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M1X in rumored 2021 16" MacBook Pro - early benchmarks


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CPU Monkey - Tests Based on a Pre-Sample

 

"The M1X will boost the M1"s architecture in all the right places with 12 CPU cores (8 high-performance, 4 performance-efficient) and double the GPU core count to 16 GPU cores with 256 execution units... Compared to Intel silicon, the Apple M1X (14,450 points) ranks just 548 points short of the Intel Core i9-7900X (14,998 points) in the Cinebench R23 multi-core test. It also smokes the Core i9-9880H chip (8311 points) humming (quite hotly, may I add) in the current 16-inch MacBook Pro... Apple supposedly has 16-core and 32-core variants in development for its higher-end machines. What we"re seeing here is a mere stopgap until Apple silicon enters truly 'ludicrous' mode. For most music producers, however, I think the incoming performance increases are a much less significant reason to wait out on switching to an Apple silicon Mac in the near future. The more pressing question is whether the computer can run all your production software smoothly and reliably. I"d rather wait for the developers to catch up with the new hardware before going Apple silicon."

 

--- https://www.gearnews.com/apple-m1x-chip-with-12-cpu-cores-and-16-gpu-cores-gets-wild-benchmark-results/

Yamaha CP88, Casio PX-560

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:laugh: True to the extent that I, and I"m guessing you, continue to value the musical ideas, craftsmanship, and live performance over the tools used to make them. But quality or goodness is in the ear of the beholder. One person"s crap is another"s gold.

 

That said, developers keep coming up with such great instruments and tools for us and are often only held back by resources - can their creation run on the available hardware. Advancements in music tech is always exciting, no? No grand piano, B3 or Fairlight or Omnisphere without advancements in tech. Maybe not. It always fascinates me. :)

Yamaha CP88, Casio PX-560

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I kid...somewhat...

 

I'm always curious about tech advances but with music it seems that a lot is geared towards soft & hardware that substitutes for musicianship (or what I think of as musicianship, anyway). Pretty soon AI-generated music will dominate and cut everybody out of the picture â even the content "creators" still getting mailbox money. Of course there will always be bar bands playing Smoke On the Water and Celebration for $50/person plus free beer. Just think of the pristine synth sounds they'll unleash on the attentive crowds with their M10X-powered Mac wrist computers!

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[

"power computing"

 

IDK, I have PowerPC...

 

Power Macintosh 5500/250

 

130014906-1800x1135-1000000000-CENTER-FFFFFF.jpg

 

iMac G3

151475558-930651461003618-6632326056070412440-o.jpg

 

(iBook G4 in the corner)

IMG-4882.jpg

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

Kurzweil: PC3-76, PC4 (88) | Hammond: SK Pro 73 | Korg: Triton LE 76, N1R, X5DR | Emu: Proteus/1 | Casio: CT-370 | Novation: Launchkey 37 MK3 | Technics: WSA1R

Former: Emu Proformance Plus & Mo'Phatt, Korg Krome 61, Roland Fantom XR & JV-1010, Yamaha MX61, Behringer CAT

Assorted electric & acoustic guitars and electric basses | Roland TD-17 KVX | Alesis SamplePad Pro | Assorted organs, accordions, other instruments

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Everything I've seen so far has pointed toward my switching to an Apple Silicon Mac as my next upgrade. However, I am in fact making music just fine with my Intel Macs and believe that I will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, so I am waiting... especially since the more reliable prognosticators say that the new M1X MacBook Pro line coming this spring will have a bunch of user-facing upgrades that I'd love to take advantage of.

 

If indications are correct, Apple is gradually and thoughtfully erasing all the truly horrible shit that Jony Ive's team of skinny-jeans designer yahoos did to Apple's laptop line starting in about 2016... those disgusting butterfly-switch keyboards are already gone and the new ones are as good or better than the original beloved scissor-switch keyboards, and now we have to hope that they'll give back MagSafe power connections, real function keys, and I/O other than a pitiful few USB-C ports.

Dr. Mike Metlay (PhD in nuclear physics, golly gosh) :D

Musician, Author, Editor, Educator, Impresario, Online Radio Guy, Cut-Rate Polymath, and Kindly Pedant

Editor-in-Chief, Bjooks ~ Author of SYNTH GEMS 1

 

clicky!:  more about me ~ my radio station (and my fam) ~ my local tribe ~ my day job ~ my bookmy music

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and now we have to hope that they'll give back MagSafe power connections, real function keys, and I/O other than a pitiful few USB-C ports.

