[HN Gopher] Apple M2 Pro to use new 3nm process
___________________________________________________________________
Apple M2 Pro to use new 3nm process
Author : nateb2022
Score : 175 points
Date : 2022-08-25 15:11 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cultofmac.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cultofmac.com)
| brundolf wrote:
| I'm curious what actually unifies the "MX" for some X. There are
| different chips in the series, and apparently they can even be on
| different-sized processes and keep the name
|
| Anybody know more detail?
| spullara wrote:
| Marketing?
| brundolf wrote:
| It's possible it's nothing but marketing, but I didn't want
| to assume that without knowing what I'm talking about
| wilg wrote:
| That's what the M is for
| gpderetta wrote:
| Microarchitecture.
| adtac wrote:
| Is the node process size comparable across architectures?
| remlov wrote:
| No. At these nodes it's all marketing.
| muricula wrote:
| Process and architecture are mostly independent.
|
| Node process is determined by the physical manufacturing.
| Architecture is determined by the design templated on during
| manufacturing. You could make an arm core on an intel process
| (which I think even happens in some of their testing phases).
| So yes.
| cpurdy wrote:
| No, not really. The "3nm" in the "3nm process" is not a measure
| of anything in particular, and even if it is a measure, the
| measure may or may not be in the neighborhood of 3nm.
|
| Several years ago, fabs started naming each next-gen process
| with a smaller number of nanometers, even if the process size
| didn't change. It's just marketing now.
| narrator wrote:
| I wonder how many people have to collaborate to get a 3nm
| semiconductor out the door. TSMC has 65,000 employees. ASML has
| 32,000 employees and 5000 suppliers. The complexity of it all is
| unimaginable!
| Kalanos wrote:
| excellent. i've been waiting for an M2 macbook pro
| ArcMex wrote:
| That already exists.
|
| https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/13-inch
|
| Did you mean an M2 Pro MacBook Pro?
| solarkraft wrote:
| It's so weird that they made another one, keeping the old
| design and touch bar alive.
|
| I wonder whether they do focus group testing and found that
| some significant minority likes them enough for it to be
| worth it.
| bonney_io wrote:
| So it seems like the M2 is really an "M1+" or "M1X", whereas the
| M2 Pro/Max/Ultra are really the second-generation Apple Silicon.
|
| That's fine, in my opinion. M1 is still an amazing chip, and if
| that product class (MacBook Air, entry iMac, etc.) gets even
| marginal yearly revisions, that's still better than life was on
| Intel.
| top_sigrid wrote:
| Actually I get a different impression. Although the M2 tests
| have been impressive nonetheless (the M2 being based on the A15
| and not on the A14 makes it more the an M1X imho), the issues
| around throttling and thermals with the MacBook Air make it
| seem to me, that the M2 was actually designed to be on the 3nm
| node - which then seems to have been delayed by TSMC. That the
| rest of the M2* line will presumably be made with the 3nm
| process boosts this impression for me.
|
| I was planning on getting the redesigned M2 Air, but with the
| above in mind (which is just speculation) it got me thinking
| again.
| lxe wrote:
| According to Wikipedia:
|
| > The term "3 nanometer" has no relation to any actual physical
| feature (such as gate length, metal pitch or gate pitch) of the
| transistors.
|
| I thought it at least maps to something physical. But it's just a
| marketing term.
| eis wrote:
| M1 and M2 actually are not produced on the exact same process
| node. M1 is N5 and M2 is N5P, an optimized version of N5.
|
| I think Kuo might be misinterpreting the statement from TSMC
| regarding revenue from N3. The key is that they said it wont
| "substantially" contribute to revenue until 2023. Of course
| processors like M2 Pro/Max/Ultra wont generate the same amount of
| numbers like something more high volume like an iPhone and in the
| grand scheme of things can't represent a substantial contribution
| to TSMC revenue.
|
| The fact is TSMC said they'll start N3 HVM in September. So they
| are producing _something_ and we know Apple is expected to be the
| first customer for this node. It 's too early for the A17 so
| either it's the M2 Pro/Max/Ultra or something new like the VR
| headset chip. Can someone see another possibility?
|
| Apple still btw has to replace the Mac Pro with an Apple Silicon
| based model and their own deadline (2 years from first M1) is
| running out. It could make sense that they want to bring this one
| with a "bang" and claim the performance crown just to stick it to
| Intel :)
| ksec wrote:
| Starting HVM in Sept does not mean you get Revenue in Sept. It
| takes months before volume reached, testing, packaging done and
| shipped. TSMC isn't unusual in stating it they would get
| revenue from N3 until 2023.
| martin_bech wrote:
| Well dosent Apple usually prepay? Thats normally why they get
| preferential treatment.
| refulgentis wrote:
| It's more complicated than this, accounting as a field
| exists pretty much because there's intricate sets of rules
| and ways to interpret them. Here, my understanding is a
| good accountant would say not to recognize the revenue
| until you consider it shipped -
|
| i.e. if you agree to pay me a bajillion dollars for a time
| machine with an out clause of no cash if no delivery, that
| doesn't mean I get to book a bajillion dollars in revenue
|
| over the top example, but this was the general shape of
| much Enron chicanery, booking speculative revenue based on
| coming to terms on projects they were in no shape to
| deliver, so its very much an accounting 'code smell' if
| 'code smell' meant 'attracts regulators attention'
| ralph84 wrote:
| In accrual accounting payment has very little connection to
| when revenue is recognized. In order for revenue to be
| recognized the product has to ship.
