Apple M1 CPU

[SKILL]

@muziqaz its that kind of thinking is why Intel are in the place they are now.

Your completely ignoring the fact that once Microsoft sort the software side out, you can bet your house on the likes of Dell, HP and Lenovo making a serious effort to launching their own ARM based products targeted at the PC market.

At the moment ARM is a bit of a ‘hobby’ because the software is terrible. But as soon as it’s sorted they’ll have a decent product to roll out.

It's not just a software 'issue', and even on the software side it's not just down to Microsoft.

Whilst Rosetta is quite impressive it is also clear that native ARM apps run better on the M1 macs than x86 apps through Rosetta, obviously. Fundamentally Apple SW is both more limited than the Windows world but also a lot of the big/most used applications are provided by Apple as well. People often by Apple hardware specifically to run Apple software.

Windows has a far wider spectrum of (used) SW, from a wider pool of developers and if anything MS software is less used, especially these days, than non-MS software. Who actually uses Edge? and Office is web-based these days...

But there's also a HW issue, it's not really relevant to compare the M1 to a Qualcomm or Samsung processor, both of the latter use either 'stock' ARM cores (A78/X1 being the common 'performance' core) or mildly tweaked variants of those, the M1 is a heavily modified, if not entirely 'new' core design that 'just happens' to use the ARM ISA, notably the M1 is a much 'wider' architecture than even the X1 which looks to be ARMs attempt to work towards this market.

Part of what makes the M1 just so good, is also a limitation that would affect the wider market of (currently) x86 Laptop/Desktop manufacturers. For example having the RAM on die is great for performance, but for flexibility and cost it's not so great/scalable.

Not saying it's not going to happen but it's not dependant on just MS, and more it would require solutions for a large swathe of the PC market before it becomes truly viable for people to 'buy in', both of those points are, at the very least, mitigated by the Apple 'ecosystem'.

 

[HACO]

It's not just a software 'issue', and even on the software side it's not just down to Microsoft.

Whilst Rosetta is quite impressive it is also clear that native ARM apps run better on the M1 macs than x86 apps through Rosetta, obviously. Fundamentally Apple SW is both more limited than the Windows world but also a lot of the big/most used applications are provided by Apple as well. People often by Apple hardware specifically to run Apple software.

Windows has a far wider spectrum of (used) SW, from a wider pool of developers and if anything MS software is less used, especially these days, than non-MS software. Who actually uses Edge? and Office is web-based these days...

But there's also a HW issue, it's not really relevant to compare the M1 to a Qualcomm or Samsung processor, both of the latter use either 'stock' ARM cores (A78/X1 being the common 'performance' core) or mildly tweaked variants of those, the M1 is a heavily modified, if not entirely 'new' core design that 'just happens' to use the ARM ISA, notably the M1 is a much 'wider' architecture than even the X1 which looks to be ARMs attempt to work towards this market.

Part of what makes the M1 just so good, is also a limitation that would affect the wider market of (currently) x86 Laptop/Desktop manufacturers. For example having the RAM on die is great for performance, but for flexibility and cost it's not so great/scalable.

Not saying it's not going to happen but it's not dependant on just MS, and more it would require solutions for a large swathe of the PC market before it becomes truly viable for people to 'buy in', both of those points are, at the very least, mitigated by the Apple 'ecosystem'.

The difference between Apple and Microsoft's approach is that Windows on ARM for Microsoft is a niche and afterthought, they're not migrating and more than 99% of their devices will stay on x86 for the foreseeable future, so developers are not incentivised to spend time and money on getting their apps work well on ARM Windows. Some of Microsoft's own software run natively on ARM Macs, but not on ARM Windows.

Apple is transitioning, they're leaving x86 behind and developers have no choice but to move ahead with the transition. In a couple of years, 100% of the macs sold will be Apple Silicon, so you either abandon the market or spend the time to transition your app to the new architecture.

