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I highly doubt it and I would assume it will match with RTX 3090's performance. M2 Ultra is similar to RTX 3060 and 4~5 times slower than RTX 3090 and could be much slower for some GPU intensive and CUDA friendly softwares such as Blender.

Let us not forget that RTX 40 series are still 5nm based which is identical to what M1 series used. Which means Apple has at least three generation ahead of Nvidia and RTX 50 series will use N4P which is still ANOTHER TSMC 5nm.

The good thing about Apple Silicon is that they are making a new series almost annually while Nvidia takes 2~3 years to make a new series so Apple might surpass Nvidia's performance after several years despite having an advantage with 1,2nm.

M3 Max similar than a 4060.
M4 Max is between a 4070 and a 4080
M4 Ultra will be more powerful than a 4090
M4 Extreme, if exist, would be really extreme.
 
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M3 Max similar than a 4060.
M4 Max is between a 4070 and a 4080
M4 Ultra will be more powerful than a 4090
M4 Extreme, if exist, would be really extreme.
Maybe in 2D applications, but in 3D, Apple's M4 will always lose out to an RTX 4090, regardless of the configuration. And if there is an RTX 5090 in 3 months, then things will look even worse.

That's not all that bad, but Apple is also trying (more and more recently) to gain market share in the gaming sector, but if you want maximum performance and want to play corresponding AAA titles, you are unfortunately still only a second choice customer in the Apple world.

I'm not a gaming fan at all, but for me the CUDA performance of an RTX 4090/5090 is decisive and here too Apple is falling behind.
 
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Equally, Mac users tell themselves this because regardless, they have no choice. They can only buy hardware from Apple, and Apple doesn't allow upgrades, so it's a moot point. I agree upgrading doesn't always make sense, but it certainly does sometimes, and not having this option is a definite minus of the Mac platform. Deal-breaker? No. But not having the option is hardly a positive.

The main benefit of Mac expandability wouldn't so much be the ability to upgrade later, as to provide price competition to Apple's spec-upselling. Which is, of course, why it's not allowed, even on desktop machines that would have no physical restrictions to it.
It is not positive if the upgrading facility jeopardizes the system performance. Apple hardware is rational because they control most of the elements in their configurations and can put it together independent of most 3rd party hardware. If they had to relate to the entire pile of great, ok, mediocre and ****** SSD controllers and what not, you would not have ended up with something as efficient as their M- macs.

It is very easy though. If their concept isn`t palatable, one can always move on to something else. It`s edible to me, and being entirely pragmatic, the hazzle I get (nothing is perfect), is far far far less than the hazzle I have to go through with any of the other solutions I have used over time. So, I get the hardware I need for a price I can easily live with and get fairly decent operative systems with it too.
 
M3 Max similar than a 4060.
M4 Max is between a 4070 and a 4080
M4 Ultra will be more powerful than a 4090
M4 Extreme, if exist, would be really extreme.
From what? Benchmarks? In reality, it never comes close. Besides, Mac lacks GPU intensive software compared to Windows. Maybe we can start testing it after Cyberpunk 2077 released.
 
It depends on what you are doing with it. Are you just running miscellaneous benchmarks or are there specific software applications that you’re interested in?
Yes, Cinema 4D with Redshift. How does it perform on a M4 XXX in comparison to a RTX 4090?
 
Apple’s use of various superlatives (Pro, Studio, Max, Ultra, Extreme) gets a little confusing at times. The hierarchy of which is better than the others isn’t always clear.

By dictionary definition, both “Max” and “Ultra” refer to something that’s at the absolute top end, which would make “Extreme” a step below them.

JUST SAYING
knjjm2xn.jpg
 
M3 Max similar than a 4060.
M4 Max is between a 4070 and a 4080
M4 Ultra will be more powerful than a 4090
M4 Extreme, if exist, would be really extreme.
You need to look at real-world application performance, this isn’t correct in almost all cases.

Apple Silicon performance is good, particularly in the laptops for the form factor, but I don’t believe anything so far has even eclipsed a 3090 in most cases, and that is 4 years old. The “Hidra” may finally, but we’ll see…
 
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You need to look at real-world application performance, this isn’t correct in almost all cases.

Apple Silicon performance is good, particularly in the laptops for the form factor, but I don’t believe anything so far has even eclipsed a 3090 in most cases, and that is 4 years old. The “Hidra” may finally, but we’ll see…
I absolutely expect that the up-binned M4 Ultra will be in the ball park of beating the 3090 (as my earlier table suggests).

