Compared: M1 vs M1 Pro and M1 Max

2»

Comments

  • Reply 21 of 38
    thttht Posts: 5,421member
    timmillea said:
    I am not particularly impressed by the less than double performance increase c.f. the M1 with all the extra heat, noise and expense. I hope the M2 will fare better. It will have to to sell the new Mac Pro. 
    There’s no magic here, but you should be impressed. Really impressed. It’s built on basically the same fab process as the M1, and any additional performance was going to come at the cost of using more power. The really impressive part is it is mostly linear increases in power usage, not exponential. 

    It has about 70% more CPU performance true, but it also has 2x and 4x the GPU, 2x and 4x memory bandwidth & capacity, and lots of media encoders not in the M1. It also has a ProRes hardware blocks too. Basically a 12 core Mac Pro with W5700X and Afterburner in a laptop, running at 4x less Watts. A laptop that is mostly cool to the touch and mostly silent. 

    williamlondondanoxmuthuk_vanalingamwatto_cobra
  • Reply 22 of 38
    danoxdanox Posts: 2,804member
    timmillea said:
    I am not particularly impressed by the less than double performance increase c.f. the M1 with all the extra heat, noise and expense. I hope the M2 will fare better. It will have to to sell the new Mac Pro. 
    And yet the M series runs rings around the Intel and AMD offerings when unplugged from the wall…..
    williamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 23 of 38
    thttht Posts: 5,421member
    With dedicated media acceleration they don’t have a need for several low-power cores while playing back video, or even encoding it: most common desktop applications rarely make use of more than 2 separate threads at any given time, with one being for front end GUI interaction with the user, and a background thread for waiting on I/O, which, when the hardware is implemented correctly, is mostly waiting without much processor use anyway. Thus, it’s fully possible in most use-cases you can do all you need with just the 2 energy-efficient cores: Mail or Pages will be far more than fast enough with the 2 small cores. Web browsing, similar for I/O, but other things will cause greater power core usage, and a lot more threads.

    The other reason you would use efficiency cores are for regular scheduled background system tasks, that don’t need much CPU power. Again, even 2 threads is more than a lot of those will use. I personally thought it was more an odd choice for the M1 to start out with 4 energy-efficient cores because of these reality-based considerations. Perhaps that was more a question of getting some real-world results achieved with lower risk, and getting real-world data of core usage in practice as to why they went with those decisions.
    If you look at the die shots, the e-cores take up about 1% of the SoC chip area in the M1 Max and about 2% in the M1 Pro. Adding another 2 e-cores isn't a big cost. I can only think of one reason for them to do this: they needed the standby and idle power consumption of the M1 Pro and Max to be as low as they could possibly go, and they felt that 2 additional e-cores was enough CPU to handle standby and idle tasks, like all the app and system tasks you mention. But the iPhone has 4 e-cores! And, you'd think an iPhone would really need to save on power, and yet, it has 4 e-cores. So, here we are, why the difference?

    The e-cores are so small such that having 4 or 6 e-cores just isn't that big of a cost. If they prevent the p-cores from firing up while web browsing, especially background web pages, it seems like a nice gain in energy efficiency. It's a browser-centric, javascript-centric workflow most of the time for users, even if they do a lot of GPU compute or multi-threaded workloads, most people still spend a lot of their time just web browsing. So, managing background web pages with e-cores seems like a really good idea.

    At some point adding e-cores isn't effective in the energy efficiency versus perf trade, so, it's not going to be 8, 12, 16 e-cores, but I would think 4 to 8 would be the sweet spot for 8, 16, 32 p-core systems.
    tenthousandthings
  • Reply 24 of 38
    thttht Posts: 5,421member
    uffenman said:
    Very informative and detailed read. Can somebody help me understand how much of a physical space factor has been reduced going from the entire Intel setup (CPU, GPU, RAM, any other SoC components, etc.) to ASi? Like 50% smaller? What has this improvement made more space for, more battery storage? Just simply curious...Thank you in Advance.
    They currently are not using the space savings in the MBP14/16 models. The logic boards look like to take about the same area. They are likely less expensive logic boards as they likely don't have as many layers or circuits to run, like memory and PCIe busses. In trade, the M1 Pro/Max packaging are a lot more expensive. Check that, it does look like the fan housings and heat sinks are bigger, so the boards are smaller from this perspective. They enabled more room for cooling, but they can probably go a lot farther than this.

