News Apple's M1 Max Benchmarked in Adobe Premiere Pro: A Mixed Bag

[Admin]

Advanced video decoders cannot compensate for slow GPU.

Apple's M1 Max Benchmarked in Adobe Premiere Pro: A Mixed Bag : Read more

 

[JfromNucleon]

The sub-title and title are a bit clickbaity, now innit?

 

[JamesJones44]

The sub-title and title are a bit clickbaity, now innit?

I agree with you on that. It wasn't really "bad" in GPU compute, it's about on par with a mobile RTX 3050 Ti/RTX 3060. While I think that is lower than Apple's hyped up expectations, it's certainly not "bad", especially for an integrated GPU.

 

[KrudTheBarbarian]

Does anyone at this point think that Apple's desktop GPUs won't be able to compete with the top-of-the-line desktop GPUs that are available, when they release the desktop version of the M1 (M2?)

Comparing a laptop GPU to high-end desktop GPUs became accepted practice, when ? I must have blinked and missed it.

 

[PiranhaTech]

It looks like there's image processing accelerators on the SoC, which probably explains some of these scores. It's not a knock against the CPU, and I would say is very clever. Again, Apple seems to be going to performance per Watt, and this is a great way to do it.

 

[peachpuff]

2 to 3 times faster than core i9 macbook, a bit slower than desktop computes = mixed bag? Anton you need your head examined.

 

[eulerdias]

These high playback scores should be related to DDR5, with is only present in M1 at this time.

 

[Filmgeek47]

Yeah, misleading headline. This is doing exactly what it's meant to do--compete and beat high end laptop chips. Assuming this is what'll end up in high end desktop systems is silly at this point. It's just like when the M1 came out and people started freaking out that it had some medium-end laptop limitations (even though it was being used in a medium-end laptop).

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

"Nonetheless, Apple yet has to develop a GPU that will offer performance on par with discrete desktop GPUs from Nvidia."

You mean Apple hasn't found a way to pack desktop RTX 3090 levels of performance inside a 65w laptop form factor? Neither has nVidia...

 

[Oleg Andreych]

Comparing a laptop GPU to high-end desktop GPUs became accepted practice, when ? I must have blinked and missed it.

It was an accepted practice all the time to compare mobile graphics to desktop ones.


There are plenty of reasons for wanting this comparison. The most obvious is, can one switch their Desktop to the Laptop, and what drawbacks would it have.


I've tried to google mobile graphics reviews and opened the first rows in search results. Every single one contained a comparison with the desktop graphics.

 

[Oleg Andreych]

2 to 3 times faster than core i9 macbook, a bit slower than desktop computes = mixed bag? Anton you need your head examined.

Yeah. An old MacBook.


The first point is a comparing to dated hardware of an old MacBook is not a sold ground to state a dominance in computing power.


The second point is an old MacBook wasn't an outstanding laptop in terms of computing power.

All the modern laptops in this comparison are a bit slower than desktops, just in different aspects.


Talking about the mixed bag, a big boost for the score came from the hardware video acceleration.

While it is a good thing to have, video codecs tend to evolve, while hardware video acceleration is a codec specific (correct me if I'm wrong). So, at the later point, there would be no dedicated acceleration for the video, and the raw power would be the only thing that matters.

This is not specific for macs, but the more one relies on acceleration, the more noticeable drop it would be.

 

[TerryLaze]

While it is a good thing to have, video codecs tend to evolve, while hardware video acceleration is a codec specific (correct me if I'm wrong). So, at the later point, there would be no dedicated acceleration for the video, and the raw power would be the only thing that matters.

Video codecs hang around for many many more years than any hardware would be relevant anyway, h264 started in 2003 and is still the mayor codec with h265 and vp9 being around since 2013 and still not being able to overtake h264.

 

[missingxtension]

This is pointless! Is anyone taking the price into account? Any professional who is using a laptop as a workstation should seriously rethink. You need a full size keyboard that has actual usable keys, and external monitor at a minimum to be able to edit video, an actual desk, not a lap and something that is industrial, not fragile. Being made out of metal means that once you drop it the tiniest bit, it won't flex back to original state. Like a plastic laptop that would just bounce and not make the whole she'll top and bottom useless. Not to mention the damn edges are way to freaking sharp, that's is not compatible with skin. Let's give credit to apple for building the best arm in the market. Once again Apple is actually competitive on hardware, like they once we're in the early powerpc days. Because nobody could seriously take a macbook pro with soldered ram and use it to its full potential. Photoshop or Illustrator would load a 4gb psd and it loads into something like 15 gb just to ram. It was meant to be printed on as two complementary pieces to fill a 16ft wall. Meaning you reached the limit of what your work can be, no more layers and no scratch disk is going to help you since you can't really just swap out a drive a just released $4k machine. This is from an actual use case for an art piece, not me. Then he got a an imac and of course it only has two sodimm slots, so that severely limits what you can install. Apple doesn't sell you a computer, they sell you a brand. If they can't make a huge margin, they won't sell it. That's why they sold 4 year old cpus on just released system's.
That means apple will artificiality stop improvement on this SOC maybe next year. They might update it in another 6 years.

