Mac Studio M1 Max Throttled

[SpotOnT]

Well, Max Tech just came out with a comparison of the M1 Max in the Mac Studio and the MacBook Pro….and it looks like the chips are tuned exactly the same in both devices.

Currently, the M1 Max in the MBP starts to throttle down (the GPU downclocks) if you put a full load on both the CPU and the GPU, which makes full sense when the temps in the MBP are running in the high 90 degrees. Doing the exact same thing on the Mac Studio, when the temps are holding stable at 50-60 degrees, makes no sense though.

I am not sure if the AS Max chips are just power limited, or if Apple specifically wants them to have the same performance across all devices. Either way, I am a bit disappointed. I thought the extra thermal headroom of the Mac Studio would allow for the M1 Max to be used without throttling.

Max Tech Review

 

[ct2k7]

Given that these chips are designed for power efficiency, I am not surprised they all have the same power profile.

 

[now i see it]

Likely the MacBook is slowly cooking the SOC to death while the Mac Studio keeps the chip happy and cool

 

[F-Train]

I don't have much confidence in Max Tech as a channel. However, the video below is interesting. It was published a couple of days ago:

 

[SpotOnT]

I don't have much confidence in Max Tech as a channel. However, the video below is interesting. It was published a couple of days ago:

Interesting, the ZONEofTECH channel noticed that the power draw on the CPU was lower for the Mac Studio than the MBP (no point in comparing the GPU power draw since, one was the 24 core and one was the 32 core). Wonder what is going on with that.

It is worth noting though, that their conclusion that “there is no throttling” isn’t correct, since they didn’t run any tests that maxed out both the CPU and GPU at the same time. The 16” M1 Max MBP and the M1 Max Mac Studio, only exhibit throttling when both the CPU and GPU are maxed out at the same time. In comparison, the M1 Pro, with only 16 GPU cores, does not exhibit any throttling in the 16” MBP.

 

[eelpout]

I don't have much confidence in Max Tech as a channel. However, the video below is interesting. It was published a couple of days ago:

for a head-to-head comparison, it's too bad these boxes aren't configured the same. the 8 extra GPU cores obviously don't hurt the MBP, neither does the larger drive, which are often more efficient. though the soldered SSD of the MBP already puts it somewhere ahead of the Studio anyway.

But back on track, the assumption is the Studio could/should be faster because this has FANS(!) and MASSIVE HEATSINKS(!)? That the SoC should be pushed harder? IMO it's not surprising the power curve is the same, the difference is that the Studio is meant to be used in a more constant fashion than a laptop is in a variety of work environments. The high-wattage power supply is there for a load of peripherals, not to choke the SoC out.

it's also possible Apple that now that the MBP's have been in the field for a while, that they see they are in situations running hot, and they aren't comfortable with that. (I've seen a couple videos of AS 16" MPBs and their fans sound like "Intel Inside" )

 

[Pressure]

for a head-to-head comparison, it's too bad these boxes aren't configured the same. the 8 extra GPU cores obviously don't hurt the MBP, neither does the larger drive, which are often more efficient. though the soldered SSD of the MBP already puts it somewhere ahead of the Studio anyway.

But back on track, the assumption is the Studio could/should be faster because this has FANS(!) and MASSIVE HEATSINKS(!)? That the SoC should be pushed harder? IMO it's not surprising the power curve is the same, the difference is that the Studio is meant to be used in a more constant fashion than a laptop is in a variety of work environments. The high-wattage power supply is there for a load of peripherals, not to choke the SoC out.

it's also possible Apple that now that the MBP's have been in the field for a while, that they see they are in situations running hot, and they aren't comfortable with that. (I've seen a couple videos of AS 16" MPBs and their fans sound like "Intel Inside" )

None of the TB4 ports are PD capable, so they are limited to 15W per port.

With my workload I haven't been able to push the package power over 49W, despite hitting both CPU and GPU pretty hard on the M1 Max Mac Studio. That's a peak of around 28W for the CPU and 25W for the GPU.

