The New Apple M1 Chip
Hello Everyone
First and foremost, I am an Ubuntu user since 2006, and remain so. A couple of years ago, I took up the hobby of drone photography. I have a few drones in the Mavic series, and really do enjoy the hobby. As I continued to upgrade, the cameras got better and I am now also learning some of the more sophisticated video editing software. I had been using Shotcut with Ubuntu and it has been great. But now that I have a drone which shoots in 4K, I want a more complete video editor. I discovered DaVinci Resolve several months ago and tried to use it on my aging Ubuntu laptop, but it just wouldn't handle it. I needed a minimum i7 processor, 32GB memory and a video card with at least 6GB of VRAM. When I priced up what a rig like that would cost, I just could not afford it.
Then, on another forum someone suggested the new Apple Mini with an M1 chip (just introduced about a year ago.) This little computer could be purchased for less than the cost of a single high end video card. I was suspicious of all the claims about it capability, but after weeks of research, I took the plunge and bought one. It only has 8GB of RAM, but I have to tell you that all of the claims about the speed and power of this little computer are true. Not only does it run DaVinci Resolve fast and smoothly, but the hardware test results (Blackmagic Speed Test) reveal I can edit, colour grade and add special effects up 8K resolution. I am stunned by the speed and power.
I started imagining Ubuntu running on this machine, but I don't think it has been tried yet. The M1 chip is an ARM64, similar to the chips in iphones. It has 8 processing cores and 8 GPU cores, and 16 neural cores for machine learning (whatever that means, I have no idea.) I know that Ubuntu (and many other Linuxes) have been ported to ARM processors in the past, and I believe it is only a matter of time before the traditional x86 Intel and AMD processors become obsolete. When you can get this much power for lower cost, lower power needs and smaller chips, I believe this is the future.
I am certainly not an expert but I would encourage anyone needing a powerful computer for lower cost to check it out.
Bob
Bob
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I used to be very indecisive, but now I am not so sure.
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