News Apple M1 Ultra SoC Cranks Mac Performance with 20-Core CPU, 64-core GPU

[jacob249358]

Apple's "benchmarks" are about as useful as a bottleneck calculator or cpu user benchmark
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i3-8350K-vs-AMD-Ryzen-9-3950X/3935vs4057

 

[Sippincider]

$5800 for that configuration with a 1TB SSD. You can build a pretty stout PC for that amount. Is a smaller case and lower power usage worth over $2000? Not to most people.

Agreed. And that kind of price premium brings up the second point: is Apple trying to do too much? And for what, that smaller case?

 

[call101010]

For the first time Apple has the potential to release a killer console with this SOC.

 

[cryoburner]

For the first time Apple has the potential to release a killer console with this SOC.

Highly unlikely. If we're talking game consoles, those are built to get as much performance for as low a price as possible. The PS5 and Series X each use an APU with graphics hardware that performs roughly comparable to what's in a Radeon 6600 XT, and CPU hardware that's similar to a lower-clocked Ryzen 3700X, combined into a single processor. The only way that Microsoft and Sony can put that level of hardware into a $400 console is that they are getting it for a really good price from AMD.

Apple, on the other hand, is putting this processor into a $6000 desktop computer, and I can't see them putting similar hardware into a reasonably-priced console. They are not in the business of selling low-cost hardware, and the chip likely costs quite a bit to make. And of course, their "performance on par with a 3090" claims are rather vague, and if they are anything like their claims for their previous M1 processors, that will only apply to certain workloads, while things like games won't come close to that level of performance.

More importantly, not that many games supported MacOS even when they had been using x86 for years, and support will be far worse now that they are moving to ARM. All big AAA multiplatform releases are optimized to run on x86 CPUs, as consoles from both Xbox and Sony have used standard PC architecture for a while now. I can't see developers rewriting their code specifically to run on a theoretical, overpriced Apple console, and the M1 hardware sees a big performance hit when running emulated x86 Mac software.

 

[call101010]

Highly unlikely. If we're talking game consoles, those are built to get as much performance for as low a price as possible. The PS5 and Series X each use an APU with graphics hardware that performs roughly comparable to what's in a Radeon 6600 XT, and CPU hardware that's similar to a lower-clocked Ryzen 3700X, combined into a single processor. The only way that Microsoft and Sony can put that level of hardware into a $400 console is that they are getting it for a really good price from AMD.

Apple, on the other hand, is putting this processor into a $6000 desktop computer, and I can't see them putting similar hardware into a reasonably-priced console. They are not in the business of selling low-cost hardware, and the chip likely costs quite a bit to make. And of course, their "performance on par with a 3090" claims are rather vague, and if they are anything like their claims for their previous M1 processors, that will only apply to certain workloads, while things like games won't come close to that level of performance.

More importantly, not that many games supported MacOS even when they had been using x86 for years, and support will be far worse now that they are moving to ARM. All big AAA multiplatform releases are optimized to run on x86 CPUs, as consoles from both Xbox and Sony have used standard PC architecture for a while now. I can't see developers rewriting their code specifically to run on a theoretical, overpriced Apple console, and the M1 hardware sees a big performance hit when running emulated x86 Mac software.

You are Assuming too much ... Overpriced ? ARM Console overpriced > I dont tink so. and their built in GPU has the potential and does not have to be the same chip but from e same family and design. True Apple are putting the soc into $1999 starting price Studio Mac , but they can make a locked version of it for games only ... The price of the SOC itself is not that high for them ...

I did not say RTX 3090 for tis does not need to be that performance .. RTX 3070 lie is enough but the key success for any Console is Watt/performance and today Apple is the winner !

 

[spongiemaster]

You are Assuming too much ... Overpriced ? ARM Console overpriced > I dont tink so. and their built in GPU has the potential and does not have to be the same chip but from e same family and design. True Apple are putting the soc into $1999 starting price Studio Mac , but they can make a locked version of it for games only ... The price of the SOC itself is not that high for them ...

I did not say RTX 3090 for tis does not need to be that performance .. RTX 3070 lie is enough but the key success for any Console is Watt/performance and today Apple is the winner !

Sony and MS typically sell their consoles for a loss at launch. Apple is not capable of such a business decision. It is diametrically opposed to everything they believe in.

 

[renz496]

You are Assuming too much ... Overpriced ? ARM Console overpriced > I dont tink so. and their built in GPU has the potential and does not have to be the same chip but from e same family and design. True Apple are putting the soc into $1999 starting price Studio Mac , but they can make a locked version of it for games only ... The price of the SOC itself is not that high for them ...

I did not say RTX 3090 for tis does not need to be that performance .. RTX 3070 lie is enough but the key success for any Console is Watt/performance and today Apple is the winner !

