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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

#391

Post by bee_rider »

nateb2022 wrote: post #376

CPUs are intentionally engineered for a target market. When engineering the M2, Apple had a certain market in mind, and design and performance trade-offs were made accordingly. As others have noted, power efficiency seems to be a big priority. The M2 Ultra has a TDP of 60W. The i9-13900K has a base consumption of 125W, and draws up to 253W under stress. So do the math. Intel achieves 32% better single-core performanc…

The Apple processors are definitely impressive efficiency-wise (and by many other metrics).

But of course, combining any number of M2’s won’t increase their single core scores. Intel’s desktop chips are there for people who want high clock speeds and are happy to pay in power for that (and the power cost is super linearly related to clock frequency). The Intel chips are just designed for different use-cases, it doesn’t make sense to assume either company could just linearly scale things to reproduce each other’s products.

The relevance of multi-core scores depends on how parallel the workload is. If we all had perfectly parallel workloads I guess Xeon Phi’s would have sold better.

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

#392

Post by bee_rider »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #307
daviddever23box wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they do, same as mobile chipsets end up Intel NUCs. You're ignoring a whole category of devices.

I always though NUC's are designed to be cheap, quiet, and small, not power efficient. I don't think they run on battery power.

I ran one on battery power, IIRC some models run on voltages in the 12V-20V range, so it is pretty easy. Fun project. I got a portable monitor and keyboard, and… realized I’d reinvented the laptop, except it was really hard to balance all that stuff on my lap. Next time I just got a laptop, but I can still use all the old NUC peripherals so that is nice.

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

#393

Post by veselin »

llm_nerd wrote: post #283
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…

>The M2 core is probably in the same ballpark as Zen 4 core, likely a tiny bit below. The 7950x is running at 5.7Ghz when only a single thread is saturated. The M2 Ultra caps its cores at 3.5Ghz. A 62% higher clock speed, at a monster power profile, to barely beat it isn't evidence of a core advantage. >24 M2 cores manage to beat 16 Zen 4 cores also at lower power The M2 ultra has 16 real cores, with 8 additional eff…

It is true that nobody competes in the low power high efficiency workstation market or maybe such a market does not exist yet and Apple is creating it.

But also as users, some were expecting the M series are so good that they are going to take many markets by storm. And it seems it is not happening.

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

#395

Post by pjmlp »

ddingus wrote: post #317
pjmlp wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we forget about servers.

Sure. When talking about desktop, personal computing, servers are not really a discussion.

It is when overreacting the extent of Apple achievements in the industry.

Most people in 2nd and 3rd tier countries don't have the necessary means to buy those equipments, and additionally they aren't a presence on servers and embedded markets.

So in those markets it doesn't matter if M2 Ultra smashes AMD and Intel, no one will ever use one.

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

#396

Post by arp242 »

ChrisLTD wrote: post #337
pas wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can someone recommend a concrete laptop then, please? I have been putting off the buying of a new one for years now. (I have an old XPS 13 and a P50 with an M1000M, so ... yeah, old dogs!) I want to put Linux on it. So far I have been looking at the legion 5 pro, because a friend got one recently, and seems amazing, though haven't yet got my hands on it long enough to try it with an USB stick with a recent Ubuntu (wi…

From what I’ve read and seen, Linux is the worst option if you’re concerned about battery life.

My x270 could pull about 20 hours on Linux when it was new (it did degrade a bit over time, as batteries do). I don't recall if I fiddled with any settings as this was five years ago and the laptop since died in an accident, but I don't think I did other than setting it to "power saving" instead of "balanced".

Before that I had a Dell XPS, which lasted about 7 hours IIRC, which was pretty good for the time.

My Acer could pull about 15 hours when new, but it is a fairly underwhelming Celeron CPU so that probably helps.

Maybe other systems are worse; I don't know, but overall things always seem to work well for me.

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

#397

Post by cozzyd »

numpad0 wrote: post #192
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, a $7000 computer doesn’t come with a discrete GPU?

Or memory slots, or dual/quad socket capability, or compatibility with the GPU card for previous gen Mac Pro. You get one multicore ARM SoC with 192GB of on-package L4 cache and integrated graphics, and that’s it. While 192GB of RAM is more than I would need, for people looking to use 1.5TB of RAM and a pair of NVIDIA GPU they had from previous model, they’d have to go elsewhere. Which leaves me wondering; how much e…

Not much engineering software runs on MacOS.

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

#398

Post by marsven_422 »

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.

[dead]

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

#399

Post by daedalusred »

solomatov wrote: post #25
anthonyryan1 wrote: post #11

Where are the performance per watt numbers? Anyone can get the performance crown by having an unlimited energy budget. Performance per watt is much more valuable in data centers (TCO) and consumer devices (battery life).

Not always, if you are connected to a source of electricity and doing something limited by speed performance is critical. For me, Desktop use is almost perfect on Apple due to battery life and perf but professional use is much better on Intel/AMD+NVidia. Also you could get much more perf for $ on such machines

I'm a professional that gets paid to do things and a MacBook Pro with M1 Max works perfectly for me. This whole 'professional' thing is absurd and full of holes.

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

#400

Post by daedalusred »

solomatov wrote: post #131
sosborn wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> professional use I hate this terminology. How would anyone define "professional use"

Something with intention to make you money and directly related to powerful machine, i.e. writing code, editing videos, images, etc. As opposed to casual use where you plan simple games, browse internet, etc.

'plan simple games' so are you counting complex games as professional use in your example?

Let's say I'm a professional researcher for some oil company. My job will primarily consist of browsing the web and writing stuff up, does that make that job not fit into the 'professional' category? You're being paid to browse the web and just report on what you found....

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