Is M1 faster than all previous Macs?

[james*b]

Looking at used and refurbed Macs. Is the M1 faster - and better for 4k video editing - than pretty much everything that came before it?
So a base 2020 Macbook Air M1 with 8gb ram is considerably faster than a 2019 27" iMac with 64gb and 4gb Radeon Pro 475X?
Thanks

 

[casperes1996]

Well, faster at what? - The short answer is; No. The longer answer is "it depends". At single-threaded and CoreML tasks; Yeah probably. At heavy graphics tasks, absolutely not. At very multi-threaded work, no not really though it is very competent. At extremely large datasets, also no.
For day-to-day web browsing and email it probably would be faster. But a high end 27" iMac or a good Mac Pro will outclass it in aforementioned tasks. A higher end 15/16" MBP would too

 

[james*b]

Thanks.

Well, faster at what? - The short answer is; No. The longer answer is "it depends". At single-threaded and CoreML tasks; Yeah probably. At heavy graphics tasks, absolutely not. At very multi-threaded work, no not really though it is very competent. At extremely large datasets, also no.
For day-to-day web browsing and email it probably would be faster. But a high end 27" iMac or a good Mac Pro will outclass it in aforementioned tasks. A higher end 15/16" MBP would too

Thanks, so the older Intel iMac (as specced in my original post) would be better for 4k video editing in DaVinci Resolve etc than an M1 MBA ?

I guess I am just a bit confused because there is so much hype around the m1 and I haven't looked at new macs in years.

 

[xraydoc]

Thanks.


Thanks, so the older Intel iMac (as specced in my original post) would be better for 4k video editing in DaVinci Resolve etc than an M1 MBA ?

I guess I am just a bit confused because there is so much hype around the m1 and I haven't looked at new macs in years.

Versus 8GB M1 MacBook Air? The iMac might be faster at some aspects, the MBA at others. Compared with a 16" M1 Max with 64GB of RAM? No, the iMac would be outclassed.

M1 Max versus 2019 Mac Pro

real world speed test results for performance minded Macintosh users

barefeats.com

In this test (part 1 and part 2), the 16" MBP M1 Max holds its own against a $15,000 2019 Mac Pro.

* RIP to the creator of Bare Feats. He died back in March at age 77.

 

[TzunamiOSX]

Looking at used and refurbed Macs. Is the M1 faster - and better for 4k video editing - than pretty much everything that came before it?
So a base 2020 Macbook Air M1 with 8gb ram is considerably faster than a 2019 27" iMac with 64gb and 4gb Radeon Pro 475X?
Thanks

I have a MacPro 5,1 12x3,33 and a Mac Mini M1 16 GB. If you can’t use the special hardware (H.264 encoder for example) , the M1 is a bit slowerer in multiprocessing, but is much more efficient.

 

[james*b]

I have a MacPro 5,1 12x3,33 and a Mac Mini M1 16 GB. If you can’t use the special hardware (H.264 encoder for example) , the M1 is a bit slowerer in multiprocessing, but is much more efficient.

So you would go with the m1 MBA vs a high specced 2019 iMac/Macbook Pro?

 

[Kimmo]

* RIP to the creator of Bare Feats. He died back in March at age 77.

Amen to that.

Arthur did some very good and helpful work.

Mac testing site BareFeats founder Robert Arthur Morgan dies, aged 77 | AppleInsider

Longstanding Mac expert and self-professed "mad scientist" creator of the BareFeats website, Robert Arthur Morgan has died at home in Portland, Oregon.

appleinsider.com

He will be missed.

 

[MayaUser]

on gpu level , not at all, its inferior in performance than imacs with dGpu
You have to go with M1 Pro/Max to keep that momentum on the same level of better

 

[aeronatis]

For H.264 and H.265 videos, MacBook Air M1 easily beats my old MacBook Pro 16" (Radeon Pro 5600M); however, for 6K BRAW videos, for which M1 has no hardware encoders, MacBook Pro 16" is noticeably faster. Therefore, there is no short answer like one is faster than the other for "video editing".

 

[Corefile]

* RIP to the creator of Bare Feats. He died back in March at age 77.

R.I.P. This made me real sad to hear of his passing as he was a true stalwart of Apple benchmarking.

 

[joema2]

Thanks.


Thanks, so the older Intel iMac (as specced in my original post) would be better for 4k video editing in DaVinci Resolve etc than an M1 MBA ?

I guess I am just a bit confused because there is so much hype around the m1 and I haven't looked at new macs in years.

It depends on what you define as "4k video editing". If you mean mainly curating and cutting and if the codec is 4k H264 or HEVC, especially if 10-bit 4:2:2, the regular M1 will be very fast. If by "editing" you mean Resolve temporal/spatial noise reduction, Magic Mask, Face Refinement, Depth Map, or lots of grading, a 2019 i9 iMac 27 with 4GB Radeon Pro 475X might be faster.

If you're using mostly BRAW, that is partially debayered in camera so it's better than most other codecs from a playback computational standpoint. However I haven't closely tested that on my machines. A key element is what codecs you use now and which ones you will use in the future.

Re hype around the "M1" that is a family of CPUs which in general terms might include the M1 Pro, M1 Max and M1 Ultra. Those cover a wide range of performance, esp. on the GPU side. On Resolve it seems you can never have enough GPU performance, esp for certain effects.

I don't have a regular M1 but I have a top-spec M1 Max MBP 16, M1 Ultra Mac Studio, also a 2019 i9 MBP 16 with 8GB Radeon Pro 5500M and a 2017 i7 iMac 27 with 8GB Radeon Pro 580. Those cover a wide range of CPU and GPU performance. In Resolve Studio 18, the i9 MBP 16 or a similar i9 iMac 27 would be OK, although ideally you'd want an 8GB GPU. Given the top GPU I'd rather use an i9 iMac vs a base M1 with 8GB, although if you're scrubbing through lots of 4k 10-bit 4:2:2 H264 or HEVC the M1 might be faster.

Even though GeekBench is not a perfect benchmark, you can roughly approximate Mac performance on CPU and GPU by looking at that. Unfortunately GeekBench does not provide separate results for video encode/decode acceleration.

Overall I'd suggest waiting until the presumed M2 Pro Mac Mini is released (maybe soon) and consider that. If you absolutely must have a laptop there will probably be M2 Pro versions. Those will likely have 20-core GPUs and improved video encode/decode acceleration. The 20-core GPU is not exactly a powerhouse but it's way better than the 8-core GPU on the base M1.

Below are some GeekBench 5.4.2 numbers I did yesterday on various machines, all running Monterey 12.6:

2017 i7 32GB iMac 27, 8GB Radeon Pro 580:

CPU - single/multi: 1089/4503
GPU - OpenCL: 38039
GPU - Metal: 41589

2019 i9 32GB MacBook Pro 16, 8GB Radeon Pro 5500M:

CPU - single/multi: 1138/7203
GPU - OpenCL: 29588
GPU - Metal: 26462

2022 64 GB M1 Max MacBook Pro 16:

CPU - 1777/12047
GPU - OpenCL: 60139
GPU - Metal: 68528

2022 128GB M1 Ultra Mac Studio:

CPU - single/multi: 1779/23648
GPU - OpenCL: 81808
GPU - Metal: 101382

 

[wyrdness]

So you would go with the m1 MBA vs a high specced 2019 iMac/Macbook Pro?

I have both. Would pick the M1 over the 2019 anytime.

The M1 is generally faster and runs cool. The 2019 MacBook Pro gets so hot that it becomes very uncomfortable to work one it after a few hours.