5 ms·

Ahhaha, Intel's TDP is 2-4 times bigger under full load (and I guess ~10-15x under moderate load) while having negligible perf advantage over M2. The author can

Ahhaha, Intel's TDP is 2-4 times bigger under full load (and I guess ~10-15x under moderate load) while having negligible perf advantage over M2. The author can not be serious.

jacooper 3y ago
Since when was TDP a deciding factor in desktop purchasing decisions? Sure M SOCs are great on laptops, but there are no reasons to get them on the desktop, slower, more expensive and with less compatibility.
- zbrozek 3y ago
  Where and when electric energy is $0.51/kWh, one might care quite a bit.
  - jacooper 3y ago
    I doubt the target customers of the M2 ultra aren't going to be able to cover extra energy costs for a cheaper and more performant device.
    - zbrozek 3y ago
      Oh sure, but I was responding to the comment above saying that desktop users in general shouldn't care about power consumption. That's too broad.
  - ianai 3y ago
    It’s such a strawman point. But this comparison is totally bonkers. If you’re doing a workload meant for a 4080/4090 then you really have no business pointing at the M2 Ultra as a competitor. Then there’s comparing like technology to like technology. Something like the 5700G AMD line, and that’s not even nvidia. But that probably isn’t as interesting to the authors.
  - readthenotes1 3y ago
    Whoever is doing the caring should reconsider their life choices at that price. At 51 cents per kilowatt hour, personal solar + batteries are a vailable alternative. If you cared about the planet, you'd move
- daneel_w 3y ago
  I considered it an important factor even 15 years ago, long before the reality of the environmental and energy crises really dawned on us. Surely I can't be alone.
- jlund-molfese 3y ago
  Lower power consumption means less heat, which means you might see more reliable performance (less likelihood of throttling in the middle of intensive workloads) This doesn’t matter for everyone’s use case, but it is a factor some people might consider.
- mrangle 3y ago
  TDP reduction = heat management = reliability management but mostly noise management. I've never tried to water cool a 125 watt processor and so I can't speak to that. But especially if one uses air cooling or ideally passive cooling, one's ability to reduce noise is proportional to the chip's TDP. Noise reduction is important to many.
peoplefromibiza 3y ago
> Intel's TDP is 2-4 times bigger under full load Never been a problem, even when Intel TDP was 20x worse than today. EDIT: the author forgot that the tested system is an M2 Ultra a desktop class system with a TDP of 90 watts The i9-13900T and i7-13700T come in at a max turbo power of just 106W which is just 1.2x
- wtallis 3y ago
  > even when Intel TDP was 20x worse than today. When has Intel's real, advertised, or specified CPU power consumption or TDP ever been 20x that of the i9-13900KS?
  - peoplefromibiza 3y ago
    Core i9-13900KS consumes 150W with 24 cores (8P+16E) so an average of 6.25 watts per core which is less than a Pentium 90, a 1994 CPU running at 90Mhz in absolute is not a 20x worse TDP, but it is relatively to the gain in frequency and performances (more than 20x actually)
    - wtallis 3y ago
      > Core i9-13900KS consumes 150W with 24 cores (8P+16E) No, the 13900KS has a nominal "TDP" of 150W. That's a marketing number, not a measurement and not even a control target parameter for the default boost management settings. Out of the box, a 13900KS in a typical desktop motherboard will happily draw more than twice that, indefinitely, if you can cool it and have a workload that can actually keep all of those cores busy: https://images.anandtech.com/doci/18728/13900KS%20Power%20Graph%201.png https://images.anandtech.com/doci/18728/13900KS%20Power%20Gr... If you want to compare per-core power, you either have to use a power number for a workload that's actually loading all the cores, or divide the measured power by the number of cores actually in use.
- daneel_w 3y ago
  > "Never been a problem, even when Intel TDP was 20x worse than today." Economically and environmentally it's absolutely a problem.
diffeomorphism 3y ago
Is that like 5 acre feet per fathom? TDP makes no sense here.

