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The Zen3 processor that they are comparing it to is the 5950x - the fastest desktop processor with a TDP of 105W. The entire system power of the M1 mini under l

by 314 6y ago

The Zen3 processor that they are comparing it to is the 5950x - the fastest desktop processor with a TDP of 105W. The entire system power of the M1 mini under load was 28W. What the article is pointing out is that the mobile low-power version of the M1 (as the mini is really just a laptop in a SFF box) is competitive with the top-end Zen3 chip; the benchmark gap is smaller than 2x. We don't know yet how far the M1 scales up, e.g. a performance desktop will presumably have a higher TDP and probably trade the integrated GPU space for more CPU cores. But we don't known if/how this will translate into performance gains. Previous incarnations of the Mac Pro have also used multiple CPUs so it is not yet clear if "in the real word, most Zen3 CPUs will have 2x or more cores".

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oefrha 6y ago
Not to mention 5950X alone without cooling ($799) costs almost as much as an entry level MacBook Air.
- mey 6y ago
  The single core performance between the 5600x and the 5950x isn't significantly different. The charts have some interesting gaps... Edit: Putting it head to head with the 5600x would make a lot of sense for price/core/desktop space comparison.
  - qz2 6y ago
    Yes. I'd like to see a decent-ish Ryzen APUs such as the 3400G up against one of these as well. I did notice that the cinebench for the M1 is only about 10% higher than my Ryzen laptop (T495s) which is laughable as it's a 3500U and the whole thing cost me £470 new!
- alwillis 6y ago
  Not to mention 5950X alone without cooling ($799) costs almost as much as an entry level MacBook Air The M1-based Mac mini starts at $699.
  - oefrha 6y ago
    Yeah, forgot about that. Everything else being equal (ostensibly), the M1 Mac Mini is $200 cheaper than the crappy Intel i5 Mac Mini, more if you upgrade the Intel CPU. As an owner of a decked out 2019 Mac Mini, in hindsight I made a shitty purchase decision.
    - arvinsim 6y ago
      I sold my 2018 Mac Mini with high specs 1 week before the keynote. The guy must be feeling bad right now.
    - alwillis 6y ago
      As an owner of a decked out 2019 Mac Mini, in hindsight I made a shitty purchase decision. Probably not. If you need a machine to get work done, as you probably did, it always makes sense to buy what's current. It's different if you can afford to wait for a particular upgrade we know is coming. I bought a 4k Retina iMac a little over a year ago because I needed to badly and it's been great.
    - JAlexoid 6y ago
      Why? Today's purchase of Mac Mini will be a crappy decision in hindsight in about a year... and that is true every year. It would have been a crappy decision - if you got a worse product at the time of purchase. So don't get FOMO.
      - secabeen 6y ago
        I actually just bought an Intel Mac Mini to run MacOS VMs with using ESXi. I expect it will be quite a while before stable Mac VM support is available for Apple Silicon Macs.
    - 6y ago
- SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
  Well that CPU has 16 cores / 32 threads while the M1 has 4 high power cores and 4 low power ones.
kllrnohj 6y ago
> The Zen3 processor that they are comparing it to is the 5950x - the fastest desktop processor with a TDP of 105W. The entire system power of the M1 mini under load was 28W. This is a very misleading statement. They primarily only used the 5950X in single-core tests, and in those tests it doesn't come remotely close to 105W. In fact per Anandtech's own results[1] the 5950X CPU core in a single-core load draws around 20w. Take the M1's 28W under a multi-threaded load, that's going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 4-5w/core for the big cores probably (single-core was ~10w total, ~6w "active" - figure clocks drop a bit on the multi loads, and then the little cores are almost certainly much less power draw particularly since they are also much, much slower). In multithreaded loads the per-core power draw on a 5950x is around 6w. That's a _much_ closer delta than the "105W TDP vs. ~28W!" would suggest. M1's definitely got the efficiency lead, but it's also a bit slower and power scales non-linearly. It's an interesting head-to-head, but that 105W TDP number of the 5950X is fairly irrelevant in these tests. That's not really playing a role. Just like it's about as irrelevant as you can get that the 5950X is 4x the big CPU cores, since it was again primarily used in the single-threaded comparisons. Slap 16 of those firestorm cores into a Mac Pro and bam you're at 60w. Let it run at 3.2ghz all-core instead of the 3ghz it appears to now since you've got a big tower cooler and that's 100w (6w/core @ 3.2ghz per the anandtech estimates * 16). That'd be the actual multi-threaded comparison vs. the 5950X if you want to talk about 105W TDP numbers. Critically though the M1 is definitely not a 10W chip as many people were claiming just a few days ago. You're definitely going to see differences between the Air & 13" MBP as a result. 1: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16214/amd-zen-3-ryzen-deep-dive-review-5950x-5900x-5800x-and-5700x-tested/8 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16214/amd-zen-3-ryzen-deep-di...
- 314 6y ago
  > This is a very misleading statement. They primarily only used the 5950X in single-core tests, and in those tests it doesn't come remotely close to 105W. In fact per Anandtech's own results[1] the 5950X CPU core in a single-core load draws around 20w. It would seem that the switching of AMD chips in the various graphs have caused some confusion. I was referring to the "Geekbench 5 Multi-Thread" graph on page 2. This shows a score of 15,726 for the 5950x vs 7715 for the M1. This is about 2x. I do not see any notes that the benchmark is using less cores than the chip has available. I don't follow your argument for why it is misleading to characterize the 5950x as a 105W TDP in this benchmark. Could you expand a little on why you believe this is misleading? The article that you have linked to shows over 105W of power consumption from 4 cores - 16. Edit: I put in the wrong page number in the clarification :) Also, I see later in the linked article that the 15726 score is from 16C/32T.
saltminer 6y ago
>the fastest desktop processor with a TDP of 105W TDP is a useless marketing figure. Anand measures the AC power consumption of the Mini, which is a good measure, but that is not comparable against CPU TDP because TDP has a tenuous relation to actual power draw at best [0]. A better comparison would be ARM Mini vs Intel Mini AC power draw, and a similarly spec'd AMD system for good measure. Unfortunately, unless I missed something, the article only measured AC power draw from the ARM Mini. The M1 is certainly more power efficient than Intel or AMD for the average user, but as far as performance per watt, we cannot make any judgements with the data we have. [0] https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3525-amd-ryzen-tdp-explained-deep-dive-cooler-manufacturer-opinions https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3525-amd-ryzen-tdp-explai...