Software follows the market, if we see successful popular ARM Windows devices and they become a non-negligible part of the Windows ecosystem, software compatibility and optimisations will swiftly follow. But to sell a lot of ARM devices, they need to fix the software situation first.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Apple's marketshare in desktop/laptop PCs and smartphones is relatively small,and mostly clustered in richer countries. For most people its not performance,but price and availability which is importance. Hence why "budget" ARM based cores,and cheap 2C/4C X86 CPUs make up the bulk of the market.

Most users do basic things on their PCs. Even the people on this forum are a minority in the scheme of things,and how many of us even use the latest and fastest X86 CPUs - we don't. If anything its inefficiencies in using current hardware and reliability which seems to be driving forward more upgrades.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

It's not just a software 'issue', and even on the software side it's not just down to Microsoft.

Whilst Rosetta is quite impressive it is also clear that native ARM apps run better on the M1 macs than x86 apps through Rosetta, obviously. Fundamentally Apple SW is both more limited than the Windows world but also a lot of the big/most used applications are provided by Apple as well. People often by Apple hardware specifically to run Apple software.

Windows has a far wider spectrum of (used) SW, from a wider pool of developers and if anything MS software is less used, especially these days, than non-MS software. Who actually uses Edge? and Office is web-based these days...

But there's also a HW issue, it's not really relevant to compare the M1 to a Qualcomm or Samsung processor, both of the latter use either 'stock' ARM cores (A78/X1 being the common 'performance' core) or mildly tweaked variants of those, the M1 is a heavily modified, if not entirely 'new' core design that 'just happens' to use the ARM ISA, notably the M1 is a much 'wider' architecture than even the X1 which looks to be ARMs attempt to work towards this market.

Part of what makes the M1 just so good, is also a limitation that would affect the wider market of (currently) x86 Laptop/Desktop manufacturers. For example having the RAM on die is great for performance, but for flexibility and cost it's not so great/scalable.

Not saying it's not going to happen but it's not dependant on just MS, and more it would require solutions for a large swathe of the PC market before it becomes truly viable for people to 'buy in', both of those points are, at the very least, mitigated by the Apple 'ecosystem'.

I think you missed the point I was making is that Windows on ARM is terrible.

There are processors out there which would make a decent product, granted not as fast as the M1 but they aren’t being pushed because the software is garbage town.

Microsoft need to fix it before anyone will make a serious effort to use it. Windows for ARM doesn’t even support 64bit (was only just released into beta IIRC), and it’s X86 emulation layer is nonexistent compared to Rosetta.

If Microsoft can get Windows for ARM into the same state as MacOS in terms of being able to run ARM or X86 binaries with minimal performance loss then you’ll start seeing a lot more ARM based Windows machines coming to market.

There are ARM windows devices out there like the Surface Pro X, it’s a great piece of hardware, its software is just bad, there’s no other way to describe it.

There is some secret sauce in the M1 to help with Rosetta translation but there is no barriers to anyone doing something similar for windows and MS is already working on that.

 

[smilingcrow]

It's not about theoretical performance, it's about what people buy in the market.

This thread is about the M1 CPU and most of are discussing the chip rather than the much wider and much more subjective state of Apple hardware. That’s for another thread.

Right now, Apple and AMD are literally not competing in any market segments.

The Lenovo Threadripper Pro is in a different performance class to the Mac Pro in CPU terms, so you are right in one way.
But you can specify one of the lower end CPUs and that will bring it down to Apple’s level.
Plus there are NUC size desktops with Ryzen chips which are in the same overall class as the Mac Mini.

 

[smilingcrow]

And that is my point Comparing M1 to Intel shows you "why" intel lost Apple, comparing M1 to AMD is just curiosity

I'm glad that at least you have found a point in your posts.
Apple could have gone with AMD, so to say that it's just a curiosity is bizarre.
Let's leave it there.

 

[HACO]

This thread is about the M1 CPU and most of are discussing the chip rather than the much wider and much more subjective state of Apple hardware. That’s for another thread.

Comparisons are fine (I've done it myself in earlier pages), but you said Intel isn't competition for Apple when vast majority of products that M1 Macs compete against are Intel-based, and very little are AMD-based.

The Lenovo Threadripper Pro is in a different performance class to the Mac Pro in CPU terms, so you are right in one way.

The Mac Pro is Intel-based, so that's AMD competing with Intel CPUs, not Apple CPUs.

