M1 Pro vs. M1 Max: Real-World Performance Test

[sudo-sandwich]

i am guessing that software engineer. I am assuming you compile source code apps, m1 max helps with that right?

tl;dr Yes, I'd get the M1 Max if I wrote Swift iPhone apps still or were building large codebases, but I'm not.

I don't compile source very much anymore because my stuff is all JS nowadays. But repeated builds used to be part of my dev workflow in the past, and the only time I've really felt the need for more CPU power was with Swift iPhone apps (not with ObjC). Even small changes take a long time to rebuild. Xcode takes advantage of many cores for that (which it used to not), so the M1 Max would help. Other stuff I've built has always been so fast that it doesn't matter. And at my day job, my workstation takes a painful amount of time to build our large C++ codebase, but sadly I can't just swap that out for a new Mac myself.

 

[sudo-sandwich]

The AMD Threadripper CPU can run Crysis.

Only if it's paired with four 3080tis in SLI.

 

[Skewlovevism]

It seems to take 5 minutes to watch a 5-minute video, no matter what I do. Also, I notice that MacRumors forum posts take just as long to read on either machine.

Well, I beg the differ, No matter what I do, 5 min video always takes me about 5:20
I guess that my MacBook has got some hardware issue not being to able to skip the un-skip-able YouTube ads.

Reading MacRumors page also takes longer, since with the new beautiful screen, you just enjoy looking at the individual letters much more, enjoying the beauty in each curve. It takes long time to read that way.

 

[mainmac]

I thought that the CPUs were pretty much identical between them... and assumed the single and multicore scores to be about the same.

The only major difference I can think about is the memory channel of M1 Pro: 200 vs M1 Max: 400.

Or is this one of those cases where the high performance mode comes into play?

There are differences in CPU, GPU, and RAM between the Pro & Max, though there's overlap.
CPUs: Pro 8-10, Max 10.
GPUs: Pro 10-16, Max 24-32.
RAM: Pro 16-32GB, Max 32-64GB.
All of these (plus SSD size) were less for the Pro than necessary, they could have matched the CPU, RAM & SSD, and more closely matched the GPUs with a 16-GPU model. Of course the price difference would have been much less, but it would have been a more clear comparison of the Max-specific enhancements (more GPUs plus the memory channel)

 

[widEyed]

You've bought two almost identical state of the art laptops to test how long you can watch YouTube? And how are you testing the balance between power and portability when both your machines are 14”? All you are testing is whether the Max chip uses a fraction more power to do something in its sleep!
I‘d imagine that for something so mundane there will be no discernible difference, and any difference there is will be immaterial to real world usage.

he'll probably return them to apple within the week after his YouTube video is made. two more refurb units for sale at some point

 

[chucker23n1]

There are differences in CPU, GPU, and RAM between the Pro & Max, though there's overlap.
CPUs: Pro 8-10, Max 10.
GPUs: Pro 10-16, Max 24-32.
RAM: Pro 16-32GB, Max 32-64GB.
All of these (plus SSD size) were less for the Pro than necessary, they could have matched the CPU, RAM & SSD, and more closely matched the GPUs with a 16-GPU model. Of course the price difference would have been much less, but it would have been a more clear comparison of the Max-specific enhancements (more GPUs plus the memory channel)

Yes, but their point is that each individual core is identical. They're the same cores between M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max. They're also the same as on the iPhone 12, although that one runs the at a lower clock. So the only single-core differences between M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max are presumably due to memory bandwidth differences.