by 314 6y ago

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oefrha 6y ago

Not to mention 5950X alone without cooling ($799) costs almost as much as an entry level MacBook Air.

mey 6y ago
The single core performance between the 5600x and the 5950x isn't significantly different. The charts have some interesting gaps... Edit: Putting it head to head with the 5600x would make a lot of sense for price/core/desktop space comparison.
- qz2 6y ago
  Yes. I'd like to see a decent-ish Ryzen APUs such as the 3400G up against one of these as well. I did notice that the cinebench for the M1 is only about 10% higher than my Ryzen laptop (T495s) which is laughable as it's a 3500U and the whole thing cost me £470 new!
alwillis 6y ago
Not to mention 5950X alone without cooling ($799) costs almost as much as an entry level MacBook Air The M1-based Mac mini starts at $699.
- oefrha 6y ago
  Yeah, forgot about that. Everything else being equal (ostensibly), the M1 Mac Mini is $200 cheaper than the crappy Intel i5 Mac Mini, more if you upgrade the Intel CPU. As an owner of a decked out 2019 Mac Mini, in hindsight I made a shitty purchase decision.
  - arvinsim 6y ago
    I sold my 2018 Mac Mini with high specs 1 week before the keynote. The guy must be feeling bad right now.
  - alwillis 6y ago
    As an owner of a decked out 2019 Mac Mini, in hindsight I made a shitty purchase decision. Probably not. If you need a machine to get work done, as you probably did, it always makes sense to buy what's current. It's different if you can afford to wait for a particular upgrade we know is coming. I bought a 4k Retina iMac a little over a year ago because I needed to badly and it's been great.
  - JAlexoid 6y ago
    Why? Today's purchase of Mac Mini will be a crappy decision in hindsight in about a year... and that is true every year. It would have been a crappy decision - if you got a worse product at the time of purchase. So don't get FOMO.
    - secabeen 6y ago
      I actually just bought an Intel Mac Mini to run MacOS VMs with using ESXi. I expect it will be quite a while before stable Mac VM support is available for Apple Silicon Macs.
  - 6y ago
SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
Well that CPU has 16 cores / 32 threads while the M1 has 4 high power cores and 4 low power ones.