However, while besting what will be a five year old (2 generation old) GPU will be great, it won't be earth shattering.

Unless Apple can make the M* Quadra happen, Apple will have nothing near the 4090 or 5090.
 
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I absolutely expect that the up-binned M4 Ultra will be in the ball park of beating the 3090 (as my earlier table suggests).

However, while besting what will be a five year old (2 generation old) GPU will be great, it won't be earth shattering.

Unless Apple can make the M* Quadra happen, Apple will have nothing near the 4090 or 5090.
Exactly, I’m hoping they skip the Ultra and go straight for the new design in saying that but I do agree the Ultra will probably match or beat the 3090 if it is 2x M4 Max GPU performance.

The speed is still very good for a mobile computer, but I’m really hoping the Hidra is real, whether next year or in 2026, they should offer something really top-end for desktop users and I hope they will.

Here’s a good comparison of a real world blender test with Max chips vs. a 3090:
you can see the M3 does well, the M4 will certainly do better, but it’s still not quite there, and that’s also using a much older CPU too that is nowhere near as fast as the M3.
 
I absolutely expect that the up-binned M4 Ultra will be in the ball park of beating the 3090 (as my earlier table suggests).

However, while besting what will be a five year old (2 generation old) GPU will be great, it won't be earth shattering.

Unless Apple can make the M* Quadra happen, Apple will have nothing near the 4090 or 5090.
That's only if Mac has a lot of GPU intensive software due to lack of powerful GPU. Apple really needs Mac Pro or workstation grade GPU with up to 4 GPU slots. Have and dont have are a huge difference.
 
That's only if Mac has a lot of GPU intensive software due to lack of powerful GPU. Apple really needs Mac Pro or workstation grade GPU with up to 4 GPU slots. Have and dont have are a huge difference.
Yeah, software is the real problem.

It is unlikely, but it is possible that Apple will get GPU cards working again; but never for running displays, just for acceleration.
 
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Yeah, software is the real problem.

It is unlikely, but it is possible that Apple will get GPU cards working again; but never for running displays, just for acceleration.
Right, I want to see more Cinema4d benchmarks and reviews instead of just geekbench which is not indicative in many cases, particularly with Maxon tools which are at least one of the major standards in the industry. They had a major crashing issue the last time I looked into it but I’m interested to see how it runs on the M4 Max, even if they get in the neighborhood of the 3080 that would be good enough for me for a laptop.

It’s tough having a lot of different pro and semi-pro use cases because there’s no “one” solution. We live in a great time but there’s no $7,000 computer you can buy that does it all and I feel like there’s still another few years of switching between Macs and Windows machines (and some Linux) before I can fully retire my PC, and that‘s assuming software support comes like you say.
 
Yeah, software is the real problem.

It is unlikely, but it is possible that Apple will get GPU cards working again; but never for running displays, just for acceleration.
Right, I want to see more Cinema4d benchmarks and reviews instead of just geekbench which is not indicative in many cases, particularly with Maxon tools which are at least one of the major standards in the industry. They had a major crashing issue the last time I looked into it but I’m interested to see how it runs on the M4 Max, even if they get in the neighborhood of the 3080 that would be good enough for me for a laptop.

CPU is doing great or outstanding as Intel/AMD cant even come close especially power by watt. But GPU is shameful. Maybe they should double the GPU core for Max and Ultra and then create Extreme version with upgrade/expand design just for Mac Pro.

Power by watt is still great but at least GPU needs more juice than keeping the power consumption.
 
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I would like to expect intel PCI card, so we could install windows on the side. They have done something similar in the old days, where you could have 386x or 486x computer on PCI card. Apple should do something similar for those who want to have windows on the side as well as linux.
 
Something something chiplet-based approach to up the GPU core count...?

  • Mac Pro Cube
  • 32-core CPU (24P/8E)
  • 192-core GPU
  • 32-core Neural Engine
  • 960GB LPDDR5X ECC RAM
  • 2.16TB/s UMA bandwidth
 
I would like to expect intel PCI card, so we could install windows on the side. They have done something similar in the old days, where you could have 386x or 486x computer on PCI card. Apple should do something similar for those who want to have windows on the side as well as linux.
Windows and Linux can both run just fine in VM, as they both have ARM implementations. Windows even comes with x86 emulation. That will continue to get better over time.

