Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Technically you are correct - however, I do not think that the point of the article is to say that it would outperform a PS5 in real world gaming - for the reason you mentioned. To be fair - high end Intel chips need cooling to reach their maximum potential performance.

What they are proving out is the design of the chip has the same performance capabilities at lower wattage. That is not false marketing. And for the use cases they are proposing - laptops and desktops - they are just as powerful as their Intel counterparts while using less power. That is factual and it proves Apple made the right decision to go their own way on chips.

Now if they put these chips in an Apple TV with cooling (not requiring as much as x86 based processors) they could approach gaming performance of modern consoles - not exactly and not exceeding - but close - which would be a significant achievement.

The Intel vs Apple chips is more of an X86 vs ARM64 architecture, but that’s a measure for CPU operations. And obviously, ARM64 is just way more efficient.

However, for GPUs, the max TF performance doesn’t really matter when it comes to X86 or ARM64 and their max theoretical performance should be the same across all platforms.
 
I think the key thing we don’t know about these GPUs yet is what sort of ray tracing capabilities they have. To truly stand toe-to-toe with Nvidia, AMD and the newest consoles, these GPUs will need to be able to provide ray tracing capabilities.

I’d also be interested to know if the Neural Engine can be utilised for ML-based upscaling like Nvidia’s DLSS as that could provide a significant performance boost with (hopefully) minimal image quality compromise. That would depend on what interconnects exist between it and the GPU though.
That has been my concern for the past year or so. It doesn't look like Apple is going to do hardware ray tracing with any M1 (or A15) chips this time around. So maybe M2? The Metal API doesn't seem to support it.
 
The previous gens iPad Pro performance was comparable to the Xbox One S and that was evident in games running a flawless 60 FPS at native resolution. I wouldn't be surprised if M1 Max came close as the regular M1 was already comparable to a 1050 Ti.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Genkakuzai
a lot of the 200W are consumed by the VRAM. I’m very sure Apple knows what they are doing.They showed us already with the M1 and especially with the shared vram 16gb of ram. The M1 Max don’t just have 512-bits data bus with 400GB/s for fun.

GDDR6 only uses around 20W and the consoles have a bandwidth of 448-560GB/s worth of memory bandwidth.
 
Dongle-Life, lol

Which helps you not at all if you are away from home and want to game (you may as well tell folks to give Microsoft money for xCloud).
Use an iPad Or a switch?

i’ll cheerfully admit, however, that I got all of my gaming out of my system by my mid teens
 
  • Like
Reactions: ClevelandGuy
If what is being said about the GPU performance of Apple's chip then serious questions needs to be asked of the industry as a whole because how is it that a company who has virtually no specific experience of computer CPU and computer GPU design (other companies always designed and built the actual chips based on Apples requirements) and yet is allegedly able to out perform the likes of Intel, AMD and NVIDIA who have decades of design and build experience of both computer CPU's and computer GPU's.

One of the biggest issues for laptops and desktop computers has been it's power usage, how much wattage the machine uses and computer manufacturers and graphic card manufacturers have so we are led to believe that they have always been trying to find ways to reduce power usage whislt still maintaining performance. Well along comes Apple and blows all that out the water, allegedly. So, the question has to be asked of the industry, did they purposely hold back on making hardware that was power efficent because if the figures are to be believed, Apple has achieved it and they do not have the level of CPU and GPU chip level design and build that INTEL, AMD and NVIDIA have.

That is an interesting statement and point. I think it is a similar dynamic that you see with the transition to electric vehicles and how Tesla came out of nowhere and is threatening multiple legacy manufacturers.

Basically - the industry has ben focused on x86 for over 30 years. Their entire capital investment in manufacturing, R&D, and IP has been in that. Their primary source of revenue relies on that income stream. To change course is difficult in that scenario. They couldn't invest considerable amounts of money and corporate resources without interrupting their core business (investable capital, current manufacturing capacity, engineering resources, etc.)

Apple slowly developed their chip capability by focusing on design and engineering and focused on the IP and ARM format. Given chip design, engineering and manufacturing was not their core revenue driver - they could invest their considerable profits into this venture without it being interrupted by their core operations. They didn't have any distractions or competing demands. Once they got ready to manufacture they relied on a contract manufacturer to get the chips to market. Then they just focused on refining design and engineering. That is an easier feet from a capital investment approach. In the meantime - they could rely on Intel for their current needs. Apple starting out solely as an Arm chip designer had the flexibility and capital to build up their own internal capability. I would see them eventually getting more involved in the manufacturing to the extent that they may take an ownership stake in TSMC. They did that with memory chips.

A similar dynamic played out with Tesla. They focused on being an electric only car manufacturer and designed their engineering and manufacturing processes around that. The legacy auto manufacturers had to deal with their legacy business while trying to develop EV capability. As a result their designs were sub-optimal with regards to weight and manufacturing cost because they were leveraging legacy parts SKUs and body frames. As a result - Tesla outperformed them.
 
All those horses at low power. We just need developers to start porting AAA games to Mac with no compromises. maybe when a more powerful mini is released? Until then the new macs are just the ginger stepkid on steroids as far as gaming is concerned.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tpfang56
Technically you are correct - however, I do not think that the point of the article is to say that it would outperform a PS5 in real world gaming - for the reason you mentioned. To be fair - high end Intel chips need cooling to reach their maximum potential performance.