 

[elementalRealms]

For the first time I am considering moving from Windows PC to an Apple laptop. The crazy thing abut this machine that it is close to workstation notebooks that consumes 200watts and this is a huge step into mobile workstation . Try rendering on an Intel Laptop for more than 4 hours and hear the noisy fans and experience the throttling.

More over , If Apple can make a 32 units GPU in a SOC ... then they could make a 250 watts GPU card with at least some crazy 128+ GPU units ... which would defeat every card in the market.

 

[missingxtension]

For the first time I am considering moving from Windows PC to an Apple laptop. The crazy thing abut this machine that it is close to workstation notebooks that consumes 200watts and this is a huge step into mobile workstation . Try rendering on an Intel Laptop for more than 4 hours and hear the noisy fans and experience the throttling.

More over , If Apple can make a 32 units GPU in a SOC ... then they could make a 250 watts GPU card with at least some crazy 128+ GPU units ... which would defeat every card in the market.

You don't understand apple at all. Have you seen the history of the iphone? Iphone, 3g, gs, 4, 4s, 5, 5s, and now we are at 13, 13 mini, 13 pro, 13 pro max. It's clear apple won't take a huge lead in anything because they are about making huge margins. Don't expect any major speed bumps. It's going to be a slow and arduous upgrade cycle.
The m1 is ideal for the Mac mini, anything beyond that is questionable. The Mac mini is actually one of the best deals out there.

 

[Oleg Andreych]

Video codecs hang around for many many more years than any hardware would be relevant anyway, h264 started in 2003 and is still the mayor codec with h265 and vp9 being around since 2013 and still not being able to overtake h264.

Right, there are plenty (or even the majority) of media files in older formats. But it takes to have a single file that one cannot efficiently work with (edit, watch with enough performance, fluidity(?) and power efficiency, etc) to ruin the show.

Been there, seen that.

 

[elementalRealms]

You don't understand apple at all. Have you seen the history of the iphone? Iphone, 3g, gs, 4, 4s, 5, 5s, and now we are at 13, 13 mini, 13 pro, 13 pro max. It's clear apple won't take a huge lead in anything because they are about making huge margins. Don't expect any major speed bumps. It's going to be a slow and arduous upgrade cycle.
The m1 is ideal for the Mac mini, anything beyond that is questionable. The Mac mini is actually one of the best deals out there.

Actually you are wrong . Apple SOCs inside every New generation has a huge speed bumps ... and please stop comparing phones to Desktops.

 

[Oleg Andreych]

and please stop comparing phones to Desktops.

This is a comparison of apples to apples.

While Apple's prior behavior with the iPhones and iPads doesn't strictly determine their future behavior with ARM macs, it's not irrelevant and useless to make assumptions based on iPhones.

With Apple's ARM CPUs, Macs situation became more like iPhones/iPads one.

 

[elementalRealms]

This is a comparison of apples to apples.

While Apple's prior behavior with the iPhones and iPads doesn't strictly determine their future behavior with ARM macs, it's not irrelevant and useless to make assumptions based on iPhones.

With Apple's ARM CPUs, Macs situation became more like iPhones/iPads one.

not true . The M1X is suitable for phones it needs more power.

 

[Oleg Andreych]

not true . The M1X is suitable for phones it needs more power.

I thought we were talking about Apple's products policy in terms of incremental upgrades. In that regard, Apple's position with its ARM chips for Macs became more like with iPhones.
So, I think that predicting the policy of Apple regarding its CPUs for its laptops/desktops based on the policy of Apple regarding its CPUs for its phones/tablets isn't pointless.
That is where comparison is coming from.

Talking about the statement that Mac's ARMs aren't suitable for iPhones because of power, heating, and whatever else constraints. Yes, absolutely. As far as I can see, nobody in this thread tells mobile and laptop CPUs are the same and interchangeable.

 

[therealCaptainCrunch]

I agree with you on that. It wasn't really "bad" in GPU compute, it's about on par with a mobile RTX 3050 Ti/RTX 3060. While I think that is lower than Apple's hyped up expectations, it's certainly not "bad", especially for an integrated GPU.

The article and chart say it's on par with the "GeForce RTX 3060 and RTX 3080". So it meets Apple's claims to be at the top of the mobile space and only about 66% of the desktop version; of course that's a throttled test and well have to wait for the full out leaf blower mode that will be enabled in 12.1 this week or next.

