Apple Silicon (ARM based) Macs buyers and owners thread (1 Viewer)

[Carlo_M]

Honestly I’m only waiting for the 16” now only because I love that screen size and find 13” too small. Otherwise there is not much I’m seeing that isn’t amazing.

With how AMD is coming on strong on the CPU and GPU, and Apple now doing their own SoC, Intel really needs to step its game up.

 

[Carlo_M]

I know it's more of the same. But wow.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I keep hearing Imagine Dragons in my head singing "Welcome to the new age. Welcome to the new age."

I love watching these videos. To even imagine that entry-level M1 hardware is killing top-end Intel Pro hardware is just mind-boggling. Then you remind yourself you just said "entry-level" knowing PRO hardware is on the way and it just becomes INSANE.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I read one review this morning where it was suggested 8GB M1 often easily outperforms 16-32GB Intel systems.

The only negative things I have been hearing (at least for the Mini) is that some people are having issues getting widescreen monitors to work properly with it.

 

[Ted Todorov]

I read one review this morning where it was suggested 8GB M1 often easily outperforms 16-32GB Intel systems.

The only negative things I have been hearing (at least for the Mini) is that some people are having issues getting widescreen monitors to work properly with it.

One more reason for Apple to bring back the Apple Cinema Display
Hopefully, this is the kind of thing that can be fixed via software — I doubt there is a unfixable hardware problem with the Mac

 

[Ronald Epstein]

One more reason for Apple to bring back the Apple Cinema Display
Hopefully, this is the kind of thing that can be fixed via software — I doubt there is a unfixable hardware problem with the Mac

I have been reading complaints about compatibility with widescreen monitors.

That kills any chance of me buying this and I was so close to doing so.

It kind of makes sense. The 16" Intel MBP works beautifully for this purpose as it doesn't have integrated graphics.

I am not even sure the next Pro Mini refresh will be even better.

 

[JohnRice]

I have been reading complaints about compatibility with widescreen monitors.

That kills any chance of me buying this and I was so close to doing so.

It kind of makes sense. The 16" Intel MBP works beautifully for this purpose as it doesn't have integrated graphics.

I am not even sure the next Pro Mini refresh will be even better.

It seems absurd to me. What I thought was that if a graphics card was capable of driving the pixels, it didn't care what the configuration of them was. Clearly I was wrong. It seems like it's probably a safe bet, until proven wrong, that any incorporated graphics in a Mac won't drive your monitor. a real shame, because I don't see any option to that coming from ARM computers, except the Pro, maybe iMac Pro and possibly a top of the line MBP. No Mini ever made has ever had separate graphics.

 

[Carlo_M]

I will admit I haven't done any research/looking into for that monitor situation. But I don't doubt the M chip has more than enough power to drive most mainstream monitors (not sure if it can do 8K but if you're looking for that, definitely don't buy the first gen of any product). I would think this is likely a driver issue which Apple will hopefully address in short order via a patch or system update.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I will admit I haven't done any research/looking into for that monitor situation. But I don't doubt the M chip has more than enough power to drive most mainstream monitors (not sure if it can do 8K but if you're looking for that, definitely don't buy the first gen of any product). I would think this is likely a driver issue which Apple will hopefully address in short order via a patch or system update.

That would be great if it were just a driver issue

 

[Carlo_M]

It would be the ultimate irony (and an egg in their face) if the SoC could easily handle editing and rendering 4K video files, but couldn't drive a monitor to display it properly. Something tells me that's not going to end up being the case...

 

[Clinton McClure]

I have been reading complaints about compatibility with widescreen monitors.

That kills any chance of me buying this and I was so close to doing so.

It kind of makes sense. The 16" Intel MBP works beautifully for this purpose as it doesn't have integrated graphics.

I am not even sure the next Pro Mini refresh will be even better.

Ron are you talking about normal widescreen or ultra wide screen monitors?

 

[JohnRice]

Ron are you talking about normal widescreen or ultra wide screen monitors?

Ultra.

I believe his new monitor is a DQHD. 5120x1440.

