M1 Ultra Mac Studio vs. M1 Max MacBook Pro

[jumpcutking]

I should rephrase why…

I work with a ton of broadcast video, after effects promos, of which I tend to push the creative limits if any machine.

From a standpoint of performance to deadline I can probably compare those machines quite a bit. Thousands of vector based graphics rendering in one of the most intensive processes I know.

While I don’t do work in 3D and I feel like someone in that environment would be able to truely test it - vector rendering and such would be a good benchmark wants your AE file reaches like a thousand items.

Yes, I have done that.

It's only a big deal if you can't multitask to keep yourself busy. As another here stated all they can compare is video content creation being that they are constantly selling themselves via Youtube. Everything we judge is usually shown on Youtube. Can YouTube reviewers think outside their own world. Most can't that you are reading their Apple centric news and rumors.

There are diamonds in the rough on Youtube, which are the guys/gals that work in a real industry and show how they use Macs and give weighted reviews or impressions based on real world performance doing all kinds of creative and business work.

Filmmakers and commercial promo producers/editors & VFX artists are probably the no. 1 group of people who these machines will be a God send. Save 10 minutes on a 20 minute timeline can mean saving 45 mins on a 30 track timeline… or color correction layers. Video it’s complicated the more you want to hone it in for a desired emotion.

I’m not saying YouTubers and the modern editor couldn’t benefit from these machines - the ability to roll in real-time without loosing frames is EXTREMELY impressive.

These machines give back creative power to the video artist while minimizing the stress of deadlines and computer issues. I can’t tell you how many times FCP, Premiere, and After Effects misbehave because of lack of resources on larger projects.

I understand the average media guru won’t feel the help, but a powerhouse editor working for a production craving company will benefit instantly for it.

The fact is any editor will benefit from a leap to m1 from intel. The memory being that accessible to the chipset has already enhanced my every day workflow. I can open a gig photoshop file and still be super creative, push its limits, and get it to print without huge crashes.

Now I’d love to hear from someone who is mastering 250 channels of audio and feel the responsiveness for that.

To me the move to this architecture makes computing stable, multitasking easy, and everyday tasks blazing fast. The pro, max and ultra chips seems to bring back the joy of telling a story to complex editors and producers who want to creatively push the boundaries.

 

[bobcomer]

Sure. So find the review that suits you then? If you’re in a niche market then that may prove difficult- but video is certainly a prominent and valid benchmark test. Just becuase you can’t find a channel that show a particular usage doesn’t void other real world usage statistics

I haven't seen any that show that, but some areas can be quite different than Video, so it wouldn't really tell me anything. No biggy, but I would be interested in seeing more.

 

[David G.]

You can make any computer sluggish by having a suitably large and complicated Excel sheet. That, however, is not because the task itself would be exceedingly taxing for any computer with Apple Watch processing power or better.

But when it comes to code compiling, there are situations where a coder will just sit and wait for the computer to get the job done. Compiling the Linux kernel or Chromium takes a lot of time on almost any machine.

The bottleneck is not necessarily in the CPU power, though. Not everything can be parallelized, and some operations are very I/O intensive.

Recent talk in the forums was about a 2 MB Word file that took half an hour with a M1 MBA to open. I gave up on timing it with my 2019 i7 iMac with 40GB of RAM after an hour.

 

[ignatius345]

My 2019 16 MBP also got hot on Zoom meetings and more so if I use external display. FaceTime is better but the fan noise is still noticeable. Using it with the Studio Display or LG Ultrafine 5K, the laptop become hot even when watching a 1080P YouTube video. I am considering get an M1 Pro MBP. Based on your experience, will it be much cooler and less noisy if using it with a Studio Display?

The difference between Intel machines and Apple Silicon machines is huge, even using "just" the M1.

