Tom's Hardware had an article I think was meant to temper expectations about the M1 Ultra. It doesn't do that well with a bit of digging into the limited data. The benchmarks do show single threaded performance in the M1 Pro/Max/Ultra is great, which we already knew.
Tom's Hardware article link
What is the 5995WX? It's a 64 core / 128 thread processor that has the highest multi-core score on PassMark's CPU test. It is only now getting released and looks like it is only available in the Lenovo P620. If you build the current P620 with the upgrade from the 3945WX to the 3995WX, that adds $10,600 to the price. Let's assume you could get a 40% discount on the upgrade (Lenovo runs those deals), this means the 5995WX, if it's priced similarly to the 3995WX, should cost at least $6,000 but could be higher than $10,000. Other estimates put the cost between $5000-$6000 but until it's available elsewhere, that's just wishful thinking.
You can buy a Mac Studio with an M1 Ultra for $3600, about 50% to 33% the estimated cost of just the 5995WX CPU.
Now, to the benchmarks (let's assume benchmarks mean something useful). In PassMark's multi-thread CPU Mark, the M1 Ultra with 16% of the cores/threads of the 5995WX offered 39% of the multi-core performance. If we ignore multithreading on the Threadripper, the M1 Ultra has 31% of the cores (counting efficiency ones) but 39% of the performance. That's impressive, especially considering the M1 Ultra costs much less than the 5995WX. This means the upcoming Mac Pro is going to be a beast.
The M1 Ultra also is much more power efficient (which doesn't matter much if all you care about is raw performance). The 5995WX has a Default TDP of 280 W versus the M1 Ultra at around 60 W. If Apple scaled to 64 cores (58 power and 6 efficiency) and if TDP similarly scaled (and clock frequency remained the same), the M1 Ultra would have a TDP of 192 W but should benchmark 25% faster than the 5995WX, even without hyper-threading (assuming hyper-threading factors into the benchmarks). Even if it those benchmarks do not use hyperthreading, Apple's M1 (with the same number of cores) surpasses the highest-end AMD processor while using less energy.
In spite of the somewhat click-bait headline, at least the author ends with a fair point: "In general, if you need to choose between an M1 Ultra-based desktop or an AMD / Intel-based machine, you should probably check performance of such systems in your workloads rather than rely on benchmark results published over the Internet."
tl;dr The M1 Ultra with 16% of the threads (31% of the cores if you ignore hyperthreading on the AMD processor) is 39% of multi-core benchmark performance of the not-yet-available Threadripper 5995WX while costing thousands less and using much less electricity. Scaled up to 64 cores, the M1 should be 25% faster than the 5995WX while using 68.5% of the energy.
Tom's Hardware article link
What is the 5995WX? It's a 64 core / 128 thread processor that has the highest multi-core score on PassMark's CPU test. It is only now getting released and looks like it is only available in the Lenovo P620. If you build the current P620 with the upgrade from the 3945WX to the 3995WX, that adds $10,600 to the price. Let's assume you could get a 40% discount on the upgrade (Lenovo runs those deals), this means the 5995WX, if it's priced similarly to the 3995WX, should cost at least $6,000 but could be higher than $10,000. Other estimates put the cost between $5000-$6000 but until it's available elsewhere, that's just wishful thinking.
You can buy a Mac Studio with an M1 Ultra for $3600, about 50% to 33% the estimated cost of just the 5995WX CPU.
Now, to the benchmarks (let's assume benchmarks mean something useful). In PassMark's multi-thread CPU Mark, the M1 Ultra with 16% of the cores/threads of the 5995WX offered 39% of the multi-core performance. If we ignore multithreading on the Threadripper, the M1 Ultra has 31% of the cores (counting efficiency ones) but 39% of the performance. That's impressive, especially considering the M1 Ultra costs much less than the 5995WX. This means the upcoming Mac Pro is going to be a beast.
The M1 Ultra also is much more power efficient (which doesn't matter much if all you care about is raw performance). The 5995WX has a Default TDP of 280 W versus the M1 Ultra at around 60 W. If Apple scaled to 64 cores (58 power and 6 efficiency) and if TDP similarly scaled (and clock frequency remained the same), the M1 Ultra would have a TDP of 192 W but should benchmark 25% faster than the 5995WX, even without hyper-threading (assuming hyper-threading factors into the benchmarks). Even if it those benchmarks do not use hyperthreading, Apple's M1 (with the same number of cores) surpasses the highest-end AMD processor while using less energy.
In spite of the somewhat click-bait headline, at least the author ends with a fair point: "In general, if you need to choose between an M1 Ultra-based desktop or an AMD / Intel-based machine, you should probably check performance of such systems in your workloads rather than rely on benchmark results published over the Internet."
tl;dr The M1 Ultra with 16% of the threads (31% of the cores if you ignore hyperthreading on the AMD processor) is 39% of multi-core benchmark performance of the not-yet-available Threadripper 5995WX while costing thousands less and using much less electricity. Scaled up to 64 cores, the M1 should be 25% faster than the 5995WX while using 68.5% of the energy.
Last edited:
