M1 v M4 Real world comparison - Rendering in Maya

[sbest58]

I have a MacBook Pro M1 Max and a MacBookPro M4 Max both with 64GB.
I am running Maya 2025.3 and rendering the same 125 frame animation on both.

The M1 rendered in 55 mins.
The M4 rendered in 24 mins.

 

[MayaUser]

are yu talking about 3d modelling Maya?
Same project? its strange ,since in video you should get way better performance since for some time maya supports ray tracing for lightning etc. Maybe 125 frame animation is the limit there

 

[sbest58]

render time per frame is dependant on the complexity of the scene. I think a 100% + increase in speed from M1 to M4 is impressive.

 

[MayaUser]

render time per frame is dependant on the complexity of the scene. I think a 100% + increase in speed from M1 to M4 is impressive.

yes, thats why i wonder why you get same 125frame animation on both. Its an own project or something in general?
I mean the rendered times are on point where it should be, more than doubled
if its not an personal project i would like to try it on my M4 max with 128gb ram

 

[sbest58]

Here is the animation:

 

[sbest58]

yes, thats why i wonder why you get same 125frame animation on both. Its an own project or something in general?
I mean the rendered times are on point where it should be, more than doubled
if its not an personal project i would like to try it on my M4 max with 128gb ram

it is the same animation on both to compare render times

 

[Morgonaut]

Honestly, I would expect a much bigger leap forward from the M1 to the M4. Half the render time seems to be not much to me.

 

[MayaUser]

Honestly, I would expect a much bigger leap forward from the M1 to the M4. Half the render time seems to be not much to me.

the bigger/complex the project the bigger the difference

 

[Morgonaut]

the bigger/complex the project the bigger the difference

more likely it's bigger the memory, bigger the difference. But he had same memory on both.

 

[Howard2k]

What about SSD size and speed?

 

[Howard2k]

Any chance you can re-run the renders and give us some views from Activity Monitor to show bottlenecks?

 

[ed.]

If you compare multicore Geekbench scores for m4 max (around 25000) and m1 max (around 12000) it’s almost exactly the same performance gain. This is a good predictor for any cpu based rendering processes, not just 3d, like for example After Effects.

 

[Toutou]

Honestly, I would expect a much bigger leap forward from the M1 to the M4. Half the render time seems to be not much to me.

Two times the performance in three years? That's quite nice compared to how slowly things were moving ten years ago.

 

[NeonNights]

are yu talking about 3d modelling Maya?
Same project? its strange ,since in video you should get way better performance since for some time maya supports ray tracing for lightning etc. Maybe 125 frame animation is the limit there

I think the OP meant the project is 125 frames total, not that either M-chip is rendering at 125 FPS.

Going 55min to 24min is a pretty sizeable improvement to me. That reduces your work time by more than half!

 

[MayaUser]

more likely it's bigger the memory, bigger the difference. But he had same memory on both.

Same project (44minutes)done in 2023 on M1 max is 3x better on my M4 max ; that 4-5 seconds petite project with black background is kind of futile and too simple to use the full M4 tools for Maya. . The moment you have a bright lightning the performance is increase drastically and thats just one example from many

 

[MayaUser]

I think the OP meant the project is 125 frames total, not that either M-chip is rendering at 125 FPS.

if thats so then yes

 

[ignatius345]

Two times the performance in three years? That's quite nice compared to how slowly things were moving ten years ago.

And unlike Intel, that speed gain doesn't come with a horrible heat and power usage penalty.

 

[MayaUser]

And unlike Intel, that speed gain doesn't come with a horrible heat and power usage penalty.

the M1 was good enough from the start, M2 and M3 lift up by little but the M4 is again almost to M1 level regarding that but also has more hardware tools on chip

 

[iZac]

So you’re telling me that the new M4 will seal your roof in just 24 minutes? Nice!

 

[iBug2]

And unlike Intel, that speed gain doesn't come with a horrible heat and power usage penalty.

Well M4 gets hotter than M1 though.l

 

[Andy_2341]

Well M4 gets hotter than M1 though.l

How does one monitor this in day-to-day use? I would like to see the temps of my M4 Mini.

 

[jonnysods]

What were the temps like? My friend went from a 16" M1 Max to a 14" M4 Max and he says the thing gets hot and doesn't render as fast, he kept blaming the laptop size, except I have the 14" M1 Max and have only heard the fans come on once since I've had it.

 

[jonnysods]

How does one monitor this in day-to-day use? I would like to see the temps of my M4 Mini.

This is what you're looking for!

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[Andy_2341]

This is what you're looking for!

iStat Menus

The ultimate system monitor for your menu bar, with CPU, GPU, memory, network, disk usage, disk activity, temperatures, fans, battery info and more.

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Thank you so much!

 

[blw777]

My 14" M1 Max has its fans running essentially all the time - but at 2500 rpm, when it's undetectable. (And my ENT described my hearing as "bat level.") If I do something tough, like render 25,000 bricks in FreeCAD, it will eat all the cores for 2-4 minutes and the fan will take off to as high as 6500 rpm. Then you do hear it.

Back on the OP's comment, I agree that it's an impressive improvement in ~2 years. I used to do computer benchmarking for a living, so I'm quite familiar with what to expect generation over generation.