If/when Apple releases a Mac Pro with an Apple CPU, you can say Apple is competing with AMD's Threadripper Pro. But that Mac Pro will not be using the M1 chip.

But you can specify one of the lower end CPUs and that will bring it down to Apple’s level.
Plus there are NUC size desktops with Ryzen chips which are in the same overall class as the Mac Mini.

Fair point about NUC-sized Ryzen chips versus M1 Mac Mini. Those do actually compete although the markets are tiny compared to laptops (vast majority of Apple's sales and focus).

 

[smilingcrow]

Comparisons are fine (I've done it myself in earlier pages), but you said Intel isn't competition for Apple when vast majority of products that M1 Macs compete against are Intel-based, and very little are AMD-based.

You’ve missed the context, which is performance, which is why I said to compare with AMD and not Intel.

The Mac Pro is Intel-based, so that's AMD competing with Intel CPUs, not Apple CPUs.

You should have clearly stated that you were only talking about M1 based products.

Fair point about NUC-sized Ryzen chips versus M1 Mac Mini. Those do actually compete.

If you are talking specifically about M1 chips, then you can buy thin and light laptops with AMD 8 core 15W CPUs so that is the same segment.

…. although the markets are tiny compared to laptops (vast majority of Apple's sales and focus).

Absolutely irrelevant in the context here which is just about CPU performance.
I’m not interested in all the other guff around this.

 

[SKILL]

The difference between Apple and Microsoft's approach is that Windows on ARM for Microsoft is a niche and afterthought, they're not migrating and more than 99% of their devices will stay on x86 for the foreseeable future, so developers are not incentivised to spend time and money on getting their apps work well on ARM Windows. Some of Microsoft's own software run natively on ARM Macs, but not on ARM Windows.

Apple is transitioning, they're leaving x86 behind and developers have no choice but to move ahead with the transition. In a couple of years, 100% of the macs sold will be Apple Silicon, so you either abandon the market or spend the time to transition your app to the new architecture.

Software follows the market, if we see successful popular ARM Windows devices and they become a non-negligible part of the Windows ecosystem, software compatibility and optimisations will swiftly follow. But to sell a lot of ARM devices, they need to fix the software situation first.

I don't disagree, just that Apple is 'able' to do that because it owns the hardware and software, MS doesn't...

There's nothing fundamental stopping ARM Windows devices at all, but rather than just one company you'd need to get several different companies to all 'buy in':

• A chip manufacturer to design a chip at all comparable to the M1
• A device manufacturer to put that into a nice form factor
• MS to flesh out Windows on ARM, ideally including a translation layer
• 10/100/1000s of other SW developers to port (with or without translation layer really)

That's a lot more than 'just' Apple (who then 'force' other companies to do the last step and port their software)

It could happen, quite possibly will happen, but it's not gonna happen tomorrow

I think you missed the point I was making is that Windows on ARM is terrible.

There are processors out there which would make a decent product, granted not as fast as the M1 but they aren’t being pushed because the software is garbage town.

Microsoft need to fix it before anyone will make a serious effort to use it. Windows for ARM doesn’t even support 64bit (was only just released into beta IIRC), and it’s X86 emulation layer is nonexistent compared to Rosetta.

If Microsoft can get Windows for ARM into the same state as MacOS in terms of being able to run ARM or X86 binaries with minimal performance loss then you’ll start seeing a lot more ARM based Windows machines coming to market.

There are ARM windows devices out there like the Surface Pro X, it’s a great piece of hardware, its software is just bad, there’s no other way to describe it.

There is some secret sauce in the M1 to help with Rosetta translation but there is no barriers to anyone doing something similar for windows and MS is already working on that.

As above it's not 'just' the Windows side that's needed, it goes far beyond that and various companies in the marketplace currently don't really have the incentive to do so...

On the hardware side Intel, obviously, isn't going to go all-in on ARM, AMD to a lesser extent but for similar reasons is unlikely to do so. Qualcomm and Samsung don't really keen on more than a token effort, probably in part because it would be a lot harder than chucking the 'stock' cores into a mobile chipset. ARM does seem to be working towards it, which makes sense, but they've got some way to go from the X1 they're still not going to ditch the true mobile area either.

