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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

#441

Post by antifa »

pjmlp wrote: post #291
ddingus wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not the dollars per watt that matters to many users. What matters more than people may realize is battery runtime. The Apple hardware just spanks x86 hardware, unless that hardware is fitted with a big battery, and or a secondary one. I typically run Lenovo hardware, and on my faster machine, I got a very large battery and could get 6 solid hours. And that is at a nice 3Ghz speed too. My current machine (i5) is…

If we forget about servers.

M1 mini will make a great home server, would be nice to see someone do a comparison with similar products like Intel NUC for a home server of that size. I'm using an old NUC as a home server and the only drawback is that it only has the capacity for 2 harddrives.

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

#442

Post by xattt »

kristianp wrote: post #429
xattt wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegraphing means to give away away a message, inadvertently or not. While the M2 doesn’t include external GPU support, I think the M3 Mac Pro will in order to continue justifying the astronomical price. Otherwise, Apple would have gone through an awful lot of trouble to design a new motherboard with PCIe slots for an otherwise limited-use case. In releasing an M2 Mac Pro, Apple is trying to balance a consistent mes…

Thanks. So by "for future SOCs" they meant future iterations of Apple Silicon. And you think the use case the gp means is GPU support? I'm not sure I agree thats what they meant.

I was the GP. I don’t know what else to call the M-series chips :)

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

#443

Post by brailsafe »

sgtnoodle wrote: post #211
brailsafe wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You spent $3000 before gpu on a custom PC!?

$350 motherboard, $800 CPU, $200 RAM, $150 NVME, $100 cooler, $150 PSU, $200 case. $1750 + CA tax is about $1900. You could easily add another $1K by going crazy with RAM and NVME storage.

$2000 I could see, but I do think more people are overspending on CPU for gaming PCs by probably double. Maybe not overspending if you're getting a tangible productive value out of it, but I suppose they didn't specify gaming. For gaming specifically I'd probably try and balance the useful GPU power I need with the minimum necessary CPU to prevent bottlenecking.

Part of the reason I haven't upgraded my intel macbook pro, is just because I think the cost all-in seems outrageous, even for someone who exclusively works on mac. I can't rationalize $500/16gb of ram or w/e. I haven't upgraded my gaming PC much, because the cost of GPUs very quickly overwhelms the performance improvement I'd get value out of compared to my severely out of date gear that I found by the roadside.

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

#444

Post by diffeomorphism »

antifa wrote: post #441
pjmlp wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we forget about servers.

M1 mini will make a great home server, would be nice to see someone do a comparison with similar products like Intel NUC for a home server of that size. I'm using an old NUC as a home server and the only drawback is that it only has the capacity for 2 harddrives.

With 8gb of ram and 256gb of storage? Otherwise it is like $1000. So, yeah that buys you a decent home server, but at that price it is kinda underwhelming considering the limited OS compatibility, ports, size (much larger than a NUC), ...

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

#445

Post by incrudible »

garbagecoder wrote: post #419
incrudible wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And I like it more, so I am willing to pay more. The implicit notion that I’m getting the same thing for less just isn’t true.

You are getting better performance potential and equal or better efficiency at comparable wattage, for a better price. Of course you will not get it the shape of an Apple laptop. We were talking about how Apple chips supposedly have superior efficiency, but at least in terms of GPU that is not true at all.

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

#446

Post by menus »

THENATHE wrote: post #390
menus wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was cost of the device also taken into consideration in your overall cost calculation? What was the cost of your Windows desktop and what was the cost of your M series device you replaced it with? Have you ever upgraded any components of your Windows desktop (RAM, GPU, CPU, motherboard) or did you discard the entire thing?

Realistically, assume you were going to upgrade anyway. $1200 PC vs $1500-$2000 MacBook is really only 300-800 difference, and MacBooks hold their value on the second hand market EXPONENTIALLY better than windows. So 3-8 years at 100$ a year, but also it’s worth 3x as much as the comparable PC in 5 years

> Realistically, assume you were going to upgrade anyway.

Realistically, you don't need to replace the entire thing. Replace mobo+CPU, GPU, PSU, RAM, case as necessary.

Laptop is a different story. Replacing a desktop with a laptop and then comparing them is not a fair comparison.

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

#447

Post by sounds »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #257
jeroenhd wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you buy anything labeled as "workstation", you're paying twice the price already. The article describes the M2 being blown out of the water by a 4080 and a 13900KS. That's about $2000 + RAM, motherboard, and power supply. Plus you can use the built in GPU in your CPU for acceleration things like transcodes. You can get a pre-built gaming PC with a 4090 for about $4000, that'll crush the M2 in compute if you use an…

> If you buy anything labeled as "workstation", you're paying twice the price already. The price of workstation-class machines also includes the cost of higher build-quality and stability, things like same-day support and service - at least the option for a long-term (5-6 year) warranty, and FRUs - you don't get that with consumer-grade computers - and those things matter when a machine is something you depend on pro…

Your random acronym decrypter:

FRU: Field-Replaceable Unit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-replaceable_unit

What the poster means is that a "workstation" is designed with quickly swappable components, often not even needing to use any tools. Businesses may benefit from this.

While it doesn't necessarily mean the swappable components are standardized or easy to procure, they usually are. That's a separate item that "workstation" machines typically offer: longer availability of replacement parts.

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

#448

Post by iCodeSometime »

threeseed wrote: post #305
pjmlp wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we forget about servers.

Which we should because no one is using a Mac as a server.

If we only consider web servers.

Mac servers are pretty much required for any kind of CICD for Apple development.

Just about any company with an iOS or Mac app will have or rent a Mac server.

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