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Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

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Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#11

Post by ant6n »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #4
dnautics wrote: post #2

> There’s really no way to understate what a colossal achievement Apple’s M1 processor is; compared with almost every modern x86-64 processor in its class On the other hand I'm sure there's more than a few chipheads out there who are saying "it's about time", there was a longstanding prediction that the arm architecture would overtake x86.

I thought the observation was always that instruction set was not such a big difference in high performance CPUs next to manufacturing technology which was by far the first order effect. It would be expected for a high performance ARM CPU to reach roughly the same performance in that case (AMD is 1 generation behind here, I think Intel is 2). Is there really "chipheads" who are predicting ARM ISA to buck this trend a…

Mmh, perhaps the fixed width instruction set makes ultra wide decoders easier.

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#12

Post by entee »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #4
dnautics wrote: post #2

> There’s really no way to understate what a colossal achievement Apple’s M1 processor is; compared with almost every modern x86-64 processor in its class On the other hand I'm sure there's more than a few chipheads out there who are saying "it's about time", there was a longstanding prediction that the arm architecture would overtake x86.

I thought the observation was always that instruction set was not such a big difference in high performance CPUs next to manufacturing technology which was by far the first order effect. It would be expected for a high performance ARM CPU to reach roughly the same performance in that case (AMD is 1 generation behind here, I think Intel is 2). Is there really "chipheads" who are predicting ARM ISA to buck this trend a…

Not a chiphead, but saw this in the article that might be a reason ARM is better for this kind of thing:

"The theory goes that arm64’s fixed instruction length and relatively simple instructions make implementing extremely wide decoding and execution far more practical for Apple, compared with what Intel and AMD have to do in order to decode x86-64’s variable length, often complex compound instructions."

Not sure it's true, not an expert. But it doesn't sound wrong!

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#13

Post by Naac »

pier25 wrote: post #7

Some of these images look incredibly real. Even knowing those are renders my brain refuses to believe these are not actual photographs. Also, these Xeons are really put to shame here.

They are from 2012. They are not "are getting kind of old", but are actually discontinued.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/64583/i...

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#14

Post by pier25 »

Naac wrote: post #13
pier25 wrote: post #7

Some of these images look incredibly real. Even knowing those are renders my brain refuses to believe these are not actual photographs. Also, these Xeons are really put to shame here.

They are from 2012. They are not "are getting kind of old", but are actually discontinued. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/64583/i...

Not the Intel Xeon W-3245 which is from 2019.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/193753/...

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#15

Post by dnautics »

ant6n wrote: post #11
throwawaylinux wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the observation was always that instruction set was not such a big difference in high performance CPUs next to manufacturing technology which was by far the first order effect. It would be expected for a high performance ARM CPU to reach roughly the same performance in that case (AMD is 1 generation behind here, I think Intel is 2). Is there really "chipheads" who are predicting ARM ISA to buck this trend a…

Mmh, perhaps the fixed width instruction set makes ultra wide decoders easier.

I am not a chiphead either (but I used to live with some)

I think easier decoders => shorter pipeline, less silicon footprint for decode, possibly more silicon for reordering logic, less dark silicon, etc.

To be fair the chipheads I lived with were gaga about VLIW, so there was certainly a bias there.

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#16

Post by throwawaylinux »

entee wrote: post #12
throwawaylinux wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the observation was always that instruction set was not such a big difference in high performance CPUs next to manufacturing technology which was by far the first order effect. It would be expected for a high performance ARM CPU to reach roughly the same performance in that case (AMD is 1 generation behind here, I think Intel is 2). Is there really "chipheads" who are predicting ARM ISA to buck this trend a…

Not a chiphead, but saw this in the article that might be a reason ARM is better for this kind of thing: "The theory goes that arm64’s fixed instruction length and relatively simple instructions make implementing extremely wide decoding and execution far more practical for Apple, compared with what Intel and AMD have to do in order to decode x86-64’s variable length, often complex compound instructions." Not sure it'…

The fixed width decoders have always been a commonly cited advantage of fixed width, and to some degree it must be true. But this is not a recent thing, the "common wisdom" about instruction format not mattering too much still very much applies here.

Pre-decode lengths or stop-bits and more recently micro-op caches have been techniques that x86 has used to mitigate this and improve front end widths, for example.

People like Jim Keller (who has actually worked and lead teams implementing these very processors at Apple, Intel, and AMD!) basically say as much (while acknowledging decode is a little harder, in the large scheme of things on modern large cores it's not such a big deal):

https://chipsandcheese.com/2021/07/13/arm-or-x86-isa-doesnt-...

Andy Glew, one of the architects for Intel's first out of order x86 core (P6) among other things, is another who has said similar.

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.arch/c/elke1FHfYr0/m/SwW9NT...

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#17

Post by soylentnewsorg »

MangoCoffee wrote: post #9

>in order to give the M1 Max some real competition, one has to skip laptop chips entirely and reach for not just high end desktop chips, but for server-class workstation hardware to really beat the M1 Max this is really interesting

and quite false. there are many laptop xeon CPUs. while costing more than the M1 Max, they beat the pants off it.

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#18

Post by tim-- »

pier25 wrote: post #14
Naac wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are from 2012. They are not "are getting kind of old", but are actually discontinued. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/64583/i...

Not the Intel Xeon W-3245 which is from 2019. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/193753/...

Still, the going price for a W-3245 is more than $2,000. That's just the CPU, no memory, motherboard or anything else. A 16" MacBook with 16GB of RAM is $2,499.

The MacBook comes with a free display, input devices and a UPS :)

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#19

Post by Thaxll »

I mean apple have it "easy", they control the hardware and the software, they don't need to to something that work with pci, old ram, thousands of different configs, different disk etc ...

They can do whatever they want with 0 compatibility or backward compatibility.

Why is the test not testing against some AMD CPU, CPU that cost $400, 5800x or 5900x for example.

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#20

Post by rpmisms »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #5
dnautics wrote: post #2

> There’s really no way to understate what a colossal achievement Apple’s M1 processor is; compared with almost every modern x86-64 processor in its class On the other hand I'm sure there's more than a few chipheads out there who are saying "it's about time", there was a longstanding prediction that the arm architecture would overtake x86.

> there was a longstanding prediction that the arm architecture would overtake x86. So now the wheel turns and someone will have to predict how long it takes before RISC-V overtakes ARM.

I'd be willing to bet Apple will catalyze that change as well.
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