    You might see some big benefits with the new MBA with M2 though. If the renders of a sub 10mm thick device are true, they will need to employ some pretty small boards as the batteries will have to smushed thinner, like iPad Pro batteries to get them that thin.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 25 of 38
    mattinozmattinoz Posts: 2,299member
    uffenman said:
    Very informative and detailed read. Can somebody help me understand how much of a physical space factor has been reduced going from the entire Intel setup (CPU, GPU, RAM, any other SoC components, etc.) to ASi? Like 50% smaller? What has this improvement made more space for, more battery storage? Just simply curious...Thank you in Advance.
    If you look at the 2 Ifixit tear downs between the 2 generations mobo's are about the same size. they even provide a handy comparison image. 14 is a little more compact than the old 15 and the 16 uses its size to have bigger fans it seems for the most part. 

    https://www.ifixit.com/News/54122/macbook-pro-2021-teardown
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 26 of 38
    tht said:
    With dedicated media acceleration they don’t have a need for several low-power cores while playing back video, or even encoding it: most common desktop applications rarely make use of more than 2 separate threads at any given time, with one being for front end GUI interaction with the user, and a background thread for waiting on I/O, which, when the hardware is implemented correctly, is mostly waiting without much processor use anyway. Thus, it’s fully possible in most use-cases you can do all you need with just the 2 energy-efficient cores: Mail or Pages will be far more than fast enough with the 2 small cores. Web browsing, similar for I/O, but other things will cause greater power core usage, and a lot more threads.

    The other reason you would use efficiency cores are for regular scheduled background system tasks, that don’t need much CPU power. Again, even 2 threads is more than a lot of those will use. I personally thought it was more an odd choice for the M1 to start out with 4 energy-efficient cores because of these reality-based considerations. Perhaps that was more a question of getting some real-world results achieved with lower risk, and getting real-world data of core usage in practice as to why they went with those decisions.
    If you look at the die shots, the e-cores take up about 1% of the SoC chip area in the M1 Max and about 2% in the M1 Pro. Adding another 2 e-cores isn't a big cost. I can only think of one reason for them to do this: they needed the standby and idle power consumption of the M1 Pro and Max to be as low as they could possibly go, and they felt that 2 additional e-cores was enough CPU to handle standby and idle tasks, like all the app and system tasks you mention. But the iPhone has 4 e-cores! And, you'd think an iPhone would really need to save on power, and yet, it has 4 e-cores. So, here we are, why the difference?

    The e-cores are so small such that having 4 or 6 e-cores just isn't that big of a cost. If they prevent the p-cores from firing up while web browsing, especially background web pages, it seems like a nice gain in energy efficiency. It's a browser-centric, javascript-centric workflow most of the time for users, even if they do a lot of GPU compute or multi-threaded workloads, most people still spend a lot of their time just web browsing. So, managing background web pages with e-cores seems like a really good idea.

    At some point adding e-cores isn't effective in the energy efficiency versus perf trade, so, it's not going to be 8, 12, 16 e-cores, but I would think 4 to 8 would be the sweet spot for 8, 16, 32 p-core systems.
    Consider this for a possible explanation as to why only 2 e-cores versus more: as much as each of their cores are a tiny percentage of the die space, it’s distance signals must traverse farther for, and included in this is memory controllers and cache coherency for each core, which I’m reasonably guessing is as complicated and as large and as much of a system performance overhead with no regards to how fast the core is. In software development a big overhead for many processes with more than one thread is due to synchronization between threads, and the e-cores versus p-cores won’t be any better, perhaps even worse, since they tend to run at different frequencies, which has its own fun for buffering between them.  The iPhone isn’t something I’d ever expect will expand beyond around what it has for number of main CPU cores and similar GPU cores, and the other added things in the SoC, because… it’s a phone, and not a wise use-case trying to do all you can do in a laptop or even a full-sized iPad for human reasons, if nothing else.

    Glue logic has its place and its price in any design, and can make or break a system.  It’ll be interesting to see what Apple does for core breakdowns across all their products, from the Watch up to their MacPro.  I also consider the original M1, as much as anything, a usable lower-risk proof of concept release for many things, including the scaled-up design of things along so many fronts, and a rational iterative development strategy of walk (fast!) before you try to run.  It’s really the Mac MVP for their transition.
    FileMakerFellertenthousandthingswatto_cobra
  • Reply 27 of 38
    I have the m1 max 64 in a 16” model and iMovie doesn’t currently support video files so this is probably great for final cut pro x users ($300) but the rest of us are hosed until they fix that app. 
    williamlondon
  • Reply 28 of 38
    Some general observations: There are some extremely intelligent comments here about the design challenges and trade offs for processors. You guys really know your stuff and it’s very educational! Some commenters don’t really appreciate the technical challenges in processor design. They flippantly express dismay that performance isn’t what they think it should be. The M1 in all its flavors is an incredible achievement! Given the complexities of the hardware design, software integration and compatibility it makes me realize that Apple was dissatisfied with Intel technology many years ago. They had to have started working on this architecture change at least 5-7 years ago. All the while Intel sat on their hands with minimal/routine upgrades to the X86 chips. Fat dumb and happy with their virtual monopoly and revenue stream. Then they fell behind in foundry capabilities and lost their technology lead to TSMC. Intel claims they will catch up and surpass others by 2024/2025. I’m not sure they have the corporate culture for that. Catch up is always challenging. In many ways it’s easier to stay in the lead than catch up. Apple has shown what leading edge chip design and technology looks like.
    williamlondontenthousandthingswatto_cobra
  • Reply 29 of 38
    ayoo said:
    Kudos on everything but the auto playing video.  I can’t think of a more frustrating user experience than that.  
    That's a personal problem ... you need to change a setting on YOUR computer... in your browser prefs.  It's not Appleinsider's issue to deal with.
    williamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 30 of 38
    sbdudesbdude Posts: 255member

