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Apple M1 Ultra

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Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#381

Post by icelancer »

dheera wrote: post #291
ChuckMcM wrote: post #276

In some ways I wish this processor was available from a CPU chip seller. As a compute engine it gets a lot "right" (in my opinion) and would be fun to hack on. That said, the idea that USB C/Thunderbolt is the new PCIe bus has some merit. I have yet to find someone who makes a peripheral card cage that is fed by USBC/TB but there are of course standalone GPUs.

> USB C/Thunderbolt is the new PCIe bus Oh please hell no. I have to unplug and plug my USB-C camera at least once a day because it gets de-enumerated very randomly. Using the best cables I can get my hands on. File transfers to/from USB-C hard drives suddenly stop mid-transfer and corrupt the file system. Don't ask me why, I'm just reporting my experiences, this is the reality of my life that UX researchers don't se…

My USB-C dongle (AMD processor, so not Thunderbolt) that has PD plugged into it permanently and is my "docking station" for the office, and I have to cycle its power (unplug/plug PD) to get the DisplayPort monitor that's connected to it to work, on top of the fact that there are other issues with it, especially with external drives as you also reported.

So, I'm in total agreement.

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#382

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

gzer0 wrote: post #267
Nition wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is in relation to Apple's claim that it's "the world’s most powerful and capable chip for a personal computer".

It might also be reasonable to say that the threadripper is a workstation chip, not a chip for personal computers. Edit: even AMD themselves call their threadripper lineup workstation chips, not personal. https://www.amd.com/en/processors/workstation

I'd call them personal chips. When I think of non-personal chips I think IBM POWER or Ampere Altra.

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#383

Post by paulmd »

altcognito wrote: post #330
hu3 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what some folks miss. One hour of my time is more expensive than an entire month of a computer electricity bill. Some people just want tasks to perform as fast as possible regardless of power consumption or portability. Life's short and time is finite. Every second adds up for repetitive tasks.

The only reason I've ever cared about watts is that generally speaking 120 watt and 180 watt processors require more complicated cooling solutions. That's less true today than it ever was. Cases are designed for things like liquid cooling, and they tend to be pretty silent. The processors stay cool, and are pretty reliable. I personally stick to the lower wattage ones because I don't generally need high end stuff, so…

wattage doesn't really tell you how difficult it is to cool a part anymore. 11th-gen Intel is really easy to cool despite readily going to 200W+. Zen3 is hard to cool even at 60W.

Thermal density plays a huge role, the size of the chips is going down faster than the wattage, so thermal density is going up every generation even if you keep the same number of transistors. And everyone is still putting more transistors on their chips as they shrink.

Going forward this is only going to get more complicated - I am very interested to see how the 5800X3D does in terms of thermals with a cache die over the top of the CCD (compute die). But anyway that style of thing seem to be the future - NVIDIA is also rumored to be using a cache die over the top of their Ada/Lovelace architecture. And obviously 60W direct to the IHS is easier to cool than 60W that has to be pulled through a cache die in the middle.

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#384

Post by soheil »

xedrac wrote: post #302

While I'm not on the Apple train, I love how they are pushing AMD, Intel and NVidia out of complacency. No more of these little tiny incremental improvements to milk the industry. Bring your BEST to the table or get left behind!

Milk?

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#385

Post by brigade »

kllrnohj wrote: post #360
polyrand wrote: post #258

I think the GPU claims are interesting. According to the graph's footer, the M1 Ultra was compared to an RTX 3090. If the performance/wattage claims are correct, I'm wondering if the Mac Studio could become an "affordable" personal machine learning workstation (which also won't make the electricity bill skyrocket). If Pytorch becomes stable and easy to use on Apple Silicon [0][1], it could be an appealing choice. [0]…

The GPU claims on the M1 Pro & Max were, let's say, cherry picked to put it nicely. The M1 Ultra claims already look suspicious since the GPU graph tops out at ~120W & the CPU graph tops out at ~60W yet the M1 Studio is rated for 370W continuous power draw. Since you mention ML specifically, looking at some benchmarks out there (like https://tlkh.dev/benchmarking-the-apple-m1-max#heading-gpu & https://wandb.ai/tcapel…

100W of that is probably for the USB ports; afaik TB4 ports are required to support 15W, and I don’t think there’s been a Mac didn’t support full power simultaneously across all ports. (if that’s even allowed?)

