Discussion Apple Silicon SoC thread

[Eug]

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:

Page 78 - Discussion - Apple Silicon SoC thread

Page 78 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

M1 Ultra discussion here:

Page 109 - Discussion - Apple Silicon SoC thread

Page 109 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

M2 discussion here:

Page 127 - Discussion - Apple Silicon SoC thread

Page 127 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

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:

Page 215 - Discussion - Apple Silicon SoC thread

Page 215 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

M4 Family discussion here:

Page 263 - Discussion - Apple Silicon SoC thread

Page 263 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

 

[igor_kavinski]

Oryon has a ipc advantage compared to M3.. if fabbed on N3 oryon will do 4.7ghz because they can hit 4.3ghz on N4p

I'm astounded by your expertise! In addition to silicon design experience, you also have fab experience under your belt!

 

[Antey]

Indeed! I can't wait for Zen 5 at 6,3 GHz because it's fabbed on N3!

 

[FlameTail]

Oryon has a ipc advantage compared to M3.. if fabbed on N3 oryon will do 4.7ghz because they can hit 4.3ghz on N4p

Wahut

 

[igor_kavinski]

Indeed! I can't wait for Zen 5 at 6,3 GHz because it's fabbed on N3!

I hope you live long enough for that to happen!

 

[FlameTail]

Indeed! I can't wait for Zen 5 at 6,3 GHz because it's fabbed on N3!

Is that a misplaced comma?

 

[FlameTail]

Oryon has a ipc advantage compared to M3.. if fabbed on N3 oryon will do 4.7ghz because they can hit 4.3ghz on N4p

Oryon does not have an IPC advantage.

See the Hamoa thread.
I calculated IPC

 

[richardskrad]

Damn, the incremental updates are starting to show up. The M3 is now 28.5% faster than the M1 MacBook Air in Geekbench 6 single-core (3000 vs 2333 points).

 

[oak8292]

Yeah, I noticed that as well. Seems like it had to be a cost cutting measure - or, less likely, a supply issue. Too bad, it would maximize the benefit of these new SoCs, but Apple choose to shoot a bit lower - just as many of the large Win/x86 OEM do as well.

Could it be a heat issue. These are mounted right on the CPU and any increase in heat from the memory may start to throttle the CPU?

 

[poke01]

True but the 7800X3D users could easily limit the TDP and still get higher multi-core performance in a mini-ITX form factor with up to 96GB RAM, for a lot less than they have to pay for an M3 Mac Mini or Studio. M3 doesn't look that appealing.

Yep for desktops x86 is the way to go. I wouldn't touch Mac desktops as I prefer modular desktops and cheaper too.

 

[FlameTail]

A Brief Look at Apple’s M2 Pro iGPU

Integrated GPUs are often low-end affairs. Even when graphics performance matters, a combination of cost, die space, memory bandwidth, and power constraints prevent iGPUs’ performance from re…

chipsandcheese.com

It's the good stuff.

 

[Ajay]

Forgetting about Windows on ARM?

Nope. I would be going all in on the Apple ecosystem, for better or worse. MacOS is a really nice operating system - except for some dumb stuff that's hung around to make it idiot proof.

 

[FlameTail]

A Brief Look at Apple’s M2 Pro iGPU

Integrated GPUs are often low-end affairs. Even when graphics performance matters, a combination of cost, die space, memory bandwidth, and power constraints prevent iGPUs’ performance from re…

chipsandcheese.com

It's the good stuff.

Especially all that writeup about caches.

Imagine if Chips and Cheese had the budget of old Anandtech. That's his biggest problem. I found it bizarre this guy is testing the M2 Pro from an AWS Instance !?

 

[FlameTail]

https://x.com/Frederic_Orange/status/1719731629063602308?s=20

More die shot analysis of M3 chips

 

[FlameTail]

Hey. So I have been checking some Windows laptops in the class of the $1200 Macbook Air.

I have noted that the Intel and AMD chips in those have much higher multi-threaded performance. I guess it shouldn't be entirely surprising as the M2 has a 4+4 CPU, which isn't very strong in the multi threaded arena. Do you guys think this is problematic?

 

[Ajay]

Hey. So I have been checking some Windows laptops in the class of the $1200 Macbook Air.

I have noted that the Intel and AMD chips in those have much higher multi-threaded performance. I guess it shouldn't be entirely surprising as the M2 has a 4+4 CPU, which isn't very strong in the multi threaded arena. Do you guys think this is problematic?

Not for MacBook Air users. These aren't meant to be anything for heavy workloads anyway. PPL doing A/V editing, design and various other types of Pro apps, but need something they can take on the go will buy MacBook Pros. Heck, many ppl (and the companies buying them) just go straight up with Laptops these days for professionals users. Even more so since Covid.

