I cannot deny the performance of the M1. IMPRESSIVE!

[Steve Adams]

I have been a naysayer of the m1 since it was released. I was looking at benchmarks and most times I think benchmarks are a load of poop for real world performance. And I was right. Just not in the way I was suspecting. I was thinking that in the real world performance the M1 and i7 series from intel would be very closely matched and not one or the other very different. Boy was I wrong. I saw an M1 encode a 4k video on resolve yesterday. It flat out crushed the i7 doing the same thing. I am not easily impressed by new things. But, WOW.

It was not even close. The M1 ripped through that video like it was nothing, while the i7 was struggling. I have to say apple did their homework on this new machine and I have to order a new pro 16/1tb ASAP. All I do with my computer now is video/photo/graphic/web work. This machine would make my workflow ten times as fast! In business, time means money. So this computer will pay for itself in a year!

 

[jeanlain]

I saw an M1 encode a 4k video on resolve yesterday. It flat out crushed the i7 doing the same thing. I am not easily impressed by new things. But, WOW.

Video encoding may not be representative of other workloads because it uses dedicated hardware, not just the general-purpose compute cores.

 

[Steve Adams]

Maybe so, But thats what I would be using the computer for.

 

[loby]

Yes, I noticed this too. my Mac Pro 2013 12-Core and my MacBook Pro i9...Uh...well...

my little M1 Mac mini smokes faster than both when rendering video. Still like and use my both Intel systems, but moving more toward just using the Mac mini for video editing...a Mac mini...can you believe?

 

[Richard Tillard]

The audio performance is excellent as well. The biggest projects I've had that were slowing down on my iMac work fine on the Apple Silicon. I've been working on the LPX for years and I'm really enjoying the smoothness and speed now. I think as new processors come out and current software is optimized it will only get better.

 

[JohnnyGo]

Even Office is running faster and MSFT is well known for sluggish performance.

SSD speeds help a lot the M1 performance (but that is still Apple’s purview as it uses Apple Silicon and A series chips as SSD controllers).

Apple has hit a 500ft HR here. If they can double the core count, we will have a beast in our hands (and less money in our pockets)

 

[nothingtoseehere]

Yeah, really impressive. My M1 does anything so much faster, and I can feel it every moment - scrolling through a website or an Word document, changing between tabs or spaces, opening new apps or windows... It is still ok to work with my old MBP 2015 or the Core-i5-Windows-laptop in my office, but Apple Silicon is now the benchmark.

 

[AppleB]

My new M1 Mini is very impressive. 16 Ram 1 TB.

I’m using it for music production. Logic Pro X and Pro Tools.

I was using a mid 2011 iMac 27 that was good but stuck on High Sierra. The latest Logic Pro won’t run on HIgh Sierra. The Mac M1 Mini is chewing up high track count sessions like it’s nothing. Worth every penny.

 

[machinesworking]

My new M1 Mini is very impressive. 16 Ram 1 TB.

I’m using it for music production. Logic Pro X and Pro Tools.

I was using a mid 2011 iMac 27 that was good but stuck on High Sierra. The latest Logic Pro won’t run on HIgh Sierra. The Mac M1 Mini is chewing up high track count sessions like it’s nothing. Worth every penny.

I'm still doing OK, Logic isn't my primary DAW but I can still run the latest on the 2012 MBP here. The thing is slow though, and reports of how well the Mini etc. run are.... frustrating. I think people are right that it's either next month or June that the 14 and 16" come out, looking forward to it.

One thing though, and people should keep this in mind if they have complex setups, I won't be able to move all my software over yet. I have a Slate Raven and reports are that it does not work in Rosetta. VEP supposedly is working, but I don't know anyone using it.

 

[AppleB]

I'm still doing OK, Logic isn't my primary DAW but I can still run the latest on the 2012 MBP here. The thing is slow though, and reports of how well the Mini etc. run are.... frustrating. I think people are right that it's either next month or June that the 14 and 16" come out, looking forward to it.

