Apple M2

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towforce
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Re: Apple M2

Post by towforce »

wickedpotus wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 7:42 pm
smatovic wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 8:18 am
Following this line of arguments, a 300 bucks budget laptop or a 50 bucks Rapsberry Pi would do the job?

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Srdja
This!!

Why pay upwards of 3-4000 USD for an "M1 Max" laptop if your use case is something you can do just as well on a cheap tablet, phone, or netbook for less money and with even greater battery stamina?

I like to have a laptop powerful enough to game, analyze, develop, build and test on (and maybe even do so NN training), that is open and flexible (for example to plug in an external GPU, add some extra RAM or bigger SSD for example). I don't see the attractive proposition of paying a premium for a slower less capable computer. This is not "Apple hate" this is just common sense in my view.

For most people, a Chromebook would be ideal: when work is done, flip back the keyboard and use it as a tablet computer! Touch screen an easy way to play chess. Long battery life when you go out. Usually cheaper to buy than a Windows laptop. Starts up quickly (unlike Windows after it has been used for a while), is relatively secure. For meetings you've got Zoom/Teams, just like any other computer.

We can talk about how you actually CAN do things people assume that you cannot (yes - there is video editing software - but if you do that professionally you'd probably choose a different computer). There are ways to run Windows/Linux programs, for example, but most of the time you just don't need to. Increasingly, software is becoming device agnostic (especially now browsers have WebAssembly (WASM), which allows you to run compiled code in the browser), so increasingly it makes sense to buy the cheap device which starts quickly, on which the keyboard can flip all the way around allowing you to use it as a tablet computer, and which has a long battery life.

Or you can...

1. Choose GeekBench/NPS scores

2. Swallow Microsoft's subtle propaganda that you need Windows. You don't. You're free to move on from perennial Windows sluggishness!
Human chess is partly about tactics and strategy, but mostly about memory
wickedpotus
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Re: Apple M2

Post by wickedpotus »

towforce wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 8:46 pm For most people, a Chromebook would be ideal: when work is done, flip back the keyboard and use it as a tablet computer! Touch screen an easy way to play chess. Long battery life when you go out. Usually cheaper to buy than a Windows laptop. Starts up quickly (unlike Windows after it has been used for a while), is relatively secure. For meetings you've got Zoom/Teams, just like any other computer.
2. Swallow Microsoft's subtle propaganda that you need Windows. You don't. You're free to move on from perennial Windows sluggishness!
I would say no... Linux/Windows laptops are far more flexible and useful devices than the more "terminal/browser centric" Chromebooks. Especially in terms of connectivity and adaptability...There are light slim flip-screen, touch-screen laptops today that pack powerful CPUs and great I/O, close to cromebook pricing... To me, Chromebooks and "macs" are both sort of broken-by-design by imposing artificial limitations to "help" the user by removing "options"....
towforce wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 8:46 pm We can talk about how you actually CAN do things people assume that you cannot (yes - there is video editing software - but if you do that professionally you'd probably choose a different computer). There are ways to run Windows/Linux programs, for example, but most of the time you just don't need to. Increasingly, software is becoming device agnostic (especially now browsers have WebAssembly (WASM), which allows you to run compiled code in the browser), so increasingly it makes sense to buy the cheap device which starts quickly, on which the keyboard can flip all the way around allowing you to use it as a tablet computer, and which has a long battery life.

Or you can...

1. Choose GeekBench/NPS scores

2. Swallow Microsoft's subtle propaganda that you need Windows. You don't. You're free to move on from perennial Windows sluggishness!
A good windows/Linux Laptop with discrete GPU and a good screen (maybe even top of the line screens like OLED) is more than enough to do PRO video editing.. The fastest rendering, editing and exports are done on the latest 12th Gen Intel CPUs with Nvidia graphics and raid ssds today.

The whole idea with wasm etc. is to make more efficient use of your device CPU+GPU.. So better, faster HW will be even more useful with these "run local" technologies.

If you like chess, and can afford it, why not buy the best computer for this use-case? One that can run CUDA based engines and run tensorflow stuff etc. that also excel in gaming and is on par or better at video & photo editing compared to more expensive alternatives that can also zip trough chess analyzis quicker than similiar or more expensive Macs.. Makes sense, at least to me..

If you just want a "terminal" to remote into a powerful Linux/Unix server/desktop, this could save some money, but then you will rely on constant connectivity, have network-lag-isssues and limit your use-cases for local-processing for your "terminal-only" device.
smatovic
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Re: Apple M2

Post by smatovic »

towforce wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 8:46 pm ...
wickedpotus wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 10:16 pm ...
I have the feeling the dumb terminal is coming back, I still use my Lenovo T61 from 2008 as internet terminal, it is sufficient for doing office, audio/video decoding, surfing the web, and to connect to other machines. If I need some beef, I prefer dedicated machines for different workloads, GPGPU development or graph databases is not a workload for any laptop IMO. I realize that a 1K to 2K $ MacBook might be a nice terminal to tinker with, but I prefer hardware I can fix by myself, and upgrade. And, SaaS, software as a service, many apps are moving into the cloud, first word-processing, now image and audio editing, and AFAIK Lichess offers already SF analyse mode?

