Comment by swiftcoder
14 hours ago
I have to say, I really dislike the thing where the base M(n+1) is always in the market alongside M(n) Pro/Max. I appreciate the underlying chips are probably quite distinct, but from a naming standpoint its confusing as hell.
If the difference between M6 and M5 Pro or M5 Max is confusing to you, I strongly recommend you don't look at the names of literally any other CPU, GPU, or chipset that is being manufactured.
Yeah, but traditionally Apple doesn't pull that weird naming shit. Although I guess the mobile naming scheme has been headed there for a while.
All the people under you not understanding that you meant AMD repackaging 2-4 year old CPU cores as """new""" by giving them a current series name and bolting some extra features on.
The second iPhone was the 3g the third was the 3gs.
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they used to have 1 iphone, now there are 6 models with around 21 exterior versions total
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Tell me you're not old enough to remember the Performa and Centris lines without telling me you're not old enough to remember the Performa and Centris lines.
Are you kidding? When have they not? Apple II, II+, IIc, IIc Plus, IIe (also //e), IIe enhanced, IIGS. All sold concurrently.
They’ve always been this way.
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> I strongly recommend you don't look at the names of literally any other CPU, GPU, or chipset that is being manufactured.
And certainly don't look at MikroTik's product naming. ;)
In a world with the chips themselves named things like:
Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495 or Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6.
Your distaste seems misplaced.
> Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495 or Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6.
Don't even get me started on USB...
I'm guessing the Base and Pro chips come off the same wafer, and they get 5 Base chips (some defects) for every one Pro chip (very few defects). So they run the Base-model assembly line for six months and eventually they accumulate enough Pro chips to satisfy Pro-model demand.
I suspect it has depended a bit on whether a new process has lower output or higher defects. High defects, they'll focus on smaller baseline chips to get better yields. Low output, they'll launch pro models first because those are lower volume. Neither problem, they'll roll out updates pretty quickly across multiple product lines.
And that should change going forward with smaller chiplets being integrated in package, vs huge Ultra chips.
Pro chips come much later than base chips and vary significantly in ways other than number of cores (which can be up to double), such as doubled memory bandwidth and peripheral support (thunderbolt 5 instead of 4).
You mean as in binning? High defect rates for chips but they're burned to disable non-working parts and sell them as non-pro chips and accumulate the good ones ?
The Pro and Max chips have a different die than the base model. They don't bin down to the base model. Maybe Max bins down to Pro now that those are the same die, or Pro bins up to one half a Max?
As others have said, the pro is a different mask set.
But you are right, they do bin. You can get versions of the cpu with different core counts for this reason.
I’m only seeing this with the pro and max though.
If you look at the platform name and the kernel code you'l realize that this is not even remotely true. The base M chips are T8xxx which are (more or less) just iPad chips. The pro/max/ultra are T6xxx and are their own new thing, starting with M1 pro which was T6000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_silicon#Comparison_of_M-...
Curious, where's 5 come from? Is there a reason for the specific guess or is it just an example?
It was a made-up number.
+1
makes me want to wait another one I have an M1 Max and just set up playing with an M1 (non-max) and realized it can't drive 3 displays. I recall getting Max just for this, but generally, makes me think of non-Max as a non-pro after all.
And having what's presumably the latest CPU but with potentially worse features than the last generation combined with increased prices from RAM is a deal breaker so I'll guess I'll push my M1 for another year.
It can drive 3 displays using a DisplayLink dock/adapter.
Whenever I do this, I enter into a perpetual one-more-year wait loop.
When I finally cave in and buy something after 5 years I’m very momentarily sad for not perfectly timing the release window, then I realize I keep hardware long enough a half year barely matters.
And I can never remember whether Pro is better than Max or vice-versa. It’s an apples/oranges naming scheme.
Regular < Pro < Max < Ultra
Just Apple thing, Maximum does not mean Maximum.
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It's also kinda sad that there's no clear-cut best chip, e.g. the M6 outperforms the M5 Pro in some ways (singlethreaded performance, maybe NPU and stuff) but then the M5 Pro also outperforms the M6 in some ways (multithreading, graphics). This was even worse when the Mac Studio was stuck on M3 Ultra for a while when the M5 Max was out. The M5 Max was simply better at most things and it was ironic that the fastest computer you could buy was briefly a laptop.
How could it possibly be otherwise? Single core performance goes up every year, but not enough that this year’s 12-core CPU beats last year’s 18-core CPU at multithreaded benchmarks.
This is “sad”?!? First world problems.
It's also not exclusive to Apple; the normal product cadence from Intel and AMD usually has the large workstation and server chips falling behind the consumer chips in peak single-core performance for part of the product cycle. Some market segments just don't sustain annual updates very well, and it's always easier to get a smaller chip out the door first before a larger chip.
It's way better than the naming scehme of Ryzen and Intel Core i series.
Threadripper’s model numbers where briefly their msrp.
Latest vs. greatest. Buyers who’ll pay for performance can deal with that discomfort and be squeezed for buying the best, but those who need an extra push to buy Apple might be sold on the idea of the latest.
bigger number = more megahertz
Put another way, it is a peculiar naming regime when M(n-[2-4]) Pro/Max/Ultra is superior to M(n). This is very visible right now because of the demand for running local AI on Macs.
I get you, but I suspect it reflects reality. The M-with-adjective chips are M(n) chips with more cores and cache, it stands to reason that it takes real wall time for TSMC to start cranking them out with acceptable defect rates.
So Apple can either toss the early production in inventory while the whole process catches up, or they can do what they do. Better for both the company and the consumer that they do the latter.
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