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Apple's M4 Max chip is the fastest single-core performer in consumer computing

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Re: Apple's M4 Max chip is the fastest single-core performer in consumer computing

#121

Post by lancesells »

radicalbyte wrote: post #86
LorenDB wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMD's latest Strix Point mobile chips are on par with M3 silicon: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z8WKR0VHfJw

I was looking into this recently as my M1 Max screen suddenly died out of the blue within warranty and Apple are complete crooks wrt honouring warranties. The AMD mobile chips are right there with M3 for battery life and have excellent performance only I couldn't find a complete system which shipped with the same size battery as the MBP16. They're either half or 66% of the capacity.

I would go multiple routes with Apple if you're able. They tend to be pretty good with in warranty and even out of warranty.

Re: Apple's M4 Max chip is the fastest single-core performer in consumer computing

#122

Post by evilduck »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #90
evilduck wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on what you want to play and what other things that suck that you’re willing to tolerate. The GPUs in previous M chips aren’t beating AMD or NVidia’s top offerings on anything except VRAM but you can definitely play games with them. Apple has released their Game Porting Toolkit a couple years ago which is basically like Wine/Proton in Linux and if you’re comfortable with Wine and approximately what a Ste…

Wow, had no idea this worked as well as it does. I remember the initial hype when this showed up but didn't follow along. Looks like I don't have to regard my Steam library as entirely gone. Steam Deck-level performance is quite fine, I mainly just want to replay the older FromSoft games and my favorite indies every now and then.

Fair warning, I haven't dug that deep into compatibility issues or 32 bit gaming compatibility but it's definitely something to experiment with and for the most part you can find out for free before making a purchasing decision.

First and foremost, it's just worth checking if your game has a native port: https://store.steampowered.com/macos People might be surprised what's already available.

With Wine syscall and Rosetta x86 code translation, issues do pop up from time to time though, like games that have cutscenes that are encoded as Windows Media Player specific formats, or any other media codecs which aren't immediately available since it's not like games advertise those technology requirements anywhere and you may encounter video stuttering or artifacts since the hardware is obviously dramatically different than what the game developers were originally developing against and there's things happening in the background that an x86 Windows system never does. This isn't stuff that's overly Mac specific since it usually impacts Linux equally but it's a hurdle to jump that you don't have to deal with in native Windows. Like I said, playing Windows games outside of Windows is just a different set of pain points and you have to be able to tolerate it. Some people think it's worth it and some people would rather have higher game availability and keep the pain of Windows. Kudos to Valve with creating a linux based handheld and the Wine and Proton projects for improving this situation dramatically though.

Besides the Game Porting Toolkit (which was originally intended for game developers to create native application bundles that could be put on the App Store), there's also Crossover for Mac that does their own work towards resolving a lot of these issues and they have a compatibility list you can view on their site: https://www.codeweavers.com/ and alternatively, some games run acceptably inside virtualization if you're willing to still deal with Windows in a sandboxed way. Parallels is able to run many games with better compatibility since you're actually running Windows, though last I checked DX12 was a problem.

Re: Apple's M4 Max chip is the fastest single-core performer in consumer computing

#123

Post by lancesells »

grahamj wrote: post #31

So Ultra used to be the max but now Max is max… until Ultra goes past the max and Max is no longer the max. Until the next Max that goes beyond Ultra!

Apple has gotten into Windows and PC territory with their naming for chips and models. Kind of funny to see the evolution of a compact product line and naming convention slowly turn into spreadsheet worthy comparison charts.

That all said, I only have an M1 and it's still impressive to me.

Re: Apple's M4 Max chip is the fastest single-core performer in consumer computing

#124

Post by philistine »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #44
carlgreene wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am still astounded the huge change moving from an Intel Mac to an Apple Silicon Mac (M1) has had in terms of battery performance and heat. I don't think i've heard the fans a single time I've had this machine and it's been several years. Nor have I had any desire to upgrade.

I do wonder if PC desktops will eventually move to a similar design. I have a 7800x3d on my desktop, and the thing is a beast but between it and the 3090 I basically have a space heater in my room

I sincerely believe that the market for desktop PCs is completely coopted by the gaming machines. They do not care one whit about machine size or energy efficiency, with only one concern in mind: bare performance. This means they buy ginormous machines, incredibly inefficient CPUs and GPUs, with cavernous internals to chuck heat out with no care for decibels.

But they spend voriously. And so the desktop PC market is theirs and theirs alone.

Re: Apple's M4 Max chip is the fastest single-core performer in consumer computing

#125

Post by mattlondon »

ssijak wrote: post #107
mattlondon wrote: post #74

For how long? There are a lot of superlatives ("simply incredible" etc) - when some new AMD or Intel CPU beats this score, will that be "simply incredible" too? New chips are slightly faster than previous ones. I am not incredulous about this. Were it a 2x or 3x or 4x improvement or something, sure. But it ain't - it's incremental. I note how even in the Apple marketing they compare it to generations 3 or 4 chips ago…

Why is so hard for people to understand why apple did that? They want the people who are still clinging to intel mac to convert finally. And as for m1 comparisons, people are not changing laptops every year and that is the cohort of m users that is the most likely to upgrade. It's smart to do what apple did.

