←back to thread

Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro

(www.macrumors.com)
1080 points antipaul | 6 comments | 12 Nov 20 00:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
Show context
faitswulff ◴[12 Nov 20 04:22 UTC] No.25066407[source]▶
This really flips the argument that Mac hardware is overpriced and underpowered on its head. Now Apple computers are a premium product from a performance perspective, as well.
replies(13): >>25066438 #>>25066460 #>>25066481 #>>25066592 #>>25066593 #>>25066611 #>>25066666 #>>25066717 #>>25066772 #>>25067074 #>>25067563 #>>25068229 #>>25071110 #
totalZero ◴[12 Nov 20 06:30 UTC] No.25067074[source]▶
Not quite. You can't synthetically compare one chip to another and draw organic conclusions. Apple computers with M1 don't support the software that I use. That's why I bought a fully spec'd Intel MBP13 today. All this talk about battery life and benchmarks gets flipped on its head when I can't use the product in the real world.
replies(1): >>25067232 #
1. manojlds ◴[12 Nov 20 07:00 UTC] No.25067232[source]▶
Isn't there Rosetta that they talked about?
replies(2): >>25067655 #>>25069704 #
2. 0x008 ◴[12 Nov 20 08:18 UTC] No.25067655[source]▶
And with rosetta it is certainly slower than running it native on x86
replies(1): >>25068038 #
3. manojlds ◴[12 Nov 20 09:25 UTC] No.25068038[source]▶
Maybe, maybe not?

https://twitter.com/Catfish_Man/status/1326238434235568128

4. totalZero ◴[12 Nov 20 13:40 UTC] No.25069704[source]▶
It's an emulator, not a panacea.

"Rosetta is meant to ease the transition to Apple silicon, giving you time to create a universal binary for your app. It is not a substitute for creating a native version of your app.”

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple_silicon/abou...

replies(1): >>25070327 #
5. manojlds ◴[12 Nov 20 14:38 UTC] No.25070327[source]▶
It's a stop gap yes, but I am replying to someone that said their apps will not run on these new machines.

And check my reply to a sibling comment where people are finding cases where Rosetta is faster than native.

replies(1): >>25078505 #
6. totalZero ◴[13 Nov 20 03:32 UTC] No.25078505{3}[source]▶
Actually, you're replying to me. Check the usernames.

You can't run Windows on these things, and Rosetta 2 doesn't fully support kexts, VMs, or certain instruction sets. It's a translator and it's going to be imperfect in practice. That's why it's not intended to supplant development with native instructions.

Your other comment is a tweet regarding one function that is speculatively faster, but tells me nothing about real-world performance -- nor whether the tools I use for my business are going to be supported by Apple Silicon in the next few months.