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The buzz is all around AI and unified memory... but after editing 4K content on an M4 mini (versus my M1 Max Mac Studio), I've realized the few-generations-newe

The buzz is all around AI and unified memory... but after editing 4K content on an M4 mini (versus my M1 Max Mac Studio), I've realized the few-generations-newer media processing in the M4 is a huge boost over the M1. Coupled with the CPU just having more oomph, I ordered an M4 Max with 64 GB of RAM for my video/photo editing; I may be able to export H.265 content at 4K/high settings with greater-than-realtime performance... I'm a little sad that the AI narratives have taken over all discussion of mid-tier workstation-ish builds now.

TylerE 2y ago
The one thing that has me a bit bummed with this is that the Ultra, which I had planned to upgrade to, is only an M3 not an M4. Bit disappointing after waiting this long.
- tromp 2y ago
  Not all that disappointing considering that most of the performance improvement in M4 seems to come from increased power consumption. In some applications, M4 performs worse per watt than M3.
  - Uehreka 2y ago
    Yeah but if you’re buying an Ultra you’re probably more concerned with raw performance than perf-per-watt. These aren’t exactly used in laptops.
    - TylerE 2y ago
      Exactly. And especially for my incredibly mixed use case, which includes some light gaming in crossover, the gpu improvements in m4 are apparently non-trivial. I’m sure whichever I end up with will be a pretty big upgrade over my basest of base model 32GB M1. The thing I’m most curious about on the new machines, especially the Ultra, is the thermals. I only care about perf per watt if it becomes unfavorable enough that the fan spins up above idle during normal Tasks. On my M1 the only way to get it to audibly spin up is to get the machine to near total load nd hold it there for some time.
  - raydev 2y ago
    > Not all that disappointing considering that most of the performance improvement in M4 seems to come from increased power consumption Disappointing for those of us who don't care about power consumption in a desktop.
cosmic_cheese 2y ago
It feels a bit like we entered the “consumer grade workstation” era a while back when AMD started selling 16-core CPUs that will happily socket into run of the mill consumer motherboards and that continued with the higher end M-series SoCs. It really is cool to see. It’s nice that that kind of horsepower isn’t limited to the likes proper “big iron” like it once was and can even be reasonably be packaged into a laptop that is decent at being mobile and not an ungainly portable-on-a-technicality behemoth.
perfmode 2y ago
Is the M4's media processing superior to the M3? Would the M3 Ultra not perform as well on video editing?
- schainks 2y ago
  The M3 Ultra is two M3 chips together on one die. In aggregate they should outperform an m4 max by quite a bit.
  - perfmode 2y ago
    I meant single-core performance.
    - Synaesthesia 2y ago
      These chips actually have hardware video encode/decode separate from the CPU.
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
I'm surprised you use Macs since you usually lean toward more open HW and FOSS.
deleted 2y ago
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TylerE 2y ago

The one thing that has me a bit bummed with this is that the Ultra, which I had planned to upgrade to, is only an M3 not an M4. Bit disappointing after waiting this long.

tromp 2y ago
Not all that disappointing considering that most of the performance improvement in M4 seems to come from increased power consumption. In some applications, M4 performs worse per watt than M3.
- Uehreka 2y ago
  Yeah but if you’re buying an Ultra you’re probably more concerned with raw performance than perf-per-watt. These aren’t exactly used in laptops.
  - TylerE 2y ago
    Exactly. And especially for my incredibly mixed use case, which includes some light gaming in crossover, the gpu improvements in m4 are apparently non-trivial. I’m sure whichever I end up with will be a pretty big upgrade over my basest of base model 32GB M1. The thing I’m most curious about on the new machines, especially the Ultra, is the thermals. I only care about perf per watt if it becomes unfavorable enough that the fan spins up above idle during normal Tasks. On my M1 the only way to get it to audibly spin up is to get the machine to near total load nd hold it there for some time.
- raydev 2y ago
  > Not all that disappointing considering that most of the performance improvement in M4 seems to come from increased power consumption Disappointing for those of us who don't care about power consumption in a desktop.

cosmic_cheese 2y ago

It feels a bit like we entered the “consumer grade workstation” era a while back when AMD started selling 16-core CPUs that will happily socket into run of the mill consumer motherboards and that continued with the higher end M-series SoCs. It really is cool to see. It’s nice that that kind of horsepower isn’t limited to the likes proper “big iron” like it once was and can even be reasonably be packaged into a laptop that is decent at being mobile and not an ungainly portable-on-a-technicality behemoth.

perfmode 2y ago

Is the M4's media processing superior to the M3? Would the M3 Ultra not perform as well on video editing?

schainks 2y ago
The M3 Ultra is two M3 chips together on one die. In aggregate they should outperform an m4 max by quite a bit.
- perfmode 2y ago
  I meant single-core performance.
  - Synaesthesia 2y ago
    These chips actually have hardware video encode/decode separate from the CPU.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

I'm surprised you use Macs since you usually lean toward more open HW and FOSS.

deleted 2y ago

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