Steve Troughton-SmithJun 16, 2023
@Gte the Mac is 40 years old 😅 Apple has burned every bridge with game developers it can. You can no longer buy a Mac you can put a graphics card into. Apple's not on speaking terms with the top game engine company of the era. What tide is going to turn? I want to live in that world
Show threadVery Human RobotJun 17, 2023
@stroughtonsmith @Gte
As somebody who uses many systems frequently:
A Razer Blade with Linux is in many ways better than a MacBook at a similar price, but with discrete Nvidia graphics thrown in.
(And yes it can also run Windows, if you really have to.)
Show threadjsj
@StompyRobot Not arguing, genuinely curious, in what specific ways is the Blade better than a similarly priced MacBook?
Jun 17, 2023 at 12:56amWeb
Show threadVery Human RobotJun 17, 2023

@jsj
First, Nvidia GPU. This is really the big one.
Second, better right click touchpad.
Third, unlocked BIOS and OS without notarization requirements.
Fourth, ext4 is *much* faster than APFS.
Fifth, RGB lighting (if you're into that.)

Also, I like the key feel better, but that's personal.
At least now we have fkeys/escape back; the touchbar years were pain.

Macs have longer battery life if you idle, but running heavy loads, they're about the same. (Unreal Editor etc)

Show threadjsjJun 17, 2023

@StompyRobot Fair take. I am greatly saddened by the loss of third party GPU support but Macs haven’t really had that for a long time as it is. I’m curious to see if the unified memory architecture ends up being useful for GPU workloads but it’s still early days, it feels like.

I came very, very close to buying a Blade before buying an M2 MBP.

Show threadVery Human RobotJun 17, 2023

@jsj
There are some workloads where unified memory helps, mainly in machine learning, where unfortunately the M2 doesn't do well.
For most game/editor cases, the higher aggregate bandwidth of GPU RAM tends to win.

FWIW, my current laptop is M2 MBP and my workstation is Threadripper Pro. But that's not very portable :-)

Show threadkragilJun 17, 2023
@jsj @StompyRobot That is true if you totally disregard performance/watt. Intel&Nividia have good performance because they use a lot more power than an Apple SOC. I only ever bought PCs in my life, but I hate the energy wasting current PC architecture with a passion and I wished AMD would go the Apple route, but they seem to follow shitty Intel for all the wrong reasons. Mark my words: If they continue this path they are doomed. Even I will buy a studio. Integration is the future.
Show threadVery Human RobotJun 17, 2023

@kragil @jsj

That may very well be true!
But I need the performance today.

Tomorrow? Might be RISC V rather than ARM, we just don't know!

Apple has optimized browsing and video watching very very well, which are basically idle operations. They have great battery life for that.

Once you actually need the full out throughput, it looks different.

And if you need CUDA, Apple has nothing, which seems like a pretty glaring miss...

Show threadjsjJun 17, 2023

@StompyRobot @kragil This is ultimately why I decided a big desktop and a "big" macbook were the way to go. I've got my Ryzen+Nvidia setup for when I need the muscle, and I've got my Mac for pretty much everything else. Especially with the benefits of containerization, for my workflows it's pretty easy to move things around.

I do think with a few more years we may yet find Apple delivering Silicon capable of competing with CUDA-accelerated workflows, but they'd have to justify to everyone else why they'd bother when there's no server application for Metal.

Show threadVery Human RobotJun 17, 2023

@jsj @kragil

And then there's the cloud containers running on both Xeon and Graviton...

We're blessed with options!

Show threadaevaJun 17, 2023
@jsj @StompyRobot it can play games 🤪
Show threadjsjJun 17, 2023
@aeva That is valid in my book, ngl. If my Mac actually had the games I want to play I could probably get by with just the Mac and an external GPU enclosure. As it stands, I may as well have the big desktop, because in addition to the GPU workloads I have for work, I also like to play games!