As for being integrated that the advantage not a disadvantage, it's the future. Face it, no integrated GPU has even come remotely close to this level of performance other than in mobile phones and tablets that all have iGPUs.

"The new M1 Max SoC can also compete very well against standalone mobile GPUs, namely the GeForce RTX 3060 and RTX 3080 (which seems strangely slow in this benchmark), in Premier Pro while consuming much less power." - Tom 'sHardware

 

[therealCaptainCrunch]

For the first time I am considering moving from Windows PC to an Apple laptop. The crazy thing abut this machine that it is close to workstation notebooks that consumes 200watts and this is a huge step into mobile workstation . Try rendering on an Intel Laptop for more than 4 hours and hear the noisy fans and experience the throttling.

More over , If Apple can make a 32 units GPU in a SOC ... then they could make a 250 watts GPU card with at least some crazy 128+ GPU units ... which would defeat every card in the market.

The crazy thing is that there is no "card". The CPU and GPU are integrated on the same die sharing the same memory space. I doubt they'll need anywhere near 250w to defeat every card in the market and that wattage is for the CPU and GPU combined.

 

[JamesJones44]

The article and chart say it's on par with the "GeForce RTX 3060 and RTX 3080". So it meets Apple's claims to be at the top of the mobile space and only about 66% of the desktop version; of course that's a throttled test and well have to wait for the full out leaf blower mode that will be enabled in 12.1 this week or next.

As for being integrated that the advantage not a disadvantage, it's the future. Face it, no integrated GPU has even come remotely close to this level of performance other than in mobile phones and tablets that all have iGPUs.

"The new M1 Max SoC can also compete very well against standalone mobile GPUs, namely the GeForce RTX 3060 and RTX 3080 (which seems strangely slow in this benchmark), in Premier Pro while consuming much less power." - Tom 'sHardware

Apple claims it's on par with a RTX 3060 and RTX 3080, and in SOME select benchmarks it is. However, in general benchmarks and application rendering seen around the web, it's on par with a 3050 Ti in overall benchmarks. Look for reviews that indicate that the M1 Max is on par with Vega 56 for Mac benchmarks. The Vega 56 is not on par with an RTX 3080.

 

[therealCaptainCrunch]

Apple claims it's on par with a RTX 3060 and RTX 3080, and in SOME select benchmarks it is. However, in general benchmarks and application rendering seen around the web, it's on par with a 3050 Ti in overall benchmarks. Look for reviews that indicate that the M1 Max is on par with Vega 56 for Mac benchmarks. The Vega 56 is not on par with an RTX 3080.

I haven't seen any such claim in the Keynote. They did compare it to the 5600M that's was in the 16" MBP. That aside, we clearly have to comparing the M1 Max to the a mobile RTX 3080 in laptop. In these Adobe tests the M1 clearly matches and beats these mobile configurations. While there are other test, such as games, those non-native games tests tell us absolutely nothing about the true power of the GPU; so far I haven't seen any game tested that were not being emulated in Rosetta. There are plenty of native iOS games that could be tested on the Mac once they are updated, like Civilization VI, but that will take some time.

One thing that has not been test yet, is the M1 Max unthrottled mode, aka PC leaf blower mode, which will come with the next point release in a week or so.

In any case the M1 Max is a huge game changing accomplishment especially considering it performs like an i9 with a GPU similar to the RTX 3080 with a fraction of the power.

 

[JamesJones44]

I haven't seen any such claim in the Keynote. They did compare it to the 5600M that's was in the 16" MBP. That aside, we clearly have to comparing the M1 Max to the a mobile RTX 3080 in laptop. In these Adobe tests the M1 clearly matches and beats these mobile configurations. While there are other test, such as games, those non-native games tests tell us absolutely nothing about the true power of the GPU; so far I haven't seen any game tested that were not being emulated in Rosetta. There are plenty of native iOS games that could be tested on the Mac once they are updated, like Civilization VI, but that will take some time.

One thing that has not been test yet, is the M1 Max unthrottled mode, aka PC leaf blower mode, which will come with the next point release in a week or so.

In any case the M1 Max is a huge game changing accomplishment especially considering it performs like an i9 with a GPU similar to the RTX 3080 with a fraction of the power.

In the keynote? Who said anything about a keynote? I said search for "M1 Max on par with Vega 56", plenty out there with several different benchmarks.

Believe what you want, I'm not arguing with a clearly entrenched fanboy who doesn't even understand that I'm complementing Apple (even ordered a new 16" MBP), but can't handle the truth about what is being delivered and wants to cherry pick benchmarks.