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Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

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Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#171

Post by ben-schaaf »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #143
ksec wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Does the performance gap close if Intel starts selling similar on-package RAM to consumers? That assumes on-package RAM is the key to M1 / Apple's SoC performance. And that isn't the case.

It partially is. The M1 max comes with integrated hbm, which is way higher bandwidth than ddr4. Modern Intel/AMD processors are memory bottlenecked in multicore workloads (hence why 3d cache for Zen is a 15% improvement). The combination of hbm and on package memory means the M1 has much higher bandwidth and similar latency to anything else on the market (at the cost of not being scalable).

Do you have any source for Apple using HBM? Even the earliest version of HBM back in 2015 had 512GB/s at 4GB. It's probably just LPDDR5.

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#172

Post by ykl »

zbobet2012 wrote: post #146
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

>this is really interesting Sadly this is not really interesting, it's disingenuous. He benchmarked against a ten year old (03/06/2012) server CPU. My two year old intel laptop cpu (i7-9750H) also outperforms the xeon's he's comparing against by almost 40%. The M1 is a great chip, it's sad that this got published with a "server chip" comparison at all. A real server class CPU from the modern era, at a comparable pric…

Hello, author here! I'm aware that that the Xeon E5-2680 is ancient, which is why I also included comparisons with the Xeon W-3245 that is in the current 2019 Mac Pro, and with the Threadripper 3990X, which came out in February 2020.

Unfortunately I don't exactly have access to piles of fancy server chips sitting around, so I had to make do with just testing against what I have access to, and that's all I had access to. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#173

Post by bluecalm »

partiallypro wrote: post #55
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

Intel's Alder Lake benchmarks show that their new mobile processor is faster than the M1 Max. So, this domination doesn't seem to be a long term thing.

But did Intel use liquid nitrogen cooling to achieve this?

I am joking but just a bit. Intel has long history of dirty tricks when it comes to benchmarks - using liquid nitrogen cooling and not mentioning it, manipulating the compiler to generate slower code on competing CPUs, terms of service forbidding publication of benchmarks, fuzzy use (or not mentioning it at all) of TWP/energy usage.

What they say can only be used as an upper bound of how it actually is. The odds are is that it's much worse and with some strings attached as well.

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#174

Post by ksec »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #143
ksec wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Does the performance gap close if Intel starts selling similar on-package RAM to consumers? That assumes on-package RAM is the key to M1 / Apple's SoC performance. And that isn't the case.

It partially is. The M1 max comes with integrated hbm, which is way higher bandwidth than ddr4. Modern Intel/AMD processors are memory bottlenecked in multicore workloads (hence why 3d cache for Zen is a 15% improvement). The combination of hbm and on package memory means the M1 has much higher bandwidth and similar latency to anything else on the market (at the cost of not being scalable).

I really thought I stamp out the "Unified Memory" and "On Package Memory" being the reason why M1 is faster on HN.

>The M1 max comes with integrated hbm

It is not HBM, just a very wide LPDDR5.

>hence why 3d cache for Zen is a 15% improvement

Increasing Cache size has nothing to do with Bandwidth. It is the latency and cycle count that matters.

>Modern Intel/AMD processors are memory bottlenecked in multicore workloads

Depending on Workload. The whole reason why Apple has put those bandwidth in place was because of GPU, which are bandwidth sensitive. The M1 Pro has the same MT performance as M1 Max despite only have half the memory bandwidth.

You could have much faster memory on an Intel x86 system, and performance wouldn't even make that much different. Your whole CPU uArch needs to be designed take advantage of the additional bandwidth. Longer pipeline with better prefetch.

>and on package memory means the M1 has much higher bandwidth

Again. There are no relationship between on package memory and high memory bandwidth. You could have achieve the same with DDR5 with DIMM slot. At the expense of much higher energy usage.

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#175

Post by kergonath »

grp000 wrote: post #110
bonestamp2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When these chips hit the rackmount Mac Pro, the server competition will be very interesting. It's kind of a unique package for a server, which such a powerful GPU, but that has advantages for some compute types too of course.

Would be cool if they try to decouple the GPU and CPU for server units somehow.

From what we’ve seen, the M1 design is quite modular. I don’t see a reason why they could not use 4 or 6 high-performance CPU clusters and a low-core GPU for a server part of they wanted. No GPU at all might be impractical because a lot of things in the OS might have come to expect one.

Anyway, it’s academical because I don’t see them doing that. Expect maybe to power their own datacenters, but then we’d never hear about it.

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#176

Post by ksec »

ben-schaaf wrote: post #171
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It partially is. The M1 max comes with integrated hbm, which is way higher bandwidth than ddr4. Modern Intel/AMD processors are memory bottlenecked in multicore workloads (hence why 3d cache for Zen is a 15% improvement). The combination of hbm and on package memory means the M1 has much higher bandwidth and similar latency to anything else on the market (at the cost of not being scalable).

Do you have any source for Apple using HBM? Even the earliest version of HBM back in 2015 had 512GB/s at 4GB. It's probably just LPDDR5.

It is not HBM, just LPDDR5.

https://www.anandtech.com/print/17024/apple-m1-max-performan...

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#177

Post by ykl »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #32
pier25 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes, but the author is pretty intellectually dishonest when he says that his new MBP beat out a "somewhat old" xeon. That's a ten year old CPU.

Hi! Author here. I don't call the E5-2680s "somewhat old", I call them ancient, because they are... well.. ancient. I included them in the comparison because up until recently, I was still using an E5-2680 workstation. So really the point was that for ME personally, the M1 Max is a huge improvement over what I had previously. I don't really keep piles of the latest Xeons sitting around my house, so I had to make do with what I had. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

For what it's worth, I also threw in comparisons with the 2019 Mac Pro's Xeon W-3245 and the Threadripper 3990X, both of which might be described as "somewhat new".

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#178

Post by varjag »

nextaccountic wrote: post #112
justinator wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy that I can't get a bicycle chain for the next six months, but these chipsets are shipping?

> I can't get a bicycle chain for the next six months Why?

automotive sector scooping it all /s

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#179

Post by Dylan16807 »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #60
sydthrowaway wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finally some objectivity to stop the M1 love fest

And it will probably devour a ridiculous amount of power and generate a thermos of heat to be marginally overall faster. It also won’t have a comparable GPU. M1 Max still is the better experience and innovation.

If you don't require a laptop then an alder lake chip doesn't take anything close to a ridiculous amount of power, nor is it hard to cool.

Edit: I know this discussion is partly focused on laptops, but the overall comparison is including server chips so it's clearly not just about laptops. And 60 or 100 watts is child's play in even a tiny desktop.

Re: Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

#180

Post by Dylan16807 »

chris37879 wrote: post #163
bparrish0 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern heat pumps provide a lot more than 100% efficiency. I'd stick to the heating system unless those containers are doing something profitable (mining?)

Literally nothing provides 100% efficiency. You're conflating coefficient of performance with efficiency. They're not even close to the same thing, modern heat pumps reach their CoP because they don't actually generate heat, they simply move it around, which provides more heat indoors than if you had converted an equivalent amount of electricity directly into 100% heat. Thermodynamics would not take kindly to you hav…

Nobody said "thermodynamic efficiency". You're butting in for no good reason.

Coefficient of performance is a type of efficiency.

> modern heat pumps reach their CoP because they don't actually generate heat, they simply move it around

That's not even true! What a mess of a pedantic correction.

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