| eis wrote:
| Yes. So either way, Kuo cannot deduce that M2 Pro wont be on
| N3. If the revenue is realized later or if the numbers are
| too low to justify calling it a substantial contrubution to
| TSMC revenue... same result. Kuo's argument does not seem to
| hold water. Now, that does not mean the inverse is true and
| M2 Pro is guaranteed to be on N3. I can only come up with the
| VR chip as alternative and so far I think nobody else came up
| with a suggestion.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| > something new like the VR headset chip
|
| My bet is on this one.
| greenknight wrote:
| I would expect that Apple would push its goldenchild (iphone)
| onto the node first. Its a small chip which they can use as a
| pipecleaner, makign sure they can get the yields up and
| optimise the process before pushing a larger die onto the node.
|
| They easily could have been allocating risk production on the
| iphone for the past couple of months, ready for the launch.
| Apple being like yes we will take lower yields for less cost.
|
| I do not expect any company to announce production 3N product,
| until apple has had one out for atleast 6-12 months. Look how
| long it took the rest of the industry to move to 5N. I swear
| part of that reason was an exclusivity agreement with Apple,
| and it massively paid off for their CPUs. Having a node
| advantage is always massive in terms of price / performance /
| power matrix.
| eis wrote:
| Are you suggesting they might have produced millions of A16
| chips on N3 during risk production phase and launched it
| before TSMC even reaches HVM? Highly unlikely. Risk
| production is a phase where they still make changes and fix
| issues. It's like a beta phase. It does not come at a lower
| cost, it would be more expensive to throw out a big chunk of
| chips. The iPhone chips are very high volume, you can't
| produce them before reaching... high volume manufacturing
| phase.
|
| The iPhone contributes to TSMC revenue in a substantial
| manner so that also would totally not fit what TSMC said.
|
| The M2 Pro/Max/Ultra are much lower volume and higher margin.
| It makes sense to start with them.
| BackBlast wrote:
| Except that they are much larger chips, that will be much
| more sensitive to yield issues. They could do that, but
| they will be expensive. Maybe that's ok.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| They don't ,,have to'' be ready in 2 years. The M2 numbers from
| the N5P process were underwhelming, I wouldn't replace my M1
| MacBook pro without seeing significantly superior performance /
| watt numbers, and happy to wait for the N3 process to be in
| production whatever it takes.
| rvz wrote:
| After the November 2020 launch day chaos, with not that much
| existing software available was working on those machines at
| the time like Docker, Java, Android Studio / Emulator, VSTs,
| etc a typical developer would have to wait more than 6 months
| just to do their work with fully supported software on the
| system and to take full advantage of the performance gains
| rather than using Rosetta.
|
| At that point, they might as well skipped the M1 machines and
| instead waited to purchase the M1 Pro MacBooks. Now there
| isn't a rush in getting a M1 Macbook anymore as now Apple is
| already moving to the M2 line up.
|
| By the time they have made an Apple Silicon Mac Pro, they are
| already planning ahead for the new series of Apple Silicon
| chips; probably M3, which will be after the M2 Pro/Ultra
| products.
|
| After that, it will be the beginning of the end of macOS on
| Intel.
| simonh wrote:
| >...not much existing software was working [lists a few
| nerdy dev tools used by 0.01% of the Mac user bsse]...
| umanwizard wrote:
| Surely software developers (and other people using
| x86-only software like Photoshop) are more than 0.01% of
| the mac user base.
|
| Apple has specifically said that vim users are the reason
| they put back the physical escape key...
| rvz wrote:
| It gets even better. Before they could even run any sort
| of new software on the system, and as soon as they
| updated it, they bricked it afterwards even on week one
| after launch day.
|
| So back to the Apple store for lots of the Mac user base
| complaining about their M1 Macs getting bricked on top of
| those unable to run their old software on the system.
|
| Such chaos that was.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| What's the point of this comment? Every consumer electronic
| product has a new version a year or 2 away.
|
| Apple products also have a long reputation of having a
| sweet spot for buying a new product. The Mac Buyers guide
| has existed for like a decade or more.
| rvz wrote:
| > What's the point of this comment? Every consumer
| electronic product has a new version a year or 2 away.
|
| So after 9 months releasing the M1 Macbooks, the M1 Pro
| Macbooks came out afterwards, already replacing the old
| ones in less than a year. Given this fast cycle, there is
| a reason why the Osborne effect precisely applies to
| Apple's flagship products rather than _' Every consumer
| electronic product'_.
|
| This is a new system running on a new architecture and it
| must run the same apps on the user's previous computer.
| Unfortunately, the software for it was just too early to
| be available on the system at the time and if was there,
| it didn't run at all in Nov 2020. Even a simple update
| will brick the system.
|
| What use is a system that bricks on an update; losing
| your important file or for power users having to wait 6
| months for the software they use everyday to be available
| and supported for their work?
