News Apple's M1 Ultra Benchmarked: 2.6X Slower Than AMD's Threadripper Pro 5995WX

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What does 2.6x slower mean? If the 5995WX scores a 100, then the M1 Ultra scores -160?

Apple's marketing is as full of it as any other tech company, but comparing an M1 Ultra to a 5995WX is flatly idiotic. 20 thread CPU loses to contemporary 128 thread CPU? Who could have predicted that? As expensive as the Apple Studio is, the 5995WX will cost more on its own without the rest of the computer.
 
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It just seems to me that after Apple announced the M1 Ultra, there are lots of reviews pitting it against something that is generally not good comparisons. This is one of them. While the Mac Studio with the M1 Ultra is not cheap, but pitting it against a CPU that draws significantly more power with more cores and threads just don’t make much sense to me. I use a combination of PC and Mac, but I‘ve never find comparing them meaningful. Macs are good for some workloads, and with the M1 chip making them even more efficient with these same workload. Threadripper contains no iGPU, so while it can brute force its way in some workload, it may not be as efficient or good in workloads that favour GPU acceleration.
 
spongiemaster said:
What does 2.6x slower mean? If the 5995WX scores a 100, then the M1 Ultra scores -160?

Apple's marketing is as full of it as any other tech company, but comparing an M1 Ultra to a 5995WX is flatly idiotic. 20 thread CPU loses to contemporary 128 thread CPU? Who could have predicted that? As expensive as the Apple Studio is, the 5995WX will cost more on its own without the rest of the computer.
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You may have missed last week's news that the M1 Ultra is as powerful as a 64-core Threadripper 3990X. This is to show that those numbers were just wrong, and the real performance of the 20-core M1 Ultra is closer to the 16-core i9-12900KF and lower than the 16-core Ryzen 5950X. But yeah, click-baitness abounds on the internet.
 
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The news failed to point the most important part: the M1 Ultra has half the score of the Threadripper 3990X. That other news that both are equal is just plain wrong.
 
spongiemaster said:
What does 2.6x slower mean? If the 5995WX scores a 100, then the M1 Ultra scores -160?
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Listen, I'm no math genius either but this also logically means that the 5995wx is 2.6x faster than the M1 Ultra. With 100 score as a baseline for the 5995 that means the M1 would be approximately 0.384615 times as fast. So effectively what is being said is that the M1 Ultra is 38.4615% as fast as the speed of the 5995wx.
 
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salgado18 said:
You may have missed last week's news that the M1 Ultra is as powerful as a 64-core Threadripper 3990X. This is to show that those numbers were just wrong, and the real performance of the 20-core M1 Ultra is closer to the 16-core i9-12900KF and lower than the 16-core Ryzen 5950X. But yeah, click-baitness abounds on the internet.
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The 3990x comparison did not come from Apple and it was repeatedly pointed out that the 3990x result was way too low.
 
helper800 said:
Listen, I'm no math genius either but this also logically means that the 5995wx is 2.6x faster than the M1 Ultra. With 100 score as a baseline for the 5995 that means the M1 would be approximately 38.4615. So effectively what is being said is that the M1 Ultra is 38.4615% the speed of the 5995wx.
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2.6x faster makes sense, 2.6x slower does not. If you're driving 30 mph and someone passes you doing 60mph. No one is going to say you are driving twice as slow as he is. That makes no sense. You're driving half as fast or 50% slower, not 200% slower.
 
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The Ultra basically matches the 12-core Threadripper PRO 5945WX .

On one hand that is a little disappointing, but on the other hand, the Apple Studio certainly wipes the floor with it's rivals based on case volume :)
 
spongiemaster said:
What does 2.6x slower mean? If the 5995WX scores a 100, then the M1 Ultra scores -160?
Click to expand...

I came here to ask that exact same thing.

helper800 said:
Listen, I'm no math genius either but this also logically means that the 5995wx is 2.6x faster than the M1 Ultra. With 100 score as a baseline for the 5995 that means the M1 would be approximately 38.4615. So effectively what is being said is that the M1 Ultra is 38.4615% the speed of the 5995wx.
Click to expand...

So, ratios are not grammatically interchangeable in that way. That's just not how the words work. "Faster" and "slower" can't always be flipped around without changing the multiplier. It's messy.

For example: If something has the speed of "5" then it is correct that 100 is "twice as fast" as 50 and that 50 is "half as fast" as 100 (although saying "half the speed" is more clear)
100/2 = 50.
2 x 50 = 100

But say you take a ratio and you want to find what is "50% slower" or "0.5x the speed) of 10. It mostly makes sense how to turn that into math. (Anything less than 1x is slower and anything more than 1x is faster). When you're using a ratio you have to multiply.
So instead of 100/2=50 you you multiply 0.5 x 100 = 50.
So far, so good.
But take that and flip it around you want to find something "50% faster than 50", which is 1.5x because you add a 1 to represent the original's "100%" speed.
So again you multiply. (1+0.5) x50 = 1.5 x 50 = 75
You see that 100 is not 1.5x faster than 50. It is actually 2x faster.
When you flip things around you have to take the inverse of the multiplier to keep things straight (1/0.5 = 2) (1/2 = 0.5)

If M1 had a speed of 100 and AMD is 2.6x 'faster' than it. It can mean that the speed of AMD is "2.6x the speed of M1". 2.6 x 100 = 260. It can also be interpreted to mean that AMD is "260% faster" in the sense that you have to add back in the M1's original 100% speed, like in the "50% faster" example above. So AMD would be (1 +2.6) x 100 = 360. Which is important because you can't divide 360 by 2.6 to get back to 100.

