AMD Claims New Laptop Chip Is 30% Faster Than M1 Pro, Promises Up to 30 Hours of Battery Life

[Dreamail]

If the M2 max comes out and outperforms AMD’s Laptop chip, then I would consider that the competition has caught up to Apple sooner than we thought they would.

If the new M2 max comes out and it lags behind AMD‘s laptop chip, that’s pretty bad for Apple, in my opinion.

Reading between the lines, and listening to some rumors, the M2 chip was supposed to have a massive GPU speedup compared to the M1 chips, including raytracing support etc.
The whole reason for the M2 was a focus on GPU performance boost.

But Apple screwed up that development (too many people leaving the CPU team), and it turned out that this new design runs way too hot. Embarrassingly high in power consumption.
So Apple had to ditch the whole big GPU upgrade and more or less go back to a minimally improved M1 GPU version.

This has 2 repercussions:

- Apple has to sell the M2 as "stop gap" chip - as it ends up with only minor actual improvements.
Since fixes will take months if not years. Apple had no other choice.
I do not believe Apple from the get go intended the M2 to be a "stop gap" chip.

- The M1 architecture is not able to support 4 M1 Max CPUs in an "Extreme" chip configuration for the Mac Pro.
It was clear that Apple had intended the M2 "Extreme" chip to be one with 4x that massive GPU boost, which might have indeed given the Mac Pro a real chance to compete with Nvidia.
But because they screwed up the GPU part, there is little point in even producing an M2 Extreme now for the Mac Pro as many Pros really expect pro GPU performance as well which the M2 GPU x4 will not really offer (and Apple is unlikely to suddenly get cozy with Nvidia again) - which totally screwed up Apple's Mac Pro time line...


If all this is true, Apple is a bit screwed to be honest.
And if Apple won't come out with an M2 Extreme variant for the Mac Pro, I consider this proof that those rumors are true.
And most M2 test so far attest that the changeover from the M1 is rather minimal for most users. Which also seems to potentially confirm the M2 GPU design blunder.

If Apple cannot fix this with the M3, then it'll start to become problematic.
But the M3 Pro/Max is at least 1 if not 1 1/2 years away. Which means the true Apple Silicon M3 Extreme equipped Mac Pro may not see the light of day before the end of 2024 or even 2025...

Bummer.

 

[randyhudson]

What a pointless comparison. The 2021 MBP I'm using right now has an M1 Max, which, compared to the M1 Pro, has DOUBLE the memory bandwidth and TWICE the number of GPU cores.

 

[JMStearnsX2]

I'm in the market for a new desktop, still trying to decide whether to build my own PC or get a Mac Studio. I'm waiting to see what this spring holds for hardware announcements.

 

[bviktor]

Yeah, right, we all know those battery life claims. My Dell promises like 14 hours, and in real life it's less than 4 hours. No, I'm not kidding. And no, it's not a low end Dell, it's actually an XPS 15, more expensive than a Macbook. And no, it's not a one off, all company Dells do this.

 

[Frantisekj]

If anything, it looks like Apple Silicon has really increased competition between the chipmakers. This is a great thing, something that was badly needed a decade ago.


If the M2 max comes out and outperforms AMD’s Laptop chip, then I would consider that the competition has caught up to Apple sooner than we thought they would.

If the new M2 max comes out and it lags behind AMD‘s laptop chip, that’s pretty bad for Apple, in my opinion.

First there is glitch in article. "AMD claims the chip is 34% faster in multiprocessing workloads than the ‌M1 Pro‌" but graph shows just 26% difference. Second they will boost it up to 5 GHz. Thats 55 % more then M1. Third let see performance when unplugged.
If they manage 30 hours movie playback good for all and motivation for Apple.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

AMD CEO Lisa Su made bold claims about its performance, saying it's up to 30% faster than Apple's M1 Pro chip. In specific tasks, AMD claims the chip is 34% faster in multiprocessing workloads than the M1 Pro and 20% faster than the M2 in AI tasks.

Q: Lisa Su, can you provide any benchmarks for how well your system runs Final Cut as that’s really important to me.
A: No, our vendors don’t produce any systems that run macOS or Final Cu.
Ah, good day then.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

This is great news. Hopefully a little competition will speed things up a bit. I want Apple to at least see someone when they look in the rear-view-mirror

Apple looks in rear view mirror, sees nothing.
Adjusts side view mirror, sees nothing.
Opens the door, steps out of the vehicle and peers into the distance, sees nothing.
There’s still only one company making macOS systems, there’s no competition.

