Anandtech: M1 Max multithread performance is like Ryzen 5950x

[Krevnik]

M1 Max TDP is solidly in the desktop territory. Anandtech:

Finally, stressing out both CPU and GPU at the same time, the SoC goes up to 92W package power and 120W wall active power. That’s quite high, and we haven’t tested how long the machine is able to sustain such loads (it’s highly environment dependent), but it very much appears that the chip and platform don’t have any practical power limit, and just uses whatever it needs as long as temperatures are in check.

And honestly that’s my biggest concern. While similar measurements of the 16” Intel could go a bit higher, it’s not by a whole lot.

What Apple gained in efficiency, they spent in raw power and wound up where they started. So my hope is that the 30W CPU means we don’t see fan spikes under moderate loads, and higher loads aren’t as loud with the new cooling.

 

[TSE]

And honestly that’s my biggest concern. While similar measurements of the 16” Intel could go a bit higher, it’s not by a whole lot.

What Apple gained in efficiency, they spent in raw power and wound up where they started. So my hope is that the 30W CPU means we don’t see fan spikes under moderate loads, and higher loads aren’t as loud with the new cooling.

It's obvious that the Apple Silicon is not quite as effective when you trade energy for pure processing power in the MacBook Pros as it does at giving a ton of computing power for as little energy as possible (think M1 and iPhones).

They are still above and beyond any X86 gaming laptop is when it comes to power per watt, but you see the scaling isn't quite as groundbreaking as we thought it might be.

I just can't wait to get rid of my XPS 15 and receive my 14" MBP in November. I've been waiting for it.

 

[jeanlain]

Also, for those who were stressing over the Geekbench GPU benchmark not being as high as it should:

View attachment 1877822

Andrei is the author of the article and an employee of Anandtech.

Why would this affect the 32-core variants more than the other variants?

 

[Andropov]

Why would this affect the 32-core variants more than the other variants?

Maybe Apple is more conservative in increasing the frequency of 32 cores than 8-16? It wouldn't be very efficient to skyrocket the frequency of 32 cores for a very short task.

 

[falainber]

The entire SOC? Sure, but the only thing comparable today would be the PS5/Xbox Series X/S as the last PC part with a GPU anywhere near this fast would be the 100W TDP i7-8xxxG with Radeon™ RX Vega graphics. The M1 Pro/Max CPU appears to draw ~43W max for the CPU by itself putting it solidly in mobile territory.

Intel® Core™ i5-11400 Processor - 65W TDP with integrated graphics. Sure the actual power draw will be higher it will be comparable. M1 is more power efficient but then let's keep in mind that it is using a better TSMC process. Going forward this advantage may or may not be there (presumably both Apple and Intel are going to use TSMC 3nm). The main point though is that 90W is clearly a desktop territory.

 

[jeanlain]

They perform much better than Untel Macs they replace, and, of course, the tested games ports are crap.

As most current and future macOS games, so does it matter wether benchmark tools are more optimised?

 

[leman]

And honestly that’s my biggest concern. While similar measurements of the 16” Intel could go a bit higher, it’s not by a whole lot.

What Apple gained in efficiency, they spent in raw power and wound up where they started. So my hope is that the 30W CPU means we don’t see fan spikes under moderate loads, and higher loads aren’t as loud with the new cooling.

I just looked at Intel power gadget on my 16" i9 MBP. The package power is permanently in the 25-30W, with spikes to 50-60W every time I do, well, anything. Starting multi-core Cibenench propels the package power to 90W. That's only the CPU.

To make it clear: my i9 has higher package power opening a file than M1 Max running multi-core SPEC2017.

So yes, I think your worries are unfounded. The problem of the recent Intel Macs is not that they ran hot and loud — any machine will run hot and loud under heavy load — their problem is that they ran hot and loud while seemingly doing nothing, as just two core operation would propel the laptop in the 60W range. This simply won't happen with the M1 chips.

Of course, if you expect zero fans and cool operation under full load, doing truly demanding work you will be disappointed. But that's not really a realistic expectation to begin with.

 

[leman]

As most current and future macOS games, so does it matter wether benchmark tools are more optimised?

Metro port is fairly well optimized. Total War: Three kingdoms ran in my M1 Pro almost as well as it ran on my 5500M. Baldur's Gates 3 gets close to 50fps on full HD high settings on M1 (which is mid-range mobile gaming laptop territory). There are some reasonably well optimized games. I don't understand why everyone uses Tomb Raider which is known to be a bad port.

