
Macs Are Slower Than PCS. Here’s Why - tomcam
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=947op8yKJRY
======
ChrisRR
For those avoiding clickbait titles, this is about thermal throttling.

I was genuinely fascinated by the number of people that were surprised when
the i9s in Macbooks were thermally throttling. Additionally I ended up in a
bit of a reddit argument with someone who was adamant that the ipad pro can
maintain max GPU output without active cooling.

I guess no matter how much people understand tech, we still want the biggest
specs in our computers, even if we sometimes choose to overlook the actual
limiting factors.

~~~
commandlinefan
I just upgraded to a MacBook at work - I requested an i9, but they downgraded
me to an i7 because they’ve had too many bad experiences with the i9’s
overheating and having to be sent back.

~~~
ChrisRR
Just out of interest, why did you request the i9? I'm not having a dig at you,
I'm genuinely interested.

~~~
commandlinefan
I just picked the top-of-line everything - I wanted to keep myself as future-
proof as possible.

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cronin101
While this is entirely valid criticism, it glosses over the fact that the
experiments were heavily biased towards long running workloads typical for
media producers.

I'm not using my MBP to render 4k video or maxing all cores of the CPU for
sustained periods.

It seems clear to me that for the casual/developer segment, that has eaten up
the entire marketshare, having short bursts of peak performance on six cores
is perfectly fine for compiling/coding/browsing workloads.

You'll have a hard time convincing me that sustained 100% cpu tasks should be
run on portable hardware. Use remote desktop/SSH and a VM/Mac Pro if you need
to hit maximum TDP for long periods, RDP has great in-house latency and has
the added benefit of your lap not becoming lava.

There's a much better pattern for these tasks, and it isn't using hardware
designed to be portable. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

~~~
teh_klev
> long running workloads typical for media producers

But aren't MBP's pitched at these types of users as the tool for this type of
job? I mean, if you look at the blurb at [https://www.apple.com/macbook-
pro/](https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/) it's pretty much the selling point.

We may know better because we like to understand the underlying tech. But
pretty much every content and media producer I've run into over the years
isn't that interested. Pretty much in the same way that I'm really not that
interested in how my old field engineer company motor's mechanicals work as
long as it didn't break down 400 miles from home.

~~~
cronin101
I agree that this is shady marketing.

However, like I said, there are superior solutions available for these
content/media producers.

Am I supposed to feel bad for them not optimising a tool that is apparently
critical for their throughput and suffering mediocrity as a result?

There's an information asymmetry here and if they don't put the effort in to
squeeze extra performance out of their equipment then either:

A) Someone who is putting this minimal effort into actually choosing the best
tool for their job will usurp them with greater productivity.

B) Render times really aren't a bottleneck compared to the struggle of coming
up with content ideas/filming the actual content -- slightly longer running
tasks while people slack off and drink coffee are just fine.

I suspect it's actually the latter hence this is really a non-issue.

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jackpeterfletch
This is a little facetious.

Linus Media Group have a small render farm, and don't render on any ultrabook,
let alone Apples. Its not like they don't know there isn't really the
expectation to be able to do that a full speed.

I can completely understand why Apple have gone for the 'provide burst
capacity, but keep quiet for as long as possible' route. If you looking to
tilt absolutely max performance out of a piece of silicon you just don't buy
in that form factor. Linus misunderstands the market, not Apple.

This has been avoided in the phone because Apple are not constrained by what
Intel hand them in that space. Maybe things will change with an ARM MBP?

~~~
jackpeterfletch
They have to drop the obsession with with CPU temperature too.

The 'gamer science' scene is obsessed with it, but cooling a processor to 40
degrees for the most part is just a waste of energy, which in a battery
powered laptop, is important.

The reality is that these chips will run at 95 degrees for decades.

~~~
0815test
> The reality is that these chips will run at 95 degrees for decades.

That tends to be less and less true as semiconductor feature sizes decrease -
there are thermal runaway phenomena that can absolutely threaten long-term
endurance in CPUs, GPUs or other electronic components. At temperatures as
high as 95C, you'll also have to worry about endurance in the packaging, due
to e.g. thermal stress. This is a genuine issue and the gamers are quite right
in being concerned about it - in fact, their rather extensive experience with
running stuff in out-of-spec, "overclocked" conditions means that they can
speak with some authoritativeness here.

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johnklos
Macs are a subset of _OTHER_ PCs? Or are they saying that Macs are slower than
Sprint PCS?