 

[Carlo_M]

According to Apple's own page about the mini, it supports:

• One display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz connected via Thunderbolt and one display with up to 4K resolution at 60Hz connected via HDMI 2.0

Which is a tricky statement, simply because 6K can mean wildly different resolutions at different aspect ratios, such as:

Format	Aspect Ratio	Resolution
6K FF	1.90 : 1	6144 x 3240
6K 2:1	2 : 1	6144 x 3072
6K WS	2.37 : 1	6144 x 2592
6K HD	1.78 : 1	5760 x 3240
6K 3:2	1.50 : 1	5760 x 3840
6K 4:3	1.33 : 1	5760 x 4320
6K 6:5	1.20 : 1	3888 x 3240
6K 4:1	4 : 1	6144 x 1536
6K 8:1	8 : 1	6144 x 768

(table was copy/pasta'd and abridged from this source)

So if Apple is going by those various definitions of "6K" most of them seem to exceed the total pixel count of Ron's 5120x1440...but you'll notice none of those definitions is an exact match of that resolution. Which is why I am postulating that's less about horsepower (the ability to power that many pixels) and more to do with having the proper driver support to enable that resolution.

 

[Carlo_M]

Just saw another reason not to go with an M-Class Mac for some people. No native Windows support (no Bootcamp). If that’s a dealbreaker, don’t get your hopes up. Apple says Windows for M-Class is “totally up to Microsoft” according to Federighi. I don’t know the likelihood of MS putting programmer power towards creating a version of Windows which runs on Apple silicon.

Fortunately for me, my work currently only has one (albeit very important) piece of Windows only software. I’m leading a team to migrate from that to a browser based, cloud hosted system so once that’s done by fall 2021 I can say sayonara to Windows.

 

[DaveF]

Intel is dead man walking. No doubt Microsoft is working hard now, if they werent already, to get Windows on ARM at parity to on Intel. And that’s the path to translation / virtualization on Macs.

 

[Carlo_M]

I don’t know about the death of Intel just quite yet. Apple is still fourth in PC sales which means most of the top three mostly use Intel for the majority of their product lines. Very few of them are interested in (or capable of) creating their own SoC. And there’s still the brand recognition of Intel that AMD hasn’t been able to crack for “the masses”. Yes gamers know about Ryzen, etc. but for most people they still know Intel. And I’m sure at the business class level Intel is staying competitive with pricing because if you’re buying PCs for a hundred office workers you’re likely looking at the bottom line and not how many cores or cpu frequency. Office runs the same on all of them.

There’s still time for Intel to adapt and evolve. But they gotta get their act in gear.

 

[DaveF]

I don’t know about the death of Intel just quite yet. Apple is still fourth in PC sales which means most of the top three mostly use Intel for the majority of their product lines. Very few of them are interested in (or capable of) creating their own SoC. And there’s still the brand recognition of Intel that AMD hasn’t been able to crack for “the masses”. Yes gamers know about Ryzen, etc. but for most people they still know Intel. And I’m sure at the business class level Intel is staying competitive with pricing because if you’re buying PCs for a hundred office workers you’re likely looking at the bottom line and not how many cores or cpu frequency. Office runs the same on all of them.

There’s still time for Intel to adapt and evolve. But they gotta get their act in gear.

Ten to twenty years. But it’s done. x86 is dead, it just doesn’t know it yet.

 

[Carlo_M]

I agree x86 will go the way of the dodo. But Intel has plenty of infrastructure and capability to pivot to another architecture. They just need to pull their heads out of...

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Ron are you talking about normal widescreen or ultra wide screen monitors?

Super Ultra Wide

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The 2019 13" MBP could drive it but not at 5120x1440 @60Hz.

Very few people with widescreen monitors are reporting in, but the few owners of widescreen monitors are saying that they can display, but once you start scrolling the text becomes very jagged.

Here is one post on Reddit that I found relatable to this discussion. Note that unless I am reading it wrong, the individual is using a USB-C hookup. I would think it should be thunderbolt 3. This is just one of a small handful of reported monitor issues. Others were on YouTube and Mac forums.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Just found this discussion on UltraWide monitor support. Doesn't look good. Not sure there is a workaround. I have ScreenResX installed so I can play around with different resolutions but I am not certain I will find one I like

Why 5120x1440 Doesn't Work with Apple M1 - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com