Mac Studio Performance - Disappointing News

[AdamSeen]

Are there any reviews that show the Max/Ultra at near their peak power loads (i.e. recorded at the wall)? If they aren't getting near the ones stated below, then Apple may be able to fix underutilisation with a firmware update.

Mac Studio power consumption and thermal output (BTU) information - Apple Support

Learn about the power consumption and thermal output of Mac Studio computers.

support.apple.com

Mac Studio (2022) M1 Ultra 20-Core CPU & 48-Core GPU, 64GB unified memory, 1TB SSD
Power Consumption	Thermal Output
Idle	Max	Idle	Max
13 W	215 W	44 BTU/h	734 BTU/h

Mac Studio (2022) M1 Max 10-Core CPU & 32-Core GPU, 32GB unified memory, 2TB SSD
Power Consumption	Thermal Output
Idle	Max	Idle	Max
11 W	115 W	38 BTU/h	392 BTU/h

 

[dogstar]

Think of how much all that underclocking will help save the environment and save on your electric bill. It’s a feature!

 

[Chancha]

Are there any reviews that show the Max/Ultra at near their peak power loads (i.e. recorded at the wall)? If they aren't getting near the ones stated below, then Apple may be able to fix underutilisation with a firmware update.

Mac Studio power consumption and thermal output (BTU) information - Apple Support

Learn about the power consumption and thermal output of Mac Studio computers.

support.apple.com

Mac Studio (2022) M1 Ultra 20-Core CPU & 48-Core GPU, 64GB unified memory, 1TB SSD
Power Consumption	Thermal Output
Idle	Max	Idle	Max
13 W	215 W	44 BTU/h	734 BTU/h

Mac Studio (2022) M1 Max 10-Core CPU & 32-Core GPU, 32GB unified memory, 2TB SSD
Power Consumption	Thermal Output
Idle	Max	Idle	Max
11 W	115 W	38 BTU/h	392 BTU/h

The most I have seen is someone pushing a stock Ultra to less than 150W on wall during a blender test. You have to take into account an extra of six 15W USB-C / TB4 bus powered peripherals on top of it.

 

[AdamSeen]

The most I have seen is someone pushing a stock Ultra to less than 150W on wall during a blender test. You have to take into account an extra of six 15W USB-C / TB4 bus powered peripherals on top of it.

I did think of that. However, I don’t think it’s taken into account because if it were the differences between the ultra and max wouldn’t scale like they do and the max minus 90w wouldn’t be 25w at full load. The Psu is 370watt in total.

 

[Chancha]

I did think of that. However, I don’t think it’s taken into account because if it were the differences between the ultra and max wouldn’t scale like they do and the max minus 90w wouldn’t be 25w at full load. The Psu is 370watt in total.

I know, all the Apple reported wattages don’t add up well. On MBP I could never plug all TB ports with devices all drawing at max wattage, they are never designed to be able to output that much at the same time. On a desktop like the Studio I wouldn’t assume it is designed that way unless they got good reasons to, but we never know.

Either way I am waiting for WWDC to unveil the Mac Pro before making a decision to get a Studio Ultra or not. If for similar price or slightly more I could get much better power and thermal headroom then I would do so.

 

[kiensoy]

Unless you work for Pixar studios the base max model (with extra storage) is enough for most people.

Pixar don’t use Macs.

 

[macca24]

Pixar don’t use Macs.

Whatever studio uses them then.

 

[ADGrant]

I'm surprised that some people take Max Tech seriously. By his own account, Max Yuryev is pumping out about six videos a week. How much rigour and thought do you figure goes into flooding YouTube like that? I think that his shtick is to spin the narrative to fit whatever he thinks his audience wants to hear, and that this is all about his non-stop pitch to his "followers" to get him to 1 million subscribers.

I suspect you are correct. I remember when he compared the i7 2020 iMac to the i9. He of course recommended buying the i7. This seems similar.

 

[maxoakland]

It's entirely up to developers to update and optimise their applications for the various M1 variants.

If the applications you use are already universal the chances are high that they will update. Otherwise they really have no future on macOS.

What do the app devs have to do to take better advantage of the Ultra chip?

 

[rkuo]

I suspect you are correct. I remember when he compared the i7 2020 iMac to the i9. He of course recommended buying the i7. This seems similar.

A lot of people recommend that. Not sure what point you're trying to make.

 

[JippaLippa]

I'm an After Effects professional user, and never like this time I have been tempted to send my M1 Ultra (48-Core 128GB ram) back and switch to a windows machine...
But I have all the rest of my life in the apple ecosystem, and I'd love to have one computer for it all, instead of 2 separate ones...

