I found the Max-Q in Geekbench 5 OpenCL and performance is similar to the desktop version. Pretty good in that it uses half the power. I would consider an upgrade except for the GPU shortage.
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User predictions for Apple Prosumer Silicon (M1X, M2 etc.)
- Thread starter leman
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I found the Max-Q in Geekbench 5 OpenCL and performance is similar to the desktop version. Pretty good in that it uses half the power. I would consider an upgrade except for the GPU shortage.
It is important to remember that M1 fits in everything from an iPad to an iMac. It was designed for low power system with minimal to no active cooling. Given that, the performance both for CPU and GPU is impressive. Obviously, if you have greater needs, M1 won't cut it. But I don't think anyone can deny that level of performance in that small and efficient a package, is pretty impressive.
Now that it's summer, I'm really hating my 16" MBP. I'm tired of the machine getting really hot, even with the fans in jet engine mode. I've been trying to be patient and wait for the upcoming machines, but I've come very close to trading this in for an M1 Air, and picking up a Windows gaming laptop that can properly power and cool its components. If the upcoming chips can come close to 3060/6600m levels of performance with decent thermals, I'll be happy.
Now that it's summer, I'm really hating my 16" MBP. I'm tired of the machine getting really hot, even with the fans in jet engine mode. I've been trying to be patient and wait for the upcoming machines, but I've come very close to trading this in for an M1 Air, and picking up a Windows gaming laptop that can properly power and cool its components. If the upcoming chips can come close to 3060/6600m levels of performance with decent thermals, I'll be happy.
It's nice in the winter here. I sit in my recliner with a comforter and then put my 2015 MacBook Pro on top and it keeps my legs warm. It gets too hot to put on my legs right now. I'd love to replace it with an M1 Air 15. The 13 is too small for me. My daughter has one and I've tried it out and it's great - I just want a bigger screen. I don't really care what screen technology they use. The M1X models are being held up because of the screens but they could just put in what they're using for the Intel 16 and I'd be happy.
Even if the Mac Pro has has upgradable RAM sticks (perhaps custom-made for Apple), the tight integration between the CPU and GPU suggests that the GPU won't be upgradeable separately. Instead, to the extent Apple offers modularity, it may be as integrated CPU/GPU/coprocessor modules. [I'm using coprocessor as a catch-all for the specialized processing units, e.g., neural engine, cryptography acceleration, ISP, ML, HDR video, etc.]
So suppose you buy a MacPro with a 32 core CPU + 128 core GPU, and later decide you need more processing power. Would you then be able to buy and install a second CPU/GPU/coprocessor module? [This would make it akin to a dual-processor workstation.] And, if so, even if the largest GPU module Apple offers is 128 cores, if the machine accommodates two CPU/GPU modules, is it possible that you could install a total of 64 CPU cores/256 GPU cores? [On the GPU side, that would be comparable to dual NVIDIA RTX A6000's.
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So suppose you buy a MacPro with a 32 core CPU + 128 core GPU, and later decide you need more processing power. Would you then be able to buy and install a second CPU/GPU/coprocessor module? [This would make it akin to a dual-processor workstation.] And, if so, even if the largest GPU module Apple offers is 128 cores, if the machine accommodates two CPU/GPU modules, is it possible that you could install a total of 64 CPU cores/256 GPU cores? [On the GPU side, that would be comparable to dual NVIDIA RTX A6000's.
]Even if the Mac Pro has has upgradable RAM sticks (perhaps custom-made for Apple), the tight integration between the CPU and GPU suggests that the GPU won't be upgradeable separately. Instead, to the extent Apple offers modularity, it may be as integrated CPU/GPU/coprocessor modules. [I'm using coprocessor as a catch-all for the specialized processing units, e.g., neural engine, cryptography acceleration, ISP, ML, HDR video, etc.]
So suppose you buy a MacPro with a 32 core CPU + 128 core GPU, and later decide you need more processing power. Would you then be able to buy and install a second CPU/GPU/coprocessor module? [This would make it akin to a dual-processor workstation.] And, if so, even if the largest GPU module Apple offers is 128 cores, if the machine accommodates two CPU/GPU modules, is it possible that you could install a total of 64 CPU cores/256 GPU cores? [That would be comparable to dual NVIDIA RTX A6000's.
I'd expect two-tier RAM. On die and external.
The new GPUs are sick. You can order one with more RAM in the GPU than in the base model for the CPU.
Not sure about the on-die RAM. The RAM in the M1 SoC package is on a separate die so, with the larger size of the MacPro CPU/GPU, wouldn't they have trouble finding space to bring the RAM on-die? See: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...o.2267256/page-31?post=29220991#post-29220991
Perhaps instead of bringing RAM on-die, they'll use the on-die space to significantly expand cache sizes.
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No predictions here, but one concern I would have with any kind of efforts at CPU "prediction" type optimizations is we already know the ills of speculative prediction, and how badly that's been exploited by things like Spectre, etc. I just hope Apple doesn't go down that route, or that if they do, it's with something which is only conceptually similar, but handled by a completely different means borne out of experience, so that they aren't just as exploitable. Believe me, if the M1 and those to follow are exploitable, that's a bad press day for Apple.
