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M1 Ultra Doesn't Beat Out Nvidia's RTX 3090 GPU Despite Apple's Charts
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I care. I needed to get a 1000 watt PSU for my current gaming system and when I am gaming, that thing heats up the room A LOT. Even when that system is idle, the temperatures get so high so fast. Therefore, I like using my Apple systems whenever possible to limit how often my Windows PC is active.Who the **** cares about comparing 100 watts to 320 and why should that actually make people happy? Does that mean my Renault Clio is as fast as a Lamborghini Aventador at 60mph or what?
Yes you could argue that the chart is cropped to cap out at the TDP that the M1 Ultra excels at. But they made a point to make it seem like it had higher relative performance, which is misleading at best.
I don't really get why Apple doesn't invest some resources in attracting decent ports. Most modern game engines like UE5 should manage it no problem. They are throwing so much cash at worthless TV shows, if they dedicated just something to kick starting decent ports or help put the tools in place they might actually get somewhere.
It's chicken and the egg. Apple could quite easily do this as a demonstration of what their hardware is capable of instead of trying to kid us with s*** mobile games.
If you were talking an iPhone, iPad, or even MacBook Air ad, I’d agree, but the audience for Mac Pro and Studio know better so this just makes Apple look dishonest or stupid.
Yeah, that's not even a consideration if you are using your machine for work.
Such a typical response
Benchmark showing Apple in a good light = "See, Apple computers are so fast!"
Benchmark showing Apple in a bad light = "That's not a real benchmark!"
My guess is that most people are not running their 3090s at the max 500w, which is why Apple chose to benchmark their ultra chip against said GPU at 350w. It’s less about what these chips are theoretically capable of, and what they are typically being used for in real-world scenarios.
I think this makes the value proposition of the Mac Studio even clearer, while also showcasing the limitations that Intel and Nvidia are currently facing, which is that they have hit their respective walls when it comes to improving their chips, and can only throw additional cores at the problem. So any future upgrades do so at the expensive of even higher power consumption.
The biggest issue with Intel CPUs are their efficiency. They may (still) perform great, but they draw an insane amount of power in the process (almost 250w for the basic spec). I spoke about this in another thread comparing alder lake CPUs to the MBP. It’s clear that the top-end Alder Lake chips are clocked way outside their optimal power curve just so that they could sit at the top of all the benchmark charts. There’s no way people are running them at max performance 24/7.
Throw in the 3090 GPU at 350w and that’s 600w total. This is before we even get into the amount of cooling required, and the fan noise resulting. I think it’s safe to say that we will not be seeing said combination in a form factor as compact as the Mac Studio.
The M1 Ultra will provide an equivalent amount of performance while drawing way less power and I have no doubt it will excel at the tasks that the target market buy it for. It offers better performance than the 2019 Mac Pro at a fraction of the price. It’s a compact form factor that fits nicely under the display. It will stay cool and quiet under load. It’s clearly not for gaming, and I doubt people will buy it for that purpose.
In all, it will be an absolute pleasure to use and work with.
I will say this showcases Apple at its best - when they design for the end user experience instead of designing to top a benchmark. Which is again something only Apple can do, thanks to their control over virtually every aspect of the user experience, from hardware to OS to software.
Shucks that I don’t actually need one, but if and when my current 5k imac does kick the bucket…
I think this makes the value proposition of the Mac Studio even clearer, while also showcasing the limitations that Intel and Nvidia are currently facing, which is that they have hit their respective walls when it comes to improving their chips, and can only throw additional cores at the problem. So any future upgrades do so at the expensive of even higher power consumption.
The biggest issue with Intel CPUs are their efficiency. They may (still) perform great, but they draw an insane amount of power in the process (almost 250w for the basic spec). I spoke about this in another thread comparing alder lake CPUs to the MBP. It’s clear that the top-end Alder Lake chips are clocked way outside their optimal power curve just so that they could sit at the top of all the benchmark charts. There’s no way people are running them at max performance 24/7.
Throw in the 3090 GPU at 350w and that’s 600w total. This is before we even get into the amount of cooling required, and the fan noise resulting. I think it’s safe to say that we will not be seeing said combination in a form factor as compact as the Mac Studio.
The M1 Ultra will provide an equivalent amount of performance while drawing way less power and I have no doubt it will excel at the tasks that the target market buy it for. It offers better performance than the 2019 Mac Pro at a fraction of the price. It’s a compact form factor that fits nicely under the display. It will stay cool and quiet under load. It’s clearly not for gaming, and I doubt people will buy it for that purpose.
In all, it will be an absolute pleasure to use and work with.
I will say this showcases Apple at its best - when they design for the end user experience instead of designing to top a benchmark. Which is again something only Apple can do, thanks to their control over virtually every aspect of the user experience, from hardware to OS to software.
