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Apple M2 Ultra SoC isn’t faster than AMD and Intel last year desktop CPUs

wccftech.com

51–60 of 448 posts

Re: Apple M2 Ultra SoC isn’t faster than AMD and Intel last year desktop CPUs

#51

Thanks for the correct albeit clickbait title, now let's see the power usage, performance per watt etc. Hint: M2 destroys the competition

Do general consumers care about wattage being used on a desktop? I don't think many consider it at all, they just want the performance. It matters on a mobile device like a laptop, tablet or phone, but that's about where consumers stop caring.

Depends on the use case. I personally undervolt my AMD 7950X in my gaming PC to use less power and thus generate less heat and fan noise. It makes a big difference.

Re: Apple M2 Ultra SoC isn’t faster than AMD and Intel last year desktop CPUs

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Intel's TDP is 2-4 times bigger under full load Never been a problem, even when Intel TDP was 20x worse than today. EDIT: the author forgot that the tested system is an M2 Ultra a desktop class system with a TDP of 90 watts The i9-13900T and i7-13700T come in at a max turbo power of just 106W which is just 1.2x

> "Never been a problem, even when Intel TDP was 20x worse than today." Economically and environmentally it's absolutely a problem.

> Economically and environmentally it's absolutely a problem.

[citation needed]

Economically the Intel CPU of the 90s that had a very bad perf/watt compared to today's standards have been awesomely worth it

Environmentally, CPU have been getting better and better, the difference of a few 10s of watts doesn't really make any difference, unless you have numbers to back up your very strong claim.

Re: Apple M2 Ultra SoC isn’t faster than AMD and Intel last year desktop CPUs

#53
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when was TDP a deciding factor in desktop purchasing decisions? Sure M SOCs are great on laptops, but there are no reasons to get them on the desktop, slower, more expensive and with less compatibility.

Where and when electric energy is $0.51/kWh, one might care quite a bit.

It’s such a strawman point. But this comparison is totally bonkers. If you’re doing a workload meant for a 4080/4090 then you really have no business pointing at the M2 Ultra as a competitor.

Then there’s comparing like technology to like technology. Something like the 5700G AMD line, and that’s not even nvidia. But that probably isn’t as interesting to the authors.

Re: Apple M2 Ultra SoC isn’t faster than AMD and Intel last year desktop CPUs

#54
post #5

Ahhaha, Intel's TDP is 2-4 times bigger under full load (and I guess ~10-15x under moderate load) while having negligible perf advantage over M2. The author can not be serious.

Since when was TDP a deciding factor in desktop purchasing decisions? Sure M SOCs are great on laptops, but there are no reasons to get them on the desktop, slower, more expensive and with less compatibility.

Lower power consumption means less heat, which means you might see more reliable performance (less likelihood of throttling in the middle of intensive workloads)

This doesn’t matter for everyone’s use case, but it is a factor some people might consider.

Re: Apple M2 Ultra SoC isn’t faster than AMD and Intel last year desktop CPUs

#55
post #37

The results speak for themselves (Apple is slower than some) but the context does matter: Apple has been talking about performance per watt since Steve Jobs showed a keynote slide announcing the transition from PowerPC. The cynical view is that Apple is intentionally misleading customers with their ambiguous graph axes. Another perspective is they’re simply demonstrating the metric they’ve optimized for in the first…

Like I said in another comment, the results say Apple is faster than both base SKUs on multithreaded and within the margin of error on single threaded once you consider they only used one Geekbench result.

I don't think it's misleading anyone to say they're faster, when their on SoC graphics are 4060 level, they definitely are overall.

Re: Apple M2 Ultra SoC isn’t faster than AMD and Intel last year desktop CPUs

#56

“Apple M2 Ultra Is Slow Than Last-Year CPUs.” This site is pretty low on attention to detail. Get an editor at least.

https://wccftech.com/m2-ultra-only-10-percent-slower-than-rt...

They also posted this.

Re: Apple M2 Ultra SoC isn’t faster than AMD and Intel last year desktop CPUs

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Never been a problem, even when Intel TDP was 20x worse than today." Economically and environmentally it's absolutely a problem.

> Economically and environmentally it's absolutely a problem. [citation needed] Economically the Intel CPU of the 90s that had a very bad perf/watt compared to today's standards have been awesomely worth it Environmentally, CPU have been getting better and better, the difference of a few 10s of watts doesn't really make any difference, unless you have numbers to back up your very strong claim.

Citation needed? Do you live in some alternate reality?

> "... the difference of a few 10s of watts doesn't really make any difference, unless you have numbers to back up your very strong claim."

We have a billion power-hungry PCs running on the planet. Power-efficiency matters for economy and for environment, because power isn't free and only a tiny speck of the world runs on clean energy. It always mattered.

Re: Apple M2 Ultra SoC isn’t faster than AMD and Intel last year desktop CPUs

#58
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It matters when comparing performance numbers in general?

Depending on the usage, it why AMDs efficiency is impressive on laptops, but not so important on the desktop.

Performance per TDP is always relevant. Sure individuals may choose they just want whatever to maximize a metric, but that’s a different decision entirely. Like comparing a motorcycle and a truck without mentioning all the things different between the two.

Re: Apple M2 Ultra SoC isn’t faster than AMD and Intel last year desktop CPUs

#59

This and the introduction of the new slower less expandable - at least with respect to GPUs and memory - is indicative that it was a mistake for Apple to completely transition to ARM and should have kept high end options on Intel until they had a better GPU story to tell. They already had the Mac Studio, they could have kept the Mac Pro on Intel.

The new M2 Ultra can process 24 4K streams at once. How much more processing power do people with the Mac use case in mind need?

Many need things that aren't media encoders. The 24 4K streams are impressive, but it's less impressive when you realize it comes from having overly redundant video encoders from gluing two M2 Maxes together. For raster graphics performance, BVH traversal, ray tracing and machine learning purposes, it's entirely understandable why someone might prefer an older Intel Mac for performance purposes.

Re: Apple M2 Ultra SoC isn’t faster than AMD and Intel last year desktop CPUs

#60
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Intel's TDP is 2-4 times bigger under full load Never been a problem, even when Intel TDP was 20x worse than today. EDIT: the author forgot that the tested system is an M2 Ultra a desktop class system with a TDP of 90 watts The i9-13900T and i7-13700T come in at a max turbo power of just 106W which is just 1.2x

> even when Intel TDP was 20x worse than today. When has Intel's real, advertised, or specified CPU power consumption or TDP ever been 20x that of the i9-13900KS?

Core i9-13900KS consumes 150W with 24 cores (8P+16E)

so an average of 6.25 watts per core

which is less than a Pentium 90, a 1994 CPU running at 90Mhz

in absolute is not a 20x worse TDP, but it is relatively to the gain in frequency and performances (more than 20x actually)

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