Gone are the days that an OS on upgrade card makes any sense. So few users have card slots, no company would make money on it.

Just buy a perfectly OK miniPC if you want some native x86.
 
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M3 Max similar than a 4060.
M4 Max is between a 4070 and a 4080
M4 Ultra will be more powerful than a 4090
M4 Extreme, if exist, would be really extreme.

This is based on nothing other than the holding Apple Silicon in such high regard, that the best Mac SoC must surely = the best Windows GPU. Therefore, M4 Ultra = RTX4090.

You need to understand is that Nvidia is not Intel. Whereas Intel is somewhat in the doldrums, Nvidia is crushing it in GPU / AI, and frequently has a higher market cap than Apple. They also make their chips on a recent 5nm node; they're not stuck on some old process.

The RTX4090 is a beast of a card - a foot long and three slots thick. It takes three power connectors. Do you really think Apple will be able to fit something that powerful in a Mac Studio? As part of an SoC that also has to accommodate a load of CPU cores? Apple have achieved a lot with their ARM CPU cores, but they can't suspend the laws of physics.
 
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M3 Max similar than a 4060.
M4 Max is between a 4070 and a 4080
M4 Ultra will be more powerful than a 4090
M4 Extreme, if exist, would be really extreme.


This is the type of slide deck Apple would use at a presentation with the 'trust us bro' disclaimer at the bottom in tiny font
 
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Yeah, software is the real problem.

It is unlikely, but it is possible that Apple will get GPU cards working again; but never for running displays, just for acceleration.
From that engineer interview posted previously I think about the time Mac Pro launched then is unlikely that will get GPU cards working as would break the UMA that gone with for Apple Silicon. is a choice made for the overall system.
like that video where Steve jobs answered about Flash, then apple make decisions as part of the overall system and not going to please everyone.

instead would expect to see additional engines.

Whereas Nvidia and AMD pushing the GPU route for AI then Apple is using the NeuralEngine instead for AI.

it has the Media Engine for the Video Encode/Decode that previously used GPU for.

most likely for where Apple envision targeting there systems then the need for the big GPU and multiple of them not likely to be there as such. Not saying there aren’t people out there with Workflows that need them but Apple not necessarily targeting them.
 
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Apple doesn’t feel the need to compete in every area of the market. There’s loads that aren’t a good fit for them (servers, point of sale, basic laptops etc.), and high-end 3D workstations are another.

Apple’s whole architecture is derived from the iPhone, and is naturally amazing for laptops and laptop-derived devices (e.g. the iMac and mini are essentially an Air with and without a monitor respectively). But large GPUs won’t fit in an SoC, and Apple aren’t going to break the UMA architecture for the 1% of Macs that would benefit from it. They also won’t spend a huge amount of money developing a dedicated GPU for a small number of users - or allow Nvidia into the Mac Pro.
 
There was that expectation by some that thought Apple might release the M4 Ultra machines first, then trickle down. It didn't play out but it makes sense to me. People who want a machine now would have to buy a higher end, higher profit margin machine. While the lowest profit margin machines would come in last.
I'm sure Apple's marketing knows what they're doing though (or maybe it actually does just take longer to have the M4 Ultra ready than the lower spec chips).
the ultra pretty sure gets more time to produce, I mean, you need to fuse 2 Max, so obviously you need to produce Max first :p
Also MBP are best selling and xmast is coming…
Mac Studio it is said represents a 5-7% of mac sales, so…
Just wondering how much sales percentage represents the top MBP Max vs MS
 
Maybe in 2D applications, but in 3D, Apple's M4 will always lose out to an RTX 4090, regardless of the configuration. And if there is an RTX 5090 in 3 months, then things will look even worse.

That's not all that bad, but Apple is also trying (more and more recently) to gain market share in the gaming sector, but if you want maximum performance and want to play corresponding AAA titles, you are unfortunately still only a second choice customer in the Apple world.

I'm not a gaming fan at all, but for me the CUDA performance of an RTX 4090/5090 is decisive and here too Apple is falling behind.

Here you have 3d benchmarks comparing a Macbook Pro M4 Max Vs a Desktop PC 4080 Super
 
From what? Benchmarks? In reality, it never comes close. Besides, Mac lacks GPU intensive software compared to Windows. Maybe we can start testing it after Cyberpunk 2077 released.
Here you have 3d benchmarks comparing a Macbook Pro M4 Max Vs a Desktop PC 4080 Super
 
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