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2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

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Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#111

Post by jcelerier »

snazz wrote: post #56
fxtentacle wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only in single threaded performance, which nobody actually uses for rendering. In multi-threaded, the Ryzen 5950X is at 28,641 while M1 is at 7,833. So no, the Mac Mini is maxing out at 27% of the Ryzen 5950X if you use it properly. And I was already friendly and used the M1 number for a native port, while in reality you'll likely need Rosetta and take a 33% performance hit.

Depends on what you're doing. For example, compiling is multi-core, but linking is normally single-core. Many workloads are still heavily single-core-dependent, so great single-core performance is still a big asset.

> linking is normally single-core.

GNU gold was doing threaded linking 15 years ago, and nowadays threaded linking is the default for new linkers like LLVM's lld. Unless you use very specific GNU linker hacks, there aren't any reason to not use lld, it works fine for linking large software like LLVM/Clang, Qt, ffmpeg...

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#112

Post by simonh »

aero-glide wrote: post #90

I hope Apple allows us to install the OS of our choice. The battery life is impressive but I refuse to not use Linux.

You’re likely to hit the common problems porters face with putting Linux on an arbitrary ARM SoC. These chips have lots of integrated components on them, requiring device drivers that may not exist for Linux. Take the custom Apple developed in house GPUs for example. Good luck finding any kind of Linux device driver for those, open source or not. It gets even worse for things there isn’t even an external equivalent of, like the neural engines.

Even if Apple does nothing to stop you running whatever software you like on the device, you’re still likely to be out of luck. I wouldn’t be surprised if some enterprising folks have a good run at it, but it’s likely to be a massive undertaking.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#113

Post by murukesh_s »

ghaff wrote: post #23
d3nj4l wrote: post #13

Dave2D found the air to be on par with the Pro, at least for tasks that took under ~8.5 minutes. It only really throttled after that point, according to him.

That's one data point that's particularly interesting to me. As someone who (normally) travels a great deal, I'd probably go with the Air unless there were real throttling compromises, especially given that I use a different computer for multimedia editing at home.

Wish they re-introduce the discontinued Macbook 12 inch with the same specs as air. It weighed only 970grams vs 1.29 kg for air. In fact air feels bulky compared to other light weight laptops like LG Gram, not to mention the design is outdated. Always wondered why Apple killed the smaller model. Perhaps they want to push the iPad pro so killed off the netbook line. The wannabe traveller inside me keep drooling at 12 inch whenever i see it in someones hands. It feels so light and compact. With new M1 silicon, it's the ideal time to bring it back. I would grab it without any thought.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#115

Post by bstar77 »

mattlondon wrote: post #33

Wow it must suck to be Intel right now. It wasn't so long ago that the trope was while others had better multi-core performance "...Intel still holds the lead for single core performance" Now not only do AMD have a better product, but also Apple now offer equal or better performance than the best that Intel can offer. I wonder what is next for Intel now their £1000+ CPUs are firmly in third place. Looking forward to…

Don't forget to add that Apple is now doing this on their version of a "budget" laptop that has no active cooling, that gets 18-20 hours of battery life, that runs emulated x86 code with almost no performance hit and is a 1st gen product.

I don't think any of these details can be understated. Even AMD's 1st gen Ryzen kind of sucked and look where that is now.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#116

Post by foldr »

gruez wrote: post #70
fxtentacle wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In multi-threaded mode - which is what Zen3 are optimized for - the M1 barely reaches 30% of the Zen's performance. I mean that's kind of expected if you compare a low-power CPU with fewer cores against an unlimited-cooling desktop monster with much more cores. The M1 will likely be an amazing laptop chip, but still unusable for demanding desktop work, e.g. CGI.

>I mean that's kind of expected if you compare a low-power CPU with fewer cores against an unlimited-cooling desktop monster with much more cores. Are we looking at the same charts here? For cinebench multithreaded, the AMD 4xxx series CPUs are zen 2 parts with 15/35W TDP, hardly "unlimited-cooling desktop monster" like you described.

From the article: "While AMD’s Zen3 still holds the leads in several workloads, we need to remind ourselves that this comes at a great cost in power consumption in the +49W range while the Apple M1 here is using 7-8W total device active power."

Looking through the benchmarks, the zen 2 parts generally seem to have lower performance than the M1. The cinebench multithreaded benchmark is one exception. It's not that surprising because the 4800U has more cores than the M1 has high performance cores. The M1 wins the single threaded cinebench benchmark.

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#117

Post by ginko »

stuff4ben wrote: post #93
mattlondon wrote: post #33

Wow it must suck to be Intel right now. It wasn't so long ago that the trope was while others had better multi-core performance "...Intel still holds the lead for single core performance" Now not only do AMD have a better product, but also Apple now offer equal or better performance than the best that Intel can offer. I wonder what is next for Intel now their £1000+ CPUs are firmly in third place. Looking forward to…

At some point one wonders if Intel will just cede the desktop and enthusiast markets to AMD and/or Apple and just focus on server and high-end computing? As an IBMer this feels familiar for some reason...

What would keep AMD or Nvidia from eventually eating Intel's lunch in the server market as well?

Re: 2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

#120

Post by taftster »

dtech wrote: post #11

Impressive results from Apple, and another well-deserved kick in the teeth for Intel after years of stagnation. The coming decade is going to finally see some interesting developments in the CPU market again.

Right, I think in the end, this is going to show just how bad monopolies (or near-monopolies) can be for innovation. These are super impressive results, just hoping that the rest of Apple (software, developer relations) can turn away from the draconian future they are currently heading.
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