|
| Going all in on the hype fed by the Apple boosters and
| hype squad doesn't make any sense as a buyers guide.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| > _So after 9 months releasing the M1 Macbooks, the M1
| Pro Macbooks came out afterwards, already replacing the
| old ones in less than a year._
|
| The M1 Air and 13" Pro are really entry level machines.
| The first model with a M1 Pro costs $700USD over the base
| model 13" M2 MBP. The M1 Pro still has much better
| performance compared to a base M2. The M1 Pro, Max and
| Ultra didn't replace anything. No one with a budget is
| going "Oh, the M1 Pro only cost an extra $700USD, I'll
| get that".
|
| > _What use is a system that bricks on an update; losing
| your important file or for power users having to wait 6
| months for the software they use everyday to be available
| and supported for their work?_
|
| What's the point of this comment? Things happen. It
| sucks. Apple isn't the first and won't be the last
| company to make a mistake. Don't get sucked into the
| shininess of their latest product.
| saagarjha wrote:
| idk, I feel like most people don't replace their expensive
| MacBook Pros every single time there's a new one
| eis wrote:
| Of course nothing forces them to be ready within 2 years but
| alas, that's what Apple said they'd do. I agree the M2
| numbers were not amazing. I guess after the big M1 shock it's
| hard to follow up with something that comes even close. You
| can't get similar gains like the transition from x86 to an
| integrated arm based SOC brought, doubly so when there's no
| substantial process node improvement (N5 -> N5P is a minor
| optimization). In the end they mostly bought better
| performance with a bigger die and increased power
| consumption. I'm pretty convinced they'll need N3 for the
| next jump but even that wont be on the level of the Intel ->
| M1 step.
|
| The revolution has happened, now it's all about evolution.
|
| BTW if Apple wants to increase the prices of the Pro macbooks
| like they did with the M2 Air due to inflation then they
| better justify it with some good gains. The big changes in
| terms of hardware redesign already happened last time.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Are you European? The price of the M2 Air did not increase.
| The USD price was exactly the same as for the M1 Air. Both
| debuted at $1199. The price went up in Europe because of a
| drastic reduction in the EUR/USD exchange rate.
| kergonath wrote:
| The euro is not doing great, but the dollar is falling as
| well.
| eis wrote:
| The M1 Air launched at a price of $999. The increase to
| $1199 happened with the launch of the M2 Air.
| > With its sleek wedge-shaped design, stunning Retina
| display, Magic Keyboard, and astonishing level of
| performance thanks to M1, the new MacBook Air once again
| redefines what a thin and light notebook can do. And it
| is still just $999, and $899 for education.
|
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/introducing-the-
| next-...
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > I agree the M2 numbers were not amazing.
|
| What other CPU core design iteration managed to improve
| performance while also cutting power draw?
|
| Anandtech's deep dive on the performance and efficiency
| cores used in the A15 and M2:
|
| Performance:
|
| >In our extensive testing, we're elated to see that it was
| actually mostly an efficiency focus this year, with the new
| performance cores showcasing adequate performance
| improvements, while at the same time reducing power
| consumption, as well as significantly improving energy
| efficiency.
|
| Efficiency:
|
| >The efficiency cores have also seen massive gains, this
| time around with Apple mostly investing them back into
| performance, with the new cores showcasing +23-28% absolute
| performance improvements, something that isn't easily
| identified by popular benchmarking. This large performance
| increase further helps the SoC improve energy efficiency,
| and our initial battery life figures of the new 13 series
| showcase that the chip has a very large part into the
| vastly longer longevity of the new devices.
|
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/16983/the-apple-a15-soc-
| perfo...
|
| Intel and AMD seem to have both returned to the Pentium 4
| days of chasing performance via increased clock speeds and
| power draws.
| eis wrote:
| The report you quoted and linked to is about the A15 and
| not the M2. The M2 is based on the A15 but from what I've
| seen it does use quite a bit more power (~30%?) than the
| M1 when loaded. Anandtech did not analyze the M2 yet as
| far as I can see.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| As previously noted, those core designs are used in both
| the A15 and the M2.
|
| Just as the same cores were used in the A14 and M1.
|
| Using more power overall comes from adding additional GPU
| cores and other non-CPU core functionality.
| eis wrote:
| If the increase in power consumption comes from the
| additional GPU core, from increased frequencies in the
| CPU cores or other added parts to the chip imho is not
| that important for users (and depends on what they are
| doing). They see the system as a whole. They get x% more
| performance for y% more power usage. For the CPU x is
| smaller than y. This is totally normal when increasing
| frequencies.
|
| Note: I'm not saying the M2 is bad. It's a very good chip
| indeed. All I said was it was not amazing. It was an
| iterational, yet welcome, improvement. And I think one
| couldn't expect anything amazing quite so quickly.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| We're talking about CPU core design.
|
| Would we say the Zen 4 core design is less efficient
| because AMD is going to start bundling an integrated GPU
| with Ryzen chips, or would we just talk about Zen 4 core
| power draw vs Zen 3?
|
| Apple's performance cores managed to improve performance
| while cutting power.
|
| What other iterative core design did this?
|
| It helps to remember that Apple isn't playing the
| performance via clock increases no matter what happens to
| power and heat game.
| eis wrote:
| I guess that's where the misunderstanding comes from. I
| was not talking about CPU cores alone. Only M1, M2 as a
| whole.