One thing though, and people should keep this in mind if they have complex setups, I won't be able to move all my software over yet. I have a Slate Raven and reports are that it does not work in Rosetta. VEP supposedly is working, but I don't know anyone using it.

I just got my M1 Mini on 2/18/21.

Here’s what I have and what’s working on the M1 Mini.

Logic: works of course through Rosetta so plugins work. But even through Rosetta the performance is impressive.

Pro Tools 12-20. Works no option to run in Rosetta but it’s like butter.

Waves V12: Working in Logic and PT

Addictive Drums 2: Working in LP and
PT

EZ Drummer 2: Working in both LP PT

Steven Slate Drums: works in PT but GUI issues in LP. I found out on another forum it works in LP you just can’t see the interface. It’s blank.

SSL Native Plugs: Working in both LP and PT

UAApollo MKII and UA Plugs working in both LP and PT.

Blue Cat Audio VST host not working on either LP or PT.

I will still use Stylus RMX on occasion but haven’t tried installing it yet.

I also use Izotope RX 7. It installed but I haven’t tried using it yet.

 

[Joelist]

As I noted in my thread about getting my M1:

Got my M1 MBA

M1 MBA Base Model received. Setup as follows: 1) Immediately after initial startup complete I updated MacOS to 11.1 2) Downloaded Zoom 3) Installed my Office 365 (Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook) So far it is outperforming my MBP 16 with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD. I will post more as I go...

forums.macrumors.com

It is a screamer and especially for my workload and app mix - I did not evaluate on benchmarks but rather loaded up my daily use software and drove it for a while.

 

[machinesworking]

I just got my M1 Mini on 2/18/21.

Here’s what I have and what’s working on the M1 Mini.

Logic: works of course through Rosetta so plugins work. But even through Rosetta the performance is impressive.

Pro Tools 12-20. Works no option to run in Rosetta but it’s like butter.

Waves V12: Working in Logic and PT

Addictive Drums 2: Working in LP and
PT

EZ Drummer 2: Working in both LP PT

Steven Slate Drums: works in PT but GUI issues in LP. I found out on another forum it works in LP you just can’t see the interface. It’s blank.

SSL Native Plugs: Working in both LP and PT

UAApollo MKII and UA Plugs working in both LP and PT.

Blue Cat Audio VST host not working on either LP or PT.

I will still use Stylus RMX on occasion but haven’t tried installing it yet.

I also use Izotope RX 7. It installed but I haven’t tried using it yet.

Yeah so far the big red flags I’ve heard about are Slates Ravens, and MOTU interfaces aren’t ready yet. So my MTP/AV won’t work as well. I have a Fireface 800 and RME already have a beta native driver. The big one for me is the Raven, everything else can exist on the modded mac pro (since the VEP plug in works in Rosetta), if it has to.

 

[workerbee]

Interesting. I had exactly the opposite experience: have a loaner MBP M1 16GB RAM here, and am comparing to my MBP 16" i9. Doing h265 encodes in HandBrake (v1.4 Universal on the M1, v1.3.3 Intel on the 16"), the 16" is approximately 50% faster than the M1 with the same file, same settings. I would have expected the M1 to be about the same speed as the i9, or at least noticeably more quiet; unfortunately, both are not true.

 

[Cinetagonist]

This is hell of a computing machine! And M1 MacBook owners can get the screen real estate under full control with Screen Expander. Suddenly, 13 inches might be enough for professional work. https://apps.apple.com/app/screen-expander/id1505216993?mt=12

 

[leman]

Where M1 really shines is software development and data science (unless you are in heavy GPU-accelerated ML, then it probably doesn't have enough crunch). Best-in-class brand prediction and ridiculous per-core memory bandwidth allows it to compile code faster than my i9 CPU with twice as many cores, and it's about 30-50% faster in doing statistical analysis.

 

[thekev]

Best-in-class brand prediction and ridiculous per-core memory bandwidth allows it to compile code faster than my i9 CPU with twice as many cores, and it's about 30-50% faster in doing statistical analysis.