kllrnohj 6y ago

> The Zen3 processor that they are comparing it to is the 5950x - the fastest desktop processor with a TDP of 105W. The entire system power of the M1 mini under load was 28W. This is a very misleading statement. They primarily only used the 5950X in single-core tests, and in those tests it doesn't come remotely close to 105W. In fact per Anandtech's own results[1] the 5950X CPU core in a single-core load draws around 20w. Take the M1's 28W under a multi-threaded load, that's going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 4-5w/core for the big cores probably (single-core was ~10w total, ~6w "active" - figure clocks drop a bit on the multi loads, and then the little cores are almost certainly much less power draw particularly since they are also much, much slower). In multithreaded loads the per-core power draw on a 5950x is around 6w. That's a _much_ closer delta than the "105W TDP vs. ~28W!" would suggest. M1's definitely got the efficiency lead, but it's also a bit slower and power scales non-linearly. It's an interesting head-to-head, but that 105W TDP number of the 5950X is fairly irrelevant in these tests. That's not really playing a role. Just like it's about as irrelevant as you can get that the 5950X is 4x the big CPU cores, since it was again primarily used in the single-threaded comparisons. Slap 16 of those firestorm cores into a Mac Pro and bam you're at 60w. Let it run at 3.2ghz all-core instead of the 3ghz it appears to now since you've got a big tower cooler and that's 100w (6w/core @ 3.2ghz per the anandtech estimates * 16). That'd be the actual multi-threaded comparison vs. the 5950X if you want to talk about 105W TDP numbers. Critically though the M1 is definitely not a 10W chip as many people were claiming just a few days ago. You're definitely going to see differences between the Air & 13" MBP as a result. 1: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16214/amd-zen-3-ryzen-deep-dive-review-5950x-5900x-5800x-and-5700x-tested/8 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16214/amd-zen-3-ryzen-deep-di...

314 6y ago
> This is a very misleading statement. They primarily only used the 5950X in single-core tests, and in those tests it doesn't come remotely close to 105W. In fact per Anandtech's own results[1] the 5950X CPU core in a single-core load draws around 20w. It would seem that the switching of AMD chips in the various graphs have caused some confusion. I was referring to the "Geekbench 5 Multi-Thread" graph on page 2. This shows a score of 15,726 for the 5950x vs 7715 for the M1. This is about 2x. I do not see any notes that the benchmark is using less cores than the chip has available. I don't follow your argument for why it is misleading to characterize the 5950x as a 105W TDP in this benchmark. Could you expand a little on why you believe this is misleading? The article that you have linked to shows over 105W of power consumption from 4 cores - 16. Edit: I put in the wrong page number in the clarification :) Also, I see later in the linked article that the 15726 score is from 16C/32T.

saltminer 6y ago

>the fastest desktop processor with a TDP of 105W TDP is a useless marketing figure. Anand measures the AC power consumption of the Mini, which is a good measure, but that is not comparable against CPU TDP because TDP has a tenuous relation to actual power draw at best [0]. A better comparison would be ARM Mini vs Intel Mini AC power draw, and a similarly spec'd AMD system for good measure. Unfortunately, unless I missed something, the article only measured AC power draw from the ARM Mini. The M1 is certainly more power efficient than Intel or AMD for the average user, but as far as performance per watt, we cannot make any judgements with the data we have. [0] https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3525-amd-ryzen-tdp-explained-deep-dive-cooler-manufacturer-opinions https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3525-amd-ryzen-tdp-explai...