|
| But I still am not sure if I can believe that the M2 CPU
| improved performance while at the same time cutting
| power. Can you link to some analysis? Would be very
| interesting. Though please not the A15 one, the cores are
| related but not the same and the CPUs have big
| differences.
| kergonath wrote:
| > I wouldn't replace my M1 MacBook pro without seeing
| significantly superior performance / watt numbers
|
| What makes you think that this will happen in one generation?
| The point of the M2 is not to get M1 users to migrate, it's
| to keep improving so that MacBooks are still better products
| than the competition. Apple does not care that you don't get
| a new computer every year, they are most likely planning for
| 3 to 5 years replacement cycles.
| yoz-y wrote:
| Almost nobody should update from one generation of CPUs to
| the next one though. Incremental upgrades are fine.
| georgelyon wrote:
| If M2 Pro is similar to M1 Pro (two M1s duct-taped together with
| _very_ fancy duct tape), this is interesting because usually
| chips need to be significantly reworked for a newer process and
| this implies an M2 core complex will be printable both at 5nm and
| 3nm. It would be interesting to know how much of this is
| fabrication becoming more standardized and how much is Apple 's
| core designs being flexible. If this is the latter, then Apple
| has a significant advantage beyond just saturating the most
| recent process node.
| dont__panic wrote:
| I wonder if they'll also bump the M2 machines to 3nm silently,
| if the efficiency bump is minor? Apple previously split the A9
| between TSMC and Samsung at two different node sizes, so it
| wouldn't be completely crazy.
|
| Or perhaps they're content to leave the M2 as 5nm for easy
| performance gains in the M3 next year. It also has the
| advantage of keeping the cheapest machines off of the best node
| size, which is surely more expensive and more limited than 5nm.
| buu700 wrote:
| There was some speculation in another thread not too long ago
| that the M2 design was originally 3nm, and was backported to
| 5nm after the fact.
| minimaul wrote:
| I think you're thinking of M1 Ultra - which is 2x M1 Max on an
| interconnect.
|
| M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max are separate dies.
| skavi wrote:
| The M1 Pro was not two M1s duct taped together. Their core
| configurations do not share the same proportions (8+2 vs 4+4).
|
| You may be thinking of the GPUs? Each step in M1 -> M1 Pro ->
| M1 Max -> M1 Ultra represents a doubling of GPU cores.
|
| Or you may be thinking of the M1 Max and Ultra. The Ultra is
| nearly just two Maxes.
|
| Regarding your point about flexibility, it's hardly
| unprecedented for the same core to be used on different
| processes.
|
| Apple has at times contracted Samsung and TSMC for the same
| SoC. Qualcomm just recently ported their flagship SoC from
| Samsung to TSMC. Even Intel backported Sunny Cove to 14nm. And
| of course there's ARM.
| wolf550e wrote:
| ttoinou wrote:
| Thats what the parent said
| paulmd wrote:
| meta: HN constantly feels the need to be maximally
| pendantic even when what they're trying to say was
| already covered, and it's just very tedious and leads to
| an exhausting style of posting to try and prevent it.
|
| that's really why the "be maximally generous in your
| interpretation of a comment" rule exists, and the
| pedantry is against the spirit of that requirement, yet
| it's super super common, and I think a lot of people feel
| it's "part of the site's culture" - but if it is, that's
| not really a good thing, it's against the rules.
|
| Just waiting for the pedantic "ackshuyally the rule says
| PLEASE" reply.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| I want to generously overlook any particular words you
| used and totally disagree with your main point. :) I
| think that it's a positive feature of threaded comments
| to spin off side discussions and minor corrections. In
| this case, the correction was wrong, but if it was right,
| I'd have appreciated it in addition to whatever else
| ended up being written by others.
|
| What's bad for discussion is when those receiving the
| reply feel attacked, as if the author of the minor point
| was implying that nothing else was worth discussing. I
| wish that neither parent nor child comment authors felt
| the urge to qualify and head off critical or clarifying
| responses.
| phpnode wrote:
| Well actually, it's not just HN, I see this pattern all
| over tech Twitter, programming subs on Reddit etc too. I
| think it happens when people want to participate in the
| conversation but don't have anything actually worthwhile
| to say, so rather than say nothing they nitpick.
| tooltalk wrote:
| >> Apple has at times contracted Samsung and TSMC for the
| same SoC
|
| That was only once at 14nm(Samsung)/16nm(TSMC) as Apple
| outsourced US chip production in TX to Taiwan.
|
| Qualcomm uses both TSMC and Samsung on rotational basis to
| this date.
| [deleted]
| sbierwagen wrote:
| I mean, Intel used a "tick-tock" model for a decade. (New
| microarchitecture, then die shrink, then new arch...)
