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This isn't an apples to apples comparison like the author says, because the package power (37W) of the Ryzen is still quite a bit higher than the M1's. You can

This isn't an apples to apples comparison like the author says, because the package power (37W) of the Ryzen is still quite a bit higher than the M1's. You can see it right there in the graph from Anandtech. The 5800X is a beast of a CPU. The IPC improvements over the previous generation really are incredible. It's not surprising to me at all that it beats the M1 in several benchmarks. However, it's not the same class of device at all.

glasshead969 6y ago
yea its hard to compare, this makes sense as what is the most powerful cpu one can get no matter the power usage but there isn't anything close to M1 when it comes to high performance and long battery life. Even ryzen 4000 series laptops throttle a lot when on battery power while M1 performance doesn't change. I don't expect this to change with Zen 3 laptops either.
hawk_ 6y ago
> This isn't an apples to apples comparison I mean how could it be. It's AMD to Apple's :-P
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
In the real world, there aren't many people making purchasing decision between an M1 Apple laptop or Mac Mini and an AMD 5800X desktop machine anyway. Still interesting to see the comparisons. The leaked Geekbench results of AMD's upcoming 5800H laptop parts are about 85% of the M1's single core score and matching the M1's multi-core score. TDP is still higher than the M1, obviously, but AMD is also using a 7nm process while Apple got the jump on 5nm by buying exclusivity on TMSC's 5nm process through the end of the year. I'm extremely impressed with the M1 and I'll be buying an Apple Silicon device as soon as they have something with 32GB or more of RAM. However, the sentiment that the M1 chip obliterates any and every desktop part on the market is getting kind of silly at this point.
- viraptor 6y ago
  Some are making a "desktop with cheaper terminal laptop -vs- pro laptop" choice though. And in that case the comparison may matter.
  - reader_mode 6y ago
    Thing is M1 air is cheap for the quality/performance so you could probably get both.
    - viraptor 6y ago
      Sure, but this article helps answering "do I need both".
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      Depends. If you go for the base model, yes. If you need more memory or a lot of fast storage or gobs of GPU horsepower or a lot of I/O, the 5800X will be definitely cheaper by a mile. That being said, at the same config, the 5800X system would indeed only barely be cheaper.
    - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
      I need lots of harddrives and pcie slots for my type of work. No matter how fast the M1 is, I'd rather use i3-10100 instead.
- akmarinov 6y ago
  Let’s not forget that the M1 is the budget (for Apple), low performance SoC. Let’s see what the M1X is like mid next year.
  - threeseed 6y ago
    Also M2 is going to be for the mid-range 14/16" MacBook Pro + iMac. You will need to wait for the M3 in 2022 for the true desktop HEDT/Threadripper competitor.
    - OkGoDoIt 6y ago
      It’s not like AMD is going to be standing still for the next few years though
- echlebek 6y ago
  Absolutely, the M1 is extremely impressive and the best performer in its class by a long shot.
  - lazyjones 6y ago
    Yep it's probably the first at this size and packaging that you can just hook up to a TV and replace a decent desktop computer with (like I did; goodbye late 2015 iMac 5K...).
- alwillis 6y ago
  However, the sentiment that the M1 chip obliterates any and every desktop part on the market is getting kind of silly at this point. 1. Nobody ever stated that. If anything, it was all of the Intel and AMD users who created that straw man. "See, it's slower than a 64-core Threadripper at 280 watts". No kidding. 2. The M1 is clearly not a desktop-class SoC nor was it intended to be. However, it's more than competitive with many desktop x86 processors that run faster and hotter while consuming much more power. 3. As a first attempt, the M1’s performance per watt is very impressive. Obviously the 5nm process helps but it's never one thing with Apple: it's the unified memory, the 8 instruction decoders (AMD and Intel max out at 4), and the integration of the 16-core Neural Engine, among other features.
  - ComputerGuru 6y ago
    > the unified memory Castrated by a paltry 8GB of RAM in stock configuration!
    - alwillis 6y ago
      Castrated by a paltry 8GB of RAM in stock configuration! Probably not. macOS has had RAM compression since 2009; by now, it's probably implemented in the M1 SoC, so it's really really fast. 8 GB on an M1 is closer to 16 GB on most other processor/operating system combinations.
      - tartrate 6y ago
        That's amazing. I usually read in 16 GB of image data into memory for analysis. I'm guessing that will work fine on the 8GB ram macbook then. /s
        gambiting 6y ago
        Look, it doesn't have to work for everyone. Of course there are workloads where it's not going to be enough. That's fine. My personal workload requires 128GB of ram but I don't go around telling people 8GB laptops are pointless.
- reader_mode 6y ago