 

[jonnysods]

Some tasks are interchangeable though. For example, I remember being impressed with my M1 MBA clocking 9 hours of zoom on a single full charge, while still remaining cool to the touch. Something no windows laptop could match back in 2020 when the M1 chip was first unveiled.

Its true, but then its a whole different architecture of programming etc, even for Zoom. And the OS itself has an impact on that too. I love AS - I was impressed that my M1 13" MBP could actually get the battery life Apple actually claimed it could.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

AMD knows full well that the Blender app is unoptimized for the Mac.

Starting with version 3.1 I believe, Blender uses Metal for GPU rendering on Apple Silicon Macs, but it is still playing catch-up with the Windows version.

It’s optimized for Mac. Apple is the one who ported Metal for it.

 

[deputy_doofy]

Apple has been very succesful in producing new generations of CPUs and SoCs for its portable devices. It would be surprising if it managed to fail Intel-style. (Intel was the number one in semicon manufacturing and processor design. Then they decided to forget about the manufacturing. Tick-tock became tick...–ummm–tock?–tock–orwasittick?)

The situation with G4 was completely different.

Yeah, I know it was different, but the paranoia feeling is still there.

Still, the M1 was (and still is) a generational leap. The M2 is mostly meh (in comparison) for the moment. Still, I'm fully investing in TSM for a reason.

 

[cocoua]

OMG, the Apple silicon has awake X86 technicians.

2 years ago none of the actual Intel/AMD offers were even possible.

Hope Apple can compete with all this advances and make us worth the painful transition (developers...)

 

[MallardDuck]

Video playback. Meh. That matters if it’s an iPad, but not a Computer. What’s the life if you’re encoding video?

Choosing blender is also a bit of a cop out. Mac support has always been second best. Let’s see benchmarks with a commercial product like Maya.

 

[MallardDuck]

Reading between the lines, and listening to some rumors, the M2 chip was supposed to have a massive GPU speedup compared to the M1 chips, including raytracing support etc.
The whole reason for the M2 was a focus on GPU performance boost.

But Apple screwed up that development (too many people leaving the CPU team), and it turned out that this new design runs way too hot. Embarrassingly high in power consumption.
So Apple had to ditch the whole big GPU upgrade and more or less go back to a minimally improved M1 GPU version.

This has 2 repercussions:

- Apple has to sell the M2 as "stop gap" chip - as it ends up with only minor actual improvements.
Since fixes will take months if not years. Apple had no other choice.
I do not believe Apple from the get go intended the M2 to be a "stop gap" chip.

- The M1 architecture is not able to support 4 M1 Max CPUs in an "Extreme" chip configuration for the Mac Pro.
It was clear that Apple had intended the M2 "Extreme" chip to be one with 4x that massive GPU boost, which might have indeed given the Mac Pro a real chance to compete with Nvidia.
But because they screwed up the GPU part, there is little point in even producing an M2 Extreme now for the Mac Pro as many Pros really expect pro GPU performance as well which the M2 GPU x4 will not really offer (and Apple is unlikely to suddenly get cozy with Nvidia again) - which totally screwed up Apple's Mac Pro time line...


If all this is true, Apple is a bit screwed to be honest.
And if Apple won't come out with an M2 Extreme variant for the Mac Pro, I consider this proof that those rumors are true.
And most M2 test so far attest that the changeover from the M1 is rather minimal for most users. Which also seems to potentially confirm the M2 GPU design blunder.

If Apple cannot fix this with the M3, then it'll start to become problematic.
But the M3 Pro/Max is at least 1 if not 1 1/2 years away. Which means the true Apple Silicon M3 Extreme equipped Mac Pro may not see the light of day before the end of 2024 or even 2025...

Bummer.

Right on point. I expect m2 machines to be a big meh upgrade.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Apple is the architect and TSMC the constructer
Maybe this will be more easy for people around here to understand

Apple is the contractor who pays to use TSMC’s advanced technologies which TSMC has created an open alliance and the biggest players have collaborated with them on it. AMD by far was the earliest collaboration in MCM, 3D stacking, etc, read the patents and you find out why AMD spun off GlobalFoundries to collaborate these advance research patented properties with TSMC who had far deeper pockets at the time. Intel got complacent and when Apple left and started putting down $20 billion orders from TSMC over Samsung for SoC designs you probably think it’s all Apple IP that gave that to TSMC.

Neither Apple nor AMD ever want to own fabs. They strive to be fab-agnostic to keep their costs lean.