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick%E2%80%93tock_model
| msoad wrote:
| you are mixing M1 Ultra which is two M1 Max taped together with
| M1 Pro which is a weaker variant of M1 Max.
| chippiewill wrote:
| There's no reason to assume that a 3nm and 5nm M2 core is
| identical in that way. It's probably similar to the changes
| Intel used to do for die shrinks when they were doing tick-
| tock.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| This is cool!
|
| At the same time, not being part of the Apple ecosystem, should I
| be worried about the closed nature of this. I have been using
| Linux for over two decades now, and Intel seems to be falling
| behind.
|
| (I do realize Linux runs on the M1. But it's a mostly hobby
| projects, the GPU is not well supported, and the M1/M2 will
| never(?) be available with open H/W.)
| afarrell wrote:
| Good question
|
| https://aws.amazon.com/pm/ec2-graviton/ is an indication that
| Amazon cares about linux support for the arm64 architecture. So
| the question is how much variance there is to the M1 relative
| to that.
| TheBigSalad wrote:
| There is... another
| heavyset_go wrote:
| x86 processors will be produced on the same nodes. Many ARM
| SoCs require binary blobs or otherwise closed source software,
| so they are not the best choice to run Linux on if you're
| approaching it from a longevity and stability perspective.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| I'm running Asahi Linux on the M2 and it's great. Drivers are
| not all complete yet, but it's awesome.
| arjvik wrote:
| As your daily driver machine?
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| i've not switched over to try that yet.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| in my case i could use it as a daily driver, since i'm
| just needing a fast browser and Linux with compilers etc.
| but i've been using macos as a daily driver despite
| loathing (since the dawn of time) its font rendering.
|
| i'll switch at some point, probably.
| amelius wrote:
| It's great for you. But some of us are using Linux in
| industrial applications. You can't really put an Apple laptop
| inside e.g. an MRI machine. It may run highly specialized
| software, needs specific acceleration hardware, etc.
|
| It's going to be a very sad day when consumer electronics win
| over industrial applications.
| mindwok wrote:
| I don't think you need to worry about that, those are
| completely different use-cases and markets. ARM CPUs will
| be available and widespread in other applications soon
| enough, and Linux support is already strong in that regard.
| novok wrote:
| Apple hardware has never been about non-consumer, server or
| industrial applications outside of some film, music and
| movie studios using mac pros and the Xserve long time ago.
|
| And if your making an MRI machine or other industrial
| equipment that consumes a huge amount of power, the fact
| your attached computer uses 300W vs 600W doesn't really
| seem like much of a big deal.
|
| Apple has a head start with their ARM machines, but I'm
| also not really worried that the rest of the industry won't
| catch up in a few years eventually. You can only really
| pull off the new architecture trick once or twice, and
| being a leader has a way of inspiring competitors.
|
| Apple's software and OS is also horrible to use in server
| applications, you only do it if you need to do it, such as
| iOS CI, device testing and such. Otherwise you avoid it as
| much as you can.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _can 't really put an Apple laptop inside e.g. an MRI
| machine. It may run highly specialized software, needs
| specific acceleration hardware, etc._
|
| This sounds more like a pitch for letting the MRI machine
| talk to the laptop than putting redundant chips in every
| device.
| rtlfe wrote:
| > letting the MRI machine talk to the laptop than putting
| redundant chips in every device
|
| This sounds like a huge security risk.
| amelius wrote:
| No. This is not a good universal solution. What if the
| machine needs more processing power than one laptop can
| provide?
|
| Do you want to put a rack of laptops inside the machine,
| waste several screens and keyboards? Log into every
| laptop with your AppleID before you can start your
| machine? It's such an inelegant solution.
|
| Instead, the x86/Linux environment lets you put multiple
| mainboards in a machine, or you can choose a mainboard
| with more processors; it is a much more flexible solution
| in industrial settings.
| kergonath wrote:
| No. You want the computer running the thing to be as
| simple, known, and predictable as possible. So that is
| necessarily going to be a computer provided by true
| manufacturer, and not whatever a random doctor feels like
| using. Consumer devices are compeletely irrelevant or
| that use case.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| It would be a gimmick given that real-time workloads
| can't be offloaded via some serial connection to consumer
| laptops. You'd still need hardware and software capable
| of driving and operating the machines embedded in the
| machines themselves.
| kergonath wrote:
| What are you on about? A EUR5M MRI machine will have
| whatever computer its manufacturer will want to support.
| Which will probably be something like a Core 2 running
| Windows XP.
|
| None of these machines have used Macs, ever. Why would
| anything Apple does affect this market?
| jonfw wrote:
| How is webcam and microphone support? Web conferencing always
| killed me running Linux even on well supported hardware
|
| How is battery life?
|
| What distro are you running?
|
| Are you doing all ARM binaries or is there some translation
| layer that works?
|
| Sorry to bombard you, but I'm really curious about the
| support
| risho wrote:
| not the person you are responding to but i was looking into
| it today. webcam/mic/speakers don't work but bluetooth
| does. there is arm to x86/x86_64 translation tools akin to
| rosetta 2 but they have a lot of warts and are not well
| supported yet. the most promising one in my opinion is
| called fex.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| I've not tried the webcam and microphone, which I guess i
| could from Firefox. Battery life is less than when the
| drivers further evolve, because I think it's imperfect in
| going into sleep mode.
|
| The distro is Asahi Linux, which is ARM ArchLinux. All ARM
| binaries.
|
| If you follow the Asahi Linux page, it updates super
| frequently, as drivers get tuned and so on.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| If you buy hardware supported by Linux, Zoom works well on
| it, including screen sharing.
|
| I've been using Zoom on my desktop with a USB camera for
| video calls and screen sharing for a while now.
|
| I was pleasantly surprised it actually worked and worked
| well.
|
| Edit: to clarify, this post is about Linux in general, I
| don't use M1 or M2 Macs with Linux.
| xtracto wrote:
| Why are you answering a question specifically made about
| M1 and M2 with a generic answer about a Desktop computer?
|
| What is the point?
| eropple wrote:
| There are other ARM providers, and personally I expect to see
| some of them ramping up significantly in the next couple years.
|
| Qualcomm's taking another shot, for example.
