Thursday, March 17th 2022
Apple's Graphics Performance Claims Proven Exaggerated by Mac Studio Reviews
Apple made some bold claims at the launch of its new Mac Studio computers when it came to the performance of the new systems and it looks like Apple was exaggerating those claims by quite some margin when it comes to the graphics performance. The first reviews of the new Mac Studio went live today and thanks to those reviews, despite the limited benchmarks that were performed on the new systems from Apple, that as so often Apple's performance metrics are still relying on the reality distortion field. Most of the publications that got their hands on the new systems focused on CPU benchmarks and there's no doubt the Ultra version of the M1 processor is a beast when used for things like video rendering and complex image manipulation, where it's butting heads with an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X.
However, Apple's 64-core GPU isn't quite what the company claimed. In the presentation footnotes Apple provided details on the "highest-end discrete GPU" that they compared to, which was an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090. If we were to be kind to Apple, we would say that the company was slightly off target here, but it's actually not even remotely close. Tom's Guide tested the M1 Ultra SoC in Sid Meier's Civilization 6 and got a whopping 38.85 FPS at 1440p, which is beaten soundly by a Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 with a GeForce RTX 3070 laptop GPU that scored 64.9 FPS at 4K. Likewise, The Verge decided to test the claims and had a system with an actual GeForce RTX 3090 in it and ran Shadow of the Tomb Raider and the PC managed 142 FPS at 1080p, with the M1 Ultra coming in quite far behind at 108 FPS. Moving up to 1440p the 3090 came in at 114 FPS, with the M1 still trailing behind, if not quite as badly at 96 FPS.
The issue here isn't the actual performance, as it's no doubt decent figures considering the max power draw of the Mac Studio is 370 W, far less than any PC with a GeForce RTX 3090 in it. However, Apple's inflated performance claims are getting old and tired and the company really needs to do better. It's highly unlikely that anyone will be buying a US$4999 Mac Studio to play games on, as that's what the base model with the 64-core GPU costs. As such, Apple should provide realistic benchmark comparisons, as overall the Mac Studio is an impressive piece of kit in its own right. Based on the first reviews, it's likely going to end up being used by a lot of creative companies that would normally use Macs for their workflow.
Sources:
Tom's Guide, The Verge
However, Apple's 64-core GPU isn't quite what the company claimed. In the presentation footnotes Apple provided details on the "highest-end discrete GPU" that they compared to, which was an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090. If we were to be kind to Apple, we would say that the company was slightly off target here, but it's actually not even remotely close. Tom's Guide tested the M1 Ultra SoC in Sid Meier's Civilization 6 and got a whopping 38.85 FPS at 1440p, which is beaten soundly by a Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 with a GeForce RTX 3070 laptop GPU that scored 64.9 FPS at 4K. Likewise, The Verge decided to test the claims and had a system with an actual GeForce RTX 3090 in it and ran Shadow of the Tomb Raider and the PC managed 142 FPS at 1080p, with the M1 Ultra coming in quite far behind at 108 FPS. Moving up to 1440p the 3090 came in at 114 FPS, with the M1 still trailing behind, if not quite as badly at 96 FPS.
151 Comments on Apple's Graphics Performance Claims Proven Exaggerated by Mac Studio Reviews
No. No. No. No. ...........
Still, comparing performance to a 3090 was definitely a mistake on their part. Sure, some people are using 3090’s for “studio” work, and maybe they’re conceding that the Mac Pro is better for studios/m1 isn’t ready to take on the “Pro” or their own afterburner cards, and that the Mac Studio is geared towards entry-level professional work, but certainly no actual studios are using consumer GPUs for professional work… pretty lazy on their part.
Edit: but also lazy on TPU’s part? Why even bother comparing gaming performance if you’re not talking about mobile games?
Edit 2: looking for the 3090 asterisk on the Studio’s page, but can’t find it in the main ad. I hate scrolling frames on the web. There’s a way to enhance UX and be subtle about but this is not that. I’d search the source but I’m on mobile and can’t be bothered :oops:
Did you even bother reading my post? The Mac Studio performs well, the question I asked why Apple felt like they had to lie about the 3D performance to make themself look better somehow, when even the most basic tests are showing it to be far from the truth. It was unnecessary, as the M1 is a very decent chip for what it is and Apple has put together a decent system, which makes their made up performance numbers even more stupid.
www.techpowerup.com/review/msi-geforce-rtx-3080-suprim-x-12-gb/26.html
NOt hyperbole one or two data points beyond sense
TBF, this is marketed as a workstation and, as impressive as the silicon is, I’m not sure it’s that, either? Maybe a managed appliance?I did — did you read Apple’s PR? The comparison to a 3090 was vague and didn’t point to a specific benchmark outside of “performance.” The Tom’s article is garbage, and the The Verge article references an older Mac Pro without the updated CPU and GPU (I’m sure I could Google specs but why?)…. Maybe you have more insight into this and I’m just misreading!
IDK what this product is, but it’s certainly not a gaming PC, and I haven’t been sure what a computer is for more than a decade.
Did Apple's slave reviewer tested anything like H.265/AV1/XAVC/RAW-Video beside ProRes???
Even after these benchmarks show they exaggerated, the vast majority of people out there, yesterday, today, tomorrow, in a month or even a year from now, they will still think that Apple's GPU in M1 Ultra beats the 3090. Most of those are not the target group for Mac Studio, they wouldn't even think of buying something like that, but they are the target group for Apple in general, so they have to "know" that Apple is the best in everything and anything.
You know how it is with corporate claims. Subtract 25% to be in the general vicinity of truth. 50% to be sure.
The gaming performance on show here is, as expected, rather underwhelming. Given that Apple doesn't give a single crap about gaming, that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. The problem is that beyond whatever "industry standard benchmarks" means, Apple isn't actually saying what "GPU performance" means to them, which makes the claims inherently impossible to test.
I still think it's likely there are real-world usage scenarios where Apple's claims are mostly true - but I also think those are quite selective and limited to certain pro-level productity apps, and likely ones that are either Mac exclusive or highly Mac optimized. In general, I expect performance to be good, but nothing spectacular, while efficiency is likely a cut above the rest.
Also, not that it matters much, but it's pretty impressive that the M1 Max in the MBP is barely slower than the one in their 400W PSU SFF desktop. Speaks to the efficiency of the chip, if nothing else - though also the lack of frequency scaling past the sweet spot it's clearly tuned to.
As with everything: horses for courses. And as with all marketing: critical reading is paramount, but so is careful reading to not get into silly fights about whether or not someone lied. And unless they're also lagging significantly in GPGPU benchmarks, there might still be a (selective, as with all marketing) truth to be found somewhere in that statement.
I can use and play whatever i want with Windows, Linux and BSD.
They have just expensive products with positives and negatives points, just like everything else.
So apple convinced their fan base ?
www.apple.com/sg/newsroom/2022/03/apple-unveils-m1-ultra-the-worlds-most-powerful-chip-for-a-personal-computer/
Ultimately though, it is Apple's fault for setting incorrect expectations. Nothing is stopping them from providing a reviewer's guide with the benchmarks for people to independently explain and verify. They didn't. That's not good. Clearly Apple is doing some bad marketing here. But it is also not true that somehow it isn't in the RTX 3080's ballpark.
Apple's original slides were against a TDP limited RTX 3090 (300W or so) and a TDP limited 12900K (160W or so). In that context it might be fairly accurate with properly written software. It is up to Apple to build a gaming console or through some other means get properly written software on the Mac.