Apple develop their GPU mostly for productivity task. i think hardware unboxed tried to do more apple to apple comparison on apple M1 versus various laptops out there in gaming and despite the talk about matching 3080 performance in games the performance is more like RTX3050 mobile. and if i remember correctly apple GPU lack stuff like tessellation engine which is standard hardware inside modern GPU for 13 years now. it is make sense for them to ditch hardware like tessellation since those hardware are completely useless in productivity app since it is gaming specific feature. and by ditching unnecessary hardware for their design goal they can optimize their power efficiency better. if apple really want to build soc for console then they will need to make sure their GPU will have all the standard hardware that exist inside most modern GPU like those tessellation engine, RT core. heck don't be surprise if some sort of tensor core must also exist inside GPU for AI upscaling tech used in games. all those hardware going to add more to power budget of the chip.

 

[hotaru.hino]

For the first time Apple has the potential to release a killer console with this SOC.

Apple already has this. It's called the Apple TV. And they advertise Apple Arcade on the Apple TV page. Although keep in mind that even if it were on Apple's radar to release a gaming console, there's no real point in shipping anything significantly more powerful than an iPad Pro. It would be in their best interest to make sure every Apple product they support can run those games to at least a playable level.

 

[cryoburner]

You are Assuming too much ... Overpriced ? ARM Console overpriced > I dont tink so. and their built in GPU has the potential and does not have to be the same chip but from e same family and design. True Apple are putting the soc into $1999 starting price Studio Mac , but they can make a locked version of it for games only ... The price of the SOC itself is not that high for them ...

I did not say RTX 3090 for tis does not need to be that performance .. RTX 3070 lie is enough but the key success for any Console is Watt/performance and today Apple is the winner !

Even their existing M1 Max chip is 432 mm2, while this chip will be at least double that size. That's quite large, and built on the latest leading edge 5nm process node, compared to all of today's CPUs, GPUs and console APUs built on "7/8/10nm" nodes, so it's undoubtedly going to be relatively expensive to make. By comparison, the PS5's chip is around 308 mm2, and the Series X's is 360 mm2, and those built on the more established and less expensive 7nm node.

If Microsoft or Sony felt there was benefit to putting this level of performance into a game console today, they could. I'm sure AMD could whip up a semi-custom APU design for them with 16-cores, 32 threads and RX 6900 XT-level graphics if they felt their was enough of a market for it. And we may even see a comparable level of performance (at least on the graphics side) when they decide to eventually launch "Pro" versions of the consoles. The efficiency of the M1 chips might be nice, but the existing consoles are drawing under 200 watts while gaming as it is, and even if it meant bumping that up to around 300 watts or so, that would be perfectly doable, and I doubt most of their target audience would care. At least not enough to be willing to pay significantly more for it. And by the time those updated consoles come out, AMD will have also moved on to producing chips on more efficient process nodes, so a wattage increase might not even be necessary.

Now certainly Apple is putting a huge markup on these systems, and theoretically they could sell them for a lot less, but I don't think they would be able (or willing) to put them into a mass-market game console. If they were entering into that market, they would be competing with long-established companies that are already offering a rather "Mac-like" user experience, and it's unclear what they would be able to bring to the table that isn't already covered. And without a big install-base, combined with a different architecture from what the big developers are currently designing around, they might struggle to get AAA games released on their platform that could actually make proper use of that hardware.

As for the Mac Studio starting at $2000, that's only for the M1 Max version, with half the CPU and GPU of the processor being talked about in the article. The M1 Ultra models start at $4000, but that's for a version with 25% of the GPU disabled. The version with all GPU cores enabled bumps the minimum starting price up to $5000.

 

[call101010]

As for the Mac Studio starting at $2000, that's only for the M1 Max version, with half the CPU and GPU of the processor being talked about in the article. The M1 Ultra models start at $4000, but that's for a version with 25% of the GPU disabled. The version with all GPU cores enabled bumps the minimum starting price up to $5000.

as I said , a locked Version of the SOC will be cheaper much cheaper ... Apple Asks for a high price for their complete package of "professional" use PC ... same like wen you buy Nvidia Quadro Card .. not a Gaming card. for the company the SOC itself is cheap ... and it can be locked for gaming use only.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Reviews are in.

The CPU part is interesting. In Geekbench, it does perform almost as good as a Threadripper 3990X (from Ars Technica's review):

(Threadripper 3990X sits at 25157)

However, the Cinebench R23 score is where cracks start to show

(Threadripper 3990X is at 74422)

The GPU doesn't quite meet the 3090 performance Apple seemed to claim

Or maybe Apple was just saying their GPU efficiency is better than the 3090? Yeah maybe that was it.

EDIT: The Verge in their review also shows the 3090 pulls significantly ahead in compute tasks. In gaming, the M1 Ultra doesn't perform as fast, but they also used lower resolutions which doesn't represent what the 3090 is actually capable of.