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That’s a laptop part, so it makes different tradeoffs. Somewhere on the internet there is a tdp wattage vs performance x-y plot. There’s a pareto optimal regi
by hedora 2y ago
That’s a laptop part, so it makes different tradeoffs.
Somewhere on the internet there is a tdp wattage vs performance x-y plot. There’s a pareto optimal region where all the apple and amd parts live. Apple owns low tdp, AMD owns high tdp. They duke it out in the middle. Intel is nowhere close to the line.
I’d guess someone has made one that includes datacenter ARM, but I’ve never seen it.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- aurareturn 2y agoHigh TDP? You mean server-grade CPUs? Apple doesn't make those.
- derefr 2y agoTrue, but these "Ultra" chips do target the same niche as (some) high-TDP chips. Workstations (like the Mac Studio) have traditionally been a space where "enthusiast"-grade consumer parts (think Threadripper) and actual server parts competed. The owner of a workstation didn't usually care about their machine's TDP; they just cared that it could chew through their workloads as quickly as possible. But, unlike an actual server, workstations didn't need the super-high core count required for multitenant parallelism; and would go idle for long stretches — thus benefitting (though not requiring) more-efficient power management that could drive down baseline TDP.
- aurareturn 2y agoOh you. mean Threadripper. I thought you were talking about Epyc. Anyway, I don't think it's comparable really. This thing comes with a fat GPU, NPU, and unified memory. Threadripper is just a CPU.
- mort96 2y agoThe GPU and NPU shouldn't be consuming power when not in use. Why shouldn't we compare M3 Ultra to Threadripper?
- diggan 2y agoIsn't the rack-mounted Mac Pro supposedly "server-grade" (https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-pro/rack https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-pro/rack)? At least judging by the mounts, they want them to be used that way, even though the CPU might not fit with the de facto industry label for "server-grade".
- aurareturn 2y agoServer grade CPUs. I thought he was referring to Epyc CPUs.
- jjcob 2y agoThe rack mount Mac Pro doesn't really make sense for a data center. It's 5U high, which is much too big for a data center. It doesn't have standard server features like redundant power supplies. The only use case I can think of is for audio workstations, where people have lots of rack mount equipment, so you can have everything including the computer in the rack. But even for that use case it's quite big.
- hedora 2y agoIndeed. The M3 Ultra is in the midrange where they duke it out. Similarly, for its niche, the iPhone CPU is was better than AMD’s low end processors. Anyway the Apple config in the article costs about 5x more than a comparable low end AMD server with 512GB of ram, but adds an NPU. AMD has NPUs in lower end stuff; not sure about this TDP range.
- lukevp 2y agoHow is that comparable? On-package RAM is lower latency and higher bandwidth and also much more expensive than external DDR5 sticks.
- refulgentis 2y ago> You mean server-grade CPUs? Apple doesn't make those. Right. It is coming up because we're in a thread about using them as server CPUs. (c.f. "colo", "2U" in OP and OP's child), and the person you're replying to is making the same point you are For years now, people will comment "these are the best chips, I'd replace all chips with them." Then someone points out perf/watt is not perf. Then someone else points out some M-series is much faster than a random CPU. And someone else points out that the random CPU is not a top performing CPU. And someone else points out M-series are optimized for perf/watt and it'd suck if it wasn't. I love my MacBook, the M-series has no competitors in the case it's designed for. I'd just prefer, at this point, that we can skip long threads rehashing it. It's a great chip. It's not the fastest, and it's better for that. We want perf/watt in our mobile devices. There's fundamental, well-understood, engineering tradeoffs that imply being great at that necessitates the existence of faster processors.
- aurareturn 2y agoIt's a great chip. It's not the fastest, It has the world's fastest single thread.
- refulgentis 2y agoI can't quite tell what's going on here, earlier, you seem to be clear -- c.f. "Apple doesn't make server-grade CPUs"
- aurareturn 2y agoCorrect. But their M4 line has the fastest single thread performance in the world.
- nameequalsmain 2y agoAccording to what source? Passmark says otherwise[1]. The fastest Intel CPUs have both a higher single thread and multi thread score in that test. [1] https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html
- yxhuvud 2y agoIt also include gaming machines. Of course, Apple also don't make those.
- tomrod 2y ago> tdp wattage vs performance x-y plot This? https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/power_performance.html#scatter https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/power_performance.html#sc...
- echoangle 2y agoThat’s GPUs, not CPUs
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]