch to go from the M1 Max to a dual chip Mac Pro, and then to a 1U/2U machine. Although as it stands it'll probably be more of a transcoding specialist...I just don't see Apple making a special Xserve M1 with a crapload of their performance cores to take out Intel...
 
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