5 ms·

I'm waiting to be corrected by someone who knows GPU architecture better than me but as far as I can tell the synthetic benchmarks can trade blows with a 3070 o

by mhh__ 5y ago

I'm waiting to be corrected by someone who knows GPU architecture better than me but as far as I can tell the synthetic benchmarks can trade blows with a 3070 or 80 (mobile), but the actual gaming performance isn't going to be as rosy. Also recall that very few games needing that performance actually work on MacOS

smoldesu 5y ago
The gaming performance will be CPU-bottlenecked. Without proper Wine/DXVK support, they have to settle for interpreted HLE or dynamic recompilation, neither of which are very feasible on modern CPUs, much less ARM chips.
- josephg 5y ago
  From all reports, rosetta2 performs remarkably well. Apparently they added special hardware support for some x86 features to improve the performance of dynamically recompiled code.
schleck8 5y ago
Does someone know how much VRAM the M1X has? Because I bet it's far less than a 3070 or 3080.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  The memory is unified, and very high bandwidth. No idea what that means in practice, guess we'll find out.
  - pornel 5y ago
    It's very high bandwidth for a CPU, but not that great for a GPU (400GB/s vs 440GB/s in 3070 and 980GB/s in 3090).
    - oneplane 5y ago
      On the other hand, it's zero-copy between CPU and GPU.
    - artificialLimbs 5y ago
      >> ...not that great for a GPU... * almost equals the highest laptop GPU available
      - coayer 5y ago
        But it's also a premium product, so it matching a 3070m isn't really above what you'd expect for the cost (but efficiency is another story)
    - minhazm 5y ago
      It's not quite apples to apples. The 3070 only has 8GB of memory available, whereas the M1 Max has up to 64 GB available. It's also unified memory in the M1 and doesn't require a copy between CPU & GPU. Some stuff will be better for the M1 Max and some stuff will be worse.
    - nottorp 5y ago
      Of course, with a 3070 and up you have to play with headphones so you don't hear the fan noise. This is the best feature of the new Apple CPUs if you ask me: silence. Now to wait for a decent desktop...
- ribit 5y ago
  Up to 64GB…
- jbverschoor 5y ago
  There's no vram. It's unified / shared memory. There's no M1X. There's M1 Pro and M1 Max
  - akaij 5y ago
    I think we can safely shorten them to M1P and M1X.
    - MaxikCZ 5y ago
      Can't allow that. Either M1P and M1M or M1O and M1X.
- amne 5y ago
  the memory is unified so whatever ram is on there (16,32,64) can be allocated as vram. That's why during the presentation they bragged about how certain demanding 3d scenes can now be rendered on a notebook.
  - EugeneOZ 5y ago
    I still didn't get their example about the 100Gb spaceship model - max RAM supported is 64Gb...
- f0rmatfunction 5y ago
  M1 Pro & Max (and plain M1 too for what it's worth) have unified memory across both CPU and GPU. So depending on the model it'd be up to 32gb or 64gb (not accounting for the amount being used by the CPU). Put differently - far more than 3070 and 3080.
ribit 5y ago
Well, Apple G13 series are excellent rasterizers. I‘d expect them do very well in games, especially with that massive bandwidth and humongous caches. The problem is that not many games run on macOS. But if you are only interested in games with solid Mac support, they will perform very well (especially if it’s a native client like Baldurs Gates 3).
- mhh__ 5y ago
  What is the most intensive game you could actually run? I was going to say Fortnite but I'm guessing that's not the case anymore
  - ribit 5y ago
    Baldurs Gates 3, Metro Last Light, Total War…
- Thaxll 5y ago
  "very well" 45 fps top at 1080p medium settings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hROxRQvO-gQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hROxRQvO-gQ You take a 3 years old card you get 2x more fps.
  - ribit 5y ago
    Which other passively cooled laptop can do it? And what 3 year old card are you comparing it to? Hopefully something with 20W or lower power consumption. 45fps at medium Full HD is not far off a 1650 Max q
    - Thaxll 5y ago
      Apple compare themself to a 3080m, the perf from an M1 is not even close to a 3 y/o card. I don't care if it takes 10w if I can't even play at 60fps on "recent'ish" games.
      - Toutouxc 5y ago
EricE 5y ago
"Also recall that very few games needing that performance actually work on MacOS" But many Windows games do run under Crossover (a commercial wrap of WINE - well worth the measly licensing fee for seamless ease of use to me) or the Windows 10 ARM beta in Parallels. I got so many games to run on my M1 MacBook Air I ended up returning it to wait for the next round that could take more RAM. I'm very, very happy I waited for these and I fully expect it will replace my Windows gaming machine too.
labby5 5y ago
It's really hard to compare Apple and Nvidia, but a bit easier to compare Apple to AMD. My best guess is performance will be similar to a 6700xt. Of course, none of this really matters for gaming if studios don't support the Mac.
- neogodless 5y ago
  The mobile RTX 3080 limited to 105W is comparable to about an RX 6700M, which is well behind the desktop RX 6700XT.