 

[jeanlain]

I don't understand why everyone uses Tomb Raider which is known to be a bad port.

I don't expect Metro to perform better. It uses MoltenVK and it's already slower on macOS than on Bootcamp.

 

[raknor]

M1 Max TDP is solidly in the desktop territory. Anandtech:

Finally, stressing out both CPU and GPU at the same time, the SoC goes up to 92W package power and 120W wall active power. That’s quite high, and we haven’t tested how long the machine is able to sustain such loads (it’s highly environment dependent), but it very much appears that the chip and platform don’t have any practical power limit, and just uses whatever it needs as long as temperatures are in check.

You are confusing TDP with Max Power of Both GPU and CPU combined at full tilt. Take a laptop with a Nvidia GPU and it will consume 100W+ just for the GPU alone without counting the CPU.

Apple's M1 Pro, M1 Max SoCs Investigated: New Performance and Efficiency Heights

www.anandtech.com

The MSI laptop is pulling 256 W from the wall compared to the M1 Max MBPs 120W. The CPU+GPU is at 220W compared to the M1 Max 92W.

What does that make the MSI laptop if the M1 is desktop territory?

 

[mi7chy]

Is that result on 16" with High Power Mode that requires plugging into wall?

 

[Adarna]

The laptop they tested it against hit a 220W package power on the same workload.

You're winning the Internet again, my friend!

 

[Andropov]

You're winning the Internet again, my friend!

You seem to have a weird fixation with me.

 

[Adarna]

M1 Max TDP is solidly in the desktop territory. Anandtech:

Finally, stressing out both CPU and GPU at the same time, the SoC goes up to 92W package power and 120W wall active power. That’s quite high, and we haven’t tested how long the machine is able to sustain such loads (it’s highly environment dependent), but it very much appears that the chip and platform don’t have any practical power limit, and just uses whatever it needs as long as temperatures are in check.

TDP of one of the desktop chip is 280W

 

[senttoschool]

For Conclusion & Summary

Apple's M1 Pro, M1 Max SoCs Investigated: New Performance and Efficiency Heights

www.anandtech.com

I feel sad that Apple will never make a desktop SoC that has Intel Core i9 or AMD Threadripper TDP.

The best we can hope for is a multi SoC configuration of the M1 Max on the iMac Pro or Mac Pro.

For context for non-PCMasterRace types

• M1 Pro & M1 Pro Max are used in laptops with 67W, 96W and 140W chargers
• Intel Core i9-11900K is a year 2021 125W desktop processor
• Intel Core i9-10900K is a year 2020 125W desktop processor
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X a year 2020 105W desktop processor
• AMD Ryzen 9 5900X is a year 2020 105W desktop processor
• AMD Ryzen 9 5950X is a year 2020 105W desktop processor

I find it really disheartening that Apple's trend towards systems that uses relatively lower power consumption will not allow for a MBP 16" with a 240W USB PD charger.

So the odds of a iMac 27" or larger screen replacement with 500W PSU is very unlikely unless these are multi SoC M1 Max configurations to allow for more than 64GB memory like say 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB or 2TB using multiple M1 Max SoCs

Now list those CPUs at their boost wattage. The listed TDP for both AMD and Intel are nearly useless.

 

[Adarna]

Now list those CPUs at their boost wattage. The listed TDP for both AMD and Intel are nearly useless.

So they're higher than the published TDP?

 

[mi7chy]

So they're higher than the published TDP?

They're configurable between base clock, boost clock and overclock (PBO on AMD) with different TDP. For example, AMD 3800xt has a base clock of 3.9GHz, boost clock of up to 4.7GHz and TDP of 105W but when boost clock is disabled it's pulling ~60W at full load. Would be nice to see performance comparisons of M1 Max against all three x64 clock variations.

 

[vir]

Power is important.

 

[Adarna]

They're configurable between base clock, boost clock and overclock (PBO on AMD) with different TDP. For example, AMD 3800xt has a base clock of 3.9GHz, boost clock of up to 4.7GHz and TDP of 105W but when boost clock is disabled it's pulling ~60W at full load. Would be nice to see performance comparisons of M1 Max against all three x64 clock variations.

Are the configs you mention higher?

