Gaming Computer vs Mac

[Jac459]

Desktop: pc.
Laptop: mac.

Easy...

[2DaT]

Desktop: pc.
Laptop: mac.

Easy...

It would be if apple weren't so stingy with the RAM and storage. 32G Ram and 1Tb SSD is bare minimum these days and they want you to pay unreasonable extra for it. With most windows laptops you can buy extra. 16G extra RAM is 35$ and 1Tb SSD is 70$.

So with extra 100$ you can get upgrade you average laptop to a decent level. Apple on the other hand want you to pay like an extra 1000$ to get these specs and it's impossible to upgrade it any way. And these specs aren't anything exceptional - you can get by with lower RAM (16G is absolute minimum), but isn't amazing and you definitely need 1Tb of storage these days.

[Jac459]

It would be if apple weren't so stingy with the RAM and storage. 32G Ram and 1Tb SSD is bare minimum these days and they want you to pay unreasonable extra for it. With most windows laptops you can buy extra. 16G extra RAM is 35$ and 1Tb SSD is 70$.

So with extra 100$ you can get upgrade you average laptop to a decent level. Apple on the other hand want you to pay like an extra 1000$ to get these specs and it's impossible to upgrade it any way. And these specs aren't anything exceptional - you can get by with lower RAM (16G is absolute minimum), but isn't amazing and you definitely need 1Tb of storage these days.

Well I fully agree on the market practices. The way memory is making the price increase is just unreasonable. To me, the base config of a Mac mini m1 for example is excellent value for money, but if you start to upgrade, then the price become ridiculous, like +1000USD for 64 in ram, it is like robbing the clients.

That being said, coming from a very good Razer laptop, the move to apple silicon is like night and day, I don't have my legs burnt anymore, I don't have the fan getting crazy or getting blocked by stuffs, it just feels as it was not used. And in term of overall feel of power, even moving from an i7 i9750h with 32gb, 1tb nvme ssd to a MacBook Air M1 8gb/256gb was feeling like a very large upgrade in perf.
Now I am in an m2 pro and it is different worlds...

One point I do disagree with you though is the memory. I have 16gb, use a loooot of VSTs, loaded in different sandboxes by Bitwig, I have heavy plugins like the Reason Rack or Falcon and I feel confortable. There is no way I give 500USD more to apple for 16gb more...

[2DaT]

One point I do disagree with you though is the memory. I have 16gb, use a loooot of VSTs, loaded in different sandboxes by Bitwig, I have heavy plugins like the Reason Rack or Falcon and I feel confortable. There is no way I give 500USD more to apple for 16gb more...

Usually it's the heavy sample libraries that eat a lot of RAM. And they eat storage space too. It's not unheard of using 64Gb or even 128Gb. Luckily for those users, DDR4 ram is very reasonable these days.

[Jac459]

One point I do disagree with you though is the memory. I have 16gb, use a loooot of VSTs, loaded in different sandboxes by Bitwig, I have heavy plugins like the Reason Rack or Falcon and I feel confortable. There is no way I give 500USD more to apple for 16gb more...

Usually it's the heavy sample libraries that eat a lot of RAM. And they eat storage space too. It's not unheard of using 64Gb or even 128Gb. Luckily for those users, DDR4 ram is very reasonable these days.

I have a few large libraries like world suites 2 from UVI for Falcon which is 50+ GB, yet it is still ok in ram, but in general I think you are right.

My point is that right now, having an Apple Silicon for a laptop is a huge game changer in terms of thermal and battery life and to some extend power. But the minute a similar offer will exist on PC, I think I will go back to laptop PC. First I don't understand why my very expensive last gen MacBook Pro M2 Pro hasn't an Oled screen. We can say what we want, OLED is better. Period. 2nd, as you rightly pointed, I want to be able to choose my form factor AND my internal components exactly the way I want and not preselected by a company...

[fedexnman]

I'd love to go Mac again but once you add more Ram and SSD space to the base model it feels shady . Shady as in them totally ripping you off . I liked things better when you could change out the Ram and HDD yourself . Shame really , I don't remember them doing this before Steve Jobs passed away ?

[Jac459]

I'd love to go Mac again but once you add more Ram and SSD space to the base model it feels shady . Shady as in them totally ripping you off . I liked things better when you could change out the Ram and HDD yourself . Shame really , I don't remember them doing this before Steve Jobs passed away ?

To me apple has always been like that. Steve or not. I remember my first iPod, the remote was not included and the price was like... so expansive. Or buying a keyboard and wishing I could just buy the letter "E" because the full keyboard was unaffordable.

They have entry prices that are reasonable and kill you after.

The only reason I continue to use them for some stuffs is that as a hugely big company, some of their products are very good and more importantly, as shady they are, I am unfortunately not sure others are better...

So my philosophy is "Don't attach to any ecosystem, navigate depending on your needs only. Have 0 brand loyalty...".

[PAK]

Few would disagree Apple's RAM and SSD prices are awful. EG A base Mini M2 is $557 on Amazon US. But add 256GB to the SSD and it's $212 more! With present economic conditions you'd think surely they can't get away with that - and you'd be right. They've had to cut M2 production. Sales are poor, and that's why you're seeing regular discounts on the base models.

That said, whilst integrating the RAM on the CPU forces users to buy RAM at the time of purchase, it also means an M2 Max has a total of 400GB/s memory bandwidth. For comparison even the most expensive DDR5-6000 DIMM is ~71GB/s.

It's not quite as ideal as it looks as Apple Silicon has to share that bandwidth with the graphics etc (and Nvidia has more bandwidth on their graphics cards.. ), but a PC's system memory can't quite compete unless they copy. So I don't doubt we'll see AMD and Intel integrating system RAM onto certain CPU's at some point. A return to 80's computing where not all system ram runs at the same speed?..