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-18/qualcomm-...
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| AMD is not behind at all. Have you seen the latest benchmarks?
|
| https://www.phoronix.com/review/apple-m2-linux/15
| free652 wrote:
| It's behind, looks like they are comparing the high end
| 5900hx with the low end m1 in multi core tests.
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| Dunno what you're talking about it's definitely the M2 in
| the test. It's also the same price.
| Tsarbomb wrote:
| As the other reply mentioned they are testing against the
| M2, and they are also testing the lower powered AMD part
| 6850U which does best the M2 in some tests.
|
| Not sure why you came out so strong with such a false
| statement.
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| 5900HX TDP: 35-80W depending on boost setting. Most gaming
| laptops set it at 60W+.
|
| M2 TDP: 20W
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| The 6850U is comparable in power use and still has a big
| perf gap against the M2 in mosts tests. Though there are
| some tests where the M2 leads with a big gap too so maybe
| it comes down to software in a lot of these. Still it seems
| to me like Apple is not leading.
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| It is not, the laptop tested with the 6850U has a 30W PL2
| and 50W PL1.
| kimixa wrote:
| Power use tends to scale non-linearly past a point -
| disabling turbo modes would likely significantly reduce the
| peak power use, and ~18% performance differenceis pretty
| big buffer to lose.
|
| The 6850u also beats it rather comprehensively according to
| those same results, and that's only 18-25w.
|
| Really, you'd need everything power normalized, and even
| the rest of the hardware and software used normalized to
| compare "just" the CPU, which is pretty much impossible due
| to Apple and their vertical integration - which is often a
| strength in tests like this.
| xref wrote:
| What would be your concern? M1/M2 is just arm which Linux has
| run on for decades?
| 3pm wrote:
| I think the concern is there is currently no 'IBM-
| compatible'-like hardware ecosystem around ARM. Raspberry Pi
| is closest, but nothing mainstream yet. And it looks like
| RISC-V will have a better chance than ARM.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Linux support is about much more than instruction set
| support. Most ARM chips are shipped on SoCs which can take a
| lot of work to get Linux running on, and even then it might
| not run well.
| johnklos wrote:
| Apple isn't going to somehow make 64 bit ARM in to something
| proprietary. Sure, they have their own special instructions for
| stuff like high performance x86 emulation, but aarch64 on Apple
| is only going to mean more stuff is optimized for ARM, which is
| good not only for Linux, but for other open source OSes like
| the BSDs.
| rodgerd wrote:
| Apple are, if anything, more helpful to the Linux community
| that Qualcomm.
| saagarjha wrote:
| There are no special instructions for x86 emulation.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| There's a whole special CPU/memory mode for it, actually.
|
| https://twitter.com/ErrataRob/status/1331735383193903104
| dheera wrote:
| Me too. I _really_ wish I could buy a Samsung Galaxy Book Go
| 360 which is ARM and has amazing battery life, and install
| Ubuntu on it, but I don 't think there's a known possible way
| to do so.
|
| I _really_ want a competent, high-end ARM Ubuntu laptop to
| happen. The Pinebook Pro has shitty specs and looks like shit
| with the 90s-sized inset bezels and 1080p screen.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Likewise, I'd be on that for sure. Right now I'm using older
| MacBook Air's running Ubuntu as my daily drivers and a big
| dell at the home office for other work.
|
| Longer battery life and something like the Galaxy Book Go
| would definitely make me happy.
| dheera wrote:
| Ubuntu on MacBook M1 is a horrible experience. Screen
| tearing and lots of other issues.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Eventually non-Apple laptops will be sold with silicon from
| this process node. You just won't be the first to use it, which
| is fine.
|
| Also, Asahi is getting closer to "generally usable" at an
| astounding pace, so who knows.
| 3pm wrote:
| I think that is what the parent meant by feeling left behind.
| It is either Apple or something underwhelming like ThinkPad
| with Snapdragon.
| keepquestioning wrote:
| Has this analyst ever been correct?
| drexlspivey wrote:
| Can anyone speculate what will happen to Apple if for any reason
| TSM abruptly stops supplying chips? Will their revenue just drop
| by 80%?
| [deleted]
| beautifulfreak wrote:
| TSMC announced its new Phoenix Arizona fab would begin mass
| production in the first quarter of 2024.
| joenathanone wrote:
| That is funny we are literally about to run out of water over
| here in AZ.
| eis wrote:
| By that time it'll be far from bleeding edge. The Taiwan fab
| will be close to N2 while the Arizona fab will be able to
| produce 5nm generation chips, that'll be 4-5 year old tech
| then.
| bogomipz wrote:
| Similarly Intel just announced a new partnership to
| accomplish similar. Also in Arizon:
|
| https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2022-08-23/.
