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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

#421

Post by nateb2022 »

yunohn wrote: post #383
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 real question is why any consumer would need that much compute, and the target market for such a niche is probably very small which is why Apple didn't do that This is a lazy argument. Why did they make the M1 faster than other CPUs? I would argue that most people don’t need even that performance. Why do they put M chips in iPads - they can’t even use it optimally.

The way I framed my argument, it's a matter of trade-offs. Regarding the iPad, it's definitely possible that they might have used an A15/A16 from their iPhone line rather than the M1 and still have good performance, but the M1 was probably better for marketing and for consumer appeal hence its inclusion.

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

#422

Post by cjbprime »

gautamcgoel wrote: post #387
cjbprime wrote: post #112

Reasons to still prefer an M2 for a HEDT situation, despite the article claims: * The latest Intel/AMD desktops only have two channels of DDR5, and if you put as little as 64GB RAM in them they can drop to DDR4 speeds (2DPC, dual-rank), less than 10% of M2 memory bandwidth. * You can (surprisingly cheaply) buy an M2 with 192GB GPU VRAM, but you can't buy a DDR5 PC with the same amount. If we all start wanting to run…

Why is it that using 64GB of RAM causes bandwidth to drop?

The bandwidth is fastest with one single-rank DIMM per channel, and there are four slots and two channels, so you ideally want two single-rank (chips on one side) DIMMs total. It'll get slower with 2DPC (DIMMs Per Channel), and slower still with dual-rank 2DPC. Some people are even seeing instability, with that setup at the slow DDR4 speeds.

There aren't any 32GB single-stick DDR5 DIMMs yet, let alone 32GB single-rank single-stick, so if you want 64GB then you're using four sticks of dual-rank 16GB, the worst scenario.

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

#423

Post by Ygg2 »

threeseed wrote: post #371
Ygg2 wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With a PC you still have case fans running because even with modern motherboards they don't support switching them off at low temperature What do you mean? Most motherboards support sending 0W to fans at given temps. You just install the motherboard software.

The motherboard software that is Windows only.

Or bios, or whatever has, although non-Windows support is generally bad in hardware because it requires open sourcing drivers.

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

#424

Post by washadjeffmad »

TylerE wrote: post #328
threeseed wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a Mac Studio it isn't just relatively silent in almost cases it is silent. With a PC you still have case fans running because even with modern motherboards they don't support switching them off at low temperature. You need to be running special Windows software. And to cool the CPU you really need to be running AIO or dedicated water coolers which themselves will have 3 fans almost always running.

The fans in a max studio never actually turn off… they’re just really really quiet, and I’ve never managed to actually make the fans come off idle, even maxing out all cores.

It takes sustained usage for the heatsink to saturate, and then the fans ramp up quickly. They do stay next to silent otherwise.

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

#425

Post by LeoNatan25 »

threeseed wrote: post #371
Ygg2 wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With a PC you still have case fans running because even with modern motherboards they don't support switching them off at low temperature What do you mean? Most motherboards support sending 0W to fans at given temps. You just install the motherboard software.

The motherboard software that is Windows only.

I am not familiar with any motherboard that does not expose all its capabilities through BIOS or UEFI. Yes, it might be less convenient to have to reboot to set a fan curve, but it’s certainly possible. And the Windows software is so terrible anyway, going through BIOS is always my first choice.

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

#426

Post by rbanffy »

goosedragons wrote: post #287
rbanffy wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you buy anything labeled as "workstation", you're paying twice the price already. We are not comparing MacPros to low-end desktops. > You can get a pre-built gaming PC with a 4090 for about $4000, that'll crush the M2 in compute if you use any kind of GPU acceleration. Yes, but the gaming PC will not as well built as the workstation-grade machine. And pretty much any GPU you can install on a gaming PC you can in…

AFAIK the 2023 Mac Pro doesn't support PCIe GPUs for the same reason AS Macs don't support eGPUs. It has PCIe slots you can use for other things like capture cards or whatever but not GPUs. RAM was something you could upgrade with the 2019 Mac Pro and something you could get a lot of. 1.5TB worth. The new Mac Pro caps out at 192GB which is barely better than consumer AMD/Intel systems at the moment.

I agree some MacPro users will be forced to move to workstation or server-grade PCs, but I am sure Apple knows that and they considered having integrated memory inconsequential for the majority of their users.

Also, remember, terabytes of RAM cost A LOT of money. The Dell I priced for comparison can go way higher than 192GB, but it’ll also cost you a lot more than 7K.

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

#427

Post by baggy_trough »

xattt wrote: post #406
kristianp wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’re telegraphing the use case for future SOCs. Can someone explain what that means?

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…

I’ll take the under on that.

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

#429

Post by kristianp »

xattt wrote: post #406
kristianp wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’re telegraphing the use case for future SOCs. Can someone explain what that means?

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.

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

#430

Post by eikenberry »

jerrygenser wrote: post #267
eikenberry wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For your gaming PC you likely don't even need a current gen chip. Many gamers, like me, probably also use their display for things aside from gaming. For non-gaming computer work I like 4K w/ a high (120hz ideally) refresh rate for well rendered text and smoother movement. But as I also then want to use this monitor for gaming, I need a gaming system that supports this. TLDR; you might need a current gen chip for r…

My 49 inch 144hz monitor ran fine for this exact use case when I had an amd 3600 and Nvidia 1660. Is your work use case somehow more demanding than gaming?

I've read that to run higher end games at 4k you need something like an Nvidia 3070 or higher. I currently have a 2060-Super and it struggles at times with 2k/1440p. Probably go AMD next upgrade as they are reviewed to be better at 4k and have much better heat/power reqs.
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