Apple is an existential threat to the PC

There is also a middle-ground M1MAX 24 GPU core option that I didn't note during the keynote, or maybe my brain had just frozen at that point.

 

Geekbench 5 for M1 Max is out: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/compute/3551790
That is on par with the RTX 3050 TI mobile: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/compute/3552028

RTX 3080 mobile in the Razerblade 14" is ~2x faster in Geekbench 5.

 

Indeed, they are a great replacement for the older Intel based macs. Replacement for windows laptops? nothings really changed in that landscape.

Aha, i understood m1max was close to a 3080mobile, or that was what apple's own benches showed. Could have been optimal benchmarks perhaps, video encoding?
Ive never really laid much attention to geekbench, but forum members here told me its the holy grail to measure performance.

 

I thought openCL wasnt used anymore in Mac's

 

Actually if it is, it would be useful to see what kind of device capabilities the hardware reports, e.g. hardware thread size, shared memory etc.

I have no idea whether Metal reports any of that stuff.

 

1.2 impl is built on top of Metal iirc.

 

OpenCL was deprecated back in 2018 in favour of Metal. Like OpenGL, then framework is still there but it has not had any enhancements to support modern hardware or other APIs that would otherwise accelerate its performance. Ergo, it probably not a relevant reference point to platforms where OpenCL is actively being developed.

That said, I have to say I'm dubious about Apple's GPU claims. Like all marketeers they will have found some metric that makes the hardware look great but which may not reflect general day-to-day performance. Just look at the battery life numbers, the high numbers are for watching videos on AppleTV (the software app for macOS) which is obviously massively optimised for both efficiency and performance.

We know what the current M1 Macs can do with their 8 core GPUs, the high-end M1MAX has four times as many cores, twice the memory bandwidth (as M1Pro - unsighted on how it compares to basic M1) and it has more high-performance CPU cores to push graphics. So in real terms I'm expecting anywhere between 4x and 10x the GPU performance of today's Macs. But it could be there are considerable improvements to the Metal API and graphics stack in macOS Monterey.

ninja edit: accordingly to Anandtech it seems the M1Pro GPU is a fair leap in terms of memory bandwidth over the basic M1 so perhaps in some memory-bound scenarios the M1Pro will be considerably faster then the 8 vs 16 GPU cure jump would suggest and therefore the M1MAX represents an even bigger jump. Regardless, I'll wait until how apps are games are actually running on it following thorough testing.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

It is 5nm and 2022. Ridiculous to even think AMD would "hopefully" get 5nm by 2024 or that Apple would have exclusive or near exclusive rights to process for 2 years

 

Given Apple have largely been waiting on Intel for significant performance/process/cost improvements before deploying them to Mac hardware, there is now also a greater expectation that Apple will be deploying updates to ARM-based Macs at a higher pace - because this is also be driven to need to advance traditional yearly-released devices like iPhone.

Macs could see updated perhaps annually. Apple are in transition right now, which requires a whole lot more effort than swapping one architecture CPU/GPU for a faster one, but once they've migrated to ARM completely, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple are updating Macs are a much higher cadence than Intel or PowerPC hardware, probably some on alternating six-month timetable (alternating iMac/MacMini/Mac Pro and Macbook/Pro/Air) which feels logical from an engineering focus.

There is clearly more performance leaps to be eked out of ARM compared to 80x86/x64 unless Intel are keeping some amazing R&D under wraps. Not impossible but also not expected.

 

Looking at the die shot it appears that the NPU is doubled as well on the M1 Max.

So we have the GPU, display engine, media engine, neural engine, the extra 256-bit memory interface as well as the system level cache.

 

Good stuff.

Why would the display engine change (or why would there be more of it)? Similar question for media engine?

 

Monitor support is vastly extended. (Apple demonstrated Laptop screen (7MP) + 3x6k monitors + 4k television)
The media engine has hardware support for ProRes video - presenter lady said 30 simultaneous 4k streams or 7 simultaneous 8k streams, outperforming a top end (28-core Xeon) Mac Pro with Apples own $2000 Afterburner card.

 

Which makes you wonder what the inevitable ARM Mac Pro will be capable of.

 

I notice not many games from 2019 onwards on this list
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_(API)
why is this? Sure gaming is very small on Mac, but is this the only reason?

Hmmm I couldnt find any benchmarks with metal in actual games, I could only find rosetta

 

The fact that you can boot Window on MacIntel have probably limitless the need, rentability of a native portage on Metal.
Only games, targetting iOs, need a Metal port. Now it's a different situation.

 

Yes you can boot into windows, but on the new M1 processors surely this is running through an emulator thus slowing everything down with that extra layer, Thus it won't give you the best gaming experience. Or am I wrong?

 

Actually you can’t boot into Windows anymore, Windows on ARM doesn’t support Mac hardware.
While you can convince the Apple Silicon macs to run Windows, (tenacious software guys can perform miracles) it’s not a very meaningful way to access the Windows game library IMHO. Buying a Windows box makes a ton more sense, if that is what you want. Boot Camp is dead.

Speaking as a geek - the M1 Pro Max is BY FAR the most powerful TBDR GPU ever produced. I would love to see graphics coded to take advantage of it!

 

It’s entirely up to Microsoft to enable Windows for Arm as the Apple Silicon boot loader is not locked.

They have made great strides with Linux so far.