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2020 Mac Mini – Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

anandtech.com

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

#71

Post by nicoburns »

fxtentacle wrote: post #54
CapriciousCptl wrote: post #4

From the article's conclusion... "The M1 undisputedly outperforms the core performance of everything Intel has to offer, and battles it with AMD’s new Zen3, winning some, losing some. And in the mobile space in particular, there doesn’t seem to be an equivalent in either ST or MT performance – at least within the same power budgets." This is the first in-depth review validating all the hype. Assuming the user experie…

That conclusion is quite misleading, in my opinion. They write "outperforms the core performance" and the keyword here is "core". What they mean is that if one had a single-core Zen3 and a single-core M1, then the M1 would win some and lose some. But in the real world, most Zen3 CPUs will have 2x or more cores, thus they'll be 2x to 4x faster. So what they mean to say is that they praise Apple for having amazing per-…

IIRC the biggest Zen3 mobile CPUs are 8-core. So they'll have at most 2x cores. And that's ignoring the low-power cores on the mac which probably still count for half a core each.

AMD is likely to be faster in multicore overall, but not by much it seems.

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

#72

Post by fxtentacle »

kissiel wrote: post #60
fxtentacle wrote: post #21

I'm a bit surprised by their tagline "Integrated King, Discrete Rival". I'm using an Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Black 15" from 2016. On Aztec Ruins Normal Offscreen, I get 270fps. So my 4 year old $800 laptop is still faster than the brand new M1. It seems Anandtech chose a very Apple-friendly set of laptops to compare to.

So a 60W TDP dGPU (gtx 960M) is ~35% faster than this iGPU? I think this is what they called a Rival.

Agree. But don't you think this would come off as a lot less impressive if Anandtech had included all of the old rivals from 1-4 years ago that still rank above the M1?

"If you currently own a 2016 15" Acer, buying the new 2020 MacBook will be a downgrade." sounds pretty lame to me.

That's why I said they had a very Apple-friendly comparison set.

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

#73

Post by msie »

fxtentacle wrote: post #54
CapriciousCptl wrote: post #4

From the article's conclusion... "The M1 undisputedly outperforms the core performance of everything Intel has to offer, and battles it with AMD’s new Zen3, winning some, losing some. And in the mobile space in particular, there doesn’t seem to be an equivalent in either ST or MT performance – at least within the same power budgets." This is the first in-depth review validating all the hype. Assuming the user experie…

That conclusion is quite misleading, in my opinion. They write "outperforms the core performance" and the keyword here is "core". What they mean is that if one had a single-core Zen3 and a single-core M1, then the M1 would win some and lose some. But in the real world, most Zen3 CPUs will have 2x or more cores, thus they'll be 2x to 4x faster. So what they mean to say is that they praise Apple for having amazing per-…

M1 has multiple cores. 2x-4x multiple cores does not necessarily mean 2x-4x faster.

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

#74

Post by hu3 »

mtgx wrote: post #8

It seems that Apple kept its eyes on the goal of beating Intel, while underestimating AMD (like just about everyone else). Still, now Apple has the #2 fastest CPU on the market and with different ISA. Intel....#3. Oh, how the mighty has fallen. At least AMD won't get to rest on its laurels now, as Apple will definitely try to surpass Zen 4, too, now, or at least Zen 5.

I wonder what will happen when AMD launches 5nm processors.

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

#76

Post by kissiel »

geerlingguy wrote: post #55
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.

I think the overall point is that for the average user, who doesn't need all those cores or could make good use of them, the M1 may in fact feel / be faster. For users like you or I, of course we'd see a huge difference, but not everyone is running workloads that need more than 2 or 4 cores.

I have a theory on why ST perf is always the most important metric for me, and some other folks. When you're waiting for something synchronously, like rendering a webpage, stuff to open, etc. you're usually running a ST load. For stuff that can benefit from multithreading it's usually planned task. So does it make a difference if it takes 4 minutes compared to 3? You will still context switch.

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

#77

Post by matsemann »

Deukhoofd wrote: post #37

Interesting that it is not able to outperform the Zen3 CPUs. I had expected it to do somewhat better, especially it being a 5nm processor, and with all the hype around ARM processors. I don't know how well it will hold up to its x86 competitors like this, especially once they launch their 5nm CPUs next year.

Yeah, as someone whose next laptop wont be a Mac again, this was a good ad for what AMD has achieved lately. MyLenovo P1 got a Intel Xeon of some kind, and while I'm otherwise very happy with the Laptop, the CPU is hot, uses way too much power and constantly throttles.

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

#78

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

dtech wrote: post #58
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #41

I'm not surprised it's doing well. Apple has deeper pockets than anyone else on the planet, and they have considerable experience doing this kind of thing –literally, decades . Say what you will about Apple; this is a strong point for them. But I'm still waiting for the M2 before I upgrade. I'm also interested in new form factors. Right now, they are still relying on the currently-tooled production line for their she…

I'd say Intel has the deepest pockets regarding CPU R&D, and yet they are being overtaken left and right.

Probably right. I have family that works for Intel, and I have heard stories about the amenities and infrastructure (like "Air Intel," a fleet of corporate jets that take employees between Intel campuses).

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

#79

Post by CitizenKane »

It's certainly an impressive achievement and makes it pretty clear why Apple is transitioning away from Intel. I'm a bit surprised that the fact that this is on the TSMC 5nm process seems to be glossed over in the comments. Apple is benefitting from some what seem like on the surface to be significant process improvements. Will be interesting to see how other players take advantage of it as well.

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

#80

Post by matvore »

GiorgioG wrote: post #38

I'm not buying into Apple's eventually-closed desktop computer systems - I don't care what the performance is. They've been slowly marching towards iOS's closed ecosystem model on the Mac and with an in-house CPU, they can effectively lock users out of alternate OS choices on their hardware. Buyer beware.

I get why this idea of becoming iOS-like is uncomfortable for a lot of people, but will they take away the POSIX-ness of the OS? What about all the people that spend all their time in Vim, TMUX, Emacs, and/or zsh? I think these people will continue to be pretty happy on macOS if they already are.

In my experience, installing alternate OS's on Mac hardware has never been frictionless or satisfying anyway.

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