  > In the real world, there aren't many people making purchasing decision between an M1 Apple laptop or Mac Mini and an AMD 5800X desktop machine anyway I have a 15 inch 2018 i9 MBP that's objectively a terrible device (throttling/keyboard). With corona and WFH I'm weighing my options - right now everything is out of stock but early next year I'd be interested in building a desktop. My problem is the M1 is so good that if they do a 8 performance cores version for 16 inch MBP in spring there would literally be no point in having a desktop - I could have a single device that outperforms the desktop machine. Frankly I don't see why they couldn't offer a 13 inch varian with more cores - thermals are not a constraint.
  - oezi 6y ago
    Has there been any leak that a 16 inch MBP with Apple Silicon is coming anytime soon? Haven't heard any substantial info on roadmap.
    - least 6y ago
      There’s not been leaks, but there’s no reason to believe that it won’t be coming any time soon. Hypothetically the latest it would come out is in first half of 2022, but I’d be surprised if it took that long for the 16 inch macbook pro.
    - Rapzid 6y ago
      Does Apple ever announce anything before the day it happens? This is the company that drops iOS, macOS, and M1 on developers the day they do the public. I'm not sure where people are pulling all these Apple silicon timelines from, but I can guess :)
eloff 6y ago
For desktop workloads it doesn't matter, so this is a relevant comparison to many.
- scoopertrooper 6y ago
  But this device wasn't built for use cases where power consumption doesn't matter. The M1 MacPro will give us a sense for how the M* design scales to those sorts of workloads.
  - eloff 6y ago
    I care how it compares to other products on the market for my use case. It doesn't matter what it's built for. This is a relevant comparison from that perspective.
    - scoopertrooper 6y ago
      That's cool, you shouldn't buy one if you care about portability. I personally love not being tethered to my desk, so I haven't really owned a desktop in a decade. The M1 for me was just so perfect I had to jump out and buy one!
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > But this device wasn't built for use cases where power consumption doesn't matter. This makes less difference than you'd think, because power consumption matters all over. If you use too much power you get high temperatures and have to clock down to avoid overheating. The core designs for desktops and laptops are basically the same. The desktops use more power because it allows them to hold higher clock speeds -- the base clock of the 4800U (8C, 10W) is 1.8GHz, the base clock of the 3945WX (12C, 280W) is 4.0GHz. This is also why desktops and laptops have about the same single thread performance. Running a single core at full speed is within the laptop power budget.
nominated1 6y ago
And directly above that graph says: > please keep in mind that for single-threaded tasks, a single core doesn’t consume all 95W TDP headroom of the CPU. Based on Anandtech’s analysis, a single 5800X core only consumes 17.3W at 4850 MHz Remember these are single-threaded benchmarks.
- glasshead969 6y ago
  M1 with all its CPUs pegged to 100% only hits 20W, so M1 still uses way less power than single core in Zen. Edit: In fact I just ran Cinebench R23 single thread test and package power barely crossed 5W.
  - scoopertrooper 6y ago
    Yup, the MacMini M1 maxes out at 10.5W on single threaded workloads https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste...
  - imtringued 6y ago
    > M1 with all its CPUs pegged to 100% only hits 20W, so M1 still uses way less power than single core in Zen. So do Ryzen CPUs. The 16 core Ryzen only needs 5W per core. It's purely a matter of frequency management. These comparisons are meaningless because you can say stupid things like "Ryzens are more power efficient than Ryzens" and still be right.
    - my123 6y ago
      At 5W per core, you don't get anywhere near the single-threaded perf needed to beat an M1... (20W per core is what it reaches on ST tests, with 17W more for the I/O die on desktop Ryzen, an overhead that'll be much lower on Cezanne hopefully)
- gzer0 6y ago
  Interestingly, the conclusion states the following: > While M1 is indeed very powerful for its size, when comparing it to the high-end x86 desktop, it is still slower. Okay, great. I'm not sure what to expect when you compare the lowest end first generation processor from Apple to one of the more high-end of the spectrum x86. Edit: Forgot to mention how the power draw on the M1 is still significantly less; m1 with all cores @ 100% is ~20W whereas the x86 ryzen was at 17.3W for 1 one core > To conclude that it performs better than the existing x86 CPUs, is a mistake. True, no denying that. Exciting times in this market; I wonder how much better gen 2 of Apple's chips will be if the lowest end can do this.
fierarul 6y ago
Honestly everything about the M1 is so hyperbolic it does seem like it could replace super computers soon. So, everybody knows a little laptop CPU and a desktop Ryzen are not the same class but it's still useful to compare. I have a new laptop with the Ryzen 4800H, I would surely like a direct comparison with the M1.
ComputerGuru 6y ago
What’s crazy is the 5800X destroys my ThreadRipper 1950X, with 35% better performance even on highly parallelized workloads! On the other hand, my Skylake 2600k CPU still trades blows with 2020 so-called “10nm” desktop processors.