Anyway I don't know what to think with the After Effects Apple Silicon beta...
Up until a few days ago I was with a 16GB mac mini and it ran very well (given the great limitations of the M1), but on the studio I'm noticing almost mo change in performance.
It's almost as if the beta didn't know how to use any of the extra power.
What gives me hope is that it feels like the current beta is set to work with the regular M1, and I hope it will be updated for better performance, especially with shape layers.
Also the rosetta After Effects now crashes on the M1 architecture.

I know After Effects runs better on windows, and I didn't expect anything closer to a threadripper performance on the M1 Ultra...
But still...it feels like I'm working on an entry level intel iMac here.

I don't know what to do as there are 2 possibilities.
Potentially lots of development on the native beta could be done, and the true spirit of the M1 Ultra could be unleashed.
On the other hand, things could not improve substantially.

Whatever I choose (for example switching to a muuuuuch cheaper M1 Max 64GB), it's 10-12 week delivery, therefore not exactly something to choose in a hurry...

I hope my hunch that the beta has to be updated to work well on the M1 Ultra is true...

 

[Chancha]

I'm an After Effects professional user, and never like this time I have been tempted to send my M1 Ultra (48-Core 128GB ram) back and switch to a windows machine...
But I have all the rest of my life in the apple ecosystem, and I'd love to have one computer for it all, instead of 2 separate ones...

Anyway I don't know what to think with the After Effects Apple Silicon beta...
Up until a few days ago I was with a 16GB mac mini and it ran very well (given the great limitations of the M1), but on the studio I'm noticing almost mo change in performance.
It's almost as if the beta didn't know how to use any of the extra power.
What gives me hope is that it feels like the current beta is set to work with the regular M1, and I hope it will be updated for better performance, especially with shape layers.
Also the rosetta After Effects now crashes on the M1 architecture.

I know After Effects runs better on windows, and I didn't expect anything closer to a threadripper performance on the M1 Ultra...
But still...it feels like I'm working on an entry level intel iMac here.

I don't know what to do as there are 2 possibilities.
Potentially lots of development on the native beta could be done, and the true spirit of the M1 Ultra could be unleashed.
On the other hand, things could not improve substantially.

Whatever I choose (for example switching to a muuuuuch cheaper M1 Max 64GB), it's 10-12 week delivery, therefore not exactly something to choose in a hurry...

I hope my hunch that the beta has to be updated to work well on the M1 Ultra is true...

Return it. You only got 14 days to make this decision, but Adobe and/or Apple looks like will take their time in optimizing their apps/OS for the Ultra, if at all.

Makes no sense to future proof a machine that you don't know when its power is going to be unleashed.

As for the 10-12 weeks delivery for another Studio config... just don't buy anything for now. By the time the order ships WWDC will have happened, we may know a lot more concerning the Mac Pro, the M2 family, and future of Apple Silicon development to make better purchasing decision.

 

[Arctic Moose]

Up until a few days ago I was with a 16GB mac mini and it ran very well (given the great limitations of the M1), but on the studio I'm noticing almost mo change in performance.

You could pick up a decently specced 2020 iMac for very little (especially in comparison to the Mac Studio and Studio Display) and use that while you wait to see how MX performance develops?

 

[gazwas]

I'm an After Effects professional user, and never like this time I have been tempted to send my M1 Ultra (48-Core 128GB ram) back and switch to a windows machine...
But I have all the rest of my life in the apple ecosystem, and I'd love to have one computer for it all, instead of 2 separate ones...

Anyway I don't know what to think with the After Effects Apple Silicon beta...
Up until a few days ago I was with a 16GB mac mini and it ran very well (given the great limitations of the M1), but on the studio I'm noticing almost mo change in performance.
It's almost as if the beta didn't know how to use any of the extra power.
What gives me hope is that it feels like the current beta is set to work with the regular M1, and I hope it will be updated for better performance, especially with shape layers.
Also the rosetta After Effects now crashes on the M1 architecture.

I know After Effects runs better on windows, and I didn't expect anything closer to a threadripper performance on the M1 Ultra...
But still...it feels like I'm working on an entry level intel iMac here.

I don't know what to do as there are 2 possibilities.
Potentially lots of development on the native beta could be done, and the true spirit of the M1 Ultra could be unleashed.
On the other hand, things could not improve substantially.

Whatever I choose (for example switching to a muuuuuch cheaper M1 Max 64GB), it's 10-12 week delivery, therefore not exactly something to choose in a hurry...

