6 ms·

So a bit faster than 7950x in eco mode (which has a much lower tdp), and the 7950x process is two generations old. It's clear that Apple's advantage is mostly j

by jeswin 3y ago

So a bit faster than 7950x in eco mode (which has a much lower tdp), and the 7950x process is two generations old. It's clear that Apple's advantage is mostly just one thing: "TSMC".

darklycan51 3y ago
basically it's just that they have access to the latest node before anyone else and not much more.
- threeseed 3y ago
  Unified memory is a huge advantage for the M series. Also for end users the dedicated hardware for specific use cases e.g. ProRes is a major differentiator.
leptons 3y ago
Don't forget, they also have the on-die RAM that cannot be upgraded and you can't get any more than what Apple offers, at exorbitant prices.
- sliken 3y ago
  True, but then again you get 400GB/sec of bandwidth and low power use that allows for 10-20 hours of usage in a tiny thin laptop. Sadly 7950x doesn't come close to fitting in laptops, runs hot (even in the non-x flavor) and has 1/4th the memory bandwidth. I'd happily trade dimm slots for a fraction of the power usage and 4x the memory bandwidth (or 8x if you get the studio).
  - jeswin 3y ago
    > True, but then again you get 400GB/sec of bandwidth For what, other than toy AI inference? More HEDT users would go with more RAM at DDR5 speeds than 400GB/sec of bandwidth. As you can see from Geekbench, the additional bandwidth has no real world implications for non-GPU use cases. But again, just as with everything else it depends.
    - threeseed 3y ago
      > For what, other than toy AI inference? Processing multiple video or audio streams. Key use case for Macs.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - sliken 3y ago
      Simulations (games or HPC), emulation, and editing multiple streams of 8k videos. Why do you say "toy AI inference"? Getting 800GB/sec to 128GB of memory (on a desktop) or 400GB/sec to 128GB/sec on a laptop is hard to beat. You have to spend crazy money to get a GPU with that much ram and normal desktops like the mentioned 7950x are going to be 4-8 x slower. I've seen people get over 5 tokens/sec inference with 180B models, not what I'd call "toy AI inference".
      - seec 3y ago
        Most intel processors with dual channel will easily get 90GB/sec of bandwidth just for the CPU; if you build a performance-oriented machine you are supposed to put a dedicated GPU with that. The Apple silicon bandwidth is nothing special considering they must share it with a GPU. Dedicated GPU have as much or more bandwidth than Apple Silicon; and better than that, at the low end they are highly likely to have more RAM available. When you compare prices, even on laptops, it is likely that the competing windows PC will have both more bandwidth and more RAM available. Because 8GB of RAM in a dedicated GPU is not very rare at the price MacBook Pros are sold at, and those systems have loads of CPU RAM on top of it. Even with the update, a base M3 Pro only has 18GB of ram to share between CPU and GPU. If you let the GPU use 8GB like it would be able to in the windows laptop, suddenly you only have 10GB of system RAM. Which is going to be very limiting for many things. In the end, every other OEM just gave up on bandwidth because it does not matter for most things. Even Apple somewhat acknowledged that by lowering the bandwidth available for most SKUs; so, there is that. And stop quoting the higher-end bandwidth that is only available in extremely expensive SKUs : - 800GB/s is only available in the Mac Studio Ultra version and the cost equivalent would be a PC with two Nvidia 4090 that would completely crush it both bandwidth and speed wise. - 400GB/s is only available in at least 2K Mac Studio desktop or minimum 3K laptop. And it is nothing special compared to the available bandwidth dedicated GPUs have at this price. The bandwidth on the lower SKUs is whatever because it is barely better than what Intel has always provided in their CPUs with integrated graphics. It is a bit better but nothing special and there exist competing products with just as much bandwidth, not that this fact is particularly relevant for the type of tasks this low/mid-range hardware is supposed to carry out. Apple fanboys are so delusional its bordering insanity.
