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Apple M1 Ultra

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Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#231

Post by nextos »

mhh__ wrote: post #215
marcan_42 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 1st gen 16 core Threadripper is barely faster than an M1 Pro/Max at kernel builds, so a 64 core TR3 should handily double the M1 Ultra performance. But you know, I'm still happy to double my current build perf in a small box I can stick in my closet. Ordered one :-)

How many threads are actually getting utilized in those kernel builds? I don't work on the kernel enough to have intuition in mind but people make wildly optimistic assumptions about how compilation stresses processors. Also 1st gen threadrippers are getting on a bit now, surely. It's a ~6 year old microarchitecture.

Yes, it'd be interesting to see this comparison made with current AMD CPUs and a full build that has approximately the same price.

I am curious whether there is a real performance difference?

I do lots of computing on high-end workstations. Intel builds used to be extremely expensive if you required ECC. They used that to discriminate prices. Recent AMD offerings helped enormously. I wonder whether these M1 offerings are a significant improvement in terms of performance, making it worthwhile to cope with the hassle of switching architectures?

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#232

Post by mhb »

iSnow wrote: post #35
cube2222 wrote: post #4

Looks like all the people saying "just start fusing those M1 CPU's into bigger ones" were right, that's basically what they did here (fused two M1 Max'es together). And since the presenter mentioned the Mac Pro would come on another day, I wonder if they'll just do 4x M1 Max for that.

>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?

Just get the guys who came up with the new name for the iPhone SE working on it. Oh, wait.

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#233

Post by Teknoman117 »

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...

I'm obviously going to reserve judgement until people can get their hands on them. Apple makes good stuff but their keynote slides are typically heavily cherrypicked (e.g. our video performance numbers compare our dedicated ASIC to software encoding on a different architecture even though competing ASICs exist kinds of things).

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#234

Post by forrestthewoods »

alwillis wrote: post #212
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...

It doesn’t support your argument when we’re talking about a massive processor like a threadripper vs. a M1 Ultra. The performance per watt isn’t in the same universe and that matters.

> The performance per watt isn’t in the same universe and that matters.

I couldn’t give less of a shit about performance-per-watt. The ONLY metric I care about is performance-per-dollar.

A Mac Studio and Threadripper are both boxes that sit on/under my desk. I don’t work from a laptop. I don’t care about energy usage. I even don’t really care about noise. My Threadripper is fine. I would not trade less power for less noise.

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#236

Post by KaiserPro »

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.

I think its more the case that OSX hasn't really had SMP/numa for a long time.

My understanding was the the dustbin was designed with one big processor because SMP/numa was a massive pain in the arse for the kernel devs at the time so it was easier to just drop it and not worry.

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#237

Post by jcadam »

Well, more reasonable than a mac pro, price wise. Might have to consider this when the time comes to replace my Ryzen9 rig.

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#238

Post by poyu »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #88
lend000 wrote: post #15

Are the neural engines actually used for anything, to anyone's knowledge? Edit: Apparently in iPhones, they are used for FaceID.

Adobe Photoshop, Premiere etc make use of it for scene detection, content aware fill, "neural filters" and so on

This[1] neural filter?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq8DgpgtSQQ

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#239

Post by Nition »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #161
zamadatix wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Doesn't have to though. A Threadripper 3990X uses barrels of electricity, generates plenty of heat, comes with no GPU, has worse single-threaded performance, and still costs $4000 by itself without any of the parts needed to make it actually work.

The question is in relation to Apple's claim that it's "the world’s most powerful and capable chip for a personal computer".

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#240

Post by KaiserPro »

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.

marketing and a forgiving audience.

You have to remember that since the 2014 retina, Apple's offerings have been a bit crap.

This is a return to form ( and a good one at that) but its not worthy of hero worship. They've done a good job turning things around, which is very hard.

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