First Apple M1 Ultra Benchmark Posted, Nearly Matches Threadripper 3990X - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2022, 09:50:20 am
content: A new Apple M1 Ultra benchmark was shared by @Benchleaks on Twitter, showcasing a jaw-dropping multi-core resultin Geekbench 5 for Apple's new flagship, with a staggering 24,055 points. Performance was so good that the M1 Ultrawas able to nearly close the gap with AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64 core processor, being just a few percentagepoints off its score.https://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-m1-ultra-nearly-matches-amd-threadripper-3990xWow. Just wow...

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2022, 11:30:50 am
content: Nice.I'd already extrapolated that it should beat my ancient 32 core 2990wx by miles. And it won't be using 80W at idle. I think I need one.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2022, 11:46:26 am
content: Assuming the Ultra uses double the power of the Max, ie. ~200W peak, the performance differences and power differences seem to me to be disappearing as AMD moves closer to process parity.The 32 core zen 3 thread ripper supposedly does 27,603 at a TDP of 280W. Still with at an inferior production process.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2022, 11:50:04 am
content: The one most relevant to me is clang: 25280 multi-core, 1792 single core, an impressive multi-core speedup of 14.1.However they may be misunderestimating the 3990x. Quite a lot of people have uploaded results around 34000 to 35000.The venerable 2990wx has a lot of uploaded results around 21000.

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2022, 01:31:01 pm
content: if only apple supported Vulkan for gaming...

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2022, 03:21:57 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on March 10, 2022, 11:50:04 amHow much does that profit from SMT?PS. what has caused idle power to shoot up so much? I remember Xeon e3 systems doing under 20w.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2022, 11:00:16 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on March 10, 2022, 03:21:57 pmSomething like +20% I think.About the same as Apple's "efficiency" cores are worth compared to a real core.That's when you're actually using them of course -- with 32 or 64 real cores running typical GNU autoconf;make builds the proportion of time there is work for all of the real cores is relatively small, let alone the HT cores.Fewer but faster cores are better on typical compiling tasks. Like on the M1 Ultra, or the 16 core and pretty cheap Ryzen 5950x. But the 32 core 2990wx was unmatched when it came out in 2018 -- faster than AND cheaper than Intel's 18 core i9-7980XE.The bigger benefit of so many cores is being able to run some demanding repetitive task such as CI in the background without much effect at all on interactive use and builds.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2022, 07:26:50 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on March 10, 2022, 11:00:16 pmThat's not my experience. I often need to re-compile a huge C/C++ program that uses Qt.The more cores the better. (I use "make -j24" on a AMD Ryzen 9 3900X)Also, for compiling the Qt libs more (but slower) cores finishes the compilation faster .

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2022, 07:33:13 am
content: Timed Linux Kernel Compilationhttps://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/build-linux-kernel

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2022, 07:35:49 am
content: Quote from: Karel on March 11, 2022, 07:26:50 amThat's only a 12 core CPU.That falls into my definition of "fewer" -- it's even fewer cores than the M1 Ultra and 5950x that I gave as my examples of "fewer".

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2022, 08:16:48 am
content: With the compiler a lot can depend on the efficiency of the file-system. So a question of the OS and the hard-disc / memory buffering. So I would the compule time not a good CPU benchmark, more a benchmark of the complete system.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2022, 09:29:13 am
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on March 11, 2022, 08:16:48 amYes, you are right. A fast harddrive is a must, my workstation has a Samsung 970 PRO NVMe M.2 SSD and 64 GB RAM.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2022, 11:23:14 am
content: Quote from: Karel on March 11, 2022, 09:29:13 amI actually disagree. Enough RAM to cache the important files is far more important.The actual rate a compiler digests text at is only a few MB per second, while modern storage can stream at 500, 1000, 3000 MB per second.Even now, 10 Mbps ethernet is probably fast enough to feed a single core running compiles, 100 Mbps ethernet 10 cores. Something like that, anyway.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 13, 2022, 03:23:59 am
content: I have to admit, as a non-Apple person the M1 does have some pretty amazing specifications, however it's not across all workloads and use cases. You really have to consider what you're doing with the machine and what the software is able to make use of. There are stacks of real-world benchmarks out there and there are some cases where consumer AMD and Intel CPUs blow the M1's out of the water (even before the thermal throttling kicks in). Even some of the Intel i7's are significantly faster than the Apple M1's in some scenarios.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 13, 2022, 05:51:06 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on March 13, 2022, 03:23:59 amDon't forget the M1 is a chip for tablets and laptops ... there are higher performance versions coming.

author: cncjerry
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 15, 2022, 03:02:01 am
content: I have an M1, original, and it is fast. I use 10GigE networking and the setup is a screamer. I've yet to figure out, though, the ML core advantage though I am familiar with tensorflow, etc. They make such a big deal out of it and I just don't know where the general purpose (e.g. home, light commercial, audio, video, etc ) apps are that can take advantage of those cores. Having typed that I am going to take another look for a compiler that supports them. My clients were using a compiler developed in part by (a very large aircraft mfgr) for parallel computing on GPUs for ML but apple calls these ML cores, if there is a difference, I assume in the instruction set, it would need a new compiler.

author: MazeFrame
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 03:21:59 pm
content: Toms Hardware isspecialanyway. Remember this here?https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-rtx-gpus-worth-the-money,37689.htmlSo yeah, Apple has some nice little CPU. Question is how much power the x86 parts are spending on I/O such as PCIe or mem-controllers that the M1-U lacks.Another interesting thing you can see when looking at the Geekbench numbers for the 3990x (https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=AMD+Ryzen+Threadripper+3990X+) is how much worse Windows does compared to Linux. Could be the ongoing issue of M$ being bad at software.Then again, the right tool for the job.Edit: I found some benchmark numbers from Cinebench R23. 21k points for the M1-U, 81k points for the 3990xUsing TDP as a design power (it is NOT that, it is made up marketing), that is 350 points per watt on the M1-U and 290 points per watt for the 3990x.Assuming the same work is to be achieved, the M1-U would take 4x as long in a C4D render (probably not because GPUs exist), the power consumed comes out to 240W on the M1-U vs 280-ish W on the 3990x. So 40W to spend elsewhere, I guess?