Ahhaha, Intel's TDP is 2-4 times bigger under full load (and I guess ~10-15x under moderate load) while having negligible perf advantage over M2. The author can not be serious.

jacooper 3y ago

Since when was TDP a deciding factor in desktop purchasing decisions? Sure M SOCs are great on laptops, but there are no reasons to get them on the desktop, slower, more expensive and with less compatibility.

zbrozek 3y ago
Where and when electric energy is $0.51/kWh, one might care quite a bit.
- jacooper 3y ago
  I doubt the target customers of the M2 ultra aren't going to be able to cover extra energy costs for a cheaper and more performant device.
  - zbrozek 3y ago
    Oh sure, but I was responding to the comment above saying that desktop users in general shouldn't care about power consumption. That's too broad.
- ianai 3y ago
  It’s such a strawman point. But this comparison is totally bonkers. If you’re doing a workload meant for a 4080/4090 then you really have no business pointing at the M2 Ultra as a competitor. Then there’s comparing like technology to like technology. Something like the 5700G AMD line, and that’s not even nvidia. But that probably isn’t as interesting to the authors.
- readthenotes1 3y ago
  Whoever is doing the caring should reconsider their life choices at that price. At 51 cents per kilowatt hour, personal solar + batteries are a vailable alternative. If you cared about the planet, you'd move
daneel_w 3y ago
I considered it an important factor even 15 years ago, long before the reality of the environmental and energy crises really dawned on us. Surely I can't be alone.
jlund-molfese 3y ago
Lower power consumption means less heat, which means you might see more reliable performance (less likelihood of throttling in the middle of intensive workloads) This doesn’t matter for everyone’s use case, but it is a factor some people might consider.
mrangle 3y ago
TDP reduction = heat management = reliability management but mostly noise management. I've never tried to water cool a 125 watt processor and so I can't speak to that. But especially if one uses air cooling or ideally passive cooling, one's ability to reduce noise is proportional to the chip's TDP. Noise reduction is important to many.

peoplefromibiza 3y ago

> Intel's TDP is 2-4 times bigger under full load Never been a problem, even when Intel TDP was 20x worse than today. EDIT: the author forgot that the tested system is an M2 Ultra a desktop class system with a TDP of 90 watts The i9-13900T and i7-13700T come in at a max turbo power of just 106W which is just 1.2x

wtallis 3y ago
> even when Intel TDP was 20x worse than today. When has Intel's real, advertised, or specified CPU power consumption or TDP ever been 20x that of the i9-13900KS?
- peoplefromibiza 3y ago
  Core i9-13900KS consumes 150W with 24 cores (8P+16E) so an average of 6.25 watts per core which is less than a Pentium 90, a 1994 CPU running at 90Mhz in absolute is not a 20x worse TDP, but it is relatively to the gain in frequency and performances (more than 20x actually)
  - wtallis 3y ago
    > Core i9-13900KS consumes 150W with 24 cores (8P+16E) No, the 13900KS has a nominal "TDP" of 150W. That's a marketing number, not a measurement and not even a control target parameter for the default boost management settings. Out of the box, a 13900KS in a typical desktop motherboard will happily draw more than twice that, indefinitely, if you can cool it and have a workload that can actually keep all of those cores busy: https://images.anandtech.com/doci/18728/13900KS%20Power%20Graph%201.png https://images.anandtech.com/doci/18728/13900KS%20Power%20Gr... If you want to compare per-core power, you either have to use a power number for a workload that's actually loading all the cores, or divide the measured power by the number of cores actually in use.
daneel_w 3y ago
> "Never been a problem, even when Intel TDP was 20x worse than today." Economically and environmentally it's absolutely a problem.

diffeomorphism 3y ago

Is that like 5 acre feet per fathom? TDP makes no sense here.