Is XCode actually mulithreading your compilation? It's not the easiest thing to thread, and you probably don't have many opportunities other than compiling multiple files in parallel.

 

[jeanlain]

and it's about 30-50% faster in doing statistical analysis.

Have you tested an ARM-64 version of R?

 

[leman]

Is XCode actually mulithreading your compilation? It's not the easiest thing to thread, and you probably don't have many opportunities other than compiling multiple files in parallel.

Yeah, I am talking about parallelized builds - and not necessarily just Xcode.

Have you tested an ARM-64 version of R?

I did, a while ago, works very well - just some package compatibility might still be an issue.

 

[MisterMxyzptlk]

I was surprised when the hobbyist Arduino IDE (ESP32 MCU) worked on M1 / Big Sur.
I got the “downloaded from the internet blah, blah, blah” but it worked.
A large Arduino C/C++ app compiled on Intel iMac 27 (2017) Catalina takes 56 sec but on M1 mini took 9 seconds. Downloaded to the target hardware over USB and ran!
More hobbyist news: micro Python and Thonny IDE worked.

 

[MisterMxyzptlk]

I was surprised when the hobbyist Arduino IDE (ESP32 MCU) worked on M1 / Big Sur.
I got the “downloaded from the internet blah, blah, blah” but it worked.
A large Arduino C/C++ app compiled on Intel iMac 27 (2017) Catalina takes 56 sec but on M1 mini took 9 seconds. Downloaded to the target hardware over USB and ran!
More hobbyist news: micro Python and Thonny IDE worked.

Redoing that comparison.

 

[anticipate]

For video it's extremely fluid. More so than my 10 core Vega 64 iMac Pro (but that system can show more effects at "better quality" in FCPX unrendered... both perform equally in best performance... and the M1 is more fluid overall in timeline performance with 4K compressed footage.

 

[Richard Tillard]

I just got my M1 Mini on 2/18/21.

Here’s what I have and what’s working on the M1 Mini.

Logic: works of course through Rosetta so plugins work. But even through Rosetta the performance is impressive.

Pro Tools 12-20. Works no option to run in Rosetta but it’s like butter.

Waves V12: Working in Logic and PT

Addictive Drums 2: Working in LP and
PT

EZ Drummer 2: Working in both LP PT

Steven Slate Drums: works in PT but GUI issues in LP. I found out on another forum it works in LP you just can’t see the interface. It’s blank.

SSL Native Plugs: Working in both LP and PT

UAApollo MKII and UA Plugs working in both LP and PT.

Blue Cat Audio VST host not working on either LP or PT.

I will still use Stylus RMX on occasion but haven’t tried installing it yet.

I also use Izotope RX 7. It installed but I haven’t tried using it yet.

The list is impressive, but it is all run through Rosetta and this must be understood. With all the praise, I think it's better to wait on buying a MacBook on the M1. It is better to wait for new MacBooks and possible iMac at the end of this year, by this time more developers will optimize their software for universal architecture. Today with Logic Pro there are minimal problems, but a lot of people work in Ableton, Cubase, Pro Tools and it's not so good there.

 

[jjjoseph]

HEAT!!!

Full Load Heat is what blows me away, i9, i7 even Macbook burn the crap outta my leg at full load. I am doing full load stuff and it gets WARM not HOT.

Other than that my M1 MBP 16gig RAM is super fast.. Just hope Apple helps every DEV on the planet take advantage of the fast CPU. Only downside for me the the GPU, not enough cores, and no eGPU support..

Apple killed it in the CPU, they just need to kill it with the GPU as well.

 

[Steve Adams]

HEAT!!!

Full Load Heat is what blows me away, i9, i7 even Macbook burn the crap outta my leg at full load. I am doing full load stuff and it gets WARM not HOT.

Other than that my M1 MBP 16gig RAM is super fast.. Just hope Apple helps every DEV on the planet take advantage of the fast CPU. Only downside for me the the GPU, not enough cores, and no eGPU support..

Apple killed it in the CPU, they just need to kill it with the GPU as well.

Considering this is their first kick at the can, It can only get better.