    M1 vs M1 Pro vs M1 Max - Professional Powerhouses

    It's pretty apparent that it's not simple to explain the differences between Apple's chip lineup.

    In previous years, when Intel chips would vary in core counts, clock speeds, and generations, it was relatively simple to highlight what has changed. There are so many moving parts to an Apple Silicon chip that you can't just say one is faster than the other for just one specific reason.

    I'd argue it's the exact opposite. It's very simple to explain the differences in Apple's Chip Lineup: number of and type of CPU cores, number of GPU cores, memory size, encode/decode engines. The clock speeds are the same, the cores are the same, the encode/decode engines are the same. It's purely a numbers game, where as an intel chip had varying clock speeds, varying TDPs, varying extensions, varying integrated graphics.
    FileMakerFellerwatto_cobra
  • Reply 31 of 38
    MplsPMplsP Posts: 3,911member
    ayoo said:
    Kudos on everything but the auto playing video.  I can’t think of a more frustrating user experience than that.  
    That's a personal problem ... you need to change a setting on YOUR computer... in your browser prefs.  It's not Appleinsider's issue to deal with.
    Wrong - it still auto plays on iPhones and iPads, no matter what your settings. Worse, it auto plays on my phone and on my iPad wasting data and battery. 

    It is absolutely apple insider’s fault for having a crappy website design. 
    muthuk_vanalingamwatto_cobra
  • Reply 32 of 38
    tht said:
    Still don't understand the reasons for going from 4 e-cores to 2 e-cores. Then, baselining 8 p-cores for the Jade SoC is also curious decision. They spent the transistors to double up the media blocks, in addition to the GPU cores. Why not add another 4 p-core CPU cluster? Probably something to do with locality to caches, but interesting set of design choices versus SoC size or transistors spent. They have the thermal budget for another 4 p-cores.
    Think of the end game.  The Mac Pro is rumored to have either 2 or 4 M1 Max chips on the same package.  How many efficiency cores would a machine like that need?

    The pro machines are about scaling up performance.  Adding a bunch more efficiency cores becomes counterproductive.
  • Reply 33 of 38
    omasouomasou Posts: 564member
    command_f said:
    omasou said:
    I'm beginning to wonder how these advances will positively effect the next A series chips for iPhones and iPads.

    Could make for some crazy powerful handheld devices and introduce new use cases for the Airlines, Military, etc.
    The problem there is getting the heat out. If you look at the teardown of the new MBPs, they've got some pretty hefty fans as well as space to spread it around so they'll run much longer (forever?) before having to throttle their performance.
    I replaced my 2019 MBP 16.0 2.4GHZ 8C/32GB/5500M/2TB with a 2021 MBP 16 M1Max/64GB/2TB.

    This may sound silly to most but my primary motivation beside the performance boost was to have a MBP that I could connect to my 2 LG 5K displays w/o having to hear the fans run constantly. The 5500M must have been one seriously inefficient GPU b/c the fans would constantly run when doing nothing. Now I finally have peace and quiet like the older MBP use to be.

    I have yet to hear the fans kick on w/the 2021 MBP!
    williamlondon
  • Reply 34 of 38
    omasou said:
    command_f said:
    omasou said:
    I'm beginning to wonder how these advances will positively effect the next A series chips for iPhones and iPads.

    Could make for some crazy powerful handheld devices and introduce new use cases for the Airlines, Military, etc.
    The problem there is getting the heat out. If you look at the teardown of the new MBPs, they've got some pretty hefty fans as well as space to spread it around so they'll run much longer (forever?) before having to throttle their performance.
    I replaced my 2019 MBP 16.0 2.4GHZ 8C/32GB/5500M/2TB with a 2021 MBP 16 M1Max/64GB/2TB.

    This may sound silly to most but my primary motivation beside the performance boost was to have a MBP that I could connect to my 2 LG 5K displays w/o having to hear the fans run constantly. The 5500M must have been one seriously inefficient GPU b/c the fans would constantly run when doing nothing. Now I finally have peace and quiet like the older MBP use to be.