I had that last i5 Intel MacBook Air they made, and it was kind of a dog. It would start wheezing with Zoom meetings, fan cranking, blasting through its battery. When they intro'd the M1 version of the same exact machine, I got that and it was just night and day. Under the same workload, battery life was 2-3x as long, and it really rarely slows down no matter what. And that's just the absolute lowest-spec'ed M1 Air.

 

[Queen6]

Can someone explain to me why saving 2 mins (or 10mins) in export time is a big deal? It's not like video editors export multiple times an hour (or even a day). 99% of time is spent editing. When it comes to export, does it really matter if a MacRumors (or any other) podcast or video comes out 10mins (or for that matter several hours) later?! Just seems like a meaningless benchmark. But every single review video goes (like this one) goes on endlessly about it. Is it just because it's easy to measure?

Also for the love of god please can YouTube reviewers think outside their own world? The logic seems to be 'I make review videos, so all I need to look at is how good this hardware is for making videos'. This is going to blow some people's minds but people do other things on laptops than make videos and play games.

Different strokes for different folks. Some will value a powerful desktop solution and be adverse to notebooks. Some will value a powerful portable solution, others battery longevity.

Benchmark's are what they are statistical & repeatable the rest is down to the user to assess if the HW actually benefits their usage/workflow. For me the 13" MBP still serves best as I value portability and battery life. That premise has paid me dividend in the past and why I value such features. From what I gather most editing video time is a factor as they work on multiple projects simultaneously, therefore the faster they can export the more throughput they can attain.

I'd like to see more relevant numbers as I have no interest in video editing. I'd like to see some engineering applications, equally Apple itself is putting a lot of focus on the creative community so no surprises here...

Q-6

 

[Rafterman]

The difference between Intel machines and Apple Silicon machines is huge, even using "just" the M1.

I had that last i5 Intel MacBook Air they made, and it was kind of a dog. It would start wheezing with Zoom meetings, fan cranking, blasting through its battery. When they intro'd the M1 version of the same exact machine, I got that and it was just night and day. Under the same workload, battery life was 2-3x as long, and it really rarely slows down no matter what. And that's just the absolute lowest-spec'ed M1 Air.

Even Apple doesn't cite "2-3x" battery life. I think some of you are exagerating M1 machines while underappreciating Intels. Call it the "Safari seems snappier" effect (it really isn't snappier) to justify new purchases. We all do it.

There are many advantages to M1, like being able to run iPad apps and now 120hz screens. Plus all being integrated on one chip, certain software will run very fast. But Intels have their own advantages, like being able to run x64 Windows and dedicated video RAM (on i7 and i9).

 

[Tagbert]

Recent talk in the forums was about a 2 MB Word file that took half an hour with a M1 MBA to open. I gave up on timing it with my 2019 i7 iMac with 40GB of RAM after an hour.

That sounds like a really effed up file. I’ve opened some large word files but nothing that takes more than a few seconds. what kind of weird garbage was in that thing?

 

[CBlakeston]

Can someone explain to me why saving 2 mins (or 10mins) in export time is a big deal? It's not like video editors export multiple times an hour (or even a day). 99% of time is spent editing. When it comes to export, does it really matter if a MacRumors (or any other) podcast or video comes out 10mins (or for that matter several hours) later?! Just seems like a meaningless benchmark. But every single review video goes (like this one) goes on endlessly about it. Is it just because it's easy to measure?

Also for the love of god please can YouTube reviewers think outside their own world? The logic seems to be 'I make review videos, so all I need to look at is how good this hardware is for making videos'. This is going to blow some people's minds but people do other things on laptops than make videos and play games.

Because you don’t just edit a video and export it. There are multiples revisions and often multiple videos a day in a busy production house. So saving ten minutes here and 15 minutes there.. through the day… over a week.. over a month.. over a year.. that’s days if not weeks of time saved and time is money.

These kind of machines pay for themselves over and over.

