771–780 of 1001 posts
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Not exactly. You can check the clock speeds: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/4620493.gb5 Up to 5050MHz is stock behavior for the 5950X and it's using standard DDR4 3200 memory.
Even if the Ryzen wins out, that would still be comparing a desktop CPU to a mobile one, using 105W vs 10W. It is incredible that we are making these comparisons. Apple outdid themselves.
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Your h265 example is due to the iPhone having a dedicated HW encoder while the iMac was rendering using the CPU. A hardware video encoder is almost always going to be faster and more power efficient than a CPU-based one by definition. However, a CPU encoder offers more flexibility and the possibility of being continually improved to offer better compression ratios. Generally, HW encoders offer worse quality at smalle…
Yes but that is kind of the point. Going forward all Apple Silicon machines will have this kind of hardware baked into the SoC at no extra cost whereas no Intel system (be it PC or Mac) will. That is a big deal as it means Adobe, Sony, BlackMagic, etc. will be able to optimise to levels impossible to do elsewhere. If that 8x speed up scales linearly to large video projects you would have to have a Mount Everest sized…
Dedicated HW for specific computing applications are nothing new, back in the 90s you had dedicated MJPEG ASICs for video editing. Of course, they became paperweights the moment people decided to switch to other codecs (although the same thing could be said for 90s CPUs given the pace of advancement back then).
Thing is, your encoding block takes up precious space on your die, and is absolutely useless for any other application like video effects, color grading, or even rendering to a non-supported codec.
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> Working with C/C++ is another pain point for cross platform, which already starts with Apples own Clang and different lib naming conventions. A walk in the part to anyone that had to deal with coding with C or C++ across UNIX flavours.
Or anyone who had to deal with Microsoft's on version of everything.
Toy projects don't count.
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Your h265 example is due to the iPhone having a dedicated HW encoder while the iMac was rendering using the CPU. A hardware video encoder is almost always going to be faster and more power efficient than a CPU-based one by definition. However, a CPU encoder offers more flexibility and the possibility of being continually improved to offer better compression ratios. Generally, HW encoders offer worse quality at smalle…
OK... but let's say I'm a professional. That's a big sell. Having dedicated HW to do something faster than CPU is a bonus, not cheating.
Incidentally, this is philosophically the idea behind processors with built in FPGA capability. The hardware acceleration would just be a binary blob that could be loaded in and used when necessary. It could be continually updated, and provided with whatever software needed it.
AMD's Zen 3 (Ryzen 5xxx series) are beating the Apple M1 in single core score: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/singlecore As another datapoint Ian (of Anandtech) estimated that the M1 would need to be clocked at 3.25Ghz to match Zen 3, and these systems are showing a 3.2Ghz clock: https://twitter.com/IanCutress/status/1326516048309460992
The M1 is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s an MVP desktop arm chip. M2, M3... that is when I think we will see stellar performance against things like Ryzen.
In the market, I think M1 systems will not alienate Apple-app-only users (Logic, Final Cut, Xcode-for-iPhone development) and may attract some purely single-page-application users.
Mostly, Zoom call efficiency will drive its broader adoption this year among the general population. If the Air is fast, quiet, and long lasting for Zoom calls, it will crush.
I won't buy one. I have a 32GB 6-core MBP that will satisfy my iOS dev needs until M2 (and a clearer picture of the transition has developed). But I might start recommend Airs to the folks sitting around our virtual yule log this year.
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The results seem a little weird but if remotely true then these machines are going to sell like cup cakes. Why would anyone (who is not forced) buy an Intel PC laptop when these are available and priced as competitive as they are?
> Why would anyone (who is not forced) buy an Intel PC laptop when these are available and priced as competitive as they are? - locked bootloader - no bootcamp - can't install or boot linux or windows - virtualization limited to arm64 machines - no windows x86 or linux x86 virtual machines - only 2 thunderbolt ports - limited to 16GB RAM - no external gpu support/drivers - can't use nvidia or amd cards - no AAA gamin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your h265 example is due to the iPhone having a dedicated HW encoder while the iMac was rendering using the CPU. A hardware video encoder is almost always going to be faster and more power efficient than a CPU-based one by definition. However, a CPU encoder offers more flexibility and the possibility of being continually improved to offer better compression ratios. Generally, HW encoders offer worse quality at smalle…
Yes but that is kind of the point. Going forward all Apple Silicon machines will have this kind of hardware baked into the SoC at no extra cost whereas no Intel system (be it PC or Mac) will. That is a big deal as it means Adobe, Sony, BlackMagic, etc. will be able to optimise to levels impossible to do elsewhere. If that 8x speed up scales linearly to large video projects you would have to have a Mount Everest sized…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes but that is kind of the point. Going forward all Apple Silicon machines will have this kind of hardware baked into the SoC at no extra cost whereas no Intel system (be it PC or Mac) will. That is a big deal as it means Adobe, Sony, BlackMagic, etc. will be able to optimise to levels impossible to do elsewhere. If that 8x speed up scales linearly to large video projects you would have to have a Mount Everest sized…
That's not really true. Every modern Intel, AMD, and Nvidia GPU does actually include hardware to accelerate encoding video, it's just that software solutions end up being preferred in a lot of cases because they produce better output and can be continually improved. A large body of encoding software is however, perfectly capable of taking advantage of them. The comparison is kind of silly.
I disagree. Sure we have things like NVENC for accelerated H.265 encoding but that is an additional hardware expense and means only the machines you have that hardware in benefits. This will literally be all Macs from a $699 Mini and up.
I don't know enough about Intel QuickSync to compare but it clearly isn't used on the iMac in that video for some reason (perhaps the software does not support it? I don't know)
That is pretty exciting for video professionals IMHO.
I'm not saying it is world changing but being able to pick up a MacBook Air for $999 and get performance similar (or maybe better?) than a PC that costs two or three times that with dedicated hardware is very cool.
edit:
I appear to be missing why this is a ridiculous thing to say?
Could somebody please explain to me why the comparison is "silly"?
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The results seem a little weird but if remotely true then these machines are going to sell like cup cakes. Why would anyone (who is not forced) buy an Intel PC laptop when these are available and priced as competitive as they are?
> Why would anyone (who is not forced) buy an Intel PC laptop when these are available and priced as competitive as they are? - locked bootloader - no bootcamp - can't install or boot linux or windows - virtualization limited to arm64 machines - no windows x86 or linux x86 virtual machines - only 2 thunderbolt ports - limited to 16GB RAM - no external gpu support/drivers - can't use nvidia or amd cards - no AAA gamin…