 

[SpotOnT]

for a head-to-head comparison, it's too bad these boxes aren't configured the same. the 8 extra GPU cores obviously don't hurt the MBP, neither does the larger drive, which are often more efficient. though the soldered SSD of the MBP already puts it somewhere ahead of the Studio anyway.

But back on track, the assumption is the Studio could/should be faster because this has FANS(!) and MASSIVE HEATSINKS(!)? That the SoC should be pushed harder? IMO it's not surprising the power curve is the same, the difference is that the Studio is meant to be used in a more constant fashion than a laptop is in a variety of work environments. The high-wattage power supply is there for a load of peripherals, not to choke the SoC out.

Yes, that is why I was referencing the Max Tech channel, since they were comparing the 24 GPU core Max on both the MBP and the Mac Studio.

Regarding performance, no I wasn't expecting the M1 Max in the Mac Studio to be clocked higher than in the MBP (as some people were hoping). I was, however, expecting the M1 Max in the Studio to not start down-clocking until it reached 90 degrees. In the 16" MBP, the temps are in the high 90s and the fans are at up around 4000 RPM, when it starts to throttle, which makes complete sense. In the Studio though, the temps are in the 50s and the fans are still running at base RPM when it starts to throttle. That just seems like poor tuning to me. Unless, there is some basic power limit in the M1 Max chip itself.

With my workload I haven't been able to push the package power over 49W, despite hitting both CPU and GPU pretty hard on the M1 Max Mac Studio. That's a peak of around 28W for the CPU and 25W for the GPU.

That is interesting. On the 24 GPU core M1 Max 16" MBP, you can definitely hit 37 watts on the GPU running GFX Bench.

 

[colin warburton]

Id expect apple to fix this in an update

 

[Sharky II]

It sounds like exactly the kind of thing Apple wouldn’t fix to me, because of mystical Apple *reasons*

 

[JamesScheller]

Id expect apple to fix this in an update

I hope you're right.

It may be that there was some sort of over-prioritzation of things like fan noise over absolute performance given all the emphasis on "studio" environments or on-the-desk user experience . It may be that allowing even single-threaded tasks to spin up to 3.2ghz creates a thermal profile that requires more aggressive cooling, and maybe keeping all the cores capped at 3ghz solves that. But it would be nice to have some sort of alternate performance profile for those of us who aren't bothered by some occasional audible fan noise.

Either way, I expect we're going to be seeing a TON of software updates that are going to be tuned for these higher CPU and GPU core counts. I doubt most software is truly 100% optimized to just suddenly exploit the doubling of cores in the M1 Ultra, and all of these YouTube benchmarks are probably going to look different in six months time. That will hopefully include a nice MacOS update that tunes everything as well.

 

[WickedPorter]

I would hope a future MacOS update will have some sort of "Performance Mode" similar to the 16" M1 Max that would allow an increase of performance on all of the various cores in the SoC at the trade of actually using the fan / cooling system for what it was made for. It seems most benchmarks right now don't even move core temps much beyond 60C ... while still getting pretty amazing performance.

 

[Chancha]

There is an evident amount of power and thermal headroom for whatever reasons.

The most wattage I have seen tested was someone running Blender on a stock M1 Ultra, his wattage metre on wall never exceeded 150W. This should include all the SoC, RAM, SSD, various chips on mother board, fan, LED lights whatnot.

Then let's say:
Six of TB4 ports at maximum 15W draw = 90W
10GbE, HDMI, 3.5 high impedance, can't take more than 5W each = 15W

Apple says the energy efficiency of the product is 93% according to their environment report.

This just doesn't add up, even at max load at everything we are looking at 100W short from the 370W PSU.

Then we have reports of TG Pro and iStat Menus almost never seeing the fans go past half their top speed.

This is more than unoptimized, more like broken, lol. But then Apple is shipping the Studio Display with 64GB SSD while only using 2GB of it, so I guess this is their way to roll nowadays.

 

[Pressure]

There is an evident amount of power and thermal headroom for whatever reasons.