glasshead969 6y ago

yea its hard to compare, this makes sense as what is the most powerful cpu one can get no matter the power usage but there isn't anything close to M1 when it comes to high performance and long battery life. Even ryzen 4000 series laptops throttle a lot when on battery power while M1 performance doesn't change. I don't expect this to change with Zen 3 laptops either.

hawk_ 6y ago

> This isn't an apples to apples comparison I mean how could it be. It's AMD to Apple's :-P

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

In the real world, there aren't many people making purchasing decision between an M1 Apple laptop or Mac Mini and an AMD 5800X desktop machine anyway. Still interesting to see the comparisons. The leaked Geekbench results of AMD's upcoming 5800H laptop parts are about 85% of the M1's single core score and matching the M1's multi-core score. TDP is still higher than the M1, obviously, but AMD is also using a 7nm process while Apple got the jump on 5nm by buying exclusivity on TMSC's 5nm process through the end of the year. I'm extremely impressed with the M1 and I'll be buying an Apple Silicon device as soon as they have something with 32GB or more of RAM. However, the sentiment that the M1 chip obliterates any and every desktop part on the market is getting kind of silly at this point.

viraptor 6y ago
Some are making a "desktop with cheaper terminal laptop -vs- pro laptop" choice though. And in that case the comparison may matter.
- reader_mode 6y ago
  Thing is M1 air is cheap for the quality/performance so you could probably get both.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    Sure, but this article helps answering "do I need both".
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    Depends. If you go for the base model, yes. If you need more memory or a lot of fast storage or gobs of GPU horsepower or a lot of I/O, the 5800X will be definitely cheaper by a mile. That being said, at the same config, the 5800X system would indeed only barely be cheaper.
  - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
    I need lots of harddrives and pcie slots for my type of work. No matter how fast the M1 is, I'd rather use i3-10100 instead.
akmarinov 6y ago
Let’s not forget that the M1 is the budget (for Apple), low performance SoC. Let’s see what the M1X is like mid next year.
- threeseed 6y ago
  Also M2 is going to be for the mid-range 14/16" MacBook Pro + iMac. You will need to wait for the M3 in 2022 for the true desktop HEDT/Threadripper competitor.
  - OkGoDoIt 6y ago
    It’s not like AMD is going to be standing still for the next few years though
echlebek 6y ago
Absolutely, the M1 is extremely impressive and the best performer in its class by a long shot.
- lazyjones 6y ago
  Yep it's probably the first at this size and packaging that you can just hook up to a TV and replace a decent desktop computer with (like I did; goodbye late 2015 iMac 5K...).
alwillis 6y ago
However, the sentiment that the M1 chip obliterates any and every desktop part on the market is getting kind of silly at this point. 1. Nobody ever stated that. If anything, it was all of the Intel and AMD users who created that straw man. "See, it's slower than a 64-core Threadripper at 280 watts". No kidding. 2. The M1 is clearly not a desktop-class SoC nor was it intended to be. However, it's more than competitive with many desktop x86 processors that run faster and hotter while consuming much more power. 3. As a first attempt, the M1’s performance per watt is very impressive. Obviously the 5nm process helps but it's never one thing with Apple: it's the unified memory, the 8 instruction decoders (AMD and Intel max out at 4), and the integration of the 16-core Neural Engine, among other features.
- ComputerGuru 6y ago
  > the unified memory Castrated by a paltry 8GB of RAM in stock configuration!
  - alwillis 6y ago
    Castrated by a paltry 8GB of RAM in stock configuration! Probably not. macOS has had RAM compression since 2009; by now, it's probably implemented in the M1 SoC, so it's really really fast. 8 GB on an M1 is closer to 16 GB on most other processor/operating system combinations.
    - tartrate 6y ago
      That's amazing. I usually read in 16 GB of image data into memory for analysis. I'm guessing that will work fine on the 8GB ram macbook then. /s
      - gambiting 6y ago
        Look, it doesn't have to work for everyone. Of course there are workloads where it's not going to be enough. That's fine. My personal workload requires 128GB of ram but I don't go around telling people 8GB laptops are pointless.
reader_mode 6y ago
> In the real world, there aren't many people making purchasing decision between an M1 Apple laptop or Mac Mini and an AMD 5800X desktop machine anyway I have a 15 inch 2018 i9 MBP that's objectively a terrible device (throttling/keyboard). With corona and WFH I'm weighing my options - right now everything is out of stock but early next year I'd be interested in building a desktop. My problem is the M1 is so good that if they do a 8 performance cores version for 16 inch MBP in spring there would literally be no point in having a desktop - I could have a single device that outperforms the desktop machine. Frankly I don't see why they couldn't offer a 13 inch varian with more cores - thermals are not a constraint.
- oezi 6y ago
  Has there been any leak that a 16 inch MBP with Apple Silicon is coming anytime soon? Haven't heard any substantial info on roadmap.
  - least 6y ago
    There’s not been leaks, but there’s no reason to believe that it won’t be coming any time soon. Hypothetically the latest it would come out is in first half of 2022, but I’d be surprised if it took that long for the 16 inch macbook pro.
  - Rapzid 6y ago
    Does Apple ever announce anything before the day it happens? This is the company that drops iOS, macOS, and M1 on developers the day they do the public. I'm not sure where people are pulling all these Apple silicon timelines from, but I can guess :)

