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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

#81

Post by d3nj4l »

msie wrote: post #73
fxtentacle wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The M1 has a big.LITTLE design with only half of the cores being performance-oriented, so if there is a gap, it would almost always be in Ryzen's favour.

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

#83

Post by Uehreka »

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-…

They’ll be 2-4x faster in some multicore tasks. CPU benchmarks specifically break out single core performance as a separate metric, because as of 2020 a lot of everyday work is single core bound (stuff like 3D graphic design, video editing or compiling large codebases not considered “everyday work”).

Not to mention that even in multicore tasks, you don’t usually scale perfectly linearly due to overhead. And also, the biggest Ryzen processors are usually in desktops, and Apple Silicon hasn’t entered that market yet.

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

#84

Post by [deleted] »

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-…

[deleted]

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

#85

Post by d3nj4l »

Deukhoofd wrote: post #64
d3nj4l wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've posted this elsewhere in this thread, but the M1 on SPEC reaches Desktop-tier performance, going toe to toe with the 5950X: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste...

In single core performance, yes, but as the next page on the article shows, it's more comparable to the 4900HS, AMDs mobile CPU in multithreaded performance. https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste...

Yes, sorry if that came off as misleading. I'll edit this in elsewhere.

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

#87

Post by bluedino »

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.

That would have you scoring higher than the Acer Nitro 5 (2020) with a 1650, so I doubt you're running the same benchmark.

This might be more accurate, 88fps:

https://gfxbench.com/device.jsp?benchmark=gfx50&os=Windows&a...

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

#88

Post by MBCook »

akritrime wrote: post #51

I am confused about one thing, in multithreaded scenarios, can an application use 8 threads or 4? Also how does the scheduling work, can I pin a task that I know will be demanding on the firestorm cores?

Applications can use all 8 cores. There is one benchmark in the article where they somehow turn off the efficiency cores to figure out they add about 30% to the total CPU power in multi-core.

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

#89

Post by jmull »

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.

Well, Apple released the M1 as their low-end chip, putting it in the entry-level slot of their low-power Macs.

They may have something with substantially more power in store soon.

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