I hope my hunch that the beta has to be updated to work well on the M1 Ultra is true...

I have the exact same machine on order as yours and this weekend decided to cancel and wait it out a few months following the current lash of underwhelming performance gains in the video and photography software I use. My M1 MBP still impresses as to how much faster it is than my Intel iMac and would like that feeling again when upgrading to the as specced £8046 Mac Studio including diaplay, keyboard and trackpad.

Either we get better software optimisations to transform the Ultra and I order again or the Mac Pro happens and I'm relieved I waited.

 

[JippaLippa]

You could pick up a decently specced 2020 iMac for very little (especially in comparison to the Mac Studio and Studio Display) and use that while you wait to see how MX performance develops?

For that matter I could get a gaming PC (I love gaming) and work on that while I wait for my next order/better optimization.
In the end I prefer working on macOS, but I can use Windows for 3 months.

I'm not seeing good performance on After Effects and when the software will be updated better, it would run decently on an M1 Max 64GB.
Not being rich, 2300€ extra in the bank is a large sum for me.

Anyway, I have been testing the native beta since october, and the few latest releases have been quite unstable, after a few very stable releases...
So you never know.
I'll test it one week and decide a few days before the return window.

 

[OldMike]

I just picked up my Mac Studio yesterday, but haven't had a chance to set it up yet. After watching all of the reviews and reading all of the articles and benchmarks, I don't see there being a big problem here with performance. I think it is unrealistic to assume that the Ultra would achieve a 2 to 1 performance increase over the Max. As has been said before in this thread, we might be seeing the capacity of what the M1 can provide.

On initial impressions, it seems odd that the Max and Ultra don't tax the cooling system in the Mac Studio. For the M1 chips, I guess we can say that this thermal design of the Mac Studio is overkill. My assumption is that the Mac Studio case design will be here for a long time, and that the thermals are designed to take advantage of future thermal needs.

It has taken a long time for the Mac Studio to be introduced after the first M1 chip was released. I get the feeling that when the M2 is released, the timeframe for an updated Mac Studio might be much quicker, and we will be seeing the cooling capacity of the Mac Studio put to much better use in the near future with M2 Max and M2 Ultra.

I was going to hold off on my purchase and wait for the M2 version to come out. I had bought the original M1 Mac mini soon after release, but realized that 16GB RAM was not going to cut it (despite the reviewer hype about Unified Memory). After dealing with massive swap, I returned the Mini and waited, and waited.

I decided to just buy the Mac Studio now, and if the next iteration is massively better, just trade the Mac Studio in for the next version. I've come to terms with the fact that on these new Apple systems instead of upgrading internal components, we just trade the whole machine in. I feel like the M1 Mac Studio won't be around for long before it gets the M2 update, but with Apple, you can never tell for sure what is going to happen and how long it might take.

Regardless, this will be a massive upgrade to my beloved 2013 Mac Pro.

 

[m1maverick]

What do the app devs have to do to take better advantage of the Ultra chip?

From what I've seen I think there are two areas:

• Take advantage of the additional encoders available in the Ultra.
• Take advantage of the additional GPU power.

The first should be fairly easy, the latter I'm not sure about as it could be a limitation, artificial or real, of the design of the M1. Scaling isn't linear and, especially for the 64 core GPU, seems to underutilize the hardware available. Max's test showed only one very specific use case (8K Red video) where the 64 core GPU offered a tangible benefit over the 48 core GPU. There were other use cases where the 64 core GPU did reduce time but not significantly and, in his opinion, not enough to warrant the $1K addition to the price.

On paper and Geekbench the hardware looks amazing but on real world tests the benefit wasn't reflected in the scores (this is why I discount Geekbench scores).

 

[BanditoB]

I don’t really understand all the hate for Max here. He is simply performing some real world tests and demonstrating that the upgraded Ultra GPU cores aren’t buying you a true doubling of performance that you would expect. The CPU cores do double the performance, but the GPU cores do not, at least currently.

He clearly shows that the power being used by the SOC is being limited for whatever reason and that is what is limiting performance. His conclusion, which is his opinion, is that at this time the upgraded M1 Utlra isn’t worth the additional $1,000 that you must pay because the performance value isn’t there. This is a logical conclusion.

 

[ZooY]

I'm an After Effects professional user, and never like this time I have been tempted to send my M1 Ultra (48-Core 128GB ram) back and switch to a windows machine...
But I have all the rest of my life in the apple ecosystem, and I'd love to have one computer for it all, instead of 2 separate ones...

