the M1 Chip are we left with obsolete server farms - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 21, 2021, 12:53:38 pm
content: are parts of the entire electronics industry made obsolete?because of the Apple M1 Chip or is this hypewhy I did post this about this video. is the difference of 125 watts vs 5 watts .the performance difference between phones and laptops running video editing software!a video bloger would upload his or her video to YouTube using a smartphone and its in 1080p or is that 4k!but I am using a 500watt desktop PC for my video editing and its got lots of cooling fans.what gives? then I seen this video .seehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_M1see videoHow Apple Just Changed the Entire Industry (M1 Chip)

author: Pineapple Dan
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2021, 11:54:27 pm
content: Is it really that good?Apple are really good at hyping things. That is for sure

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 12:00:35 am
content: Quote from: Pineapple Dan on June 23, 2021, 11:54:27 pmYou assume that the countless silicon experts on the planet, are ALL easily fooled by "hype"? I think you need a wake up call - Apple's ARM-based silicon products are stupendously powerful AND efficient.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 01:43:44 am
content: M1 is not going to displace x86 in the data center unless Apple gets back into the rack server business. And even then, they'll have to compete with other ARM server chips.

author: TomS_
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 06:33:39 am
content: M1 is just a bunch of ARM cores glued together with some other peripherals. No different to any other SoC really.No other ARM SoC has caused fleets of servers to become obsolete, and M1 won't either. There is more to it than simply the processor.So yes, there is a lot of hype, much to be expected from Apple. Having said that, M1s performance is very good, and could be a glimpse of what the future holds.

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 07:40:11 am
content: …

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 08:05:57 am
content: The M1 chip seems to good performance in the small systems, but for a server CPU it needs other properties too: management functions, virtualization, motherboards with good network interface. There are also quite different servers - for some the ARM chips can work, but for others not. There is a constant replcement of old systems with newer ones - this does not change much. It many be a few more new ARM servers and a little less new x86. Chances are there would be a next generation before x86 really looses ground.The video at the start of the thread is mainly misleading than informing. Much of sluggish PCs is due to poor software and OS problems, not slow hardware.

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 08:11:04 am
content: Would be nice to get an ARM desktop that can run my favourite software (most of it does not run on Apple nor Linux and is fairly old) and is not from Apple.Seems to me that we are getting to a point where x86 and its extensions will mostly exist thanks to compatibility with existing stuff, not because of superior performance per any metric. If we aren't already there.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 08:26:40 am
content: Yep the M1 is bringing some very impressive performance to the table.But don't look at video processing performance too closely. This is a task that can be hugely accelerated using hardware dedicated encoders/decoders. This is the reason why phones can handle video so well while a PC running software that for some reason can't use hardware video and gets forced to do it on the CPU is so slow.The PC market is built on a deep deep foundation of compatibility, so getting into it might be tough. But i could certainly see in a few years someone will make similar chips for PC use and make a high performance enough emulation hypervisor to let you run regular x64 windows on it, if that gets traction them we might see Windows start supporting native architecture and run on it, moving the emulation layer into the OS for legacy windows software.

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 02:26:13 am
content: Quote from: Pineapple Dan on June 23, 2021, 11:54:27 pmThe are good at hyping, but M1 performance / watt figures are empirically better than x86 architectures right now. Electricity costs money; and if data centres can shave a lot of bucks off in their power bill, they'll take that opportunity.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 04:17:47 am
content: Keep in mind that Apple is not the only manufacturer of high performance ARM chips. There are quite a few ARM chips specifically designed for servers.One area where hobbyists are really interested in efficiency is cryptocurrency mining. Yet I'm not aware of anyone building mining clusters out of M1s, I suspect that's due to a combination of the M1 costing more per performance than really cheap smartphones, the ARM mined coins being limited by more factors than just raw CPU performance, and the general decline of those ARM mined coins.On a test mining Monero, the M1 only managed to meet the efficiency of a Ryzen 9 that's one process node behind. I suspect that's because it's optimized for mostly light load with occasional bursts.https://cryptoage.com/en/2309-apple-m1-processor-tested-in-mining-monero-cryptocurrency.html

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 08:30:02 am
content: Yes, the M1 is good. Or software developers are bad, take your pick.They could recompile their entire code base to run on the M1, because they kept their developers on a short leash. On x86, windows, this is non existent. Well I mean all the apps that are in the microsoft store might be, but nobody uses them. And then you have those few very expensive software (which needs to run) that have modern GUI and some sort of cobol or fortran running at the deep end. Microsoft tried ARM PCs two times already, failed every single time.But still, 3D performance is a joke. It doesnt have a lot of PCI-e lanes. Or sata.

author: MadTux
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 08:48:55 am
content: 15 year old Core2Duo is perfectly fine for browsing internet/reading datasheets, PCB editing....No reason to get anything newer, especially since most new laptops seem to last a lot less long and I hate loosing data and reinstalling Arch every few years......