M1 graphics is as we feared. Mediocre at best.

[LonestarOne]

I pray the rumors surrounding Apple's exploration into selling these chips to third parties turns out to be true, I'd love to run Linux on these machines but we all know Apple will do their best to ensure nobody can run 3rd party operating systems.

You might want to do a little research. Apple showed Linux running on Apple Silicon at the WWDC in June.

 

[Taz Mangus]

I pray the rumors surrounding Apple's exploration into selling these chips to third parties turns out to be true

Apple is not going to sell their chips to anybody. They have zero reasons to do so.

 

[zakarhino]

You might want to do a little research. Apple showed Linux running on Apple Silicon at the WWDC in June.

Nope, they showed Linux running in a virtual machine on macOS on an Apple Silicon system. I want to boot to Linux and flash my own bootloader which I'm certain won't be possible or at the very least will take an enormous amount of effort to do.

 

[Chozes]

I own an ASUS G14 with a 4900HS and GeForce MaxQ 2060. Yes the G14 benches higher overall minus single threaded tasks but this topic is silly. Think less about the spec numbers and more your usage.

m1’s performance is phenomenal. It’s a new built in GPU(AMD use vega cores still). The SOC approach has huge advantages for Apple. This is only the beginning. The upcoming Macs are going to be even more impressive and can carry bigger gpu.

The m1 MB air makes so many laptops with entry level gpu look rough. Not to mention heat, noise, battery and throttling. I honestly can’t wait to see the 14” or 16” pros!

 

[Luposian]

Anyone have a Ryzen 7 3750H laptop (mine is an Asus ROG Zephyrus) they can run Cinebench R23 on? I'm getting single/multicore scores that are so horrible (compared to the Mac Mini M1) that I find it hard to believe I paid $1,000+ for this thing! Surely my numbers are wrong! I'd like someone else with a similar Windows 10 laptop to show their scores and see if they're even similar... if these numbers are actually THAT poor, I'm gonna want a Mac Mini M1, like... YESTERDAY! ?

 

[Luposian]

I tweeted my performance test results here:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1329124224498274307

I stacked the MacBook Air M1 up against a 2019 Alienware M17 RTX 2070 running my Ax Performance Test (iPad version here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ax-performance-test/id1534481764). The results were mind-blowing. The M1 easily beat out the Alienware in number of physics cubes dropped. Alienware registered more polygons per second because it has a 144hz refresh rate (as opposed to 60hz for MacBook Air) but it could not match the number of objects in the scene. I first ran the iPad app and then I built a x64 version and ran that on the MacBook via Rosetta 2 translation and the M1 easily beat out the Alienware. When Unity releases a player for the M1 I will build a native M1 app and run the test again. I might add that the Alienware cooling fans were screaming for help while the MacBook Air did this all in complete silence

MacBook Air M1:
View attachment 1673037

2019 Alienware M17 (GeForce RTX 2070):
View attachment 1673040

iPad Air 4 (Apple A14):
View attachment 1673057

I'm trying to run it on my iPad Mini 2 (A7 SoC running iOS 12.x) and all I get is a blank green screen and a "0@045" at the top of the screen. I clicked on "Start". When are the cubes supposed to drop? Or does it work in the background and the pile just appears after awhile? Your app claims to work with the iPad Mini 2, so...?

 

[Jimmy James]

This thread has done a great job of highlighting the excellent graphics performance achieved by Apple in their most constrained product. Thanks, OP!

 

[UBS28]

The M1 literally has, far and away, the fastest integrated GPU ever in the history of computing. The iGPU is significantly faster than AMD's best iGPU and AMD is a company dedicated to making GPUs (and CPUs).

Like others have said, I'd be pissed off if this iGPU is inside a $3000 Macbook Pro 16". I'm beyond impressed that it's in entry level Macs.

There are other legitimate things to complain about such as starting with a measly 8GB of ram in 2020 and keeping the stupid touchbar. The iGPU is not something we should complain about.

That is not true at all. Even the super old Xbox One X from 3 years ago has an integrated GPU takes a massive dump on the M1 GPU.

Seriously, Intel is not the only company in the world that makes integrated GPU’s.

 

[Slash-2CPU]

This is one of the more idiotic things I've read round these parts in a while.

What’s idiotic about it? The part that they’re selling 16GB max system as Pro, or the part that they’re ignoring that every competitor’s pro-level laptops can be configured with 64GB or even 128GB?

The 8GB default configuration is the real joke. Keep in mind, the integrated graphics uses a chunk of this. It will run like a really fast system right until it starts swapping to the SSD then it’ll fall flat on its face. Probably fine as long as you only do one or maybe two Pro things at a time.

Or maybe you’re mad no one takes you seriously when you call your SUV a truck?

 

[Taz Mangus]

That is not true at all. Even the super old Xbox One X from 3 years ago has an integrated GPU takes a massive dump on the M1 GPU.

Seriously, Intel is not the only company in the world that makes integrated GPU’s.