 

[ksgant]

I do not believe you. Sorry

Had a 2 hr zoom meeting with my core i7 MBP yesterday on the desk on battery most of the way. Fans were quite loud by the end. For a zoom meeting. With no other programs running.

Intel MBPs get hot.

Which is why I love my M1 Pro 16”. It’s a paradigm shift of what a laptop can be.

I have to agree. I had the last Intel model of the 16" Macbook Pro and that thing sounded like a jet engine taking off when I put any sort of load on it, like rendering out an Ableton file...or even a REAPER file (and REAPER is really light-weight). It was LOUD.

I traded up to an M1 Mac Mini and I've yet to hear the fans at all. The only sound in the room right now is the Intel based Linux server that's across the other side of the room, and that's just idle.

 

[ignatius345]

Even Apple doesn't cite "2-3x" battery life. I think some of you are exagerating M1 machines while underappreciating Intels.

Well, according to coconut battery my Intel i5 Air would routinely draw 12-15 watts or more from my battery. If I really skimped on screen brightness and did everything I could to save power, I could sometimes get it to draw under 10 watts. The M1 version of the same Air, doing the same stuff, routinely pulls 5 watts or less. I was lucky to see 5 hours on my Intel Air, and I routinely see 10-12 on this M1 Air.

So yeah, I'm not just pulling that number out of my ass. I spent a full 15 years "appreciating" Intel processors. It was a great advance over PowerPC, but the Mac world has moved on.

 

[Bodie CI5]

I'll probably get some hate for this but Maxtech on YT is one of the most overrated and ridiculous. EVERY photo test they do is "we exported 50 raw files" or "scrolling through these images is a breeze". They think they're doing test/reviews for every trade but I find most there reviews to be a joke, especially when it comes to finding information that would benefit me or help with deciding on a purchase. I will say if you are a photographer and need a good review, ArtIsRight on YT is pretty good. His videos can get a little drawn out but he gives beneficial/real workflow info. Just my .02¢

I still remember this pearler (just sayin'):

 

[randyhudson]

Dude, this was just an SSD comparison and nothing else. Your video export is not limited by CPU

 

[Queen6]

Because you don’t just edit a video and export it. There are multiples revisions and often multiple videos a day in a busy production house. So saving ten minutes here and 15 minutes there.. through the day… over a week.. over a month.. over a year.. that’s days if not weeks of time saved and time is money.

These kind of machines pay for themselves over and over.

This, when working my notebooks pay for themselves near instantly. The Mac Studio is designed for several audiences one video/photo editing the other computers massed in large numbers to crush numbers just as the Mac Mini and Mac Pro has been utilised over the years.

For such organisation's the cost of the HW is irrelevant and the performance to power consumption ratio exponentially improved over the Intel based Mac's. Apple's going to sell a lot of Studio's for such roles...

Q-6

 

[123]

You do understand that more times than not, clients want it yesterday right?

And? Meaning 10 minutes still makes zero difference.

 

[123]

100% spot on.

What about 3D, image editing, coding, office work and so on and so on...

Especially the "I don't know how to compile webkit" argument. Then learn it. You are getting paid for me watching your stuff here.

 

[Shirasaki]

I hope everyone who buys this new Mac studio also buys UPS or some sort of backup power supply.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1494213855387734019

or exercise regular backups. Unless you don’t care about data integrity.

Also this:

 

[ikramerica]

Video too, using a Samsung 34" Thunderbolt monitor, through an OWC Tunderbolt 4 dock. The only time I hear fans ramping up is when using virtual machines through vmWare Fusion. In boot camp, I also run Microsoft Flight Sim 2020, which causes fan action. But that game can melt even the most powerful rigs. (mine is a 64GB/8TB 8 core i9, AMD 5500m with 8GB.)

I think your ears can’t hear the fan frequency.

And i have owned many many mac laptops. They all got hot other than the clamshell iBook. And the fans started getting loud with the unibody design.