  - Sparkyte 3y ago
    That's where the 7945X3D comes in. :)
    - sliken 3y ago
      Does cache help some things sure, but not a replacement for bandwidth. I have seen cases where the zen 3 X3D wins against the zen 4 without X3D, especially on simulations, emulators, flight sims, etc. Sadly there seems to be movements all over the industry to depend on caching over bandwidth and generally they win benchmarks, but often lose on real world use. Intel N100 and similar embedded type chips for appliances/routers went from 128 bit wide to 64. The M2 Pro has 256 bit wide memory and the M3 pro went to 192 bit wide. The Nvidia 3060 Ti 256 bit wide memory has 4060 Ti went down to 128 bit wide. Sure the average performance is often higher (when cache friendly), but the performance is much more variable as the ratio between in cache performance and out of cache performance gets larger. GPUs with more cache and less bandwidth tend to get pickier about which games they run well on and the 1% lows get slower, which makers stuttering worse. It's sad that from that for normal desktops from a few $100 to a few $1000 all have 128 bit wide memory interfaces, unless you buy a mac and you can get 128, 256, 512, or 1024 bit wide.
      - Sparkyte 3y ago
        This is why I'm excited for the 8K chips we will have some actually comparable chips with wider bandwidths to put side by side to M series processors.
- duskwuff 3y ago
  > they also have the on-die RAM On-package, not on-die. I know it's a technicality but it's an important one.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- keyle 3y ago
  The base model at 8GB and the RAM price is really the upsetting part to me. There is no reason for it to be 900% of what it could be.
etchalon 3y ago
The M3 Max scores higher on GB6 than the 7950X, full stop: https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/amd-ryzen-9-7950x https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/amd-ryzen-9-7950x I'm also not sure what you mean by 7950x having a lower TDP than the M3 Max. Even in eco mode, the 7950x has a TDP of 65W, vs the M3 Max's 45W: https://www.anandtech.com/show/17585/amd-zen-4-ryzen-9-7950x-and-ryzen-5-7600x-review-retaking-the-high-end/20 https://www.anandtech.com/show/17585/amd-zen-4-ryzen-9-7950x...
- jeswin 3y ago
  > The M3 Max scores higher on GB6 than the 7950X, full stop: https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/amd-ryzen-9-7950x https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/amd-ryzen-9-7950x As you can see in this list [1], there are several systems which exceed 21k. The 19k scores are mostly stock systems with no tuning (for example, RAM at 3200Mhz, stock fan etc). The Macs would have been carefully tuned, so it's only fair that you'd do so on assembled kits. I haven't tested Eco mode myself, but from what i've read performance drops by 10-20% depending on the configuration (105w vs 65w). Still in the ballpark. Add: and 7950X3D would do even better. [1]: https://browser.geekbench.com/search?q=7950x https://browser.geekbench.com/search?q=7950x
  - etchalon 3y ago
    Yes, if you overclock the 7590x, ignoring any "system tuning" you can get a better GB6. If we could overclock the M3 Max, we could achieve the same. The performance loss of the 7590X in 65W eco mode isn't 10-20% compared to stock. It's more like 20-30%: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6aKQ-eBFk0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6aKQ-eBFk0 If we use an overlocked 7590X – ignored the additional power draw – in 65W eco mode, using a rounded up 22K GB6 score, and assume a 20% performance loss (~17600 GB6), the 7950X, at 40% higher TDP than the M3 Max, is still 10% slower than the M3 Max. Which is especially insane considering the 7950X is a desktop-class CPU, and the M3 Max is sitting in a laptop.
    - jeswin 3y ago
      Since we agree on the non-linear relationship between TDP and benchmark scores, can we also agree that further reduction in power (to say 45w) would only cause a small drop in performance? For argument's sake, let's triple the 10% to 30% and also assume that TDP = avg power draw during the benchmark. The 5nm 7950x is then 30% slower than 3nm M3 Max. My original argument was that Apple's advantage is mostly just TSMC. > Which is especially insane considering the 7950X is a desktop-class CPU, and the M3 Max is sitting in a laptop. 7945HX3D is a 5nm 55W laptop part, and it scores 15-16k on GB6.
