Re: Using the right tools
The fundamental design of the Apple Arm is that it's a monolithic system-on-chip.
That's the scalability compromise. It's all in a single package - CPU, GPU and RAM.
That means two and a half things:
The TDP of the entire system is limited to that which can be dissipated within a single package. So it cannot ever be as fast as a system where these components are physically separated, because it cannot dissipate the heat.
It cannot ever be upgraded. The RAM and GPU are fixed at SoC manufacture, and thus the only options possible are the ones the chip manufacturer chooses to supply. If your workload requires more RAM or a better GPU, tough. Can't buy one. (They might be able to reintroduce external GPU over USB-4, but never RAM.)
No 32bit software support. At all.
(The first two of these are specific choices by Apple. You could make a SoC with x86-64 cores or a discrete system with Arm cores)
None of these really matter for a cheap (to build) commodity consumer grade laptop, but they do elsewhere.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