Anyway I don't know what to think with the After Effects Apple Silicon beta...
Up until a few days ago I was with a 16GB mac mini and it ran very well (given the great limitations of the M1), but on the studio I'm noticing almost mo change in performance.
It's almost as if the beta didn't know how to use any of the extra power.
What gives me hope is that it feels like the current beta is set to work with the regular M1, and I hope it will be updated for better performance, especially with shape layers.
Also the rosetta After Effects now crashes on the M1 architecture.

I know After Effects runs better on windows, and I didn't expect anything closer to a threadripper performance on the M1 Ultra...
But still...it feels like I'm working on an entry level intel iMac here.

I don't know what to do as there are 2 possibilities.
Potentially lots of development on the native beta could be done, and the true spirit of the M1 Ultra could be unleashed.
On the other hand, things could not improve substantially.

Whatever I choose (for example switching to a muuuuuch cheaper M1 Max 64GB), it's 10-12 week delivery, therefore not exactly something to choose in a hurry...

I hope my hunch that the beta has to be updated to work well on the M1 Ultra is true...

Thank for pointing it out I work with the whole adobe suit and after effects is my main concern I also went just with the base model I was thinking about upping the ram but decided against it. When mine arrives I will also report back. This is the only video I found about after effects and it came out yesterday since all these cloud chasing YouTube influencers won't bring any value to the table in terms of reviews....

 

[pierre1610]

If only you could spec the Max with 128GB Ram

I work with huge Photoshop files, 10GB+ with 1000's of layers, i need a lot of ram and a very fast single core. Anymore than 4 cores is a waste really.

 

[hugodrax]

The Ultra is faster by a significant factor when running

yeah, the issue seems to be the most apps are not tuned for the new silicon and the Studio seems to be best suited for tasks that require long-running horsepower (eg, video rendering, presumably some scientific modelling). But even there, the returns (eg, on the Ultra) also diminish as Apple seem to throttle the Studios, for reasons unknown, perhaps tuning.

The M1 Ultra chip from Apple has 21 TeraFLOPs of processing power, just over a quarter of the 80 TeraFLOP processing capacity of the IBM Watson supercomputer that was developed in 2004. The Mac Studio Ultra is vastly superior to the world's fastest supercomputer from 2001, IBM's one-off ASCII White. That cost $170m, weighed over 100,000 kilograms, took six megawatts in processing and cooling, and produced a paltry 12 TFLOPS. (According to the internet.)

Anyway, a lot of this is a bit academic as here in the UK both base models are out of stock and will not be here before late May, and if you want more RAM, you'll be waiting 3 months, at least. Or just get a MacBook Pro.

yeah but that is 64bit FP I doubt the Ultra would get 21teraflops of LINPACK.

 

[m1maverick]

If only you could spec the Max with 128GB Ram

I work with huge Photoshop files, 10GB+ with 1000's of layers, i need a lot of ram and a very fast single core. Anymore than 4 cores is a waste really.

Given the way Apple prices RAM you may very well spend as much as a 128GB Ultra to upgrade.

 

[hugodrax]

I just saw the Max Tech video, don‘t get all the hate. I thought it was very informative and detailed, its up to you to draw your own conclusion. Looks like choosing the base model Ultra with 4tb SSD was the right choice for my workloads. i thought the extra 1K for an additional 8 core per cpu was just a money grab to sell the highest binned chips to those who want it. I do suspect in 12 months there will be improvements overall as Apple optimizes Metal and SMC code to leverage the extra capacity.

now they made a good point that if you do 8k Redraw the extra 1K could be worth it especially if you have large files to work with and a 23% performance increase is worth it at that point.
Looks like the Base Ultra is well balanced when it comes to extra capacity.

 

[ADGrant]

A lot of people recommend that. Not sure what point you're trying to make.

That he tells people what they want to hear. I ignored his advice and bought the i9 (and 64gb of RAM).

He is also one of those people saying you don't need as much RAM with an M1.

 

[ADGrant]

I just saw the Max Tech video, don‘t get all the hate. I thought it was very informative and detailed, its up to you to draw your own conclusion. Looks like choosing the base model Ultra with 4tb SSD was the right choice for my workloads. i thought the extra 1K for an additional 8 core per cpu was just a money grab to sell the highest binned chips to those who want it. I do suspect in 12 months there will be improvements overall as Apple optimizes Metal and SMC code to leverage the extra capacity.

Looks like the Base Ultra is well balanced when it comes to extra capacity.

I agree that paying $1000 for another 8 GPU cores does not seem to provide much bang for the buck.