I get that argument, but it comes across as hugely disingenuous to me especially when couched with so much glitz and glamour and showmanship. They're aim is to present these things as huge quantum leaps in performance and it's only if you look into the details that it's clear that they're not and they're fudging the figures to make them look better than they are.

"New Car 2025 has a simply incredible top speed 30x greater than previous forms of transport!* (* - previous form of transport slow walk at 4mph)"

It's marketing bullshit really let's be honest. I don't accept that their highly-polished entire marketing spiel and song and dance is aimed 100% only at people who have 3 or 4 generation old Mac already. They're not spending all this time and money and effort just to try and get people to upgrade. If you believe that, then you are in the distortion field.

Re: Apple's M4 Max chip is the fastest single-core performer in consumer computing

#126

Post by philistine »

JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #96
carlgreene wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am still astounded the huge change moving from an Intel Mac to an Apple Silicon Mac (M1) has had in terms of battery performance and heat. I don't think i've heard the fans a single time I've had this machine and it's been several years. Nor have I had any desire to upgrade.

If it's a M1 Macbook Air there's a very good reason you've never heard a fan! Blows my mind how it doesn't even have a fan and is still rarely even anything above body temperature. My 2015 MBP was still going strong for work when I bailed on it late last year but the transition purely on the heat/sound emitted has been colossal.

Factorio: Space Age is the first piece of software that my M1 shows performance issues with. I'm not building xCode projects or anything, but it is a great Mac. Maybe even the greatest.

Re: Apple's M4 Max chip is the fastest single-core performer in consumer computing

#127

Post by philistine »

tempest_ wrote: post #29
carlgreene wrote: post #5

I have been out of the PC world for a long time, but in terms of performance efficiency, is Apple running away from the competition? Or are AMD and Intel producing similar performing chips at the same wattage?

Their margins tend to allow them to always use the latest TSMC process so they will often be pretty good just based on that. They are also ARM chips which obviously have been more focused on efficiency historically.

Oh how the mighty have fallen. For decades, when comparing Mac versus PCs, it was always about performance, with any other consideration always derided.

Yet here we are, with the excuses of margins and silicon processes generations. But you haven't answered the question. Is Apple pulling ahead or is the x86 cabal able to keep up?

Re: Apple's M4 Max chip is the fastest single-core performer in consumer computing

#128

Post by philistine »

nottorp wrote: post #80
jsheard wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a good silicon design team, but having so much money that they can just buy out exclusive access to TSMCs most advanced processes doesn't hurt either. The closest ARM competitor to the M4, the Snapdragon X Elite, is a full node behind on 4nm while Apple is already using 2nd generation 3nm.

So then it should be comparable to the M1 or M2? Which isn't bad at all, if true. But is it, for the same power consumption?

For some benchmarks the Snapdragon is on par with the M3. But the weirdo tests I found online did not say which device they compared, since the M3 is available in fan-less machines, which limits its potential.

Re: Apple's M4 Max chip is the fastest single-core performer in consumer computing

#129

Post by matwood »

ffsm8 wrote: post #94
crazygringo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has always baffled me why Apple doesn't take gaming seriously. It's another revenue stream, it would sell more Macs. It's profit. Is it just some weird cultural thing? Or is there some kind of genuine technical reason for it, like it would involve some kind of tradeoffs around security or limiting architecture changes or something? Especially with the M-series chips, it feels like they had the opportunity to make…

They do take gaming seriously, that's likely the bulk of their AppStore revenue after all. They just don't care about desktop gaming, which is somewhat understandable. While the m-series chips have a GPU, it's about as performant for games as a dedicated GPU from 10-14 years ago (It only needs a fraction of the electricity though, but very few desktop gamers care about that). The games you can play have to run at sil…

> They do take gaming seriously

They do take gambling seriously.

Re: Apple's M4 Max chip is the fastest single-core performer in consumer computing

#130

Post by goosedragons »

whynotminot wrote: post #10
hanniabu wrote: post #6

Good enough to be used for gaming? Really want Apple to get into that because dealing with Windows sucks.

They’ve always been good enough for gaming. The problem has just been whether or not publishers would bother releasing the games. It’s unfortunate that Apple can’t seem to really build enough momentum here to become a gaming destination.

No they haven't. For years the best you could get was "meh" to terrible GPUs at high price points. Like $2000+ was where getting a discrete GPU began. The M series stuff finally allows the entry level to have decent GPUs but they have less storage out of the box than a $300 Xbox Series S. Apple's priorities just don't align well with gamers. They prioritize resolution over refresh rate and response time, make mice unusable for basically any FPS made in the past 20 years and way overcharge for storage and RAM.
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