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Apple M1 Ultra

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Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#131

Post by paulpan »

xiphias2 wrote: post #16

Didn't AMD do something similar with putting 2 CPU chips together with cache in-between? What's the difference here in packaging technology? (maybe there is no shared cache here)

I think you're referring to AMD's 3D V-Cache, which is already out in their Epyc "Milan X" lineup and forthcoming Ryzen 5800X3D. https://www.amd.com/en/campaigns/3d-v-cache

Whereas AMD's solution is focused on increasing the cache size (hence the 3D stacking), Apple here seems to be connecting the 2 M1 Max chips more tightly. It's actually more reminiscent of AMD's Infinity Fabric interconnect architecture. https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/infinity_fabric

The interesting part for this M1 Ultra is that Apple opted to connect 2 existing chips, rather than design a new one altogether. Very likely the reason is cost - this M1 Ultra will be a low volume part, as will be future iterations of it. The other approach would've been to design a motherboard that sockets 2 chips, which seems would've been cheaper/faster than this - albeit at expense of performance. But they've designed a new "socket" anyway due to this new chip's much bigger footprint.

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#132

Post by fastball »

pjmlp wrote: post #23
teilo wrote: post #10

And overnight, Intel's Ice Lake is again way behind.

80% of the desktop market and 100% of cloud deployments won't care.

I dunno, I think cloud is starting to think more and more about power consumption of the chips used, where Apple Silicon blows the competition out of the water.

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#133

Post by zamadatix »

dljsjr wrote: post #114
willcipriano wrote: post #87

Is it actually more powerful than a top of the line threadripper[0] or is that not a "personal computer" CPU by this definition? I feel like 64 cores would beat 20 on some workloads even if the 20 were way faster in single core performance. [0] https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-threadripper-3...

Apple's ARM chips can process a metric ton of ops per cycle due to the architecture of the chip: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25257932

But the answer to the question is still "no".

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#134

Post by yuuko11 »

pphysch wrote: post #116

> This enables M1 Ultra to behave and be recognized by software as one chip, so developers don’t need to rewrite code to take advantage of its performance. There’s never been anything like it. Since when did the average developer care about how many sockets a mobo has...? Surely you still have to carefully pin processes and reason about memory access patterns if you want maximum performance.

Not sure what is required of a dev, but as an example, Adobe Premiere pro doesn't take any advantage of >1 CPU, at least on Windows. https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Should-you-use-a-...

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#135

Post by 1123581321 »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #92
kasperni wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if they'll just do 4x M1 Max for that. Unlikely, M1 Ultra is the last chip in the M1 family according to Apple [1]. "M1 Ultra completes the M1 family as the world’s most powerful and capable chip for a personal computer.”" [1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/03/apple-unveils-m1-ultr...

What is M2 really going to be difference wise?

~15-20% faster if releases start this year, plus whatever optimizations learned from M1 in wide release such as perhaps tuning the silicon allocation given the various system. If next year, M2 or M3 (get it) will use Taiwan Semi's so-called 3nm, which should be a significant jump just like 7-5nm several years ago for the phones and iPads.

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#136

Post by ceejayoz »

tiernano wrote: post #39
iSnow wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I wonder if they'll just do 4x M1 Max for that. They'll be running out of names for that thing. M1 Ultra II would be lame, so M1 Extreme? M1 Steve?

M1 Max Pro... :P

"iPhone 14 Pro Max, powered by the M1 Max Pro".

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#137

Post by et-al »

ccwilson10 wrote: post #93
didip wrote: post #62

The power leveling in this chip's naming scheme can rival Dragon Ball Z.

I wish HN was like this more often

I don't.

There's already Reddit if you want to crack puns and farm karma. Let's try to keep the signal:noise ratio higher here.

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#138

Post by stalfosknight »

tediousdemise wrote: post #99

How does Apple manage to blow every other computing OEM out of the water? What's in the secret sauce of their company? Is it great leadership? Top tier engineering talent? Lots of money? I simply don't understand.

Put simply, it is vertical integration paired with management that is adept at playing the long game.

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#140

Post by davrosthedalek »

thfuran wrote: post #13
renewiltord wrote: post #3

Haha, bloody hell, what a monster of a chip. I find my M1 Max already remarkably fast. The change is so huge. It's like in the old days when you'd get a new computer and it felt like it could do things before you could think of doing them. But surely the GPU things can't be real? The GPU in the M1 Ultra beats the top-of-the-line Nvidia? That's nuts.

That thing has four times as many transistors as a 3090.

That counts memory, right?
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