But could also be the opposite way of looking at it where they messed up saying how much smaller 100 is compared to 260, you would take (100/260) which is the same as (1/2.6) = .385x (38.5% the speed)
In that case you could say that the M1 is .385x slower than AMD and people can figure it out ... But it would be a lot more clear to say that the M1 is ".385x the speed of" AMD. Or to say it as a percentage "M1 is 38.5% the speed of AMD. "
Which means they also might have meant is that "M1 is 38.5% slower than AMD" Which in itself can be interpreted as either 260 /(1+0.385) = 260 / (1.385) = 187.7 for M1
OR
260 x (1-.385) = 260 x 0.615 = 159.9 for M1
(But at this point, the relative scale is changing and things are getting out of hand. )
OR
Getting back to the original scale of M1 = 100:
There's a way of reading that "2.6x slower" may have actually really trying to say that "AMD is 38.5% faster" than the M1: meaning 100 x (1 + 0.385) = 100 x 1.385 = 138.5 for AMD.
Which is nowhere near the original "2.6x faster".
You have to dig into the article to see the numbers and figure out what they actually meant. Some articles never actually give you the real numbers.

Is all this is really pedantic and confusing, that's my point. You should never say "faster" and " slower" when dealing with ratios and percentages. It's easy to make things unclear, and people mess it up all the time.

In this case they are saying (The Speed of M1) x (~2.6) = (The speed of AMD)
 
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I guess that this actual performance of the M1 Ultra is pretty disappointing, especially given it is somewhat slower than even the relatively mainstream Ryzen 5950X, despite that chip having 4 fewer cores. What is the minimum system cost for the M1 vs 5950X (i.e. how much "Apple tax" do you end up paying for a relatively slower system?).
 
nitrium said:
I guess that this actual performance of the M1 Ultra is pretty disappointing, especially given it is somewhat slower than even the relatively mainstream Ryzen 5950X, despite that chip having 4 fewer cores. What is the minimum system cost for the M1 vs 5950X (i.e. how much "Apple tax" do you end up paying for a relatively slower system?).
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The Ultra starts at $4000 for 64GB ram and 1TB SSD.

It would be trivial to build an equivalent PC for less, even including the gpu, but I get the feeling apple fans actually like paying more...

Although, the 'apple tax' in this case seems to be the cost of integrating so much into one giant cpu/gpu package. I wouldn't buy one myself, but I am impressed at what they have accomplished in such a small chassis and such low power use.
 
scottsoapbox said:
Something can't be 2.6X Slower! That's not how math works!
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Yes, you can have a multiplier of something slower than something else. When you say something is, for instance, 3 times slower that something else you are essentially saying something is 33.33-% (1/3 as a fraction) times as fast as something else. In this example 2.6 times slower than something else means that it is approximately 38.46% (or 1/2.6 as a fraction)as fast. The way you get to this number is by dividing one by 2.6.

Giroro said:
So, ratios are not grammatically interchangeable in that way. That's just not how the words work. "Faster" and "slower" can't always be flipped around without changing the multiplier. It's messy.

For example: If something has the speed of "5" then it is correct that 100 is "twice as fast" as 50 and that 50 is "half as fast" as 100 (although saying "half the speed" is more clear)
100/2 = 50.
2 x 50 = 100

But say you take a ratio and you want to find what is "50% slower" or "0.5x the speed) of 10. It mostly makes sense how to turn that into math. (Anything less than 1x is slower and anything more than 1x is faster). When you're using a ratio you have to multiply.
So instead of 100/2=50 you you multiply 0.5 x 100 = 50.
So far, so good.
But take that and flip it around you want to find something "50% faster than 50", which is 1.5x because you add a 1 to represent the original's "100%" speed.
So again you multiply. (1+0.5) x50 = 1.5 x 50 = 75
You see that 100 is not 1.5x faster than 50. It is actually 2x faster.
When you flip things around you have to take the inverse of the multiplier to keep things straight (1/0.5 = 2) (1/2 = 0.5)

If M1 had a speed of 100 and AMD is 2.6x 'faster' than it. It can mean that the speed of AMD is "2.6x the speed of M1". 2.6 x 100 = 260. It can also be interpreted to mean that AMD is "260% faster" in the sense that you have to add back in the M1's original 100% speed, like in the "50% faster" example above. So AMD would be (1 +2.6) x 100 = 360. Which is important because you can't divide 360 by 2.6 to get back to 100.

