It’s a SoC and is certainly more power efficient, can fit into smaller form factors, etc. It’s definitely progress in the right direction, but is still to expensive to be a practical alternative to higher-end GPUs. What am I missing?
I guess you do understand what the M chip is, which makes your comparison even more surprising. First, comparing a SoC to a GPU is wildly unfair. Second, you are severely underselling exactly how much more energy efficient an M chip is versus a CPU/GPU combo. My PC laptop with an i7 and a 4070 built in will run for about 20 minutes, maybe 30, under a full workload, all the while being hot enough to fry an egg and noisier than a jet engine. Even then, the performance will be trash and get worse as the temps rise. My MBP M3 Max will run a DAW sessions my PC could never dream of, with multiple plugins, on battery, silent, no heat, for a couple of hours without even the hint of a stutter.
All of that said, when it comes to price, Apple’s gonna Apple.
PS: I’m typing this on my phone while the idle i7/4070 laptop is fanning (again, fully idle) because it runs so hot. I might need to start traveling for work again and, if I do, I might need to switch to a MacBook Air for work on the road unless I can find an ultra-slim, powerful yet efficient, high resolution screen, Linux supported laptop. Simply because of the chip. We need an equivalent on the PC side.
Yeah, looking forward to the day when SoCs fully replace discrete GPUs for all the reasons you stated, and also when there are better options than Apple devices in that space. Pretty sure there have never been many render farms built from Apple hardware, though, and Mac Pros have never been the most cost effective option for applications requiring a lot of compute. MacBooks and phones, on the other hand, are more of a sweet spot, and the M chips have done wonders there to your point.
It’s a SoC and is certainly more power efficient, can fit into smaller form factors, etc. It’s definitely progress in the right direction, but is still to expensive to be a practical alternative to higher-end GPUs. What am I missing?
I guess you do understand what the M chip is, which makes your comparison even more surprising. First, comparing a SoC to a GPU is wildly unfair. Second, you are severely underselling exactly how much more energy efficient an M chip is versus a CPU/GPU combo. My PC laptop with an i7 and a 4070 built in will run for about 20 minutes, maybe 30, under a full workload, all the while being hot enough to fry an egg and noisier than a jet engine. Even then, the performance will be trash and get worse as the temps rise. My MBP M3 Max will run a DAW sessions my PC could never dream of, with multiple plugins, on battery, silent, no heat, for a couple of hours without even the hint of a stutter.
All of that said, when it comes to price, Apple’s gonna Apple.
PS: I’m typing this on my phone while the idle i7/4070 laptop is fanning (again, fully idle) because it runs so hot. I might need to start traveling for work again and, if I do, I might need to switch to a MacBook Air for work on the road unless I can find an ultra-slim, powerful yet efficient, high resolution screen, Linux supported laptop. Simply because of the chip. We need an equivalent on the PC side.
Yeah, looking forward to the day when SoCs fully replace discrete GPUs for all the reasons you stated, and also when there are better options than Apple devices in that space. Pretty sure there have never been many render farms built from Apple hardware, though, and Mac Pros have never been the most cost effective option for applications requiring a lot of compute. MacBooks and phones, on the other hand, are more of a sweet spot, and the M chips have done wonders there to your point.