 

[Doug S]

Yeah, I noticed that as well. Seems like it had to be a cost cutting measure - or, less likely, a supply issue. Too bad, it would maximize the benefit of these new SoCs, but Apple choose to shoot a bit lower - just as many of the large Win/x86 OEM do as well.

Eh, I think it is probably market segmentation. Apple made a pretty big cut to the price of the Pro version, so in order to justify the now larger gap between Pro and Max they wanted more of a performance gap between them. Also likely the reason why the Max got more CPU cores than the Pro this time around too.

 

[Ajay]

Eh, I think it is probably market segmentation. Apple made a pretty big cut to the price of the Pro version, so in order to justify the now larger gap between Pro and Max they wanted more of a performance gap between them. Also likely the reason why the Max got more CPU cores than the Pro this time around too.

Curious, I would have thought the Pro was the sweet spot for many. Well, Apple knows what's selling and what's not - no way for me to second guess them.

 

[Eug]

Curious, I would have thought the Pro was the sweet spot for many. Well, Apple knows what's selling and what's not - no way for me to second guess them.

According to Apple, the number 1 selling laptop in the world is the MacBook Air.

 

[Glo.]

Not for MacBook Air users. These aren't meant to be anything for heavy workloads anyway. PPL doing A/V editing, design and various other types of Pro apps, but need something they can take on the go will buy MacBook Pros. Heck, many ppl (and the companies buying them) just go straight up with Laptops these days for professionals users. Even more so since Covid.

I am here to assure you one thing.

You CAN genuinely edit, photos and Videos on even more thermally constrained iPad Pro with M2, let alone 13 and 15 inch MacBook Airs.

 

[Eug]

I am here to assure you one thing.

You CAN genuinely edit, photos and Videos on even more thermally constrained iPad Pro with M2, let alone 13 and 15 inch MacBook Airs.

My 2017 iPad Pro 10.5 (A10X) using LumaFusion is noticeably faster for some types of video editing and video scrubbing than the core i5 quad-core Intel iMacs of the same era using other video editors. And the M1 and M2 are way, way faster than my iPad Pro 10.5 for those same tasks. LumaFusion is heavily optimized for Apple's chips, which isn't surprising given its performance.

To look at it another way: The thermally constrained M2 MacBook Air generally has better video editing performance than the last Intel MacBook Pros. The Apple Silicon MacBook Pros have better screens, more ports, more memory etc. though.

 

[Glo.]

My 2017 iPad Pro 10.5 (A10X) using LumaFusion is noticeably faster for some types of video editing and video scrubbing than the core i5 quad-core Intel iMacs of the same era using other video editors. And the M1 and M2 are way, way faster than my iPad Pro 10.5 for those same tasks. LumaFusion is heavily optimized for Apple's chips, which isn't surprising given its performance.

To look at it another way: The thermally constrained M2 MacBook Air generally has better video editing performance than the last Intel MacBook Pros. The MacBook Pros have better screens and more ports, etc. though.

For youtubers, I know its a meme by now, MacBook Air, or even iPad Pro with M1/M2 are good starting point, for starting YT career, however stupid it may sound at first.

And that should be the most astonishing thing about Apple Sillicon.

 

[FlameTail]

Okay video editing aside, what about other workloads that leverage multi-core performance?

 

[poke01]

Blender now supports hardware Ray tracing in M3 Maca in v4.0.

4.0 is releasing next week.

Cycles: Apple M3 tuning including hardware raytracing

This PR adds tunings for the [newly announced](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctkW3V0Mh-k) M3 family of chips. In particular, MetalRT will be enabled as the automatic default for intersection testing on M3 and beyond to take advantage of hardware raytracing. This will result in significant path-...

projects.blender.org

 

[jeanlain]

True but the 7800X3D users could easily limit the TDP and still get higher multi-core performance in a mini-ITX form factor with up to 96GB RAM, for a lot less than they have to pay for an M3 Mac Mini or Studio. M3 doesn't look that appealing.

What an odd comparison. The M3 is designed to go in ultrabooks and iPads. That it also powers regular laptops and iMacs doesn't mean it's relevant to compare it with desktop gaming CPUs.
Also, I doubt the M3 will go into Mac Studios.

Finally, are we now comparing the price of whole systems (DIY vs. pre-built) to judge the merits of CPUs?

 

[Ajay]

I am here to assure you one thing.

You CAN genuinely edit, photos and Videos on even more thermally constrained iPad Pro with M2, let alone 13 and 15 inch MacBook Airs.

Okay. Only experience I’ve had with pro video editors was With Da Vinchy Resolve on 4K HDR footage. Seemed pretty heavy duty on a Ryzen 3900x system w/16GB of RAM. But this is not my field.