Shucks that I don’t actually need one, but if and when my current 5k imac does kick the bucket…
Because it would be a hail mary to try to get gaming on Mac with no guarantee it will even work. Competing out of the gate with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo is a major uphill battle. And coming out of the gate with 1, or 5 or 10 MUST HAVE titles vs my 400+ games on Steam on Windows?! I will stick to Windows for gaming thanks.
Its all about marketshare. I said this in about 20 different threads, but as a game developer making a game that literally runs buttery smooth on a 2011 laptop with Intel integrated graphics I am NOT spending any cycles getting my game on macOS at least not now. Why? Windows has so much marketshare I want to prioritize that first.
I said, there aren't many Mac gamers. It's not about hardware performance. Is it really difficult to understand? Nintendo Switch proves it.
Benchmarks in general just should not be used AT ALL. Whether they show the product in a good or bad way, they should just stop being used. Actually do real-world tests. I want to see more of these please. This is why I like Max Tech so much, they don't just run a 2 minute benchmark and upload a video. They export things and edit video and do ALL sorts of things. Is it perfect? No. Is it better than a ridiculous benchmark? Yes. This is also why I like hearing Larry Jordan from a Video Editor perspective when he talks about the macs he tests. Its not just a 2 minute benchmark and a blog post gets written.
esp with the gas prices today.... He'll be out of gas in his Ferrari about 1/3 of a tank into the Toyota's trip... lol
And with my hybrid, I'll have about 3/4 of a tank or more still...
Rosetta is just a nice extra, when it goes poof there will still be ways of running Intel specific apps (maybe not Mac native ones) through CrossOver, and Parallels. The sky never fell when they transitioned from PPC to Intel... it won't fall this time either.
Do you really think people driving Ferrari care about gas prices? ?esp with the gas prices today.... He'll be out of gas in his Ferrari about 1/3 of a tank into the Toyota's trip... lol
And with my hybrid, I'll have about 3/4 of a tank or more still...
It all depends on what benchmark you use. Anandtech said for example that Geekbench is short burst benchmark and M1 Max/Ultra GPU doesn't get the chance to speed up to higer clock rates before the test is done. M1 GPU seems to need more time than Intel/AMD to speed up. If you go to gfxbench.com M1 Ultra is faster than RTX 3080 and close to 3090, but Ultra is not 2x faster than Max. Also Anandtech explained last time reviewing M1 Max/Pro that M1 seems to be CPU bound in games and can't use all the memory bandwidth to feed its fast GPU.
It really depends on what kind of games you play and your game display and graphics settings. Some people have to run games on ultra settings. Some people are okay with medium. Some people want 4K. Some people are okay with 1080p. Decent frame rate doesn't mean much without context.Huh, that's funny... I game on my M1 Mini every day. The only thing I cannot run at a decent framerate is Star Citizen, but that is really no shocker there. I would bet if I got even the Pro or Max it would run without issue. The Ultra would be overkill for me... but I do love me some overkill once in awhile too...
I have been saying for years that real pro users would not trust bean counter Tim Cook when it comes to any benchmarks. Steve Jobs understood what insanely great really meant, especially with his work at Pixar. Tim Cook has no concept of what real pro users do. He's more concerned about counting and maximizing the supply chain.
The other thing I've always said was that real pro users would not give up discreet graphics for integrated. That doesn't mean the Mac Studio isn't a great machine. it just means it isn't a substitute for a Mac Pro or even an older Mac Pro and likely never will be.
Let's just hope and pray that this isn't a precursor for the upcoming new Mac Pro. Otherwise Apple will finally lose the pro market for good and they won't come back this time.
The other thing I've always said was that real pro users would not give up discreet graphics for integrated. That doesn't mean the Mac Studio isn't a great machine. it just means it isn't a substitute for a Mac Pro or even an older Mac Pro and likely never will be.
Let's just hope and pray that this isn't a precursor for the upcoming new Mac Pro. Otherwise Apple will finally lose the pro market for good and they won't come back this time.
Well that is the problem with all this "gaming on mac" talk. The hottest game out right now in 2022 is Elden Ring and at 1080p it runs VERY VERY well on my GTX 1080. I am sure The M1s are at least better than that GPU.
This is exactly the information I needed before I bought it. It sounded too good to be true for anyone using Blender or Maya. But the good news is that for those type of applications, performance-wise, the base non-ultra might be a far better choice.
Apple really needs to get into gaming. Perhaps commissioning a game studio to make a short but graphics-intensive game for them to demonstrate the power of their chips and to shut critics like me up.
I don't understand why they keep claiming the superiority of Apple Silicon and putting their chips on desktops but show very little interest in gaming. If Apple Silicon is good, it should be more than enough to play AAA games on high settings at 1440p. And it will only entice more people to buy Macs. It's a win-win.
I think it is wrong to get a system by a graph and wishfulness that it beats a $1,500 dedicated GPU. I only went with the lower end Ultra for the extra video encode/decode support!