MS are playing with it but again, not fully invested and why should they be?

As for the myriad of other software developers, they 'just' need to see a big uptake to do the ports.

It's chicken and egg, it needs a big push in the directions, *maybe* the M1 is it, but I don't think it's enough just yet... M1X/M2 or whatever maybe?

 

[MasterOC]

The difference between Apple and Microsoft's approach is that Windows on ARM for Microsoft is a niche and afterthought, they're not migrating and more than 99% of their devices will stay on x86 for the foreseeable future, so developers are not incentivised to spend time and money on getting their apps work well on ARM Windows. Some of Microsoft's own software run natively on ARM Macs, but not on ARM Windows.

Apple is transitioning, they're leaving x86 behind and developers have no choice but to move ahead with the transition. In a couple of years, 100% of the macs sold will be Apple Silicon, so you either abandon the market or spend the time to transition your app to the new architecture.

Software follows the market, if we see successful popular ARM Windows devices and they become a non-negligible part of the Windows ecosystem, software compatibility and optimisations will swiftly follow. But to sell a lot of ARM devices, they need to fix the software situation first.

Microsoft has now finally rolled out the update to allow x64 emulation via Arm. Using the on the wife's 8CX laptop, all her work flow excluding Adobe software (running through emu now 64bit ) is now able to be done on Arm windows natively . Whilst Microsoft will likely never fully adopt arm for the foreseeable, they certainly are making waves. These come in colabs and general quality of life improvements, but I would argue this is better for Windows users, as is a fast and bullheaded transition is good for mac users.

 

[humbug]

https://threatpost.com/macos-malware-apple-m1-processor/164075/

Mac Malware Targets Apple’s In-House M1 Processor

 

[HACO]

You’ve missed the context, which is performance, which is why I said to compare with AMD and not Intel.

Products compete in terms of performance with their market competitors, e.g. a mobile CPU doesn't compete with a Threadripper. Performance has to always be measured within the context of the products involved.

You should have clearly stated that you were only talking about M1 based products.

We're in the M1 topic so I guess that goes without saying.

Absolutely irrelevant in the context here which is just about CPU performance.
I’m not interested in all the other guff around this.

That's all fine, so what do you have to say about its performance?

You keep talking about talking about performance, without actually talking about performance ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Instead of talking about how you don't want to talk about X, why not just talk about what you want to talk about? It's not like M1 has not been put up against AMD CPUs. Reviews have been out for months.

I don't disagree, just that Apple is 'able' to do that because it owns the hardware and software, MS doesn't...

There's nothing fundamental stopping ARM Windows devices at all, but rather than just one company you'd need to get several different companies to all 'buy in':

• A chip manufacturer to design a chip at all comparable to the M1
• A device manufacturer to put that into a nice form factor
• MS to flesh out Windows on ARM, ideally including a translation layer
• 10/100/1000s of other SW developers to port (with or without translation layer really)

That's a lot more than 'just' Apple (who then 'force' other companies to do the last step and port their software)

It could happen, quite possibly will happen, but it's not gonna happen tomorrow

Microsoft is trying to be the first three, with their own Surface lineup and their own chips (collaboration with Qualcomm). So far they haven't been that successful. I remain optimistic though.

Microsoft has now finally rolled out the update to allow x64 emulation via Arm. Using the on the wife's 8CX laptop, all her work flow excluding Adobe software (running through emu now 64bit ) is now able to be done on Arm windows natively . Whilst Microsoft will likely never fully adopt arm for the foreseeable, they certainly are making waves. These come in colabs and general quality of life improvements, but I would argue this is better for Windows users, as is a fast and bullheaded transition is good for mac users.

That's good, x86-64 emulation was a good step forward.

 

[HACO]

https://threatpost.com/macos-malware-apple-m1-processor/164075/

Funny how people are compiling their malware to run natively and more efficiently

 

[humbug]

Funny how people are compiling their malware to run natively and more efficiently

lol...

