The things that are hardest to predict are always names and prices as Apple can keep those all internal and can change them whenever they want. Hardware involves external organizations and there are inevitable leaks.
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iMac & Mac Pro SoC speculation/predictions
- Thread starter senttoschool
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Looking back, it was a safe bet because for a time we presumed there would only be one "pro" SoC based on the China Times leak about an "A14T" to be used in the MacBook Pro and iMac 5K and Apple used "X" to note more powerful versions of their A-series SoCs so it made sense they would do the same with the M-series.
It was not until Mark Gurman reported the internal code names that we found out there would be four "pro" SoCs and therefore Apple could not use "M1X" - at least on it's own (hence people coming up with "M1Z", "M1P" and such).
I'm no expert (to put it mildly) but there were definitely some stats posted where the 2017 iMac Pro still outclassed the M1 Max and by a decent margin.
It really comes down to individual applications and what part of the system they stress.
For example, when it comes to exporting 4K and 8K video, a $3500 16" M1 MAX will take down a $15K Mac Pro with dual Vega II Pros, an Afterburner card and 192GB of RAM.
But if you have something that needs all the RAM it can get it's hands on, an Intel machine with 128GB+ will perform better than a 64GB M1 MAX for even though the MAX has much better RAM throughput, once you need more than 64GB at that moment, the machine has to page out to disk.
In general, however, it seems the M1 MAX generally will perform better than a Mac with the best Intel CPU and AMD GPU and similar (or even less) RAM based on the plurality of application and workflow benchmarks I have seen posted on the Internet.