--
Srdja
smatovic
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Re: Apple M2

Post by smatovic »

smatovic wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 7:31 am SaaS...and AFAIK Lichess offers already SF analyse mode?
Just looked up, LiChess runs SF ASMJS in a browser but offers precomputed? cloud analysis, chess.com has a premium cloud analyse mode, I am sure there are other offerings, also with Lc0, out there, for sure a market, or alike.

--
Srdja
smatovic
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Re: Apple M2

Post by smatovic »

dangi12012 wrote: Wed Jul 27, 2022 10:28 pm Are there any people here that have M1 and M2?

Any Stockfish NPS charts for the M2 chip?
There are M1 benches on Ipman Chess:

https://ipmanchess.yolasite.com/amd--in ... ckfish.php

and I assume you can inter/extrapolate SF NPS across M1 and M2 models by frequency (or power budget) of the power cores alone.

According to Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_M2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_M1

M2 has 25% more transistors, which probably went into the GPU cores and some cache, I doubt a 100 GB/s vs. 200 GB/s memory interface makes any meaningful difference for SF. M2 is build on TSMC N5+ process, hence the increased frequency.

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Srdja
wickedpotus
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Re: Apple M2

Post by wickedpotus »

smatovic wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 10:12 am hence the increased frequency.
Srdja
... and overheating which leads to throttling .. ...
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/macbook- ... ed-to-know

M1 on 8-core is beaten (on the list you refer to) by even 3-year-old 6-cores inexpensive 4600H CPUs. Even the über expensive M1 Max doesn't even reach the 4900, 4800, or 5800 mobile 8-core CPUs.. that are priced in M1 territory these days. The Intel alderlakes are faster than the current AMDs so the performance advantage over Apple there is even wider than those on the list. And this is even BEFORE you start comparing the GPU options with these CPUs with Apple's GPU that lags severely on gaming and deep-learning use-cases compared to Nvidia alternatives.
Magnum
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Re: Apple M2

Post by Magnum »

wickedpotus wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 11:41 am
smatovic wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 10:12 am hence the increased frequency.
Srdja
... and overheating which leads to throttling .. ...
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/macbook- ... ed-to-know

M1 on 8-core is beaten (on the list you refer to) by even 3-year-old 6-cores inexpensive 4600H CPUs. Even the über expensive M1 Max doesn't even reach the 4900, 4800, or 5800 mobile 8-core CPUs.. that are priced in M1 territory these days. The Intel alderlakes are faster than the current AMDs so the performance advantage over Apple there is even wider than those on the list. And this is even BEFORE you start comparing the GPU options with these CPUs with Apple's GPU that lags severely on gaming and deep-learning use-cases compared to Nvidia alternatives.
SIMD
Stockfish developers
https://stockfishchess.org/get-involved/
smatovic
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Re: Apple M2

Post by smatovic »

wickedpotus wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 11:41 am
smatovic wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 10:12 am hence the increased frequency.
Srdja
... and overheating which leads to throttling .. ...
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/macbook- ... ed-to-know

M1 on 8-core is beaten (on the list you refer to) by even 3-year-old 6-cores inexpensive 4600H CPUs. Even the über expensive M1 Max doesn't even reach the 4900, 4800, or 5800 mobile 8-core CPUs.. that are priced in M1 territory these days. The Intel alderlakes are faster than the current AMDs so the performance advantage over Apple there is even wider than those on the list. And this is even BEFORE you start comparing the GPU options with these CPUs with Apple's GPU that lags severely on gaming and deep-learning use-cases compared to Nvidia alternatives.
Yes, I know, but nps/dollar, max nps, OpenCL support, upgrade/fixabilty, Nvidia driver support, seem not to be that important metrics for some users in here, or alike, that being said, every computer running chess is a beautiful computer ;)

--
Srdja

PS: and Apple silicon is on TSMC 5nm, current AMD on 7nm/6nm, next gen AMD Zen4 on TSMC 5nm too? There you will find the performance/wattage...
wickedpotus
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Re: Apple M2

Post by wickedpotus »

smatovic wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 12:22 pm Yes, I know, but nps/dollar, max nps, OpenCL support, upgrade/fixabilty, Nvidia driver support, seem not to be that important metrics for some users in here, or alike, that being said, every computer running chess is a beautiful computer ;)
--
Srdja
PS: and Apple silicon is on TSMC 5nm, current AMD on 7nm/6nm, next gen AMD Zen4 on TSMC 5nm too? There you will find the performance/wattage...
True, true.. It's a free world. Marketing hype and "religion" is sometimes more important than reallity and facts.. I remember the eraly app days when there was an "I am rich" $999 app that did exactly nothing apart from showing a red-screen to show off with :-) That sort of sums up my view of ceritain fanvboys :-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich
wickedpotus
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Re: Apple M2

Post by wickedpotus »

Magnum wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 12:06 pm SIMD
Stockfish developers
https://stockfishchess.org/get-involved/
I do not see any relevance of your "SIMD" response, and link to SF contribution page.. Please explain.