The most wattage I have seen tested was someone running Blender on a stock M1 Ultra, his wattage metre on wall never exceeded 150W. This should include all the SoC, RAM, SSD, various chips on mother board, fan, LED lights whatnot.

Then let's say:
Six of TB4 ports at maximum 15W draw = 90W
10GbE, HDMI, 3.5 high impedance, can't take more than 5W each = 15W

Apple says the energy efficiency of the product is 93% according to their environment report.

This just doesn't add up, even at max load at everything we are looking at 100W short from the 370W PSU.

Then we have reports of TG Pro and iStat Menus almost never seeing the fans go past half their top speed.

This is more than unoptimized, more like broken, lol. But then Apple is shipping the Studio Display with 64GB SSD while only using 2GB of it, so I guess this is their way to roll nowadays.

It's okay, the highest efficiency from the power supply is at around 50% load, so 185W give or take.

This also shows that the current form factor has room to grow and not be restricted either by thermals or power unlike the 2013 Mac Pro.

 

[Chancha]

It's okay, the highest efficiency from the power supply is at around 50% load, so 185W give or take.

This also shows that the current form factor has room to grow and not be restricted either by thermals or power unlike the 2013 Mac Pro.

You may be right; I am just now checking my iMac 2017, the internal PSU is rated 250W, while according to iStat menus sensor the total package wattage never exceeded 114W in the last 30 days, with a 199W ceiling. That is about the same ratio applied to the Studio that we have observed thus far.

It would make some sense if the same heat sink + fan chamber design is kept for the next gen Studio as well. So even for like an M2 Ultra, the chassis together with the whole heat pipe + exhaust mechanism can be the same or even using the exact same parts.

 

[krell100]

It makes sense from an Apple saving money on future hardware perspective, but thats not going to make users happy with their investment today.

 

[Chancha]

It makes sense from an Apple saving money on future hardware perspective, but thats not going to make users happy with their investment today.

Yes, folks fully expected the M1 Max to be "unleashed" in the Studio chassis, some even speculated overclocking lol. The M1 Ultra could in theory do a literal doubling on top of that half chip M1 Max. Then seeing the 370W PSU had them even more hyped.

Turns out it's like the 1400W PSU in the Mac Pro, it is there just in case.

 

[krell100]

I just wish Apple could make something that isn't, you know, a bit disappointing. It's not bad, just not anywhere near as good as it could be, or should be. The Studio display is the same, just ok, not great.

 

[cifilter]

Severely disappointed with the Mac Studio. Considering returning it. $7000 for very mediocre performance ain’t worth it.

 

[m1maverick]

Severely disappointed with the Mac Studio. Considering returning it. $7000 for very mediocre performance ain’t worth it.

Would you mind sharing some of the reasons for your disappointment?

 

[Pressure]

Severely disappointed with the Mac Studio. Considering returning it. $7000 for very mediocre performance ain’t worth it.

"Mediocre performance" ... like, what did you replace with it?

 

[WickedPorter]

I'm more in line with @krell100 here...

This is by far the most powerful machine I've ever owned. It's blazingly fast / beyond comparison to anything I've owned previously. I'm disappointed though... as I fully believe it could be quite a bit better and Apple is holding it back for some unknown reason. Again, hopefully fixed in a software update.

 

[basher]

I don't have much confidence in Max Tech as a channel. However, the video below is interesting. It was published a couple of days ago:

I feel the opposite. Max Tech is more creditable than the link you posted, but they still stink. Just my opinion, so feel free to disagree.

 

[powerslave65]

The best engineers spec plenty of headroom for all systems. Only an idiot would have a computer running at 350 watts with a 370 watt PS. Doing it Apples way ensures hours of trouble free use and no ugly repair bills. I mean when these things overheat ya moan and groan, when they build in some headroom now ya want it overclocked. Make up YFM already!

 

[tmoerel]

Severely disappointed with the Mac Studio. Considering returning it. $7000 for very mediocre performance ain’t worth it.

Brand new account and then this. Sounds like trolling to me.