Apple has confirmed years ago that their CPUs are vulnerable to Spectre, and speculative execution has been successfully exploited on M1.
Apple is using a stacked die on the iPhone, but a desktop will require much more RAM making this approach less feasible. They will undoubtedly have tons of on-die cache, but RAM is going to be a separate chip.
My optimistic guess is a two-tier RAM system (fixed amount of fast on package RAM + replaceable but slower DDR5).
I suppose you mean Infinity Cache (Infinity Fabric is AMD's interconnect technology). Anyway, using a large cache in front of the GPU is something Apple has been doing for years. In particular, a lot of M1 GPU performance is thanks to it's relatively large 16MB SoC cache.
Apple having just released W6800X and W6900X graphics options to the Intel Mac Pro indicates the Apple GPUs they are working on would already be as fast as the current high end AMD graphics cards, if not faster.
For the 32-core GPU of M1X (or X1, whatever the name will be), Dave3D made an assumption of RTX3070 like performans; however, I say it would be more around RTX3060. Having RTX3060 like performans on a thin and light 16" MacBook Pro (I believe it will have 15" MacBook Pro weight and dimensions with thinner bezels) with Apple Silicon optimised software already sound amazing. Can't wait to speed up my FCP and Motion projects.
Those cards have AMD Radeon GPU processors in them, not Apple and there's no way any rumored GPU's would come even close for now, so i don't see where that follows...
I know those are AMD cards, and I already mentioned that this was for the Intel Mac Pro. What I mean is that Apple updating the graphics options with current top cards from AMD rather than keeping Vega II cards before they release their own graphics solutions indicates they are confident enough for what they are developing. Do you seriously believe a new model will be less powerful than the model it replaces when their motto was "we want to use our own chip, because we wan't to make better products" when they announced Apple Silicon transition on WWDC 2020?
Edit: By their own cards they are currently developing, I didn't mean the rumoured 32-core GPU for the 16" MacBook Pro. That first paragraph was about the rumoured graphics solutions for the Apple Silicon Mac Pro (64 and 128-core GPU).
All you have to do is look at what the M1 can do on 8-cores and bump that up to 128 (as some rumors suggested) to see that Apple’s top GPU could pack a serious punch. It’s also likely that the Apple silicon Mac Pro will use better core designs since it may come out next year, which means the GPU cores would be even better.
Those just don't follow for me. If they had something as good, they wouldn't even be releasing the AMD cards, they'd want to sell their stuff at a better profit margin.
I don't see how Apple makes a competitor to these cards plus the rumored Mac Pro upgrade in the near term. Maybe a Mac Pro (Mini) with all Apple parts. There's no rumored M based Mac Pro replacement yet!
Apple Silicon for the Mac Pro likely won't be out until late next year. It makes sense that they would go ahead and keep the Intel Mac Pro updated until then. I would imagine that as the products are transitioned they'll get beefier Apple GPUs.
I'm not sure Apple could create a standalone GPU card for the Mac Pro, or if they would bother to.
I'm not sure Apple could create a standalone GPU card for the Mac Pro, or if they would bother to.
Apple releasing these cards now only shows Apple Silicon Mac Pro chip will not be released for another year or so; which is pretty much expected. It does not show they are not developing something just as good. In fact, the current Mac Pro is also rumoured to have Intel Ice Lake Xeon CPUs soon.
Mac Pro is expected to be the very last product to join Apple Silicon family; therefore, seeing new options now is no bad sign in terms of what we will see from Apple.
How does the W6900X compare to the RTX A6000 for GPGPU computing? Assuming linear scaling, a 128-core AS GPU (which is the largest size rumored for the Mac Pro) would have GPGPU procesisng capability approximately comparable to the latter.
So if the W6900X is comparable to the RTX A6000, the AS Mac Pro would need to effectively have dual-128 core AS GPU's to be comparable to the dual-W6900X that's now available for the Intel MacPro.
Of course, they might have faster AS GPU cores when the AS Mac Pro is released. Then again, the AMD and NVIDIA cards will be faster as well.
And that I believe, but speculating on something that hasn't been seen, I'm far more skeptical. It's not just increasing GPU core count, there's a LOT that has to be done. We'll see is about all I can think.
Well they obviously could build a standalone GPU card. I think that if they would bother is dependent on whether or not they are planning additional modular Mac models besides just the very expensive Mac Pro.
Regular RX 6900XT is roughly between RTX 3080 and 3080Ti, W6900XT could be slightly slower with double the VRAM as it is the case with RX 5700XT and W5700X.
Could you please elaborate on how you came up with that estimation? Because, if your GPGPU criteria is TFLOPS, then a 128-core Apple GPU, even with the current M1 architecture, would be just on RTX A6000 level. This is with perfect scaling though. If the criteria is something else, I would like to know.