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points by swiftcoder 2 days ago | 0 comments

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.

[–] Whitespace 2 days ago

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.

[–] swiftcoder 2 days ago

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.

[–] jorvi 2 days ago

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.

[–] noosphr 2 days ago

The second iPhone was the 3g the third was the 3gs.

[–] sib 2 days ago

The second one was the first iPhone with 3G networking (which had broadly been considered a required feature for smartphones when the original iPhone was introduced without it.)

I won't try to defend the 3Gs ;)

[–] swiftcoder 1 day ago

At least the N, Ns naming scheme referred to straight-forward (albeit minor) upgrades, and were released a year apart...

[–] Cyph0n 2 days ago

Not to mention X and Xs.

[–] gleenn 2 days ago

And the fact that they skipped 9 and will likely skip iPhone 19 as well

[–] kijin 2 days ago

Microsoft skipped Window 9 too.

Samsung skipped an entire range of numbers from Galaxy S 11 to 19.

Looks like tech companies don't like 9...

[–] tiagod 2 days ago

Supposedly Microsoft skipped 9 because of a lot of hardcoded checks for windows 95 and 98 that checked the first digit

[–] tedd4u 2 days ago

And the iPhone XR! All part of the twelfth-gen models. Of course the subsequent thirteenth-gen models were just called "iPhone 11" in a return to sanity.

[–] mahboi 1 day ago

I still don't remember what X vs XR vs XS meant. Of course I can look it up, but that's not the point.

[–] usern20260720 2 days ago

they used to have 1 iphone, now there are 6 models with around 21 exterior versions total

[–] y1n0 2 days ago

And you think 1 is better.

[–] chrisandchris 2 days ago

Not better - but Apple in early days was easy: Choose Air if you don't nedd much. Choose MacBook if you need a little but more and choose Pro if you need max power. That's one of the reasons why I bought an Apple years ago.

Compare that with the regilar lineup of other manufacturers: Cryptic model names which are uncomparable and models that are so similar that they could be equivalent.

So, no, 1 is not better but I don't care (as customer) about variety.

[–] Forgeties79 1 day ago

Well that was sort of the case. You had different years of each model to consider as well, which isn’t all that different from the M/Max/Pro thing we’re discussing here. They didn’t refresh all products the same year.

[–] swiftcoder 1 day ago

> And you think 1 is better.

I think the Apple experience was better when they focused on delivering a single SKU of each product line, yes. Less decisions as to what to buy, greater focus on making that one SKU stand out.

[–] usern20260720 2 days ago

I think it's simpler

[–] y1n0 2 days ago

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.

[–] duskwuff 2 days ago

Most of those models were not sold concurrently. The Apple II, II+, and IIe each replaced the previous model; the same was true of the IIc and IIc Plus. "//e" was an alternate textual rendering of IIe, not a separate model.

The most Apple II models that were sold concurrently were the IIe Platinum, IIc Plus, and IIgs. (And this was around 1990, at which point there were far more models of Macintosh computers on the market.)

[–] y1n0 2 days ago

The 2 and 2+ were concurrent.

The 2e, 2e enhanced, 2c, 2c+ and 2gs were concurrent.

I didn’t bother with Mac because I got tired of writing all the things.

[–] efitz 2 days ago

//e was a separate model from the ][+

64kb RAM + 80col card vs 48kb/40col

[–] jonaustin 2 days ago

Bad example, but very true with the Mac under sculley. When Jobs came back that was one of the things he greatly simplified

[–] hoistbypetard 2 days ago

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.

[–] traceroute66 2 days ago

> 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. ;)

[–] GeekyBear 2 days ago

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.

[–] binsquare 1 day ago

They're all bad, some are worse

We should have enough distaste for them all

[–] GeekyBear 1 day ago

A name like M5 Pro denotes the generation and the number of cores.

What does a name like Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 even mean?

[–] bigyabai 1 day ago

You can just Google it. It's not a complex answer:

- Snapdragon 8 is the highest-end mobile SOC line, as opposed to midrange Snapdragon 7 and low-end Snapdragon 4.

- Elite means that the CPU core is Snapdragon Oryon, and not Arm Cortex off-the-shelf designs.

- Extreme is a trim/upgrade package that gives the GPU more power and performance headroom.

- Gen 6 tells you the generation of chip from that line.

You should refer to prior discussions on this topic if you're genuinely confused, or somehow think that Apple has a superior taxonomy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50116504

[–] znpy 2 days ago

> Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495 or Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6.

Don't even get me started on USB...

[–] StilesCrisis 2 days ago

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.

[–] dmitrygr 2 days ago

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-...

[–] simonh 2 days ago

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).

[–] whizzter 2 days ago

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 ?

[–] LoganDark 2 days ago

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?

[–] LoganDark 2 days ago

Curious, where's 5 come from? Is there a reason for the specific guess or is it just an example?

[–] StilesCrisis 2 days ago

It was a made-up number.

[–] dwaite 2 days ago

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.

[–] y1n0 2 days ago

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.

[–] random3 2 days ago

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.

[–] Aurornis 2 days ago

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.

[–] CharlieDigital 2 days ago

It can drive 3 displays using a DisplayLink dock/adapter.

[–] TMWNN 2 days ago

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.

[–] porphyra 2 days ago

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.

[–] shwaj 2 days ago

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.

[–] wtallis 2 days ago

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.

[–] aqme28 2 days ago

And I can never remember whether Pro is better than Max or vice-versa. It’s an apples/oranges naming scheme.

[–] raffraffraff 2 days ago

Regular < Pro < Max < Ultra

[–] mrheosuper 2 days ago

Just Apple thing, Maximum does not mean Maximum.

[–] npunt 2 days ago

I don't think Apple has ever officially said Max = Maximum. Could be someone's name :) The bigger confusion to me is it's pronounced Macs!

[–] swiftcoder 23 hours ago

> The bigger confusion to me is it's pronounced Macs!

Are "Max" and "Macs" pronounced differently in your dialect? I don't think there are in my dialect

[–] samatman 2 days ago

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.

[–] goodluckchuck 2 days ago

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.

[–] 2III7 2 days ago

It's way better than the naming scehme of Ryzen and Intel Core i series.

[–] trnkgkekwkng 2 days ago

Threadripper’s model numbers where briefly their msrp.

[–] senordevnyc 1 day ago

This sounds exactly like the total confusion of people looking at Luna 6, Terra 6.1, and Sol 6.1.

I genuinely do not understand what is "confusing" about this. Like, at all. Annoying maybe? But what is confusing?

[–] swiftcoder 23 hours ago

> But what is confusing?

"confusing" here does not mean literally "I am confused". I am using it as in "confused messaging" - a term of art for when a marketing strategy doesn't clearly convey the intended message to its audience.

[–] tjwebbnorfolk 2 days ago

bigger number = more megahertz