The Xbox One X GPU is 6.001 TFLOPS, 37.50 GPixel/s requiring 150 watts. The Apple M1 GPU is 2.6 TFLOPS, 41 GPixel/s requiring only 10 watts or less. Where’s the massive dump on the M1, I don’t see it. If you haven’t watched it yet, watch the review that I linked in post #248. The 10 watt M1 GPU is performing video editing on H265 4K video without breaking a sweat. That is unreal performance in an extremely low power package.

 

[yoak]

What’s idiotic about it? The part that they’re selling 16GB max system as Pro, or the part that they’re ignoring that every competitor’s pro-level laptops can be configured with 64GB or even 128GB?

The 8GB default configuration is the real joke. Keep in mind, the integrated graphics uses a chunk of this. It will run like a really fast system right until it starts swapping to the SSD then it’ll fall flat on its face. Probably fine as long as you only do one or maybe two Pro things at a time.

Or maybe you’re mad no one takes you seriously when you call your SUV a truck?

Funny that real "joke" can handle 8K video editing without braking a sweat then, and yes, that's the base model (256bg 8GB RAM). That's enough forhandling rushes in my "Pro" workflow. I just have hard time believing it, but I've seen multiple videos now and its real. The export times are a lot slower than the Mac Pro and the other high end intel Macs, but that's ok with me and my workflow.
I'm actually considering just getting the base 512Gb Mini, not even bothering with 16GB RAM. Then maybe sell it when the iMac comes out

 

[leman]

I stacked the MacBook Air M1 up against a 2019 Alienware M17 RTX 2070 running my Ax Performance Test (iPad version here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ax-performance-test/id1534481764). The results were mind-blowing. The M1 easily beat out the Alienware in number of physics cubes dropped. Alienware registered more polygons per second because it has a 144hz refresh rate (as opposed to 60hz for MacBook Air) but it could not match the number of objects in the scene.

I suppose that this is unified memory at work, but the real question is how the CPU and GPU work is synchronized... how do you render the cubes? Do you use instancing? Unfortunately, I have no idea how Unity works.

 

[raknor]

What’s idiotic about it?

Everything.

 

[iLes]

I'm trying to run it on my iPad Mini 2 (A7 SoC running iOS 12.x) and all I get is a blank green screen and a "0@045" at the top of the screen. I clicked on "Start". When are the cubes supposed to drop? Or does it work in the background and the pile just appears after awhile? Your app claims to work with the iPad Mini 2, so...?

Ah interesting.. I don't have a Mini 2 handy. If it says "0@045" that means the Mini 2 is not able to hit the require 60 fps to start the test. The 045 is the fps. Let me see if I can find a Mini 2 on eBay and I'll see if I can fix that. But yeah in order for the cubes to start dropping the device has to hit 60 to trigger the test.

 

[iLes]

I suppose that this is unified memory at work, but the real question is how the CPU and GPU work is synchronized... how do you render the cubes? Do you use instancing? Unfortunately, I have no idea how Unity works.

Yes it is using GPU instancing for the cubes.

 

[PortoMavericks]

Ah, it will boil over. The performance and user experience of Apple Silicon are is hard to overlook. People will soon start ignoring the minor annoyances. In the end, eGPUs were used mostly by content creators who were dissatisfied with Intel Mac performance. With M1 doing so good in this area, eGPUs are not really needed anymore anyway.

The lack of eGPU support isn’t a minor annoyance, the way I see eGPUs... they’re just tools.

If you hit a performance wall, you can have this tool to keep you working on your projects without replacing your Mac.

 

[leman]

The lack of eGPU support isn’t a minor annoyance, the way I see eGPUs... they’re just tools.

If you hit a performance wall, you can have this tool to keep you working on your projects without replacing your Mac.

Very true, but what I am tryin to say that Apple Silicon drastically reduces the number of productivity cases where an eGPU is going to be an improvement. In almost all media editing workflow tests I have seen so far, M1 outperforms even fastest eGPUs. It shows again that these workflows are less about the actual GPU speed but about the data transfers. If you are editing a 4K-8K video, the latency of getting the data to the GPU kills any performance benefit you might be getting from faster compute units. And if M1 is not fast enough for you, well, you will be able to get M1X or whatever will come in the next 14" or 16" model — probably for less than what an eGPU would cost you extra.

So in the end, eGPU would mostly make sense for games and the very rare Mac user that uses GPGPU compute. Not enough user base to risk complicating and fragmenting the Mac API ecosystem.

 

[Serban55]

Very true, but what I am tryin to say that Apple Silicon drastically reduces the number of productivity cases where an eGPU is going to be an improvement. In almost all media editing workflow tests I have seen so far, M1 outperforms even fastest eGPUs. It shows again that these workflows are less about the actual GPU speed but about the data transfers. If you are editing a 4K-8K video, the latency of getting the data to the GPU kills any performance benefit you might be getting from faster compute units. And if M1 is not fast enough for you, well, you will be able to get M1X or whatever will come in the next 14" or 16" model — probably for less than what an eGPU would cost you extra.