| ..
| ytdytvhxgydvhh wrote:
| Way down the road I hope Tim Cook writes a memoir. I'm curious
| as to his unvarnished thoughts about doing business in (and
| being so reliant on) Taiwan and China. I'm sure he can't
| publicly express some of those thoughts without unnecessarily
| adding risk for Apple but he must have lots of interesting
| opinions about things like being reliant on TSMC vs trying to
| build their own fabs, etc.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| You mean TSMC.
|
| Well, they would be seriously hurt. However, does that matter
| when almost every tech company (including Qualcomm, MediaTek,
| AMD, Apple, ARM, Broadcom, Marvell, Nvidia, Intel, so forth)
| would also be harmed?
|
| TSMC going down is basically the MAD (Mutually Assured
| Destruction) of tech companies. Kind of a single point of
| failure. Intel would probably weather it best but would still
| be hurt because they need TSMC for some products. Plus, well,
| in the event of TSMC's destruction (most likely by a Chinese
| invasion), Intel might raise prices considerably or even stop
| sale to consumers especially as their chips would now have
| major strategic value for government operations. NVIDIA might
| also survive by reviving older products which can be
| manufactured by Samsung in Korea, but same situation about the
| strategic value there, and getting chips from Korea to US might
| be difficult in such a conflict.
| earthscienceman wrote:
| Does anyone have any resources that explain the historical
| reason(s) TSMC became what it is? How did the world's most
| important hardware manufacturer manage to get constructed on
| a geopolitical pinchpoint?
| kochb wrote:
| This podcast covers most of the important points:
|
| https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/tsmc
| [deleted]
| nomel wrote:
| > TSMC going down is basically the MAD (Mutually Assured
| Destruction) of tech companies.
|
| This is why it's appropriately called the "Silicon Shield",
| within Taiwan: https://semiwiki.com/china/314669-the-
| evolution-of-taiwans-s...
| jkestner wrote:
| Repeat of the car market? I'm going to make a bunch of money
| off the old computers collecting dust here, and Apple's going
| to have to unlock support for new OSes on them, making all its
| money on services.
| mlindner wrote:
| For what reason would TSMC abruptly stop supplying chips short
| of war? There's nothing other than war that would cause it. And
| if there's a war, Apple's profits are the least of problems.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Meteor, Large tsunami, Earth quake, Solar flare, extremely
| infectious disease that isn't as weak as Covid-19. There are
| so many natural disasters that could cripple or outright
| destroy TSMC production facilities.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > For what reason would TSMC abruptly stop supplying chips
| short of war?
|
| Earthquakes would be top of my list of things that would
| cause problems.
| Bud wrote:
| Climate change impacts or global pandemics could also
| significantly impact TSMC's operations. Or, Chinese actions
| that are somewhat short of full-on war.
|
| Also relevant here: TSMC is building a chip fab in the US.
| novok wrote:
| If TSMC poofed out of existence because of a few bombs from
| china or a freak super natural disaster, global GDP would drop
| significantly and quickly. One of the biggest SPOF that I'm
| worried about in the world.
| zaroth wrote:
| If WW3 goes hot beyond the regional proxies, we all lose pretty
| hard.
|
| A new iPhone 14 or Mac M2 will be a pipe that we all chuckle
| about how we used to care about such things.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| Everybody except Intel and Samsung is screwed if TSMC stops
| making chips.
|
| Apple (and the rest of the mobile industry) would try to move
| to using Samsung's fabs and Intel would go back to being the
| undisputed king on desktops, laptops, and servers.
|
| I think TSMC has like 2-3 times the fab capacity that Samsung
| does right now for modern chips, so there would be a huge chip
| shortage.
|
| Apple's $200 billion cash pile would come in handy when trying
| to buy fab capacity from Samsung so they might come out ahead
| of less cash-rich competitors.
|
| There would be a significant hit to processor performance.
| Samsung fabbed the recent Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which has
| comparable single core performance to the iPhone 7's A10 fusion
| chip.
| florakel wrote:
| >There would be a significant hit to processor performance.
|
| You are probably right. Look at the gains Qualcomm saw by
| migrating from Samsung to TSMC:
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/17395/qualcomm-announces-
| snap...
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| I never thought you'd get gains by simply switching vendor.
| 4nm to 4nm and they still saw gains.
| terafo wrote:
| The thing is that 4nm doesn't actually mean anything.
| Intel's 10nm node is mostly on par with TSMC N7 and it
| caused quite a bit of confusion, so Intel renamed a bit
| improved version(something they would call 10nm++) to
| Intel 7. It's all just marketing and have been for 15
| years or so.
| Tostino wrote:
| The performance of that core is not necessarily all dependent
| on the node... Apple have been lauded for their designs.
| Samsung / arm, not so much.
| vondro wrote:
| So we'll see at least 1-2 years of Apple Silicon being at least
| one node ahead of competition. I am curious for how long will be
| Apple able to pull this lead off, and what the perf/watt will
| look like when (if?) AMD has node parity with Apple in the near
| future. Or when perhaps Intel uses TSMC as well, and the same
| process node.
| r00fus wrote:
| I think this was Apple's game for a LONG time. They have led in
| mobile chips to the point where they are sometimes 2 years
| ahead of the competition.
