Discussion Apple Silicon SoC thread

Eug · Nov 10, 2020

M1
5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LP-DDR4
16 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 12 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache
(Apple claims the 4 high-effiency cores alone perform like a dual-core Intel MacBook Air)

8-core iGPU (but there is a 7-core variant, likely with one inactive core)
128 execution units
Up to 24576 concurrent threads
2.6 Teraflops
82 Gigatexels/s
41 gigapixels/s

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Products:
$999 ($899 edu) 13" MacBook Air (fanless) - 18 hour video playback battery life
$699 Mac mini (with fan)
$1299 ($1199 edu) 13" MacBook Pro (with fan) - 20 hour video playback battery life

Memory options 8 GB and 16 GB. No 32 GB option (unless you go Intel).

It should be noted that the M1 chip in these three Macs is the same (aside from GPU core number). Basically, Apple is taking the same approach which these chips as they do the iPhones and iPads. Just one SKU (excluding the X variants), which is the same across all iDevices (aside from maybe slight clock speed differences occasionally).

EDIT:

M1 Pro 8-core CPU (6+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 16-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 24-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 32-core GPU

M1 Pro and M1 Max discussion here:

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M1 Ultra discussion here:

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M2 discussion here:

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Second Generation 5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LPDDR5, up to 24 GB and 100 GB/s
20 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 16 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache

10-core iGPU (but there is an 8-core variant)
3.6 Teraflops

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Hardware acceleration for 8K h.264, h.264, ProRes

M3 Family discussion here:

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M4 Family discussion here:

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trivik12 · Nov 11, 2024

I wonder if Zen 6 or Nova Lake(Coyote Cove) will even come close to M4 and most probably Apple will be at M6 on N2 by then

poke01 · Nov 11, 2024

https://twitter.com/x/status/1856115178183803155

~60watts 16/16. Insane score

mvprod123 · Nov 11, 2024

https://twitter.com/x/status/1856123931390030051

Meteor Late · Nov 11, 2024

trivik12 said:
I wonder if Zen 6 or Nova Lake(Coyote Cove) will even come close to M4 and most probably Apple will be at M6 on N2 by then

Zen 6 I predict will be around 20% improvement with the combination of IPC + clock speed improvement thanks to a pretty good jump in node. So yeah Zen 6 should match M4 in single core performance, but will still trail in efficiency, barring a total revolution of an architecture.

Eug · Nov 11, 2024

Here is the setup I used for the migration process. Hardware:

M1 Mac mini
M4 Mac mini
Thunderbolt 4 cable to connect the two machines
24" Cinema HD Display (DVI - approx. 15 years old)
Magic Keyboard
Apple Pro Mouse (USB 1.1 - almost 25 years old)

I have not yet heard the fan turn on yet for my M4, including for the 200 GB of file transfer. Granted this has only seen business app usage but like the M1 the aluminum shell is literally cold to the touch. Not even warm.

The migration process is perfect. Everything looks exactly the same. One thing is I had to type in my login information again for stuff like iCloud and Watch unlock so I guess they do that for security reasons. Also I had to "reclaim" my Time Machine backup as it said it belonged to another computer, but it with one click I granted it permission to do so and off it went happily backing up again. In fact, other than that I couldn't actually tell it's a different machine. BTW, truthfully for these business applications, 16 GB was sufficient, as you can see here:

With a typical workload I'd have maybe 3 GB of compressed memory but no swap, and now with 24 GB memory I have no compressed memory and no swap.

My ancient CAT5e from 15 years ago came through for my >Gigabit internet access. Too bad my upload is so horrible in comparison (cable).

BTW, since there is no rear audio jack anymore, I am attempting to use my 20 year-old Griffin iMic. So far so good, but if there are any bugs I guess I'll just get a USB-C to headphone jack adapter from Apple for ten bucks and plug it into the hub. I just can't get myself to run the wire to the front headphone jack, purely for aesthetic reasons.

Of the three rear Thunderbolt ports, one is to my external 2 TB USB 3 SSD, which will be swapped later to a 4 TB Thunderbolt 4 SSD. The other goes into my Plugable Thunderbolt 4 hub, and from there USB-C goes to my monitor. I'm also hanging a bunch of small peripherals as well as my 4 TB Time Machine drive off the hub. I have a second hub and I haven't decided yet if I'll stick another Thunderbolt 4 hub on it or not, since I actually have two of them. (For my first one, I had some issues and after troubleshooting I discovered it was a bad Thunderbolt cable. So I asked for a replacement cable and they sent me a brand new hub and accessories instead. I applaud your customer service, Plugable.) It's really nice having available front USB-C ports though.

FlameTail · Nov 11, 2024

mvprod123 said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1856035128671191320

This really puts that in context;

https://twitter.com/x/status/1856041892892299507

Eug · Nov 11, 2024

You’ve probably already seen the size comparison all over the net but the difference in size is really striking in person:

FlameTail · Nov 11, 2024

poke01 said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1856115178183803155

~60watts 16/16. Insane score

Snapdragon X Elite scores only half as much, at the same power consumption level.

poke01 · Nov 11, 2024

Eug said:
You’ve probably already seen the size comparison all over the net but the difference in size is really striking in person:

View attachment 111467 View attachment 111468

Nice, can do one benchmark for me. Run JetStream 2 on chrome please.