by mhh__ 5y ago

smoldesu 5y ago

The gaming performance will be CPU-bottlenecked. Without proper Wine/DXVK support, they have to settle for interpreted HLE or dynamic recompilation, neither of which are very feasible on modern CPUs, much less ARM chips.

josephg 5y ago
From all reports, rosetta2 performs remarkably well. Apparently they added special hardware support for some x86 features to improve the performance of dynamically recompiled code.

schleck8 5y ago

Does someone know how much VRAM the M1X has? Because I bet it's far less than a 3070 or 3080.

mhh__ 5y ago
The memory is unified, and very high bandwidth. No idea what that means in practice, guess we'll find out.
- pornel 5y ago
  It's very high bandwidth for a CPU, but not that great for a GPU (400GB/s vs 440GB/s in 3070 and 980GB/s in 3090).
  - oneplane 5y ago
    On the other hand, it's zero-copy between CPU and GPU.
  - artificialLimbs 5y ago
    >> ...not that great for a GPU... * almost equals the highest laptop GPU available
    - coayer 5y ago
      But it's also a premium product, so it matching a 3070m isn't really above what you'd expect for the cost (but efficiency is another story)
  - minhazm 5y ago
    It's not quite apples to apples. The 3070 only has 8GB of memory available, whereas the M1 Max has up to 64 GB available. It's also unified memory in the M1 and doesn't require a copy between CPU & GPU. Some stuff will be better for the M1 Max and some stuff will be worse.
  - nottorp 5y ago
    Of course, with a 3070 and up you have to play with headphones so you don't hear the fan noise. This is the best feature of the new Apple CPUs if you ask me: silence. Now to wait for a decent desktop...
ribit 5y ago
Up to 64GB…
jbverschoor 5y ago
There's no vram. It's unified / shared memory. There's no M1X. There's M1 Pro and M1 Max
- akaij 5y ago
  I think we can safely shorten them to M1P and M1X.
  - MaxikCZ 5y ago
    Can't allow that. Either M1P and M1M or M1O and M1X.
amne 5y ago
the memory is unified so whatever ram is on there (16,32,64) can be allocated as vram. That's why during the presentation they bragged about how certain demanding 3d scenes can now be rendered on a notebook.
- EugeneOZ 5y ago
  I still didn't get their example about the 100Gb spaceship model - max RAM supported is 64Gb...
f0rmatfunction 5y ago
M1 Pro & Max (and plain M1 too for what it's worth) have unified memory across both CPU and GPU. So depending on the model it'd be up to 32gb or 64gb (not accounting for the amount being used by the CPU). Put differently - far more than 3070 and 3080.

ribit 5y ago

Well, Apple G13 series are excellent rasterizers. I‘d expect them do very well in games, especially with that massive bandwidth and humongous caches. The problem is that not many games run on macOS. But if you are only interested in games with solid Mac support, they will perform very well (especially if it’s a native client like Baldurs Gates 3).

mhh__ 5y ago
What is the most intensive game you could actually run? I was going to say Fortnite but I'm guessing that's not the case anymore
- ribit 5y ago
  Baldurs Gates 3, Metro Last Light, Total War…
Thaxll 5y ago
"very well" 45 fps top at 1080p medium settings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hROxRQvO-gQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hROxRQvO-gQ You take a 3 years old card you get 2x more fps.
- ribit 5y ago
  Which other passively cooled laptop can do it? And what 3 year old card are you comparing it to? Hopefully something with 20W or lower power consumption. 45fps at medium Full HD is not far off a 1650 Max q
  - Thaxll 5y ago
    Apple compare themself to a 3080m, the perf from an M1 is not even close to a 3 y/o card. I don't care if it takes 10w if I can't even play at 60fps on "recent'ish" games.
    - Toutouxc 5y ago

EricE 5y ago

"Also recall that very few games needing that performance actually work on MacOS" But many Windows games do run under Crossover (a commercial wrap of WINE - well worth the measly licensing fee for seamless ease of use to me) or the Windows 10 ARM beta in Parallels. I got so many games to run on my M1 MacBook Air I ended up returning it to wait for the next round that could take more RAM. I'm very, very happy I waited for these and I fully expect it will replace my Windows gaming machine too.

labby5 5y ago

It's really hard to compare Apple and Nvidia, but a bit easier to compare Apple to AMD. My best guess is performance will be similar to a 6700xt. Of course, none of this really matters for gaming if studios don't support the Mac.

neogodless 5y ago
The mobile RTX 3080 limited to 105W is comparable to about an RX 6700M, which is well behind the desktop RX 6700XT.