mrtksn 3y ago
A laptop that can match the best of the competition's desktop is pretty big advantage IMHO. Don't forget that this M3 Max chip is measured inside a laptop that can run at the same performance on battery. Apple's desktop systems already match the greatest offerings of the competition with it's previous gen chip and with the constraints on size and cooling system noise. I wonder what Apple can do in its labs when pushing their silicons to the limits without constraints on cooling. Every now and then a fringe geekbench score will pop-up, maybe from those lab experiments.
- jeswin 3y ago
  > A laptop that can match the best of the competition's desktop is pretty big advantage IMHO. 7945HX3D (a 5nm 55W laptop part) scores 15-16k on GB6. M3 Max 3nm is just a little better. Almost all of which can be attributed to TSMC 3nm.
  - mrtksn 3y ago
    Sure, if you define "a bit" to be %30 then you can say that. Not everyone will agree with the "a bit" definition though, how many years took AMD to hit a %30 improvement? Also, the high performance laptops with that chip appear to be %50 heavier than 16" Macbook Pro. According to reviews, those laptops can do 4 hours of general usage(not gaming) at best - so terrible battery life. Also, significant drop in performance when unplugged. Overall, those machines are optimised for one thing only and apparently they can do it about %30 worse than a Macbook and everything else much, much worse.
    - jeswin 3y ago
      > Sure, if you define "a bit" to be %30 then you can say that. 30% is roughly the difference to be expected between N5 -> N5P/N4 -> N3. That was the original argument - "TSMC". About laptop battery life etc, that's a different discussion.
      - skavi 3y ago
        > 30% is roughly the difference to be expected between N5 -> N5P/N4 -> N3. That was the original argument - "TSMC". Not true according to TSMC’s own messaging. Keep in mind that predicted power and performance improvements keep the other factor constant. https://www.anandtech.com/show/18833/tsmc-details-3nm-evolution-n3e-on-schedule-n3p-n3x-deliver-five-percent-gains https://www.anandtech.com/show/18833/tsmc-details-3nm-evolut...
Sparkyte 3y ago
Not a hard achievement if you are focusing on non-3D chips. M3 and AMD's X3D chips have way more cache to CPU. This really livens up the game. It's so impressive that AMD's mobile variant of the X3D chips pretty much almost on par. It has the advantage of faster single core perf though. https://browser.geekbench.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=7945HX3D https://browser.geekbench.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=7945HX...
seec 3y ago
Pretty much. And the "advantage" does not even matter in the end since it cannot run anything worthwhile with those speeds. The current Apple marketing material is hilariously old/bad ports of software that really are not the leader in their fields but also generally just work better/faster on a windows PC (sometimes even on Linux). Which is why the quoted battery life is complete bullshit for Apple fanboys who never go out of the walled garden. If you start using the software other people use and need the battery life becomes a lot less impressive, because those software actually makes use of the hardware. It was ok when Apple wasn't too bad of a deal from a hardware pricing standpoint (considering build quality and potential longevity thanks to ease of repair/upgrade) but now it is plain stupid. As far as im concerned, unless you are developing for Apple platforms or really have to use Logic/Final Cut; it doesn't make sense to invest in an Apple computer at the moment, considering the price. They just don't offer anything worth the pricing delta no matter what the marketing and fanboys say. Entry level machines are barely relevant, but with the upgrade pricing on RAM/storage, high end machines just don't matter in the grand scheme of things. I could buy 2 fully loaded PCs for one high end Mac Studio, there is no way it can make up the productivity for that difference, no matter how little power it consumes (power that is cheap, and conveniently only gets used when actual work is being done...)