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 06:26:26 pm
content: Quote from: Halcyon on March 13, 2022, 03:23:59 amThe M1 only thermal throttles in the fanless MacBook Air and iPads. It doesn’t throttle on the other models, where it has a fan.But this thread isn’t about the M1 anyway, but about the M1 Ultra, which has huge (by Apple Silicon standards) cooling on it. I’d be extremely surprised if it suffered any kind of thermal throttling whatsoever.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 06:41:16 pm
content: Quote from: Halcyon on March 13, 2022, 03:23:59 amYep, I'm pretty sure this is true.What exact core is the M1 based on?

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 06:49:29 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on March 21, 2022, 06:41:16 pmCustom implementation of ARMv8.4-A ISA, without SVE and with some home-grown matrix multiplier. 256+ bit SVE could probably help them quite a bit in x264/x265 encoding (handbreak).

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2022, 07:25:04 pm
content: OK, from what I've seen (a few benchmarks, for what they are worth), the M1 seems to beat the Threadripper for single-core performance, but gets crushed obviously for multi-core performance, which this AMD series is all about. So, apples to apples... pun intended.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2022, 12:38:24 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on March 21, 2022, 07:25:04 pmArs has a good review of the Mac Studio including performance comparisons to the i9-12900 and including actual power draw at the wall for each system.https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/03/mac-studio-review-a-nearly-perfect-workhorse-mac/The Intel chip has more performance if you unleash it and don't care how much electricity/heat you use, but the M1 Max and Ultra are far more efficient.Apple's Mac Pro and corresponding CPU (generally referred to as the "M2" but we obviously don't actually know) are yet to come. What we have now is equivalent to the NUC 12 Extreme "Dragon Canyon", though the Mac is quite a bit smaller.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2022, 01:14:22 am
content: They'd really need downvolt/downclock the i9-12900 to the performance of the Max to be able to do a performance/watt comparison. The relation is so incredibly non-linear that if you don't keep one the same, it's hard to make meaningful conclusions about the power efficiency of the architecture. Even then probably 30W or so is simply the difference from a SoC and an expandable PC.The i9-12900 is also smaller than the Max, even with Intel's continuing lack of EUV, so comparing against the Ultra from an architectural point of view is a bit silly.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2022, 01:19:59 am
content: Quote from: Marco on March 22, 2022, 01:14:22 amDoes your size comparison allow for the Max/Ultra devoting more silicon to GPU than to CPU?

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2022, 01:35:09 am
content: Assuming N5 has approximately double the transistor density of Intel's process, sure. There's enough margin there.From a consumer point of view, some of the unique ways Apple can market it's devices (very low number of variants, SoCs in a memory-bandwidth/mm2 region you couldn't find outside of consoles etc) can create some desirable differences if you fall into the right niche. From an architectural point of view they are mostly riding the process.PS. the major actual innovation is as of yet untold in my opinion. I think they are using mask exposure outside of the main Max die to connect them together into an Ultra. An Ultra isn't two separate Max dies combined, a Max is an Ultra diced in two. If one Max is faulty they dice it, if they can't sell enough Ultra's they just dice it into two Max's. This method won't scale upto the biggest Threadripper behemoths, but for combining two processors it makes a lot more sense than interposers.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2022, 02:51:24 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on March 22, 2022, 01:19:59 amQuickly sourced numbers:i9-12900, 8+8 core die, 200mm2M1 Max, 8+2 core die, 400mm2M1 Ultra, 2x(8+2) core die, 800mm2except the integrated GPUs are wildly different in their share of the silicon, images below. Take the cores as a fraction from those shots instead of the overall die:i9-12900, 8+8 cores 100mm2M1 Max, 8+2 cores 40mm2M1 Ultra, 2x(8+2) cores 80mm2Density of Intel 10nm is very good:https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/10_nm_lithography_processSo a factor of 2x between the two would be on the generous side, and helps Intel fit in all the legacy/bloat of x86. Efficiency cores estimated area per core is almost identical:i9-12900, small core 3mm2M1 Max, small core 3mm2Are there some efficiency core performance comparisons? Interesting that the sizes are similar for efficiency cores despite x86 being "heavy" and Intel having larger feature size. Would also be interesting to see how the vector instructions of the M1 performance cores compare to AVX (512).

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2022, 03:12:28 am
content: Quote from: Marco on March 22, 2022, 01:35:09 amTSMC 5nm is not half the feature size of Intel 10nm. The numbers these days don't actually bear any relationship to physical size. Intel's "10nm" is in fact comparable to and according to knowledgeable people even slightly smaller than TSMC's "7nm".QuoteAn Ultra is two Max layered on top of each other, with "more than 10000" direct die to die interconnections via a silicon interposer.Apple has described this in detail.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2022, 03:38:31 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on March 22, 2022, 03:12:28 amWhich isn't what I said.For what it's worth I simply did (7/5)^2. Simplistic, but close enough without breaking out a tape measure and looking up actual densities. There is enough margin there.QuoteOops hadn't been paying attention to their press releases.