Need some help in interpreting the benchmarks between my current Mac Pro 2013 and the M1 benchmarks that came out this morning.

Here's the gist of my current machine:

Mac Pro (Late 2013)
Processor: 3.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5
Graphics: AMD FirePro D300 2GB (I think there are two since System Report shows one in Slot 1 and another in Slot 2)

I think the benchmarks for this are here:
[browser.geekbench.com]

and they show 806 for Single-Core and 3212 for Multi-Core.


And here is the new benchmarks for the M1 chip:
[browser.geekbench.com]

It's showing 1687 for Single and 7433 for Multi.

Beyond the simplistic "hey that's twice as big!" can someone explain what this might mean, and if there are other numbers to consider?

My main goal is to get a newer machine that edits videos a bit smoother/faster. My videos aren't that complex but they can get to 2 gigs in size, 30 minutes long, some graphics, some text, etc.

---

M1 2020 Mac mini (16G 2T) • Ventura 13.x • Dual 27" Dell S2722QC monitors • M2 2022 13" MBAir (512G 16G) •

Not too geeky here regarding benchmarks, but my first impression when hearing about picture editing is, "How will I be affected by RAM limitations?"

---

“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in."

Certainly, the M1 score tromps your MP. But the caveat may be how are your videos being rendered? Certain programs utilize GPU differently than others, so-
If the dual D300 GPUs are contributing then it may be they are still better than the M1 might, as it has no discrete GPU. Still, we are comparing 7+ year old tech so without a side-by-side test I hesitate to speculate further.

The other question I still have is what are the sustained figures for the M1. Or how long can the system operate at that speed before it throttles due to thermal regulation limits. The 2013 Mac Pro will operate continuously for hours at that rate, I have my doubts on the current M1 offerings.

Quote
JoeH
The other question I still have is what are the sustained figures for the M1. Or how long can the system operate at that speed before it throttles due to thermal regulation limits. The 2013 Mac Pro will operate continuously for hours at that rate, I have my doubts on the current M1 offerings.

Right. It is clearly not targeting pro users who need that kind of performance. That said, it will be great to see how it actually does.

What software do you need to run?

Maybe just wait a week until people actually have one in their hands and can actually test it?

And just for comparison vs your MP -- we could do this all day -- even a 2018 mini crushes your numbers

---

Edited 999 time(s). Last edit at 12:08PM by jdc.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/12/2020 11:02AM by jdc.

Quote
sekker
What software do you need to run?

I use mainly the lowly $130 Screenflow. Thought about moving up to Apple's Final Cut Pro, except the steep learning curve.

---

M1 2020 Mac mini (16G 2T) • Ventura 13.x • Dual 27" Dell S2722QC monitors • M2 2022 13" MBAir (512G 16G) •

Screenflow is a great app. It's not exactly clear to me how it uses the GPU, but I did find that:
"Apple Hardware Accelerated H.264 encoding requires a Mac with an integrated Intel GPU*.
*This may change in the future, as the Apple API decides what hardware acceleration method is to be used. At the time of this writing, only Quick Sync via an Intel GPU is supported."

[www.telestream.net]

And further, that Quick Sync is not available on Xeon CPUs, so then in your case it might be using D300s, or if not then just the CPU.

Who knows how the M1 would handle things.

Take a look at this article and then head down to the comment by melgross regarding rendering a 4k video on an iPad Pro. Not sure how true his/her comments are.

From the reading that I've done so far, it may be that our thoughts of RAM and GPU requirements may be outdated when looking at the M1 processor.

Quote
macphanatic
From the reading that I've done so far, it may be that our thoughts of RAM and GPU requirements may be outdated when looking at the M1 processor.

This is my take too: the M1 processor presents an entirely new paradigm which we are unable to accurately evaluate using existing metrics.

---

It is what it is.

Also, reportedly the SSD is 2X faster compared to existing MacBook Pros'....

Quote
anonymouse1
Also, reportedly the SSD is 2X faster compared to existing MacBook Pros'....

My question: With RAM having been integrated into the SoC via the unified architecture, is that what we're referring to when we talk about "the SSD"? Because to me, an SSD is a discrete device.

---

It is what it is.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/12/2020 02:35PM by N-OS X-tasy!.

RAM and SSD flash storage are 2 different things -- but are just chips -- they can go anywhere.

---

Edited 999 time(s). Last edit at 12:08PM by jdc.

Comparing benchmark numbers between two different systems is one thing, but it may be meaningless in a real world situation. If what one wants to do is something that requires a particular piece of software such as "Screenflow" and that application only runs on one system, then no matter how fast the other system may be doesn't matter.

Quote
jdc
RAM and SSD flash storage are 2 different things -- but are just chips -- they can go anywhere.

Yes, it definitely is — that was quite the brain fart on my part.

---

It is what it is.

During the presentation one of their animations seemed to show the DRAM to be part of the M1 chip, but the transistor count of 16 Billion seems way too low for 8GB or 16GB of RAM, that's 64 Billion or 128 Billion bits/transistors by itself.

So, I'm pretty sure that DRAM and Flash are external chips.

Quote
GGD
During the presentation one of their animations seemed to show the DRAM to be part of the M1 chip, but the transistor count of 16 Billion seems way too low for 8GB or 16GB of RAM, that's 64 Billion or 128 Billion bits/transistors by itself.

So, I'm pretty sure that DRAM and Flash are external chips.

RAM is incorporated into the M1.

Flash-storage is not.

I think that "16 billion transistors" refers only to the 16 cores (8CPU/8GPU). Could be wrong about that.

---

Billions and billions...!

Quote
GGD
During the presentation one of their animations seemed to show the DRAM to be part of the M1 chip, but the transistor count of 16 Billion seems way too low for 8GB or 16GB of RAM, that's 64 Billion or 128 Billion bits/transistors by itself.

So, I'm pretty sure that DRAM and Flash are external chips.

You are thinking 6T SRAM cells but DRAM has 1 transistor per cell, but it is still ~8 or ~16 billion transistors for the RAM.

Quote
Schpark

Quote
GGD
During the presentation one of their animations seemed to show the DRAM to be part of the M1 chip, but the transistor count of 16 Billion seems way too low for 8GB or 16GB of RAM, that's 64 Billion or 128 Billion bits/transistors by itself.

So, I'm pretty sure that DRAM and Flash are external chips.

You are thinking 6T SRAM cells but DRAM has 1 transistor per cell, but it is still ~8 or ~16 billion transistors for the RAM.

No, I'm thinking one transistor per bit for DRAM, you're forgetting to multiply by 8 for the 8 bits per byte. 8GBytes is 64 Billion bits/transistors.

Here's a picture from Apples site that pretty much answers the question, the DRAM is external, but looks like it's mounted on the same module as the M1 die.



[www.apple.com]

Ah b vs B