 

Mike, i am one of those that respectfully disagree with this perspective.

 

Going back to proprietary charging technology ? Today i do charge my Macbook on three different places, and only one of them use a Apple charger; remember when people bought Apple Display only because of the charging ?

There are magsafe-like solutions for usb C today.

 

About I/O, i agree with "pituful few"? But today i usb-c to HDMI cable cost less than an HDMI to HDMI cable. I largely prefer having a multi-purpose I/O connector instead of an HDMI (or Ethernet or anything else) connector that i will not use; give me six of them and i'll be happy.

 

There is a notable exception: the SD card slot: that is something that almost be definition is needed in a mobility situation.

 

Maurizio

 

PS: i also love my butterfly keyboard, but that's just me :->

Nord Wave 2, Nord Electro 6D 61,, Rameau upright,  Hammond Pro44H Melodica.

Too many Arturia, NI and AAS plugins

http://www.barbogio.org/

 

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Everything I've seen so far has pointed toward my switching to an Apple Silicon Mac as my next upgrade. However, I am in fact making music just fine with my Intel Macs and believe that I will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, so I am waiting... especially since the more reliable prognosticators say that the new M1X MacBook Pro line coming this spring will have a bunch of user-facing upgrades that I'd love to take advantage of.

 

If indications are correct, Apple is gradually and thoughtfully erasing all the truly horrible shit that Jony Ive's team of skinny-jeans designer yahoos did to Apple's laptop line starting in about 2016... those disgusting butterfly-switch keyboards are already gone and the new ones are as good or better than the original beloved scissor-switch keyboards, and now we have to hope that they'll give back MagSafe power connections, real function keys, and I/O other than a pitiful few USB-C ports.

 

 

I've got a 2016 model, given to my wife as a gift (she helped a friend with a real estate deal, and they being Chinese prefer gifts to money!). I couldn't agree more--it is an ergonomic nightmare, and has several keys that don't even work properly. It is quite literally the only laptop I've ever used where I couldn't type a paragraph on, since my hands would bump the huge trackpad and cause the mouse to jump. That said, I inherited it from her and with an external mouse and keyboard it has been great. While I dislike the dongle mess that usb-c creates, I do look forward to a time when everything has that connection, it's far better than old usb (try it, turn upside down doesn't work, turn back over and it works).

 

My impression is that mag-safe would just be an option. You will also be able to charge with usb-c like today, but the mag-safe will be faster and of course has the safety feature that many want.

 

My wife now wants a laptop instead of always being tied to her imac, and I saw that the only larger macbook pros offered were intel, so I recommended she wait. Does she NEED a macbook pro for what she does? NO! But she WANTS one so there's that! The main issue with current models is size.

 

For myself, that 2016 is going strong but eventually I'll upgrade. Can't decide if another laptop or a mini makes more sense. Right now the mbp stays closed and everything is done on a 32" 2k monitor.

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About I/O, i agree with "pituful few"?

 

 

Without any intention of flaming, or being polemic, i thought that making some kind of reality check on the I/O limitations on current models, based my personal experience (YMMV), could be useful to the discussion.

It is strictly a personal point of view, based on a study of my personal experience, that is so biased by my technical habits and constraints (in particular, living in a non Mac professional context).

 

 

In the last 10 years, i got three Mac laptops: first, a 13" Mac Book Pro 2011, then a 2015 12" MacBook, and now a 2019 Mac Book Pro.

 

Up to the last one, my music machine was a 2009 Mac Pro; the 12" Macbook was a great travel machine, light as an iPad, to throw in the bag and forget, taking metro, trains and planes; it had strong i/o limitations, and that was fine with respect to its purpose, so let leave this one aside.

 

 

The Mac Book Pro 2011 was my last pre USB-C machine, and i used it professionally, software development, office work and so on.

 

It provided the following I/O:

 

MagSafe power port

Gigabit Ethernet port

FireWire 800 port (up to 800 Mbps)

Two USB 2.0 ports (up to 480 Mbps)

Thunderbolt port (up to 10 Gbps)

Audio in/out

SDXC card slot

 

I cannot answer to the general question about was it better than the current 4 USB-C port, but i can answer for myself, for the use i had at the time:

 

0) MagSafe port: of course, i used it as everybody. The proprietary connection forced me to pay the full price for a second power adapter to keep in the office (ok, at that time 'proprietaty power adapter' was a natural concept). I think i was the one that suffered more of the occasional accidental disconnections of the cable than gained from the additional security. So, i never liked it. But that is just me, i understand there are different opinions around.