by jeswin 3y ago

So a bit faster than 7950x in eco mode (which has a much lower tdp), and the 7950x process is two generations old. It's clear that Apple's advantage is mostly just one thing: "TSMC".

darklycan51 3y ago

basically it's just that they have access to the latest node before anyone else and not much more.

threeseed 3y ago
Unified memory is a huge advantage for the M series. Also for end users the dedicated hardware for specific use cases e.g. ProRes is a major differentiator.

leptons 3y ago

Don't forget, they also have the on-die RAM that cannot be upgraded and you can't get any more than what Apple offers, at exorbitant prices.

sliken 3y ago
True, but then again you get 400GB/sec of bandwidth and low power use that allows for 10-20 hours of usage in a tiny thin laptop. Sadly 7950x doesn't come close to fitting in laptops, runs hot (even in the non-x flavor) and has 1/4th the memory bandwidth. I'd happily trade dimm slots for a fraction of the power usage and 4x the memory bandwidth (or 8x if you get the studio).
- jeswin 3y ago
  > True, but then again you get 400GB/sec of bandwidth For what, other than toy AI inference? More HEDT users would go with more RAM at DDR5 speeds than 400GB/sec of bandwidth. As you can see from Geekbench, the additional bandwidth has no real world implications for non-GPU use cases. But again, just as with everything else it depends.
  - threeseed 3y ago
    > For what, other than toy AI inference? Processing multiple video or audio streams. Key use case for Macs.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - sliken 3y ago
    Simulations (games or HPC), emulation, and editing multiple streams of 8k videos. Why do you say "toy AI inference"? Getting 800GB/sec to 128GB of memory (on a desktop) or 400GB/sec to 128GB/sec on a laptop is hard to beat. You have to spend crazy money to get a GPU with that much ram and normal desktops like the mentioned 7950x are going to be 4-8 x slower. I've seen people get over 5 tokens/sec inference with 180B models, not what I'd call "toy AI inference".
    - seec 3y ago
      Most intel processors with dual channel will easily get 90GB/sec of bandwidth just for the CPU; if you build a performance-oriented machine you are supposed to put a dedicated GPU with that. The Apple silicon bandwidth is nothing special considering they must share it with a GPU. Dedicated GPU have as much or more bandwidth than Apple Silicon; and better than that, at the low end they are highly likely to have more RAM available. When you compare prices, even on laptops, it is likely that the competing windows PC will have both more bandwidth and more RAM available. Because 8GB of RAM in a dedicated GPU is not very rare at the price MacBook Pros are sold at, and those systems have loads of CPU RAM on top of it. Even with the update, a base M3 Pro only has 18GB of ram to share between CPU and GPU. If you let the GPU use 8GB like it would be able to in the windows laptop, suddenly you only have 10GB of system RAM. Which is going to be very limiting for many things. In the end, every other OEM just gave up on bandwidth because it does not matter for most things. Even Apple somewhat acknowledged that by lowering the bandwidth available for most SKUs; so, there is that. And stop quoting the higher-end bandwidth that is only available in extremely expensive SKUs : - 800GB/s is only available in the Mac Studio Ultra version and the cost equivalent would be a PC with two Nvidia 4090 that would completely crush it both bandwidth and speed wise. - 400GB/s is only available in at least 2K Mac Studio desktop or minimum 3K laptop. And it is nothing special compared to the available bandwidth dedicated GPUs have at this price. The bandwidth on the lower SKUs is whatever because it is barely better than what Intel has always provided in their CPUs with integrated graphics. It is a bit better but nothing special and there exist competing products with just as much bandwidth, not that this fact is particularly relevant for the type of tasks this low/mid-range hardware is supposed to carry out. Apple fanboys are so delusional its bordering insanity.
- Sparkyte 3y ago
  That's where the 7945X3D comes in. :)
  - sliken 3y ago
    Does cache help some things sure, but not a replacement for bandwidth. I have seen cases where the zen 3 X3D wins against the zen 4 without X3D, especially on simulations, emulators, flight sims, etc. Sadly there seems to be movements all over the industry to depend on caching over bandwidth and generally they win benchmarks, but often lose on real world use. Intel N100 and similar embedded type chips for appliances/routers went from 128 bit wide to 64. The M2 Pro has 256 bit wide memory and the M3 pro went to 192 bit wide. The Nvidia 3060 Ti 256 bit wide memory has 4060 Ti went down to 128 bit wide. Sure the average performance is often higher (when cache friendly), but the performance is much more variable as the ratio between in cache performance and out of cache performance gets larger. GPUs with more cache and less bandwidth tend to get pickier about which games they run well on and the 1% lows get slower, which makers stuttering worse. It's sad that from that for normal desktops from a few $100 to a few $1000 all have 128 bit wide memory interfaces, unless you buy a mac and you can get 128, 256, 512, or 1024 bit wide.
    - Sparkyte 3y ago
      This is why I'm excited for the 8K chips we will have some actually comparable chips with wider bandwidths to put side by side to M series processors.
duskwuff 3y ago
> they also have the on-die RAM On-package, not on-die. I know it's a technicality but it's an important one.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
keyle 3y ago
The base model at 8GB and the RAM price is really the upsetting part to me. There is no reason for it to be 900% of what it could be.

etchalon 3y ago

The M3 Max scores higher on GB6 than the 7950X, full stop: https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/amd-ryzen-9-7950x https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/amd-ryzen-9-7950x I'm also not sure what you mean by 7950x having a lower TDP than the M3 Max. Even in eco mode, the 7950x has a TDP of 65W, vs the M3 Max's 45W: https://www.anandtech.com/show/17585/amd-zen-4-ryzen-9-7950x-and-ryzen-5-7600x-review-retaking-the-high-end/20 https://www.anandtech.com/show/17585/amd-zen-4-ryzen-9-7950x...

