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Lets compare. The m3 max has up to 128GB of ram, 400GB/sec bandwidth, and uses that memory for both CPU and GPU. It fits in thin (under an inch thick) laptops
by sliken 3y ago
Lets compare. The m3 max has up to 128GB of ram, 400GB/sec bandwidth, and uses that memory for both CPU and GPU. It fits in thin (under an inch thick) laptops and is efficient enough to have great battery life on the order of 10-20 hours depending on use cases. So efficient that performance is identical when running on battery or wall power, unlike many of it's competitors. The power savings is even more impressive once you consider you don't need a discrete GPU for many use cases.
The AMD Epyc has 12 channels of DDR5-4800 and manages 460GB/sec. It's a physically large chip, can handle a ton of ram, but also uses a ton of power. You can fit a crippled version (without all the memory channels) on a micro atx motherboard that's several inches thick. Normally you'd need an ATX, EATX, or rack mount motherboard. It needs several 100 watts for just the socket, not to mention the numerous dimms (12 minimum for 12 memory channels). It's the kind of thing you see in a data center, after you put ear protection on.
If you compare the M3 max, which fits in a laptop or small desktop, to Intel and AMD competition that fits in a thin laptop you end up with 1/4th the memory bandwidth. The competition either matches the power use and is much slower, or is as fast or faster at a huge power penalty. AMD and Intel laptops need discrete GPUs to compete and often require wall power to run at full speed.
All in all the M3 max is an impressive chip, fast, and very efficient. But part of that is the soldered in dimms that allow for great bandwidth and low power use.
- brucethemoose2 3y agoThis is Apples and oranges. A better AMD comparison is Van Gogh (the Steam Deck chip) to the base M1, and on paper they are very similar. The M1 is just a more "premium" version of the budget AMD chip. AMD could make a good M3 competitor (and maybe even improve on it by tiling the memory controller/cache like the 7900), but... There is just no market for it. Windows OEMs dont want a big expensive SoC, they want a cheap CPU to hang a power hungry graphics card off of. Hence the successor to Van Gogh was canceled because no one wanted it.
- sliken 3y agoAMD/Intel iGPUs stink, mostly because the standard 128 bit wide memory system from the lowest end Intel/AMD laptop/desktop chips to the high end like the Ryzen 9 7950x have the same memory bandwidth. AMD even makes better memory systems for the XboxX and PS5, which run games great. For years gamers drifted from gaming desktops to consoles because GPUs were insanely priced or unavailable. However, finally, many years after the GPU shortage there's GASP going to be a laptop/desktop chip with iGPU with more than a 128 bit wide memory interface. The AMD Strix Halo. I hope it does well, it's roughly similar to the M2 Pro. Still half a M2 Max or 1/4th a M2 ultra.
- brucethemoose2 3y ago> The AMD Strix Halo Eh, I was excited at first, but rumors suggest its going to be a tiled, power hungry SoC with high clocked cores. Its like the desktop-class 7000 series monsters they stuff into laptops, but with a decent IGP hanging off... All performance and zero efficiency. I have higher hopes for Arrow Lake: https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-arrow-lake-p-with-320eu-gpu-confirmed-by-a-leaked-roadmap-targeting-to-compete-with-apple-14-premium-laptops https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-arrow-lake-p-with-320eu-gp...
- sliken 3y agoDunno, AMD is making progress with it's APUs, they seem pretty competitive and well reviewed. AMD does seem to be getting more design wins in the laptop space. Makes me optimistic for the next gen. Hawk Point, Strix Point, Strix Halo, and Dragon Range look to have a decently wide range of performance and power points coveraged. The top end will have the X3D (extra cache) and the next tier down will have double the memory bandwidth. Or maybe pigs will fly and Apple will lend a hand to Asahi to get Linux working well. Not that Asahi hasn't been doing a good job, I do wonder how long the new GPU features will take to show up in Linux.