Um, so why would you EVER buy from Best Buy when you could just as easily go direct to say Dell, or HP or Lenovo, or Microsoft, or… The point is to either go in person to see it (showrooming) and pick it up today, or else skip the man in the middle. In this case Apple is no different than those others, except they will give you honest ship dates.
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Its more about using their distribution network. They also seem to offer faster shipping. The ones they have in stock say that they have ones with a french keyboard that can be delivered by Nov 25th. And just to clarify, I’m looking online to see what they have in stock both online and in store.
Whatever the reason, a lot of very smart ppl at Apple have decided that’s not how they’re going to do it.
The customising part seems a bit silly seeing as the RAM is built in to the SoC.
Here’s a thought though… what if all the machines actually have 16GB on the SoC die and the only different is a firmware that enables the extra 8GB. It would seem more cost effective to only manufacture one model of the M1 chip. Same for the 7 vs 8 GPU cores on the MacBook Air.
Nah, this is called binning. You build fuses into the chip, so you can fuse off bad parts. So they make them, test each unit (core) for proper functioning, and fuse off the failed unit(s). Then they can decide to throw away any with too many failures, but keep some of them for lower spec units. This helps them have a higher "success "rate so that less chips are considered failed.
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I was thinking that too, but what if there is far more demand for the 16GB model? Might still work for them activate/deactivate part of the chip, then they can truly “customise” it by applying the appropriate firmware (with whatever efuse to stop it getting undone).
Well the pic I saw implied the RAM is on a substrate that the CPU is also on. So its kinda like the AMD Xen CPUs where they’re assembled from smaller chips. I assume they’ve made a substrate that can have two RAM chips, and they populate one or both depending on the device under construction. Apple are pro’s at the logistics of built to order. They’ve always had multiple SKUs for RAM and SSD/HD and CPU (before M1.) They probably have some robot that slaps the parts together and verifies the machine before a human blesses it for QA.
It’s possible I guess with Apple’s supply chain. The RAM is on the same die I believe though so I think it would still be cheaper to make the one die design and disable parts (and I’m sure binning is used too).
The AMD “chiplets” are discrete units connected by Infinity Fabric so scaling up is easier - that’s a key advantage of the Zen architecture - it is very scalable.
I don’t think it’s a chip like you think it’s a chip. Look at the 3D relief in this picture from Apple:
and contrast it to an AMD XEN CPU, which uses chiplets:
The die is the middle part. Not sure what the blocks around the edges are. Anandtech did a bit of analysis on the die. Granted it was partly guess work…
EDIT: Okay, the black rectangles may well be the RAM modules, but still… on the same package…
EDIT 2: I’m really looking forward to the teardown to see what the chip looks like!
EDIT 3: Of course iFixIt already has a teardown.
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They also mentioned the binning. I think the RAM is not “on the SOC” so much as “close enough to be considered on it.” Unsure if that really makes much difference, but I do feel like they will be making multiple CPU SKU’s for the foreseeable future because 5nm has enough newness to have low enough yields that binning still makes sense.
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Maybe it is the binning thing, would explain why the 16GB models are taking longer to get out, maybe just a smaller supply of chips which passed all the tests. It’s killing me, mine is supposed to arrive Dec 4 - 14, I want it now wahhhhh!! 
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Yeah, not on the SoC, but on the same package. I thought the RAM was on the due for some reason.
Not going to buy one right now but, in early next year, I’ll probably buy an M1 based Mac Mini
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I just ordered a M1 Mac Mini to upgrade my Late 2012 i7 8GB RAM 1TB SSD Mac Mini. Got 2 TB SSD and 16GB RAM. Should be here Dec 23-Dec 30. Super excited!
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I considered a MacBook Air or Pro, but you can only drive one external display, so Mac Mini it was!
My delivery date got moved a week earlier to 10th - 17th December
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Today’s the day! Maxed out MacBook Pro 13 - I’m standing by the door waiting for the guy in the brown shorts to drop it off.
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Arg, so jealous! I check like three times a day to see if I got moved up! Can’t wait to hear what you think.