 

[SKILL]

Microsoft is trying to be the first three, with their own Surface lineup and their own chips (collaboration with Qualcomm). So far they haven't been that successful. I remain optimistic though.

Kinda, but the 'Microsoft SQ1/2' chips are basically the Qualcomm 8cx with a better GPU, and that's based on 4x Cortex-X1 cores, which just plain aren't as good as the 'Firestorm' cores in Apple A14/M1 chips, and that's more what I was meaning by the first point. To rival Apple there need some serious chip design input which, to day, Qualcomm haven't bothered doing...

 

[HACO]

Kinda, but the 'Microsoft SQ1/2' chips are basically the Qualcomm 8cx with a better GPU, and that's based on 4x Cortex-X1 cores, which just plain aren't as good as the 'Firestorm' cores in Apple A14/M1 chips, and that's more what I was meaning by the first point. To rival Apple there need some serious chip design input which, to day, Qualcomm haven't bothered doing...

I agree, we just need faster ARM cores for ARM Windows laptops to be competitive.

 

[humbug]

Nothing against these in house custom ARM chips, it enables people to break their dependence on Intel / AMD and its not just Apples who are doing this.

And that's great, its a good argument to make for them, but the Efficiency / performance argument is a bit of a none starter to me, especially at the rate AMD are advancing, Apples new Chip is fast, going from what we have seen so far, its faster than Intel's current line-up, its not quite as fast as AMD's and they are making 8 core 16 Thread Zen 3 APU's in the 15 Watt segment now.

I suspect Zen 4 will demolish these M1 CPU's.

The argument for ARM has always been "well they are much more efficient than large core CPU's" they are, but are they when you make large core version of them?

 

[KompuKare]

https://threatpost.com/macos-malware-apple-m1-processor/164075/

M1 has hit the big times then!
As for other ARM vendors catching up with Apple, it is a very hard target as Apple's Ax line of SOCs have long been very far in the lead.
The bought PA Semi back in 2007 (only a bit after the first iPhone), then took what around 3 years to get their first product out.
As for that M1X doubling the GPU again?
Well, M1 GPU already performs nearly twice as good as Renoir at least at lower resolutions in the Anandtech review:

Somewhat less at higher resolutions

So twice the resources (plus a higher power budget) should be pretty impressive.

 

[humbug]

M1 has hit the big times then!
As for other ARM vendors catching up with Apple, it is a very hard target as Apple's Ax line of SOCs have long been very far in the lead.
The bought PA Semi back in 2007 (only a bit after the first iPhone), then took what around 3 years to get their first product out.
As for that M1X doubling the GPU again?
Well, M1 GPU already performs nearly twice as good as Renoir at least at lower resolutions in the Anandtech review:

Somewhat less at higher resolutions

So twice the resources (plus a higher power budget) should be pretty impressive.

The 4700U is still using Vega and is dependant on the system DDR Memory.

Vega is 3 years old, if you look back over the generations they haven't changed in 3 years, this is AMD's problem, i'm not disputing that, i'm just adding context.

AMD have APU's with RDNA2 in the works, they will also use DDR5 which has an architecture much more in line with GDDR, DDR5 is probably what they were waiting for.

One other thing. Samsung will be using RDNA2 Graphics in their Mobile Phones and Tablets.

 

[HACO]

Nothing against these in house custom ARM chips, it enables people to break their dependence on Intel / AMD and its not just Apples who are doing this.

And that's great, its a good argument to make for them, but the Efficiency / performance argument is a bit of a none starter to me, especially at the rate AMD are advancing, Apples new Chip is fast, going from what we have seen so far, its faster than Intel's current line-up, its not quite as fast as AMD's and they are making 8 core 16 Thread Zen 3 APU's in the 15 Watt segment now.

I suspect Zen 4 will demolish these M1 CPU's.

I certainly hope Zen 4 will beat M1, given that it's due for 2022, probably competing with M3 generation.

The argument for ARM has always been "well they are much more efficient than large core CPU's" they are, but are they when you make large core version of them?

Apple's firestorm cores in M1 are already larger (i.e. more transistors) than Intel or AMD's Zen 3. ARM X1 is smaller than Zen 3 though.