Eug · Nov 11, 2024

poke01 said:
Nice, can do one benchmark for me. Run JetStream 2 on chrome please.

It gets a good score in Chrome (130)...

...but that doesn't compare to the score it gets in Safari (18.1).

Doug S · Nov 12, 2024

Infinity?

Nice, the singularity is at hand! I guess I should go to bed early tonight so I'm ready for it.

eek2121 · Nov 12, 2024

poke01 said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1856115178183803155

~60watts 16/16. Insane score

He acts like it is groundbreaking, but Lunar Lake is both faster (2,057 points for the 268V) and more efficient (45W vs 37W for the 268V)

Like, I get that ARM is efficient, but let’s not overstate things.

That being said, I hope to pick up the new Mac Mini at some point.

Meteor Late · Nov 12, 2024

eek2121 said:
He acts like it is groundbreaking, but Lunar Lake is both faster (2,057 points for the 268V) and more efficient (45W vs 37W for the 268V)

Like, I get that ARM is efficient, but let’s not overstate things.

That being said, I hope to pick up the new Mac Mini at some point.

268V 2057 points? nah that test is Cinebench 2024 MT, where 268V scores barely above 600 points (of course, also because of the low number of cores).
But, you have base M4 with the exact same number of P cores and E cores compared to Lunar Lake to make a decent comparison, and M4 is like 50% faster while consuming less.

okoroezenwa · Nov 12, 2024

eek2121 said:
He acts like it is groundbreaking, but Lunar Lake is both faster (2,057 points for the 268V) and more efficient (45W vs 37W for the 268V)

Like, I get that ARM is efficient, but let’s not overstate things.

That being said, I hope to pick up the new Mac Mini at some point.

What are you talking about? A 268V gets nothing close to that in CB24.

mvprod123 · Nov 12, 2024

eek2121 said:
He acts like it is groundbreaking, but Lunar Lake is both faster (2,057 points for the 268V) and more efficient (45W vs 37W for the 268V)

Like, I get that ARM is efficient, but let’s not overstate things.

That being said, I hope to pick up the new Mac Mini at some point.

Thank you, I laughed my heart out.

poke01 · Nov 12, 2024

A base M4 gets 950-1000 points in Cinebench 2024. The 288V is no where near close

digitaldreamer · Nov 12, 2024

Eug said:
It gets a good score in Chrome (130)...

View attachment 111472

...but that doesn't compare to the score it gets in Safari (18.1).

View attachment 111473

So, what exactly does "Infinity" in this context mean? Is there a threshold where any score higher is meaningless?

gdansk · Nov 12, 2024

digitaldreamer said:
So, what exactly does "Infinity" in this context mean? Is there a threshold where any score higher is meaningless?

Broken timer

Eug · Nov 12, 2024

digitaldreamer said:
So, what exactly does "Infinity" in this context mean? Is there a threshold where any score higher is meaningless?

Heh. I guess Safari in macOS Sequoia just fails. Divide by zero error? I dunno. I tried it again and it gave me that Infinity result again.

Safari on my iPhone 12 Pro Max (A14 SoC) works fine though, in iOS 18.1. I get 215.144 on the phone.

Eug · Nov 12, 2024

jdubs03 · Nov 12, 2024

Eug said:
Heh. I guess Safari in macOS Sequoia just fails. Divide by zero error? I dunno. I tried it again and it gave me that Infinity result again.

Safari on my iPhone 12 Pro Max (A14 SoC) works fine though, in iOS 18.1. I get 215.144 on the phone.

Just for the kicks I got a three run score of 388.914 on my 16 Pro Max.

johnsonwax · Nov 12, 2024

Eug said:
Heh. I guess Safari in macOS Sequoia just fails. Divide by zero error? I dunno. I tried it again and it gave me that Infinity result again.

Safari on my iPhone 12 Pro Max (A14 SoC) works fine though, in iOS 18.1. I get 215.144 on the phone.

Got 334 in Safari on my M1 Max with 40-odd tabs and while running Factorio in the background on battery. M4 not tempting enough yet. Maybe M5 can open my wallet.

gdansk · Nov 12, 2024

johnsonwax said:
Maybe M5 can open my wallet.

That was my thought too. Well, maybe even M6. They made the M1 series too good for casual use.

Meteor Late · Nov 12, 2024

I would like to see a test showing Cinebench 2024 single core power consumption of M4 with a tool that shows it, like powermetrics, mx powergadget, etc.

jdubs03 · Nov 12, 2024

Meteor Late said:
I would like to see a test showing Cinebench 2024 single core power consumption of M4 with a tool that shows it, like powermetrics, mx powergadget, etc.

And no multi core!? Blasphemy.
I think that plus GB ST and MT with power figures = rad.

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