|
| They do this using their monopsony power (they will buy all the
| fab capacity at TSMC and/or Samsung, and well before
| competition is aiming to do so either).
| klelatti wrote:
| IIRC they were using TSMC before TSMC had a material process
| lead and supported them (and moved away from Samsung) with
| big contracts and a long term commitment. Hardly surprising
| that they have first go a new process. Not a risk less bet
| but one that has paid off.
| paulmd wrote:
| > They do this using their monopsony power (they will buy all
| the fab capacity at TSMC and/or Samsung, and well before
| competition is aiming to do so either).
|
| It's not just buying power - Apple pays billions of dollars
| yearly to TSMC for R&D work itself. These nodes literally
| would not exist on the timelines they do without Apple
| writing big fat checks for blue-sky R&D, unless there's
| another big customer who would be willing to step up and play
| sugar-daddy.
|
| Most of the other potential candidates either own their own
| fabs (intel, samsung, TI, etc), are working on stuff that
| doesn't really need cutting-edge nodes (TI, Asmedia, Renesas,
| etc), or simply lack the scale of production to ever make it
| work (NVIDIA, AMD, etc). Apple is unique in that they hit all
| three: fabless, cutting-edge, massive-scale, plus they're
| willing to pay a premium to not just _secure access_ but to
| actually _fund development of the nodes from scratch_.
|
| It would be a very interesting alt-history if Apple had not
| done this - TSMC 7nm would probably have been on timelines
| similar to Intel 10nm, AMD wouldn't have access to a node
| with absurd cache density and vastly superior efficiency
| compared to the alternatives (Intel 14nm was still a better-
| than-market node, compared to the GF/Samsung alternatives in
| 2019!), etc. I think AMD almost certainly goes under in this
| timeline, without Zen2/Zen3/Zen3D having huge caches and Rome
| making a huge splash in the server market, and without TSMC
| styling on GF so badly that GF leaves the market and lets AMD
| out of the WSA, Zen2 probably would have been on a failing GF
| 7nm node with much lower cache density, and would just have
| been far less impressive.
|
| AMD of course did a ton of work too, they came up with the
| interconnect and the topology, but it still rather directly
| owes its continued existence to Apple and those big fat R&D
| check. You can't have AMD building efficient, scalable cache
| monsters (CPU and GPU) without TSMC being 2 nodes ahead of
| market on cache density and 1 node ahead of the market on
| efficiency. And they wouldn't have been there without Apple
| writing a blank check for node R&D.
| duxup wrote:
| I do sometimes wonder if we could ask and get an honest
| answer "Ok well then who wants to pay for all this from
| step 1?"
| wmf wrote:
| China.
| afarrell wrote:
| > they will buy all the fab capacity at TSMC
|
| What would motivate TSMC to choose to only have 1 customer?
|
| TSMC is known as "huguo shenshan" or "magic mountain that
| protects the nation". What would motivate TSMC to choose to
| have their geopolitical security represented by only 2
| senators?
| joshstrange wrote:
| They absolutely use their power (aka money) to buy fab
| capacity but they are also responsible for a ton of
| investment in fabs (new fabs and new nodes). Because of that
| investment they get first dibs and the new node. In the end
| it's up to the the reader to decide if this is a net positive
| for the industry (would we be moving as fast without Apple's
| investment? Even accounting for the delay in getting fab time
| until after Apple gets a taste).
| Melatonic wrote:
| Yea this is what I am wondering as well. If nobody else ends up
| switching to ARM in the laptop/desktop space and eventually AMD
| and Intel are making 5 or 3nm chips then surely this massive
| lead in power efficiency is going to close. At the current
| levels the new apple computers seem awesome - but if they are
| only 10-20% more efficient?
| ghaff wrote:
| You do have ARM in Chromebooks. Any wholesale switch for
| Windows seems problematic given software support. But beyond
| gaming, a decent chunk of development, and multimdeia, a lot
| of people mostly live in a browser these days.
| derbOac wrote:
| I know I'm being irrational about this, but for some reason this
| makes me lean toward getting an M1 Air or 13-inch Pro rather than
| an M2: it's like with the M2 performance gains are being squeezed
| out of the same (or similar enough) M1 process rather than
| changing the process significantly, at the cost of efficiency.
| alberth wrote:
| You'd definitely save $200 since base M1 Air is $999 vs M2 Air
| being $1199.
| solarkraft wrote:
| They're also available used and a lot cheaper now.
|
| I'm plenty happy with mine and don't plan to switch any time
| soon. Yeah, the M2 Air looks a bit nicer, but it's more of a
| Pro-follow up with its boxy design and ... eh, the M1 Air is
| totally fine in all aspects I can spontaneously come up with.
| It's a really good device and the laptop I might recommend
| for years to come. It getting cheaper and cheaper will only
| increase the value you'll get.
| K7PJP wrote:
| I almost did this, but the return of MagSafe (which frees up a
| USB port) and the display improvements were worth it to me. Oh,
| how I've missed MagSafe.
| derbOac wrote:
| Yeah the things you mention definitely enter into the
| equation.
| wilg wrote:
| The hardware is much nicer on the M2 Air though.
| [deleted]
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