Apple will also release 3D stacked designs that are patented for their unique implementations.

The world wins as the IT industries are evolving into entirely new solutions.

Intel once had a chokehold on IT. It’s slipping away from them, especially first in Data Centers and HPC, where Apple doesn’t eat, but AMD does. Apple is insulated with a minority stake of OS in the desktop/portable space.

Microsoft is still King there. These new laptops will erode Intel’s hold over that market as well.

It’s losing shares more rapidly in the desktop space both from Apple and AMD, but for different audiences.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Yeah. Our as yet unreleased chip is faster/more efficient than one the competition has had out ages. I've no doubt the 2024 intel chips will be faster still.


Don't they build Mac Pros in their own factory in USA?

Final machine assembly yes.

 

[vladi]

But but PC bros in 2020 told me that

1) Apple M1 was all about efficiency and optimization tricks with fixed function accelerators, not raw power

2) There was no point in comparing Intel/AMD CPUs to Apple’s SoCs because it’s not like you can build a PC with an Apple CPU, they are different worlds

How the tables turn…what an achievement for Apple to be already a benchmark after only 2 years in the laptop/desktop CPU market..

Depends on the perspective of the fan market. Here on mac fan forever marker there was a lot of talk how x86 is dead now and how ARM is the future. Well X86 just showed us how it's not dead by still dominating desktop performance and this time it actually has caught up in notebook chipsets as well. So there is that.

 

[Apple2GS]

Both are overkill for the work they are optimized for. How about focusing on GPU and machine learning performance?

 

[BeefCake 15]

My stock portfolio likes AMD!

 

[ls1dreams]

I'm curious to see how efficient these are at different performance levels. AMD/intel were catching up with performance, but the efficiency esp at lower loads just wasn't quite there from the competition.

On ultrabooks and for most people it would probably be best to optimize for heat/efficiency on the bottom 25-50% of cpu load.

Anecdotally I was just playing around with a ThinkPad L15 Gen 3 (AMD 5675u) and also another machine with a 6900HX amd mobile chip. The good news is that the thinkpad was super quiet and basically never ran fans in balanced mode. (In performance mode it did run them quietly though).

Despite pretty good performance numbers, running windows just felt nowhere near as snappy as macOS to me.

- closing browser windows had some lag
- resume from sleep is horrible on windows machines

Gotta love competition. I don't need that much performance - mostly just want to see machines stay cool/quiet. I despise fans. I had an old 2011 macbook pro and that thing was SO fricking hot. Basic web browsing had it running at like 90c and fans cranking.

 

[TechieGeek]

Yay for competition and innovation!

 

[ikjadoon]

It's annoying to have comparisons of such different TDPs.

…

Unclear if they're using the 8-core or 10-core M1 Pro. The 8-core has a typical draw of 25W, the 10-core of 31W. So both are below the 7940HS, and probably well below what the 7940HS actually drew during these benchmarks.

31W is not quite accurate; it's 40W on the 10-core M1 Pro. Here are some CB nT numbers from Hardware Unboxed (CB nT is what AMD is showing in their marketing).

• AMD 5900X ("35-54W" TDP): 53W sustained; 70W peak
• M1 Pro (10c): 40W sustained; 43W peak

And then peek the performance! 24% lower power and 4% higher performance. But 4% is a small margin.

//

Very curious about 1T / single-core power consumption of Zen4 mobile. That will be important for the 15W / 28W AMD CPUs vs the M1 or M2.

 

[erikkfi]

Congrats on producing a chip in 2023 that competes well against one released in 2021!

 

[chucker23n1]

31W is not quite accurate; it's 40W on the 10-core M1 Pro. Here are some CB nT numbers from Hardware Unboxed (CB nT is what AMD is showing in their marketing).

• AMD 5900X ("35-54W" TDP): 53W sustained; 70W peak
• M1 Pro (10c): 40W sustained; 43W peak

My numbers were sourced from https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple...U-efficiency-compared-to-the-M1.637834.0.html

I'll note your charts say "wall power", which I presume includes other power draw of the machine beyond the SoC itself, which explains in part why their measurements are well above cited TDP.

 

[Tyler O'Bannon]

Competition is good. Always.

However, Apple is still winning.

This is not even out yet, and it’s fighting against the end of Apples year+ chip.

That combined with 3nm, Apple is definitely winning overall right now.

 

[Realityck]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1610847756394065921

Isn’t it wonderful AMD marketing relies on a 14” MacBook Pro laptops.