 

1) Gigaport Ethernet Port: used, but very rarely: in practice Wifi was enough, and in the office anyway i could not connect to the house network. In practice, i used it exclusively to do software updates, that were really slow without a cabled network. So, important, but far from daily use.nToday, cabled network for me is even less important, the new Wifi is as fast as the cable; there is one important exception, when i use my Mac Pro as a VEPro slave.

 

2) Firewire: never, ever used. It was already a kind of legacy port then, surely needed for people having that kind of equipement. But it did not made a lot of sense to invest in Fireware hardware already, considering also the fact i worked in a Linux/Windows house. Actually, i have a 2Tb firewire hard disk still running connected to a 2011 Mac Mini; i was forced to buy a fundamentally obsolete piece of hardware because of the I/O limitations of the Mac Mini, that have only one Thunderbolt 1 port, where an other disk is connected. Note than when i talk about being obsolete i do not reference the technical ability of the technology, that was great, but about its market adoption.

 

3) Two USB2: always in use, external HD or USB sticks, or iPhone or iPad, or others. Too few, actually. I had a USB Hub to use when i needed more.

 

4) Thunderbolt/Mini displayport: used to connect video projectors and external monitors; always with a *dongle*.

 

5) SDXC card: never used, i prefer usually to connect my photo camera in USB. But again, that is just me. I know that this *is* a need in mobility.

 

So, was my I/O situation better at the time ? Absolutely not. I had three ports that either never or rarely used, and just two USB ports; i already used dongles and hubs, and i already had a cable/dongle/hub compartment in my bag.

 

No expansion possibilities existed other that the Apple Cinema Display, that was a very fine product, but horribly expensive (my wife had it) : thunderbolt docks came out with thunderbolt 2, and they were still very expensive at the time.

By the way, docks are not something that was invented for USB-C/Thunderbolt, they existed before in a proprietary and expensive form for Windows laptops, and they were missing in the Mac landscape.

 

So, i was essentially stuck to the I/O limitations the machine had.

 

I largely prefer having four general purpose ports, that i can use as display or ethernet ports when i need them, and as USB in the other cases. I am happy about the large choice of accessorie and docks i have, that i did not had with the 2011 laptop. The fact that they are non proprietary and not model specific allow me to the use a USB-C dock i bought in 2015 for the MacBook with the Mac Book Pro, and use it a second charger and Ethernet connection in one of the place i use the laptop. I am happy i can use a multi port travel charger to charge my Mac when i am travelling, and to be able to charge the family iPhones/iPad with the laptop charger if needed. Nothing that i could do before.

 

There are also a number of possibilities that i am not currently using, as the ability to connect multiple monitors, or to connect an external GPU or external PCI cards (even if with a number of limitations).

 

So, no, i wound't say by any means that my 2019 Mac Book Pro 13" is limited in I/O with respect to my good old 2011 MacBookPro, even if you consider the evolutions of the technical world (at that time, needs were probably less complex than today); on the contrary, for my personal use/experience it is far better.

 

Of course, i would be happy if they raised the number of ports to 6, instead of 4. On the contrary, i would be very frustrated if they instead add a HDMI port that i would use once or twice a year instead.

And i would be *really* upset if they remove USB-C ports to make room for dedicated ports as HDMI or MagSafe.

 

About MagSafe, i have a doubt: in the current Apple terminology, MagSafe refer to something completely different than the original one, wireless charging for iPhone. I would be interesting to understand if the rumours make reference to this new meaning.

 

Again, no polemic intentions, consider this just as a single data point. Your experience may be very different.

 

Maurizio

Nord Wave 2, Nord Electro 6D 61,, Rameau upright,  Hammond Pro44H Melodica.

Too many Arturia, NI and AAS plugins

http://www.barbogio.org/

 

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Fun fact brought to mind by the cartoon: Power Computing was either the first or one of the first companies led by Victor Wong, the same guy who did the Open Labs NeKo series of PC-based synth workstations in the 2000s.

Stephen Fortner

Principal, Fortner Media

Former Editor in Chief, Keyboard Magazine

Digital Piano Consultant, Piano Buyer Magazine

 

Industry affiliations: Antares, Arturia, Giles Communications, MS Media, Polyverse

 

 

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