But could also be the opposite way of looking at it where they messed up saying how much smaller 100 is compared to 260, you would take (100/260) which is the same as (1/2.6) = .385x (38.5% the speed)
In that case you could say that the M1 is .385x slower than AMD and people can figure it out ... But it would be a lot more clear to say that the M1 is ".385x the speed of" AMD. Or to say it as a percentage "M1 is 38.5% the speed of AMD. "
Which means they also might have meant is that "M1 is 38.5% slower than AMD" Which in itself can be interpreted as either 260 /(1+0.385) = 260 / (1.385) = 187.7 for M1
OR
260 x (1-.385) = 260 x 0.615 = 159.9 for M1
(But at this point, the relative scale is changing and things are getting out of hand. )
OR
Getting back to the original scale of M1 = 100:
There's a way of reading that "2.6x slower" may have actually really trying to say that "AMD is 38.5% faster" than the M1: meaning 100 x (1 + 0.385) = 100 x 1.385 = 138.5 for AMD.
Which is nowhere near the original "2.6x faster".
You have to dig into the article to see the numbers and figure out what they actually meant. Some articles never actually give you the real numbers.

Is all this is really pedantic and confusing, that's my point. You should never say "faster" and " slower" when dealing with ratios and percentages. It's easy to make things unclear, and people mess it up all the time.

In this case they are saying (The Speed of M1) x (~2.6) = (The speed of AMD)
Click to expand...
In English when A is said to be Z times faster than B then in math terms you are saying (B * Z= A) in this case; (B * (2.6/1) = A). The opposite is also the same such that B is Z times slower than A, but when said this way it means; (B * (1/2.6) = A). When it is said to be slower that something else you take the reciprocal of Z as the multiplier.

I have since clarified what I meant, please reread my original post before replying to this one. You can definitely convert fractions to and from each other percentages and otherwise between ratios. When you do this its called a proportion. I am not trying to be arrogant in saying you are wrong, but I just reference my old math notes. If A is 4.7 times faster than B and B is a baseline of 100 then the math behind this interaction is; 4.7 / 1 (a fraction, 4.7 over 1) times B = A. In this case 4.7 times 100 is 470 so A = 470 which is equivalent to saying; B is 4.7 times slower than A and the math behind that is; 1 / 4.7 (a fraction, 1 over 4.7) times A = B. That is to say: 1 / 4.7 (converted into a decimal ~0.21276) times 470 = B, B=100.

In the case of the article all I did was I went from B to A instead of A to B. If B, the M1 ultra, is 2.6 times slower than A, the 5995WX baseline score of 100, then; 1 / 2.6 (a fraction of 1 over 2.6 = 5/13 simplified, or approximately 0.384615 as a decimal) times 100 (A) = 38.4615. So the M1 Ultra (B) is 2.6 times slower than the 5995WX. In summary, saying A is Z times faster that B is the mathematically equivalent of saying B is Z times slower than A. If you cannot understand this it is more because of my poor teaching skills over text and I implore you to go back and study proportions and fractions word problems.

spongiemaster said:
2.6x faster makes sense, 2.6x slower does not. If you're driving 30 mph and someone passes you doing 60mph. No one is going to say you are driving twice as slow as he is. That makes no sense. You're driving half as fast or 50% slower, not 200% slower.
Click to expand...
You may not like it but mathematically it is a correct equivalence and since there is a direct translation of words to math in regards to numbers and operations it does make sense. The problem you and others are having is that we are used to this being compared like the latter rather than the former. To say its wrong is incorrect. At a glance it is definitely confusingif you are unfamiliar with math or its direct correlation with operations.

The article to have the same meaning should say that the M1 Ultra is 5/13ths as fast as the 5995WX . Or if its readers need to be spoon fed information they can say the M1 Ultra is approximately 38.46% as fast as the 5995WX.

The title would be changed to; Apple's M1 Ultra Benchmarked: 38.46% as fast as AMD's Threadripper Pro 5995WX : Read more
 
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helper800 said:
The article to have the same meaning should say that the M1 Ultra is 5/13ths as fast as the 5995WX . Or if its readers need to be spoon fed information they can say the M1 Ultra is approximately 38.46% as fast as the 5995WX.
Click to expand...
Despite the outrage from a few pedants, that is the only sensible interpretation. Although, it is the clearest when expressed as a percentage.
 
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spongiemaster said:
What does 2.6x slower mean? If the 5995WX scores a 100, then the M1 Ultra scores -160?

Apple's marketing is as full of it as any other tech company, but comparing an M1 Ultra to a 5995WX is flatly idiotic. 20 thread CPU loses to contemporary 128 thread CPU? Who could have predicted that? As expensive as the Apple Studio is, the 5995WX will cost more on its own without the rest of the computer.
Click to expand...
The answer to your 5995WX question is: 38.47 If you multiply this number by 2.6, you get about 100.
 
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