And even then Macs where not used widely, there is nothing to catch up, if MAC and it os was better, every company and every user was getting them, Macs are computing devices just like any other, nothing special, you can't game on them, i don't see any AI company having datacenters full of mac studios, Most AI is run on Nvidia hardware these days, so what is exactly what Mac does better?
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Nvidia Challenges Apple Silicon With New RTX Spark PC Chip
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plus the education market is own by google chrome books, so there is that.
It's actually true. Prior to the transition to using intel CPUs, Apple had been living in the shadow of intel, with machines that were generally slower (often by a wide margin). Apple had been using PowerPC RISC chips. PowerPC was blazing fast when it first debuted, and then intel got in gear and started making its own chips faster and faster. PowerPC couldn't keep up. The G4 famously hit 500MHz and stalled out there, while intel kept going. Also it ran too hot and Apple couldn't put it in a laptop. Jobs understood that — as important as performance was — performance-per-watt even more important. There were apparently issues with the architecture that made it hard to improve the chip, but even worse, Apple's market share was just too small to make it worth either Motorola or IBM investing a lot of resources. It was to get away from that shadow that made Apple switch to intel in the first place.
chrono1081
macrumors G3
Who cares lol Apple have their own OS can control everything they want
Doesn't mean they have the best GPU performance.
They not try have best performance everyone know Nvidia the best GPU in the world and Cuda is the best for AI and data center
We have seen snapdragon powered android phones exceed the 17 pro max in both performance, speed and battery life, so it's about time windows laptops did the same to macbooks
Mac vs Windows is one hell of a tale. Its like a infinite sine wave going up and down. There is no right or wrong overall there is just right time to buy for one or the other. Eventually the one will catch up and prevail until the other one does the same at one point. Its all fun and games.
Unpopular opinion: M1 Mac Mini is bigger deal than Mac Book Air ever was and to this day if you are in in-box music mixing M chip Mac Mini is the one to beat and there is no alternative in the horizon anytime soon. If you need external mastering peripherals than Intel Mac Pro or some PC workstation are the way to go but that's different game pricewise.
When it comes to other stuff M chips have been stagnating for quite some time and if you are in visual creative industry its kind of hard to recommend Mac Studio if you ever go beyond Photoshop and basic video retouching. At that point any Intel or AMD gaming CPU + proper GPU would always do much better.
Unpopular opinion: M1 Mac Mini is bigger deal than Mac Book Air ever was and to this day if you are in in-box music mixing M chip Mac Mini is the one to beat and there is no alternative in the horizon anytime soon. If you need external mastering peripherals than Intel Mac Pro or some PC workstation are the way to go but that's different game pricewise.
When it comes to other stuff M chips have been stagnating for quite some time and if you are in visual creative industry its kind of hard to recommend Mac Studio if you ever go beyond Photoshop and basic video retouching. At that point any Intel or AMD gaming CPU + proper GPU would always do much better.
If you're a professional who values your time, it doesn't matter whether you're using Windows or macOS.
dmr727
macrumors G4
The more I read about this thing, the more I think it'll gonna be great for local AI but little else. Notice they're not talking up the performance of the CPU. Spark uses the same MediaTek die that's been around since 2024 - that doesn't bode well for decent single core performance, especially since everyone else will be onto their next big thing by the time this is released later in the year.
GuilleA
macrumors 6502
The M5 Max has 614 GB/s of memory bandwidth, while the RTX Spark has 300 GB/s. So yeah, the M5 Max will be faster.
Criss P.
macrumors member
Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur's Gate 3, Resident Evil Village, all running natively on Apple Silicon, +1,700 titles. The reason the catalog is smaller isn't that the Mac can't, it's that studios chase the bigger install base. Fewer ports ≠ incapable.
And yet, Apple claimed that their M1 series beats Nvidia RTX 30 series which turns out to be false and since then, they only compare with their own chips lol.
SactoGuy18
macrumors 603
Yes, with 16 GB of RAM and way over 5,000 milliamp-hour batteries; the phones weigh a lot as a result. Pick up the Samsung Galaxy S23 or later or a more recent Oppo phone and you know what I mean.
BSDnostalgia
macrumors 6502a
AI is all the rage, and Nvidia is making billions on it, so, I'm not surprised they are gushing about that side of it. I hope that doesn't confuse people about the architectural significance.
Nvidia is starting from the GPU architecture, and, melding the fast ARM CPU into it. This is, finally, breaking the artificial barrier between fast CPU and fast Nvidia dGPU.
Yes, Apple already did it with their own M-series, but, hasn't (yet) scaled the GPU side all the way up. This will be a challenge to Apple.
But, the real threat is to x86. x86 was obsolete the day it was born, and yet, still lives on. This will likely finally kill it. (A long slow death of course. But, x86-based quarterly profits will sag first.) Intel and AMD had better figure out how to join the party.
Steve Adams
macrumors 68000
Competition is always good. Apple is not touching the more highend consumer side of chips as they are pretty limited on that area. (when are they going to bring up the update to M3 ultra????). Hopefully, with additional competition, Apple is also squeezed to bring out more products.
BSDnostalgia
macrumors 6502a
I didn't see where they specified that level of detail, but, the latest MediaTek Dimensity 9500 is right up there with the A19 Pro and Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite 8 series: Snapdragon_Performance I assume that the package will address the thermal issues for sustained performance.
As far as I could tell, inference as measured by TOPS, the Spark might be O(10X) an M5 Max? Someone who knows AI stuff please correct me.
But, the interesting thing for me is architectural. This approach addresses the shortcomings of the CPU-dGPU split in a way that acknowledges that Apple was essentially correct with AS, but, it has a much higher GPU performance starting point.
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This wccftech article claims that nVidia's N1X SoC doesn't quite match the M3 Max in performance. Not even the M3 Ultra. The M3 Max. We're going to be up to M6 & perhaps M4/5 Ultra by this fall. Still, it's a good first step down what is probably an inevitable path for nVidia. Plus there will be an N1 variant with fewer cores and less memory. Qualcomm will eventually develop one of these as well, and maybe the x86 stalwarts will be able to figure something out that's competitive.
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The operating system currently uses no more than 1% of the computer’s resources. It is therefore not a critical factor in professional applications. Of course, it is easier for us to use macOS when we are using xxx applications. But for professional users who use a single application, e.g. for video editing, this is irrelevant. What matters is that RTX Spark already has genuine support from the biggest software manufacturers.
dmr727
macrumors G4
From what I can tell, this isn't using the 9500. It's 10 cores from the 9400 and 10 cores of the 8500. I'm pulling this info from here:
NVIDIA RTX Spark Took Dimensity 9400's Prime Core And Dimensity 8500's Performance Cores, And Then Went Wild With Them
NVIDIA went on a shopping spree for the RTX Spark, ripping apart the Dimensity 9400 and 8500 chips for CPU-related architectural inspiration.
wccftech.com
We'll see what this means for CPU performance, but I don't think it'll compare well to an M5 Max (let alone an M6). But as you noted, it's really the AI performance that's interesting about Spark anyway.
Lol what. The s25 ultra weighs less than the 17 pro max. The iPhone is heavier, slower, and has worse battery life