 

[Scoob Redux]

Because the person who created the GIF format used the soft-g sound "jif" and for a long time that was how most people pronounced it. That was created in the late 80's by Steve Wilhite - who died just this past week.

In the decades since, new people coming into the web without knowing the background of the format, saw the name spelled and started pronouncing it with a hard-g. The "gi" combination can be pronounced with a hard=g as in "give" but can be pronounced with a soft-g as in "giant". In any case, the hard-g seems to have overtaken the original pronunciation.

BTW besides that cleaning product, there is also a well-known brand of peanut butter in the US called "Jif".

Hard-g speaker here. But regarding "the background of the format"...the linguistics of everyday usage doesn't respect history or origins in either pronunciation or meaning. "Literally" now has the official dictionary meaning "figuratively", because that's the way people use it. Language evolves, and new norms emerge. I'm desperately trying to save the plural "s" after words ending in "st" (specialists, artists, etc) and the use of "aircraft" as both singular and plural (vs. "aircrafts"), but ultimately, the majority of speakers will do as they see fit.

 

[sudo-sandwich]

As a quick example, a standard 4K 10 minute video exported in 4 minutes and 50 seconds on the ‌M1 Max‌ MacBook Pro, and three minutes on the ‌M1‌ Ultra ‌Mac Studio‌.

I can't watch the video now, but is this using the CPU or the video en/decoding accelerator? Cause I thought these were mostly on the accelerator. If it were pure CPU, the Ultra should be close to 2X as fast as the Max. If it's the accelerator, is the bottleneck that or the SSD?

 

[sudo-sandwich]

Also for the love of god please can YouTube reviewers think outside their own world? The logic seems to be 'I make review videos, so all I need to look at is how good this hardware is for making videos'. This is going to blow some people's minds but people do other things on laptops than make videos and play games.

If you're even considering an M1 Ultra, you should probably have a heavy use case like making videos. I get that there are other heavy tasks like 3D editing etc, but it'd be a very long video if he tried them all.

 

[sudo-sandwich]

Honestly, 99% of people don't need HALF of the performance of M1 Ultra. It is a very small niche of people that work with something so demanding. Thats what Mac Pro was all about.

Not only do they don't need it, they can't use it. They'll never run anything that uses more than the 4 high-perf cores of a regular M1.

 

[sudo-sandwich]

Video editing is the best real world test to show the power of the system.

I'd call it one of the worst (least generalizable) tests: Sometimes that work is done on specialized parts of the chip like the video en/decoding accelerator, not the CPU cores. I don't know whether that was utilized in this test. And the real bottleneck may be the SSD anyway.

 

[sudo-sandwich]

Dude, this was just an SSD comparison and nothing else. Your video export is not limited by CPU

The MBP SSD write speed is supposed to be 3.3GiB/sec, which I imagine would be way above the video bitrate. Even if it's halved cause you're reading from the same SSD, still. Or am I missing something?

Edit: Wow I'm tired. The video is transcoded at a faster rate than the video is played, so yeah it's plausible that the SSD bottlenecks it.

 

[Da_Hood]

If you're even considering an M1 Ultra, you should probably have a heavy use case like making videos. I get that there are other heavy tasks like 3D editing etc, but it'd be a very long video if he tried them all.

LOL. Plenty of people need more than 64Gb, some even 128Gb memory, not so much the amount of power it comes with.

 

[deevey]

Can someone explain to me why saving 2 mins (or 10mins) in export time is a big deal? It's not like video editors export multiple times an hour (or even a day). 99% of time is spent editing. When it comes to export, does it really matter if a MacRumors (or any other) podcast or video comes out 10mins (or for that matter several hours) later?! Just seems like a meaningless benchmark. But every single review video goes (like this one) goes on endlessly about it. Is it just because it's easy to measure?

If your business potentially loses thousands of clicks by being the second to upload a widely anticipated review or news story, yes, export time does matter.