Caporegime
So to all the buyers , what sort of thing will be using the Studio for?
Poll: *** The official Mac Studio thread (it has Apple Silicon, lots of ports and everything!) ***
- Thread starter Feek
- Start date
M1 is rubbish at gaming anyway, it’s all about the compute/productivity performance.
All we have to go on right now is apples graphs. They say the Ultra is faster than what I assume to be a 5950X and a 3090 in those applications but they didn’t say exactly which parts in the presentation.
All we have to go on right now is apples graphs. They say the Ultra is faster than what I assume to be a 5950X and a 3090 in those applications but they didn’t say exactly which parts in the presentation.
Don
As long as they are specifically optimised for the M1 - last time I checked for generic multi platform apps like Handbrake, M1 still trailed behind
Caporegime
Adobe stuff for me, and then general day to day stuff. I want to upgrade because my iMac is 10 years old this year.
I have consoles for games, or the Steamdeck when that comes out.
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No for me, I’m new to Mac and using a 16gb mini is far faster than the pc I had for the photo editing I used to do. I’ve not had it troubled at all and neither have any of the content makers I follow for video editing, so not really seeing the need. It’s also fugly.
If gaming ever properly took off on a Mac then I’d be interested but otherwise what the hell are you doing to need that much power?
If gaming ever properly took off on a Mac then I’d be interested but otherwise what the hell are you doing to need that much power?
I'm currently working on an 24" iMac M1 with 16GB RAM.
I often have open:
- Photoshop
- InDesign
- Illustrator
- Chrome (many windows + tabs)
- Safari
- Skype
- Word and/or PowerPoint
- Spotify
- Notes
- Transmit
The Studio with M1 Max 10/32 core and 64GB RAM should handle my day-to-day above and hopefully be future-proofed for a good few years to come.
Soldato
Web Browser with many tabs. Visual Studio Code, Royal TSX, VMs, Containers, the odd game, Xcode, Diagramming etc. Plus the standard stuff such as Apple Music, Office Suit, WhatsApp, Notion.
Totally anecdotal but I just converted a 4Gb .mp4 from my drone on my 2017 4.2GHz i7 iMac and my M1 MBA to h265 at the same time. The iMac took 6:53 and the M1 MBA 2:49. That's using Permute which I believe is still a universal app.
In their documentation they say it's an Intel 12th gen they compared it to, so the 12900 which has 8 performance and 8 efficiency cores.
Just been comparing the Mac Studio and 14" MBP.
Both with the following spec:
I appreciate the Studio will have better cooling and potentially won't be so loud under load, but that's not the end of the world as I usually wear noise cancelling headphones at my desk anyway.
It also gives you an additional screen (albeit a small one).
I realise it's a bit of an odd comparison — if you need portability get a MBP, if you don't get a Studio — but, on the other hand, it's food for thought. Unless I'm missing something obvious?
Both with the following spec:
- M1 MAX Chip
- 10-core CPU
- 32-core GPU
- 64GB RAM
- 512GB HDD
I appreciate the Studio will have better cooling and potentially won't be so loud under load, but that's not the end of the world as I usually wear noise cancelling headphones at my desk anyway.
It also gives you an additional screen (albeit a small one).
I realise it's a bit of an odd comparison — if you need portability get a MBP, if you don't get a Studio — but, on the other hand, it's food for thought. Unless I'm missing something obvious?
Thanks, they said 16 core in the presentation, I’d assumed it was AMD given it’s a ‘proper’ 16 core unlike the Intel.
The Studio will be more performant in longer lasting workloads as the CPU will throttle in the MacBook before it will on the Studio. Also the 10 GbE port on the Studio. You can get adaptors for the MacBook Pro but they are far from cheap.
Caporegime
I’m sure I’ve read reports of the Max struggling in the 14” chassis.
Caporegime
I would not get a laptop and then use it primarily as a desktop, I did that at work for a few years with a 2015 MBP and it did terrible things to the battery. I still have it here and it has expanded.
I would rather get a low spec Studio with a MBA on the go for £3,000 than get a slightly upgraded Studio.
I would rather get a low spec Studio with a MBA on the go for £3,000 than get a slightly upgraded Studio.
My plans are always evolving. I’m now looking at the possibility of a base Ultra with a 2Tb drive and the new monitor in a couple of months.
Caporegime
Did you watch that Max Tech video today? Where they suggest storage is the best value upgrade?
Handbrake is a poor example for a generic compute app given that it is heavily optimised for Nvidia's NVEnc, Intel's QuickSync and AMD's VCE, as well as specific x86 instructions. But it didn't support ARM Neon or M1's media engine when the initial ARM build came out and people benchmarked it (you can disable those encoders to force it on CPU - a lot of benchmarks didn't - but that turns it into an unrealistic benchmark). Handbreak currently supports M1's media engine in current snapshot builds and there are third party patches for Neon which provide significant speed bumps.
Compute always needs optimisation per platform. Handbreak was always heavily optimised for x86 and AMD/Nvidia, and not at all on ARM (basically only a simple recompile according to its developers) last year simply because there was no reason to optimise it. There is now and it's getting there now. Should probably see optimisation parity between M1 and typical x86/AMD/Nvidia this year.
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I didn’t - do you have a link please?