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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

#431

Post by gautamcgoel »

cjbprime wrote: post #422
gautamcgoel wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-ran…

Thanks, this makes sense!

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

#432

Post by nightski »

chongli wrote: post #109
nightski wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for efficiency but if we are to progress as a civilization we need to find a way to not have power hold us back. We can get to a point where we have nearly unlimited power with minimal impact on the environment around us. That needs to happen as soon as possible.

There are an estimated 3 billion people in the world who still rely on solid fuel (wood, coal, peat moss) to cook food and generate heat [1]. We are extremely far away from being able to use 100% electricity to meet two basic needs for the whole population. From that perspective power-plant-scale computing is an incredible luxury. [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/resrep27829.23.pdf

That demand will only increase, which further emphasizes my point. It can't be a luxury.

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

#433

Post by ddingus »

pjmlp wrote: post #395
ddingus wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. When talking about desktop, personal computing, servers are not really a discussion.

It is when overreacting the extent of Apple achievements in the industry. Most people in 2nd and 3rd tier countries don't have the necessary means to buy those equipments, and additionally they aren't a presence on servers and embedded markets. So in those markets it doesn't matter if M2 Ultra smashes AMD and Intel, no one will ever use one.

I has never mattered. I do not understand your point.

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

#434

Post by saagarjha »

GeekyBear wrote: post #407
saagarjha wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you bringing up Microsoft’s translator here? I don’t see why it is relevant?

> Apple consistently advertised gaming performance without any substance to it. > Why are you bringing up Microsoft’s translator here? I don’t see why it is relevant? It should be pretty obvious that emulating x86 slows performance, regardless of whose ARM OS we're discussing.

Ok, but their performance characteristics are pretty different.

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

#435

Post by lostmsu »

TylerE wrote: post #331
avidphantasm wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheaper in terms of money, but in terms of time? I have a hard time justifying anything that requires configuration and dicking around. I’m a grown-up and don’t have “free time”. I need things that just work. For me, that’s not Intel and Windows or Intel and Linux. It’s macOS, which is the only true workstation platform left.

This is exactly why I went from a monster PC rig to a Mac Studio. Just got tired of random components dying every year or so.

My previous rig is approaching 6 years, and the only dead component is a cheap external USB drive. The rig was mining 24/7 when it wasn't used for development or gaming. You must be doing something very wrong.

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

#436

Post by rbanffy »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #206
jeroenhd wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the M2 Ultra prices, it'd be cheaper to buy a 4090 than to go the Apple route. With the M2 pro you'll probably still be better off with a 4080 unless you really need more than 16GB of VRAM. I don't know the M2's efficiency for things like machine learning, but the M1's machine learning performance seemed to have been beaten 4-5x by the 3060Ti so I'm pretty sure "more VRAM" is all it's got going for it in ML task…

Well yeah, the market here would be people who already have a reasonably powerful Mac and would rather have that fill their gaming needs instead of having to build or buy a separate dedicated device for that. But what I was really getting at is the trouble that game studios have been encountering lately when porting PS5 and Xbox titles to Windows, which is that these games are so reliant on those consoles' 16GB share…

I can’t imagine using my work computer for gaming, as maintaining the software install has so many different requirements, but, then, I’m no PC gamer and would rather have a console plugged into the big TV in the living room than on my desktop monitors. It’s also much less of a hassle maintaining a console than a gaming PC.

As a side-note, my living room TV is a rather small 43 inch one (limited in size by the surrounding overflowing book shelves) but, if I were a gamer, I’d probably have gone with a 60+ inch or wall projector.

If I lived alone, I’d get an Apple Vision Pro instead of the humongous TV, as it’d be cheaper.

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

#437

Post by tzekid »

brucethemoose2 wrote: post #329
perrohunter wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tested the new game porting kit on a Mac mini M2 and was surprised I was able to run Cyberpunk 2077 and it was running really well, I can imagine that more powerful M processors will be awesome, so the argument of games might go away soon

So can my old 14" RTX 2060 laptop, on a 4K TV. I have seen the demos, but I am skeptical of the actual practicality or value proposition until a 3rd party publishes some frametime benchmarks, and games out in the wild get battle tested.

Yep, but an avg. RTX 2060 laptop consumes 3x - 4x the wattage of an M2, no?

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

#438

Post by tzekid »

Grazester wrote: post #255
perrohunter wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tested the new game porting kit on a Mac mini M2 and was surprised I was able to run Cyberpunk 2077 and it was running really well, I can imagine that more powerful M processors will be awesome, so the argument of games might go away soon

What is really well? Can me have a metric? What resolution and what frame rate?

Something like: M1 MBA, around 12 FPS Ultra settings or high 30s on Medium at 1440p ( max res. apparently )

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

#439

Post by peoplefromibiza »

daneel_w wrote: post #57
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Economically and environmentally it's absolutely a problem. [citation needed] Economically the Intel CPU of the 90s that had a very bad perf/watt compared to today's standards have been awesomely worth it Environmentally, CPU have been getting better and better, the difference of a few 10s of watts doesn't really make any difference, unless you have numbers to back up your very strong claim.

Citation needed? Do you live in some alternate reality? > "... the difference of a few 10s of watts doesn't really make any difference, unless you have numbers to back up your very strong claim." We have a billion power-hungry PCs running on the planet. Power-efficiency matters for economy and for environment, because power isn't free and only a tiny speck of the world runs on clean energy. It always mattered.

> We have a billion power-hungry PCs running

Let's do some math.

According to [1] Human production of energy is even lower at an estimated 160,000 TW-hr for all of year 2019 (a COVID year)

Let's hypothesize the difference is on average 10watt/hour (rather large for the average device), the difference for a billion devices would be 10GW/hour.

Which is exactly 1/16,000,000th of the total.

Assuming every Apple computer consumes 100watts less than the equivalent non Apple, assuming there are 20 million new low power Apple computers (probably there are much less), assuming the CPU are 100% of the time in sustained mode (of course on average CPU do not run at 100% of the power all the time continuously, but let's assume they all do in this example) it would mean 2GW/hour saved, which corresponds to a 1/80,000,000th of the total.

It would allow, maybe, to shutdown an average power plant (the largest one produces 23GW/hour)

Unfortunately there are over 65,000 power plants in the World, 2,500 of which run on coal.

Unfortunately the energy saved could come from renewables, so the difference on emissions would be even less relevant than it already is.

Economically those 2GW even at the Denmark prices ($0.50/KW) would cost one million dollars (2GW = 2,000,000KW). AKA nothing.

As you can see the difference must be quite large to make a real measurable difference.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget

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

#440

Post by vGPU »

pas wrote: post #321
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's becoming a lot more difficult to justify the power consumption of the current Intel (and, to a lesser degree, AMD) offerings, especially for sustained personal productivity and burst compilation tasks. I don't get it. The M2 is 15W. There are mobile Ryzen APUs with the same TDP. They're about the same speed; maybe the M2 is a little faster for single thread and the PC is a little faster for multi-thread, it's…

can someone recommend a concrete laptop then, please? I have been putting off the buying of a new one for years now. (I have an old XPS 13 and a P50 with an M1000M, so ... yeah, old dogs!) I want to put Linux on it. So far I have been looking at the legion 5 pro, because a friend got one recently, and seems amazing, though haven't yet got my hands on it long enough to try it with an USB stick with a recent Ubuntu (wi…

Something without a second GPU. Linux never did quite get those working properly.
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