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

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

#171

Post by stouset »

katbyte wrote: post #120
perrohunter wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tested the new game porting kit on a Mac mini M2 and was surprised I was able to run Cyberpunk 2077 and it was running really well, I can imagine that more powerful M processors will be awesome, so the argument of games might go away soon

How does it work? You install a windows game via steam and then tell it to port?

It’s basically Wine with a custom D12 translation to Metal calls. Right now it’s not really intended for end-users so the experience involves a lot of steps that aren’t consumer-friendly, but some folks are publishing wrappers that simplify the process.

I imagine that in the future, something like Steam will wrap this functionality to provide the ability to run the whole library under the toolkit. And individually-published games will do the same so they install and run with a more consumer-friendly experience.

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

#172

Post by tehnub »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #168
tehnub wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ludicrous amount of power and cooling >big honking machines Buy an all-in-one water cooler for the CPU https://pcpartpicker.com/product/2PFKHx/arctic-liquid-freeze... It's easy to install and you have a quiet, well-cooled CPU.

AIOs aren't a great option for users who want to set it and forget it. Even the best ones lose fluid to sublimation and/or start leaking after a few years, which is why there's still a market for coolers like the NH-D15.

They won't last forever but Arctic does have a six year warranty https://www.arctic.de/us/blog/extended-warranty-period-for-a...

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

#173

Post by Retric »

dtx1 wrote: post #163
Retric wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can generally ignore FPS numbers as irrelevant outside of extremes, what people notice is stutter and that’s where PCIe link bandwidth matters.

Measured as one percent lows and again, most GPUs under most Conditions simply don't saturate PCIe enough for that to make a difference. Der8auer and GamersNexus on youtube have plenty of examples.

1% lows in a given benchmark isn’t really measuring stutter in practice, what you want is percentage of frames that don’t finish in time.

If once a minute you miss 4 frames in a row that’s noticeable even if everything else is rock solid. The thing is people adjust their resolution/settings to reach acceptable FPS, thus it’s fairly GPU independent. What matters is rendering volatility as assets are loaded etc.

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

#174

Post by numpad0 »

jeroenhd wrote: post #144
veselin wrote: post #128

I find the article quite informative. Yes, M2 and the other chips are completely different products with different goals. If one wants to say that something completely trumps the other, it will be wrong. But here is what is visible: The M2 core is probably in the same ballpark as Zen 4 core, likely a tiny bit below. That may become very tiny if Zen 4 core runs at lower frequency to equalize the power. This doesn't ac…

Apple's GPU performance is what makes me sceptical about their gaming related advertising. Sure, you can do 1080p gaming with the highest SKU, but you're paying through the nose if you bought an M2 to play games. It seems strange to me for Apple to advertise something they haven't exactly mastered yet on stage. Maybe they have some kind of optimization up their sleeves that will roll out later? I can imagine Apple co…

Apple consistently advertised gaming performance without any substance to it.

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

#175

Post by 411111111111111 »

veselin wrote: post #128

I find the article quite informative. Yes, M2 and the other chips are completely different products with different goals. If one wants to say that something completely trumps the other, it will be wrong. But here is what is visible: The M2 core is probably in the same ballpark as Zen 4 core, likely a tiny bit below. That may become very tiny if Zen 4 core runs at lower frequency to equalize the power. This doesn't ac…

> same league as a 300$ mid-range nVidia card.

$300 midrange Nvidia card? Did you get stuck in 2010?

That's way below entry-level at this point. You're likely comparing it with a 1666 cards or something, which is based on a chip from 2012.

I wish Apple silicone was actually competitive on performance. Nvidia needs competition or they'll likely double prices again with the next generation.

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

#176

Post by incrudible »

garbagecoder wrote: post #27
adastra22 wrote: post #2

50% slower than the absolute best of class NVIDIA discrete GPU offering that consumes massively more wattage is hardly a damning statement.

My M1 Pro is about 33% as fast as a box with a 3060 in it on PyTorch and obviously it is way more efficient and doesn't require a special power supply, which is just taken for granted as something you have to do with a PC. The best case this article can make is that if you need to play the latest game or do intense ML stuff you probably want NVIDIA, but that's the same as it ever was.

It also costs a lot more. For the money you can get a laptop with a 4080m and reduce its power limit and probably get the same or better efficiency, but with room to the top if you need it.

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

#177

Post by pdpi »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #126
llm_nerd wrote: post #123

The M2 has been a bit underwhelming in general through all of its iterations: Apple jumped into such a lead with the M1 [1], so it was disappointing when they slowly iterated while Intel and AMD have made enormous strides catching up. Everyone keeps citing TDP, but given that we're talking about desktops that just isn't a huge factor. Having said that, the 7950X was released late February, and the 13900KS was release…

Desktop pcs requiring a ludicrous amount of power and cooling is absolutely problematic. The amount of people willing to put up with big honking machines is dwindling.

> Desktop pcs requiring a ludicrous amount of power and cooling is absolutely problematic.

High-end PSUs now overlap with smaller space heaters on power output. My living room is usually 3-4 degrees hotter around my desk than it is by the dining table.I'm looking to upgrade my gaming PC, and getting the power budget under control is surprisingly challenging.

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

#178

Post by jeroenhd »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #154
rbanffy wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The M2 GPU is in the same league as a 300$ mid-range nVidia card It still has the advantage of a much larger memory pool. I did a quick comparison exercise - I priced two workstations with similar configurations, one from Dell, the other from Apple. While there are x86 (and ARM) machines that'll blow the biggest M2 out of the water, the prices, as far as Apple can go, aren't much different. https://twitter.com/0xDE…

> It still has the advantage of a much larger memory pool. I wonder if given roughly equal power to the GPUs in current gen consoles (PS5/XBSX), it'd yield some advantage in porting console games since those consoles also have a large shared pool of memory (16GB), and neither AMD nor Nvidia want to give up using VRAM as an upsell.

With the M2 Ultra prices, it'd be cheaper to buy a 4090 than to go the Apple route. With the M2 pro you'll probably still be better off with a 4080 unless you really need more than 16GB of VRAM.

I don't know the M2's efficiency for things like machine learning, but the M1's machine learning performance seemed to have been beaten 4-5x by the 3060Ti so I'm pretty sure "more VRAM" is all it's got going for it in ML tasks.

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

#179

Post by pdpi »

burmanm wrote: post #169
spiderfarmer wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desktop pcs requiring a ludicrous amount of power and cooling is absolutely problematic. The amount of people willing to put up with big honking machines is dwindling.

Is it? Why? My machine is entirely silent on normal operations (Zen 3 5600X and RX 6700). All the fans, on both GPU and CPU are stopped in desktop usage. And it doesn't obviously eat that much power (my monitor probably eats more). The only moment I could hear them is if I play games. And then I have headset on, so I can't hear them. I really couldn't care less if it ate twice the amount of power when playing games.

> Is it? Why?

Because, while gaming, the vents in my case blow air at over 40 degrees Celsius, and that heat has to go somewhere. Absent a setup that can put the case several meters away from me, that "somewhere" is on top of me.

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

#180

Post by incrudible »

acdha wrote: post #111
0zemp3c wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the people you describe aren't buying $7k desktops

They certainly are. Being able to pay for the extra power doesn’t mean you like fan noise, not to mention the people who are doing things like video production in a trailer where overheating is a concern. I used to support scientists who didn’t appreciate the heat 4 workstations made in their shared offices, either.

A dedicated GPU with more die area and its own large fan will run both cooler and quieter when its power limit is reduced to match the performance of the Apple chip.
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