What they are proving out is the design of the chip has the same performance capabilities at lower wattage. That is not false marketing. And for the use cases they are proposing - laptops and desktops - they are just as powerful as their Intel counterparts while using less power. That is factual and it proves Apple made the right decision to go their own way on chips.

Now if they put these chips in an Apple TV with cooling (not requiring as much as x86 based processors) they could approach gaming performance of modern consoles - not exactly and not exceeding - but close - which would be a significant achievement.
The packaging for the M1 Max changes slightly in that it’s bigger – the most obvious change is the increase of DRAM chips from 2 to 4, which also corresponds to the increase in memory interface width from 256-bit to 512-bit. Apple is advertising a massive 400GB/s of bandwidth, which if it’s LPDDR5-6400, would possibly be more exact at 409.6GB/s. This kind of bandwidth is unheard of in an SoC, but quite the norm in very high-end GPUs. Screen Shot 2021-10-19 at 15.51.00.png
 
At 7x the price I would hope so! Still very impressive due to the size.
I think it shows just how low-cost these next-gen consoles are.
When I saw the PS5 was 630 CAD, I wanted to buy it right away. It's always been clear that Sony loses money on these consoles.
 
  • Like
Reactions: wilhoitm
Apple has managed to not only meet those expectations, but also vastly surpass them. Both the M1 Pro and M1 Max look like incredibly differentiated designs, much different than anything we’ve ever seen in the laptop space. If the M1 was any indication of Apple’s success in their silicon endeavors, then the two new chips should also have no issues in laying incredible foundations for Apple’s Mac products, going far beyond what we’ve seen from any competitor.
 
Chicken and the egg situation. Hardware had to exist first, before games would be made.

Apple knew what the graphic and computing capabilities the M1X would have. The CPU and GPU power wasn’t a surprise to Apple it was an intentional design. If they were interested in gaming then they could have tried working with a developer to have a working beta version for the reveal. So either Apple or the developers (or both) weren’t interested.
 
i hope somebody, an windows user will come and tell us that is still under desktop nvidia 3090 gpu or

Radeon RX 6900 XT
I'm a Windows user, macOs user an Linux distro user... What can i say. "Tell us..." This are tools to provide us a better life. Why should you put in a group like that?. i'm always gratefully for someone that make this devices. Most of the time i cannot afford them. Neither nvidea's/AMD's neither Apple devices, but this cause others to make more affordable ones.
Now if only there are decent games on macOS…

(I mean graphically intensive ones)
When M1 came out i predict some kind of console from Apple (more than Apple TV). Maybe de MAX will do something in this regard. The battle with Epic games make me feel this can be a thing in the future, or if this will be a thing Epic could be a good partner.
We will see, or not.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: ohio.emt
I wouldn't expect much to change in terms of big AAA games coming to Mac, at least not quickly.

But I wonder if this is the point where small/medium-sized game developers start preferring a MBP for development, at least when they're not at a desktop. Even the M1 Pro is going to have a decent gaming GPU, more than adequate for most purposes.

But it is possible to run iPad games right? The likes of CoD Mobile
 
Story of my (Mac) life... it won't change now. The App Store pisses off every publisher (see Epic), Steam is working on its console (don't need Apple). Nobody needs Apple for Gaming. It's a bitter truth. Some examples:
the NVidia feud. AMD gfx working with thunderbolt and MacOS but getting an error in bootcamp, then trying geforce via thunderbolt not working on macos, but perfectly in bootcamp. wtf Apple? Also Apple dropping eGPU support for m1, dropping 32 bit support even before thus making all my games purchases unplayable and they are deprecating OpenGL too...
Yes, I love Apple for what they do, but I hate it for Games.

I imagine dealing with Apple, as a developer, is a complete pain in the ass, and when it comes to full size computers the willing to pay for software isn’t greater either. Pair that with a small market share, and that’s it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ohio.emt
The Intel vs Apple chips is more of an X86 vs ARM64 architecture, but that’s a measure for CPU operations. And obviously, ARM64 is just way more efficient.

However, for GPUs, the max TF performance doesn’t really matter when it comes to X86 or ARM64 and their max theoretical performance should be the same across all platforms.

Your first statement is correct - no disagreement there. However, one could argue that Apple has done more with the ARM64 architecture than others - their SOC is class leading - bar none. In the general computing space - it will have an impact and will shift the industry.

Irrespective of gaming - a lot of discussion to be had there - for desktops, laptops and portables - Apple will be delivering class leading performance for those use cases. That is an achievement. I think for photography and video editing applications - they will be able to do a lot with this.
 
But it is be possible to run iPad games right? The likes of CoD Mobile
yes, from what ive heard since the M1 ipad, there are already 2 AAA games that dont even support older ipads..(and if those works on ipad, works on here too with the support for the different input like mouse) So, it already started
 
  • Haha
Reactions: ohio.emt
I still think Apple is going to make a console for gaming. They make everything in house, make the money back on games.

If Apple took Mac gaming seriously, this is what they'd do. If it became popular enough, mainstream gaming companies would take notice and start creating first class games for the Mac, rather than poor performing PC-Ports-to-Mac conversions.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.