eloff 6y ago

For desktop workloads it doesn't matter, so this is a relevant comparison to many.

scoopertrooper 6y ago
But this device wasn't built for use cases where power consumption doesn't matter. The M1 MacPro will give us a sense for how the M* design scales to those sorts of workloads.
- eloff 6y ago
  I care how it compares to other products on the market for my use case. It doesn't matter what it's built for. This is a relevant comparison from that perspective.
  - scoopertrooper 6y ago
    That's cool, you shouldn't buy one if you care about portability. I personally love not being tethered to my desk, so I haven't really owned a desktop in a decade. The M1 for me was just so perfect I had to jump out and buy one!
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > But this device wasn't built for use cases where power consumption doesn't matter. This makes less difference than you'd think, because power consumption matters all over. If you use too much power you get high temperatures and have to clock down to avoid overheating. The core designs for desktops and laptops are basically the same. The desktops use more power because it allows them to hold higher clock speeds -- the base clock of the 4800U (8C, 10W) is 1.8GHz, the base clock of the 3945WX (12C, 280W) is 4.0GHz. This is also why desktops and laptops have about the same single thread performance. Running a single core at full speed is within the laptop power budget.

nominated1 6y ago

And directly above that graph says: > please keep in mind that for single-threaded tasks, a single core doesn’t consume all 95W TDP headroom of the CPU. Based on Anandtech’s analysis, a single 5800X core only consumes 17.3W at 4850 MHz Remember these are single-threaded benchmarks.

glasshead969 6y ago
M1 with all its CPUs pegged to 100% only hits 20W, so M1 still uses way less power than single core in Zen. Edit: In fact I just ran Cinebench R23 single thread test and package power barely crossed 5W.
- scoopertrooper 6y ago
  Yup, the MacMini M1 maxes out at 10.5W on single threaded workloads https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste...
- imtringued 6y ago
  > M1 with all its CPUs pegged to 100% only hits 20W, so M1 still uses way less power than single core in Zen. So do Ryzen CPUs. The 16 core Ryzen only needs 5W per core. It's purely a matter of frequency management. These comparisons are meaningless because you can say stupid things like "Ryzens are more power efficient than Ryzens" and still be right.
  - my123 6y ago
    At 5W per core, you don't get anywhere near the single-threaded perf needed to beat an M1... (20W per core is what it reaches on ST tests, with 17W more for the I/O die on desktop Ryzen, an overhead that'll be much lower on Cezanne hopefully)
gzer0 6y ago
Interestingly, the conclusion states the following: > While M1 is indeed very powerful for its size, when comparing it to the high-end x86 desktop, it is still slower. Okay, great. I'm not sure what to expect when you compare the lowest end first generation processor from Apple to one of the more high-end of the spectrum x86. Edit: Forgot to mention how the power draw on the M1 is still significantly less; m1 with all cores @ 100% is ~20W whereas the x86 ryzen was at 17.3W for 1 one core > To conclude that it performs better than the existing x86 CPUs, is a mistake. True, no denying that. Exciting times in this market; I wonder how much better gen 2 of Apple's chips will be if the lowest end can do this.

fierarul 6y ago

Honestly everything about the M1 is so hyperbolic it does seem like it could replace super computers soon. So, everybody knows a little laptop CPU and a desktop Ryzen are not the same class but it's still useful to compare. I have a new laptop with the Ryzen 4800H, I would surely like a direct comparison with the M1.

ComputerGuru 6y ago

What’s crazy is the 5800X destroys my ThreadRipper 1950X, with 35% better performance even on highly parallelized workloads! On the other hand, my Skylake 2600k CPU still trades blows with 2020 so-called “10nm” desktop processors.