 

[huge_apple_fangirl]

What do you think the wattage of the Mac Pro will be?

 

[PeterJP]

I can fully, 100% understand this benefit as it relates to battery, but this is such a weird thing to care about when you're plugged in. Like, are you crying for the environment while your numbers are crunching while corded? Do you think "gosh, this is so fast, but if only the power draw from my wall socket was lower", just ... who thinks that? Is it hard on your electricity bill or something? Was it ever?

Do you care about this in other areas, like televisions and refrigerators? Why or why not?

Yes, actually, I do. Efficiency is just that: getting the same thing done with less energy. I think in these days of energy transition, too little people care.

As for a personal advantage - every Watt consumed has to be expelled from the laptop chassis. If the new MBPs make do with 120W when Intel gaming laptops use almost double, then that's 100W less burning my lap. So all lofty earth-saving goals aside, I prefer having cool legs, a cool keyboard, and a silent machine while editing audio when I need to hear every nuance.

 

[falainber]

You are confusing TDP with Max Power of Both GPU and CPU combined at full tilt. Take a laptop with a Nvidia GPU and it will consume 100W+ just for the GPU alone without counting the CPU.

Apple's M1 Pro, M1 Max SoCs Investigated: New Performance and Efficiency Heights

www.anandtech.com

The MSI laptop is pulling 256 W from the wall compared to the M1 Max MBPs 120W. The CPU+GPU is at 220W compared to the M1 Max 92W.

What does that make the MSI laptop if the M1 is desktop territory?

Yes it does. These are gaming laptops, nobody buys them to use on the laps. My point is that laptop and desktop power envelopes overlaps and while M1 Max in this case is used in the laptop its power consumption crosses into the desktop territory. Their room for straight scaling up the chips by increasing the number of cores/GPUs is rather limited (also because the chip is humorous). BTW, even M1 is used in the desktops.

 

[pshufd]

For Conclusion & Summary

Apple's M1 Pro, M1 Max SoCs Investigated: New Performance and Efficiency Heights

www.anandtech.com

I feel sad that Apple will never make a desktop SoC that has Intel Core i9 or AMD Threadripper TDP.

The best we can hope for is a multi SoC configuration of the M1 Max on the iMac Pro or Mac Pro.

For context for non-PCMasterRace types

• M1 Pro & M1 Pro Max are used in laptops with 67W, 96W and 140W chargers
• Intel Core i9-11900K is a year 2021 125W desktop processor
• Intel Core i9-10900K is a year 2020 125W desktop processor
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X a year 2020 105W desktop processor
• AMD Ryzen 9 5900X is a year 2020 105W desktop processor
• AMD Ryzen 9 5950X is a year 2020 105W desktop processor

I find it really disheartening that Apple's trend towards systems that uses relatively lower power consumption will not allow for a MBP 16" with a 240W USB PD charger.

So the odds of a iMac 27" or larger screen replacement with 500W PSU is very unlikely unless these are multi SoC M1 Max configurations to allow for more than 64GB memory like say 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB or 2TB using multiple M1 Max SoCs

125 Watts can actually use 250 Watts. I have a 65 Watt i7-10700 that can actually go up to 224 watts. The i9-10900 can actually go up to 250 watts. The i9-11900K also goes up to 250 watts. The new Alder Lake i9-12900 can go up to 228 watts though one early reviewer got it to use 400 watts with overclocking.

As far as I can tell, what Apple has said on the M1 in terms of power usage seems correct in that it uses a tiny amount of power. The M1 runs at 3.2 and that seems to be it. I haven't heard what the M1 PRO and MAX chips run at and Monterey has Low Power and High Power modes and I don't know if that adjusts CPU frequencies. We should know fairly soon though.

 

[falainber]

TDP of one of the desktop chip is 280W

There is a difference between one chip and "desktop territory".

 

[pshufd]

Yes it does. These are gaming laptops, nobody buys them to use on the laps. My point is that laptop and desktop power envelopes overlaps and while M1 Max in this case is used in the laptop its power consumption crosses into the desktop territory. Their room for straight scaling up the chips by increasing the number of cores/GPUs is rather limited (also because the chip is humorous). BTW, even M1 is used in the desktops.

Luke Miani has done a review indicating 11 hours of real world use of battery life (I think that he was doing video editing and rendering work). Can you show me another desktop replacement with 11 hours of battery life under load?