So in the end, eGPU would mostly make sense for games and the very rare Mac user that uses GPGPU compute. Not enough user base to risk complicating and fragmenting the Mac API ecosystem.

yes...and lets not forget this is first gen...so for apple to support eGpu just for 6 months or max 1 year until the next chips will surpass everything that an eGpu can offer...is like Steve jobs supporting flash on iphones when he knew html5 is the future

 

[Serban55]

The lack of eGPU support isn’t a minor annoyance, the way I see eGPUs... they’re just tools.

If you hit a performance wall, you can have this tool to keep you working on your projects without replacing your Mac.

thats maybe true now, but in 1 year no more...so why support something just for max 1 year? You can wait 6 more months or 1 year and Apple will provide for you an chip that makes that wall far far ahead than anything eGpu can provide

 

[Chompineer]

What’s idiotic about it? The part that they’re selling 16GB max system as Pro, or the part that they’re ignoring that every competitor’s pro-level laptops can be configured with 64GB or even 128GB?

The 8GB default configuration is the real joke. Keep in mind, the integrated graphics uses a chunk of this. It will run like a really fast system right until it starts swapping to the SSD then it’ll fall flat on its face. Probably fine as long as you only do one or maybe two Pro things at a time.

Or maybe you’re mad no one takes you seriously when you call your SUV a truck?

This keeps getting proven very wrong, lmao.

 

[theluggage]

What’s idiotic about it? The part that they’re selling 16GB max system as Pro, or the part that they’re ignoring that every competitor’s pro-level laptops can be configured with 64GB or even 128GB?

The idiotic thing is knocking the M1 ultraportable/ultra-small-form-factor Macs because they don't out-perform full-size laptops and PC towers. They're not supposed to - although they do seem to set new standards for ultraportables.

If you ignore the meaningless "Pro" labels and actually look at comparable laptops - 13" ultraportables, with premium "fit & finish", integrated graphics and low-power RAM, such as the Dell XPS13, Microsoft Surface Laptop, Asus Zenbook 13 - then a choice 8 or 16GB of soldered-in RAM is pretty much par for the course - and is probably an LPDDR4 thing (can you even get LPDDR4 RAM in plug-in SODIMM form?). All indications are that the M1 blows this type of Intel system out of the water on CPU/GPU performance.

The only real issue is that maybe the entry-level "2 port" 13" MacBook Pro doesn't deserve the Pro label and should just be called a "MacBook" - but if that's true today, it's been true since 2016.

Perhaps MacRumors could arrange for the following to be appended to every new topic on Apple Silicon: The M1 Air and 13" MBP are same-price replacements for Apple's 2 lowest-end laptops, which have been limited to 2 ports and 16GB RAM since forever. The M1 Mini is a new entry-level Mini. The higher-end MBPs and Minis aimed at more demanding applications are still on Intel for a reason, and everybody expects Apple to come out with a new M-series chip to replace those in the next year.

Meanwhile, here's a good definition of pro: someone who doesn't choose their computer based on whether or not it has 'Pro' written on it in large, friendly letters. The only thing that "Pro" in a computer name means is that maybe it's slightly better than the model without "pro". It's not a specification.

 

[LonestarOne]

What’s idiotic about it? The part that they’re selling 16GB max system as Pro, or the part that they’re ignoring that every competitor’s pro-level laptops can be configured with 64GB or even 128GB?

The 8GB default configuration is the real joke. Keep in mind, the integrated graphics uses a chunk of this. It will run like a really fast system right until it starts swapping to the SSD then it’ll fall flat on its face. Probably fine as long as you only do one or maybe two Pro things at a time.

Once again: These machines can meet the needs of a great many professionals. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, photographers, journalists... among others.

Watch the reviews. Even the MacBook Air can run Lightroom Classic, faster than an Intel machine. With only 8GB of RAM. Without a fan. Without even a native version of the application. They can edit multiple streams of 4K video. Your opinion does not change the facts.

Professionals don’t buy a machine toboast about how much RAM they have. They buy a machine to get work done.

Or maybe you’re mad no one takes you seriously when you call your SUV a truck?

The US Army classified the first Jeep as a “truck, 4-wheel-drive, one-quarter ton.”

Who’s mad? You’re the one calling people “idiotic”. Most people seem to be very happy with Apple right now.

 

[LonestarOne]

Nope, they showed Linux running in a virtual machine on macOS on an Apple Silicon system. I want to boot to Linux and flash my own bootloader which I'm certain won't be possible or at the very least will take an enormous amount of effort to do.

Sorry, I thought you meant running Linux applications, not flashing bootloaders.

 

[Jaekae]

They have only released the entry level models that all had only intels integrated graphics. All higher end models will have amd graphic cards like the intel models had with the automatic graphic switching system

 

[Serban55]

They have only released the entry level models that all had only intels integrated graphics. All higher end models will have amd graphic cards like the intel models had with the automatic graphic switching system

i dont think there are any chances for Apple to place amd in the macs
Apple 10W is offering 2.8 teraflops, so think what it can do under 60W or higher...so, no, to place an amd dgpu is almost out of the question