    I have yet to hear the fans kick on w/the 2021 MBP!
    Congratulation. I just bought one LG 5K. I have never used an external display. I don't know how it will turn out. 
    omasou
  • Reply 35 of 38
    omasouomasou Posts: 564member
    omasou said:
    command_f said:
    omasou said:
    I'm beginning to wonder how these advances will positively effect the next A series chips for iPhones and iPads.

    Could make for some crazy powerful handheld devices and introduce new use cases for the Airlines, Military, etc.
    The problem there is getting the heat out. If you look at the teardown of the new MBPs, they've got some pretty hefty fans as well as space to spread it around so they'll run much longer (forever?) before having to throttle their performance.
    I replaced my 2019 MBP 16.0 2.4GHZ 8C/32GB/5500M/2TB with a 2021 MBP 16 M1Max/64GB/2TB.

    This may sound silly to most but my primary motivation beside the performance boost was to have a MBP that I could connect to my 2 LG 5K displays w/o having to hear the fans run constantly. The 5500M must have been one seriously inefficient GPU b/c the fans would constantly run when doing nothing. Now I finally have peace and quiet like the older MBP use to be.

    I have yet to hear the fans kick on w/the 2021 MBP!
    Congratulation. I just bought one LG 5K. I have never used an external display. I don't know how it will turn out. 

    You'll love it.

    Besides the display the USB C hub helps clean up the cables on the desk or for external storage. I have two Seagate BarraCuda Fast SSD drives configured as a RAID 1 mount to the back of one display using Scotch Mounting squares.
    edited January 2022 waveparticle
  • Reply 36 of 38
    omasou said:
    omasou said:
    command_f said:
    omasou said:
    I'm beginning to wonder how these advances will positively effect the next A series chips for iPhones and iPads.

    Could make for some crazy powerful handheld devices and introduce new use cases for the Airlines, Military, etc.
    The problem there is getting the heat out. If you look at the teardown of the new MBPs, they've got some pretty hefty fans as well as space to spread it around so they'll run much longer (forever?) before having to throttle their performance.
    I replaced my 2019 MBP 16.0 2.4GHZ 8C/32GB/5500M/2TB with a 2021 MBP 16 M1Max/64GB/2TB.

    This may sound silly to most but my primary motivation beside the performance boost was to have a MBP that I could connect to my 2 LG 5K displays w/o having to hear the fans run constantly. The 5500M must have been one seriously inefficient GPU b/c the fans would constantly run when doing nothing. Now I finally have peace and quiet like the older MBP use to be.

    I have yet to hear the fans kick on w/the 2021 MBP!
    Congratulation. I just bought one LG 5K. I have never used an external display. I don't know how it will turn out. 

    You'll love it.

    Besides the display the USB C hub helps clean up the cables on the desk or for external storage. I have two Seagate BarraCuda Fast SSD drives configured as a RAID 1 mount to the back of one display using Scotch Mounting squares.
    Yes, it is lovely. 

    To adjust external monitor brightness, I found over the web that I can use keyboard to do it. Apple Settings->keyboard does not have this shortcut. I wonder can you use shortcut to control brightness of your two external monitors. 
  • Reply 37 of 38
    omasouomasou Posts: 564member
    omasou said:
    omasou said:
    command_f said:
    omasou said:
    I'm beginning to wonder how these advances will positively effect the next A series chips for iPhones and iPads.

    Could make for some crazy powerful handheld devices and introduce new use cases for the Airlines, Military, etc.
    The problem there is getting the heat out. If you look at the teardown of the new MBPs, they've got some pretty hefty fans as well as space to spread it around so they'll run much longer (forever?) before having to throttle their performance.
    I replaced my 2019 MBP 16.0 2.4GHZ 8C/32GB/5500M/2TB with a 2021 MBP 16 M1Max/64GB/2TB.

    This may sound silly to most but my primary motivation beside the performance boost was to have a MBP that I could connect to my 2 LG 5K displays w/o having to hear the fans run constantly. The 5500M must have been one seriously inefficient GPU b/c the fans would constantly run when doing nothing. Now I finally have peace and quiet like the older MBP use to be.

    I have yet to hear the fans kick on w/the 2021 MBP!
    Congratulation. I just bought one LG 5K. I have never used an external display. I don't know how it will turn out. 

    You'll love it.

    Besides the display the USB C hub helps clean up the cables on the desk or for external storage. I have two Seagate BarraCuda Fast SSD drives configured as a RAID 1 mount to the back of one display using Scotch Mounting squares.
    Yes, it is lovely. 

    To adjust external monitor brightness, I found over the web that I can use keyboard to do it. Apple Settings->keyboard does not have this shortcut. I wonder can you use shortcut to control brightness of your two external monitors. 
    I normally keep the MacBook Pro closed. Try Apple | System Settings | Dock & Menu Bar | Display and check Show in Menu Bar 
    edited February 2022
Sign In or Register to comment.