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#386

Post by kllrnohj »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #378
outworlder wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too bad that historically Apple has not given any attention to Mac gaming.

Part of Apple's historic MO has been to not invest in areas they don't see themselves having a competitive advantage in. Now that they can make gaming happen with a very low wattage budget they may well try to enter that space in earnest.

The gaming performance of the existing M1 GPUs is, well, crap (like far behind the other laptop competition, to say nothing of desktop GPUs). The Ultra probably isn't changing that, since it's very unlikely to be a hardware problem and instead a software ecosystem & incentives problem.

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#387

Post by forgotmyoldacc »

polyrand wrote: post #258

I think the GPU claims are interesting. According to the graph's footer, the M1 Ultra was compared to an RTX 3090. If the performance/wattage claims are correct, I'm wondering if the Mac Studio could become an "affordable" personal machine learning workstation (which also won't make the electricity bill skyrocket). If Pytorch becomes stable and easy to use on Apple Silicon [0][1], it could be an appealing choice. [0]…

Neural Engine cores are not accessible for third party developers, so it'll be severely constrained for practical purposes. Currently the M1 Max is no match for even last generation mid-tier Nvidia GPU.

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#388

Post by Omniusaspirer »

cassac wrote: post #321
Omniusaspirer wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gaming benchmarks are completely irrelevant when discussing the actual raw power of the GPU. As the other commenter said- look at the actual GPU benchmark in the first graph. Legacy games written for x86 CPUs obviously are going to perform poorly. I recommend you actually read the review and don't just scroll to the worst gaming benchmark you can find.

There are only two real gaming benchmarks and they are both real bad for the M1. In Tomb Raider it fairs even worse at 4K than it does in borderlands. It’s a great chip but it doesn’t trade blows with anything Nvidia puts out especially at comparable price points. Maybe you buy things to run benchmarks. I buy them to run the software I own. For games they come up short on fps and high on price. That is the inverse of…

If your interest is purely in playing unoptimized games coded for different architectures then absolutely there's better options.

However if your workloads are in a more professional domain as mine are then it's entirely fair to say this chip is trading blows with Nvidia's best at lower prices. Don't forget this is an entire SOC and not just a GPU, power saving aren't irrelevant either if you actually work your hardware consistently as I do.

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#389

Post by piyh »

xiphias2 wrote: post #107
lend000 wrote: post #15

Are the neural engines actually used for anything, to anyone's knowledge? Edit: Apparently in iPhones, they are used for FaceID.

I think the most important use of the neural engines so far is for the internal camera postprocessing. Better camera postprocessing is the reason why people buy new iPhones.

Throw in translation, on device image labeling, stuff like on body walking/biking detection, voice recognition.

Re: Apple M1 Ultra

#390

Post by lastdong »

lastdong wrote: post #17
renewiltord wrote: post #3

Haha, bloody hell, what a monster of a chip. I find my M1 Max already remarkably fast. The change is so huge. It's like in the old days when you'd get a new computer and it felt like it could do things before you could think of doing them. But surely the GPU things can't be real? The GPU in the M1 Ultra beats the top-of-the-line Nvidia? That's nuts.

Nvidia 3090, I wonder what Relative Performance equates to. Can't wait for the (real world) reviews to be published

Just to add in any case Apple is solving a big problem related to limited GPU memory, which is quite cool

Hopefully AMD, Nvidia, others can follow the trend

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