jeswin 3y ago
> The M3 Max scores higher on GB6 than the 7950X, full stop: https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/amd-ryzen-9-7950x https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/amd-ryzen-9-7950x As you can see in this list [1], there are several systems which exceed 21k. The 19k scores are mostly stock systems with no tuning (for example, RAM at 3200Mhz, stock fan etc). The Macs would have been carefully tuned, so it's only fair that you'd do so on assembled kits. I haven't tested Eco mode myself, but from what i've read performance drops by 10-20% depending on the configuration (105w vs 65w). Still in the ballpark. Add: and 7950X3D would do even better. [1]: https://browser.geekbench.com/search?q=7950x https://browser.geekbench.com/search?q=7950x
- etchalon 3y ago
  Yes, if you overclock the 7590x, ignoring any "system tuning" you can get a better GB6. If we could overclock the M3 Max, we could achieve the same. The performance loss of the 7590X in 65W eco mode isn't 10-20% compared to stock. It's more like 20-30%: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6aKQ-eBFk0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6aKQ-eBFk0 If we use an overlocked 7590X – ignored the additional power draw – in 65W eco mode, using a rounded up 22K GB6 score, and assume a 20% performance loss (~17600 GB6), the 7950X, at 40% higher TDP than the M3 Max, is still 10% slower than the M3 Max. Which is especially insane considering the 7950X is a desktop-class CPU, and the M3 Max is sitting in a laptop.
  - jeswin 3y ago
    Since we agree on the non-linear relationship between TDP and benchmark scores, can we also agree that further reduction in power (to say 45w) would only cause a small drop in performance? For argument's sake, let's triple the 10% to 30% and also assume that TDP = avg power draw during the benchmark. The 5nm 7950x is then 30% slower than 3nm M3 Max. My original argument was that Apple's advantage is mostly just TSMC. > Which is especially insane considering the 7950X is a desktop-class CPU, and the M3 Max is sitting in a laptop. 7945HX3D is a 5nm 55W laptop part, and it scores 15-16k on GB6.

mrtksn 3y ago

A laptop that can match the best of the competition's desktop is pretty big advantage IMHO. Don't forget that this M3 Max chip is measured inside a laptop that can run at the same performance on battery. Apple's desktop systems already match the greatest offerings of the competition with it's previous gen chip and with the constraints on size and cooling system noise. I wonder what Apple can do in its labs when pushing their silicons to the limits without constraints on cooling. Every now and then a fringe geekbench score will pop-up, maybe from those lab experiments.

jeswin 3y ago
> A laptop that can match the best of the competition's desktop is pretty big advantage IMHO. 7945HX3D (a 5nm 55W laptop part) scores 15-16k on GB6. M3 Max 3nm is just a little better. Almost all of which can be attributed to TSMC 3nm.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  Sure, if you define "a bit" to be %30 then you can say that. Not everyone will agree with the "a bit" definition though, how many years took AMD to hit a %30 improvement? Also, the high performance laptops with that chip appear to be %50 heavier than 16" Macbook Pro. According to reviews, those laptops can do 4 hours of general usage(not gaming) at best - so terrible battery life. Also, significant drop in performance when unplugged. Overall, those machines are optimised for one thing only and apparently they can do it about %30 worse than a Macbook and everything else much, much worse.
  - jeswin 3y ago
    > Sure, if you define "a bit" to be %30 then you can say that. 30% is roughly the difference to be expected between N5 -> N5P/N4 -> N3. That was the original argument - "TSMC". About laptop battery life etc, that's a different discussion.
    - skavi 3y ago
      > 30% is roughly the difference to be expected between N5 -> N5P/N4 -> N3. That was the original argument - "TSMC". Not true according to TSMC’s own messaging. Keep in mind that predicted power and performance improvements keep the other factor constant. https://www.anandtech.com/show/18833/tsmc-details-3nm-evolution-n3e-on-schedule-n3p-n3x-deliver-five-percent-gains https://www.anandtech.com/show/18833/tsmc-details-3nm-evolut...

Sparkyte 3y ago

Not a hard achievement if you are focusing on non-3D chips. M3 and AMD's X3D chips have way more cache to CPU. This really livens up the game. It's so impressive that AMD's mobile variant of the X3D chips pretty much almost on par. It has the advantage of faster single core perf though. https://browser.geekbench.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=7945HX3D https://browser.geekbench.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=7945HX...

seec 3y ago

Pretty much. And the "advantage" does not even matter in the end since it cannot run anything worthwhile with those speeds. The current Apple marketing material is hilariously old/bad ports of software that really are not the leader in their fields but also generally just work better/faster on a windows PC (sometimes even on Linux). Which is why the quoted battery life is complete bullshit for Apple fanboys who never go out of the walled garden. If you start using the software other people use and need the battery life becomes a lot less impressive, because those software actually makes use of the hardware. It was ok when Apple wasn't too bad of a deal from a hardware pricing standpoint (considering build quality and potential longevity thanks to ease of repair/upgrade) but now it is plain stupid. As far as im concerned, unless you are developing for Apple platforms or really have to use Logic/Final Cut; it doesn't make sense to invest in an Apple computer at the moment, considering the price. They just don't offer anything worth the pricing delta no matter what the marketing and fanboys say. Entry level machines are barely relevant, but with the upgrade pricing on RAM/storage, high end machines just don't matter in the grand scheme of things. I could buy 2 fully loaded PCs for one high end Mac Studio, there is no way it can make up the productivity for that difference, no matter how little power it consumes (power that is cheap, and conveniently only gets used when actual work is being done...)