[2DaT]

That said, whilst integrating the RAM on the CPU forces users to buy RAM at the time of purchase, it also means an M2 Max has a total of 400GB/s memory bandwidth. For comparison even the most expensive DDR5-6000 DIMM is ~71GB/s.

Should be closer to 90GB/s. GPU bandwidth aside, it would be incredibly hard to utilize it. Most of the workloads that can utilize it come from scientific computing and other very specific applications. For example, audio production is not bandwidth sensitive at all.

And I bet only the most expensive models have that 400Gb/s bandwidth, with starter models having only a fraction of it.

I mean, RAM is one thing, but why can't they have an expandable storage? 2TB M2 SSD is less than 100$ right now, and in many laptops you can plug it in and it will work just fine. Paying 200$+ for 256Gb extra doesn't feel nice.

[Jac459]

Should be closer to 90GB/s. GPU bandwidth aside, it would be incredibly hard to utilize it. Most of the workloads that can utilize it come from scientific computing and other very specific applications. For example, audio production is not bandwidth sensitive at all.

And I bet only the most expensive models have that 400Gb/s bandwidth, with starter models having only a fraction of it.

I mean, RAM is one thing, but why can't they have an expandable storage? 2TB M2 SSD is less than 100$ right now, and in many laptops you can plug it in and it will work just fine. Paying 200$+ for 256Gb extra doesn't feel nice.

You are right, an M2 pro is 200Gb/s, 400 is the max. I didn't see model of DDR5 at 90GB/s though, the models I saw were way bellow (like 50, 60).

Anyway, I am not an expert in Memory so you could be totally right.

One thing surprise me though, your assertion on memory bandwidth not being important for Audio processing. Knowing that our computers are highly multitasking and processing a shit ton of streams in parallel for music production, I wonder if you have any elements supporting this idea.

For the hard drive, I 1000% agree with you...

[simmo75]

Mac.
You close the thread now

[2DaT]

One thing surprise me though, your assertion on memory bandwidth not being important for Audio processing. Knowing that our computers are highly multitasking and processing a shit ton of streams in parallel for music production, I wonder if you have any elements supporting this idea.

Typical audio stream is 44100 samples/s. Most of them are 4 byte floats, which amounts to 0.16Mb/s, or 0.00016Gb/s. Of course there are things that are not as simple as simply reading a stream from a memory, but it is the general gist of it.

Audio in general is not bandwidth intensive. And since it's so small, it fits in cache better, reducing the bandwidth requirements even further.

[Jac459]

Audio in general is not bandwidth intensive. And since it's so small, it fits in cache better, reducing the bandwidth requirements even further.

That makes sense. Thanks.

[PAK]

For example, audio production is not bandwidth sensitive at all.

But it's not just purely bandwidth gained by going that route. Memory latency is also much reduced, and audio apps can make use of that? BTW Kontakt appears to see worthwhile gains going with DDR5 vs DDR4 too?? (I was a bit surprised by that.. )

Apple are only using regular LP DDR5 to achieve those numbers, so a lot of it is related to how they're integrating things. The integrated approach has other advantages too (EG no motherboard South Bridges possibly getting in the way etc).

And I bet only the most expensive models have that 400Gb/s bandwidth, with starter models having only a fraction of it.

It's Apple, so you already knew the answer. IIRC The base M2 config starts at 100GB/s, Pro chips get 200GB/s, and Max/Ultra 400GB/s.

I mean, RAM is one thing, but why can't they have an expandable storage?

There is Thunderbolt. But if you mean interally, then of course they can. They choose not to purely because that's how they make bigger margins and they're legally getting away with it unless and until right to repair laws stop them. Until then, if people are paying they'll keep doing it, at least on stuff mainly aimed at consumers..

Supposedly the Mac Pro will allow internal storage expansion. It was also planned to include some way to expand memory too, though it's said they had to abandon that. Whether that's the case, and whether it ships with M2 or M3 remains to be seen. I expect we might learn more at their WWD, since it's not like they're going to lose a whole lot of Xeon Mac sales in the meantime

[Jac459]

For example, audio production is not bandwidth sensitive at all.

But it's not just purely bandwidth gained by going that route. Memory latency is also much reduced, and audio apps can make use of that? BTW Kontakt appears to see worthwhile gains going with DDR5 vs DDR4 too?? (I was a bit surprised by that.. )

Apple are only using regular LP DDR5 to achieve those numbers, so a lot of it is related to how they're integrating things. The integrated approach has other advantages too (EG no motherboard South Bridges possibly getting in the way etc).

And I bet only the most expensive models have that 400Gb/s bandwidth, with starter models having only a fraction of it.

It's Apple, so you already knew the answer. IIRC The base M2 config starts at 100GB/s, Pro chips get 200GB/s, and Max/Ultra 400GB/s.

I mean, RAM is one thing, but why can't they have an expandable storage?

There is Thunderbolt. But if you mean interally, then of course they can. They choose not to purely because that's how they make bigger margins and they're legally getting away with it unless and until right to repair laws stop them. Until then, if people are paying they'll keep doing it, at least on stuff mainly aimed at consumers..

Supposedly the Mac Pro will allow internal storage expansion. It was also planned to include some way to expand memory too, though it's said they had to abandon that. Whether that's the case, and whether it ships with M2 or M3 remains to be seen. I expect we might learn more at their WWD, since it's not like they're going to lose a whole lot of Xeon Mac sales in the meantime

Anyway, as long as they have the only serious "RISC" architecture offer in the market, I don't have choice...