Apple earlier this month announced M1 Ultra, the next giant leap for Apple silicon and the Mac. Featuring UltraFusion — Apple’s innovative packaging architecture that interconnects the die of two M1 Max chips to create a system on a chip (SoC) with unprecedented levels of performance and capabilities — M1 Ultra delivers breathtaking computing power to the new Mac Studio while maintaining industry-leading performance per watt.
The new SoC consists of 114 billion transistors, the most ever in a personal computer chip. M1 Ultra can be configured with up to 128GB of high-bandwidth, low-latency unified memory that can be accessed by the 20-core CPU, 64-core GPU, and 32-core Neural Engine, providing astonishing performance for developers compiling code, artists working in huge 3D environments that were previously impossible to render, and video professionals who can transcode video to ProRes up to 5.6x faster than with a 28-core Intel-handicapped Mac Pro with Afterburner.
Daniel Howley for Yahoo Finance:
Apple’s new M1 Ultra processor hits the market Friday.
That’s good news for consumers and nerdy tech editors looking for new gaming rigs and high-end systems to run video and photo editing software. It’s also a huge accomplishment for Apple, which only started offering laptop and desktop chips in 2020.
It also means a huge cost savings for people who want a monster computer that can tackle the most intense tasks. In fact, Apple says a fully-loaded Mac Studio with an M1 Ultra priced at $7,999 can smack around a $25,599 Mac Pro with an Intel chip and AMD graphics card when it comes to video encoding.
“Apple is beating chip companies at their own game with the M1 series,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told Yahoo Finance.
Of course, what’s good for Apple is bad for its competitors. That’s because, according to experts, the M1 Ultra could ditch their Windows-based PCs in favor of Cupertino’s Macs.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple analyst Daniel Ives has floated the idea that Apple may eventually make the M1 Ultra available to other computer makers, giving consumers the ability to build their own M1 Ultra-based systems while putting Apple in direct competition with Intel, AMD, and Nvidia, but that is simply not how Apple works.
Unless Apple breaks dramatically with the company’s past practices, expect that the only way you’ll be able to get Apple Silicon will be in Apple Macs, iPads, iPhones, and other Apple-branded devices.
That crappy PC, tablet, or smartphone your not-so-bright neighbor bought at Walmart last week is dog-slow and frying-pan-hot next to the real Apple products they are failing so miserably to imitate.
The real problem for Intel, AMD, and Nvidia is that they’re in the process of being leapfrogged – and already have been obliterated in the performance per watt race – and that they have no real answer for Apple Silicon’s current and rapidly-distancing future dominance.
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Computational power per watt is so far apart that X86 and Apple Silicon aren’t functionally comparable. And that isn’t ever going to change unless X86 makers take it in another/outside the box direction.
Apple no doubt has leapfrogged chipmakers but what will Apple do with the computational power within their extremely vertically integrated product ecosystem? This is where the company direction and thinking ahead will be tested.
But in the desktop, where watts don’t matter (either does thinness for the same footprint) this will be easy for the desktop chips to outperform. I love it that Apple has embarrassed them into action.
I love that Apple’s competition were just holding back 🤣 until Apple “embarrassed them.” You said it…
Yes I did. Nor bound to fandom. Try it.
There’s a “fandom” for a reason. Don’t be excluded.
Screw that! I bought a gizmo, not joined a club.
You have a different definition for functionality. Your assessment is all about efficiency, which is only one facet of performance (not function). Power usage is down the list for many desktop users who aren’t racking up dozens of these at a time for their supercomputer farms. If you disagree, then by all means tell us exactly how much $ you spent powering your Mac in the last year.
In actual computing performance the Intel i9 goes head to head against Apple’s latest chips, and AMD has comparable options too. Both offer possibilities for RAM and GPU upgrades, while Apple is a sealed offering. And what about performance per $? The only way Apple will be able to compete on chip unit cost is if they get more aggressive on computer pricing and increase production volumes. The trend looks good but it’s too early to tell how committed Apple is to keeping desktops fresh. Purchase price, upgrade ability and native Windows software capabilities will keep most users on the PC side in the short term unless Apple finally has changed its ways.
If Apple continues to work on the Mac to keep prices competitive, hardware updated regularly, and MUCH more top tier native software available, then there’s no reason Apple couldn’t finally break out above a ~ 10% global market share. The M1 chip family, no matter how it performs, isn’t going to fix Apple’s long stagnated sales in desktop computers overnight. Apple nearly lost the entire desktop market with their stupid 6 year trashcan replacement delay. We can only hope Apple is realizing that it can’t devote all its energy to iOS walled garden stuff. It needs to be a realistic player in a full range of personal computers too.
Remember the famous automotive analogy? Some people need trucks. Actually, if you look at what most people choose to drive, regardless of actual need, power efficiency might be the last thing many consumers consider.
Let’s hope Apple delivers more Mac goodness in years to come. The prior decade was underwhelming to say the least, and it WAS NOT all because of limitations in chip efficiency. Apple is fixing its worst sins but it’s got a long way to go. Trashcans, sealed glued AIO boxes, outrageous RAM, terrible keyboards, thermal limitations, lack of appropriate ports, lack of premier software, high prices … Apple owes Mac users for the crap they’ve endured.
The next Mac Pro must be several times more powerful than Mac Studio, or it wouldn’t be worth doing. Imagine that… 😵💫
It really is going to be interesting to see what they come up with for the Mac Pro. They said the Ultra was “one last” version of the M1, so will it be a new M2 based chip or chips? Multiple M1 Ultras?
Daniel Howley: No clue who he is. First time I’ve seen any of his writing. It wasn’t highly technical, and then when he talked about Apple probably selling their chips to others? This guy just wasted 5 minutes of my life. Guy is clueless. Sorry, don’t mean to rag on a writer, but this is horrible how much he knows nothing about Apple. Zero, if he’s thinking Apple will sell it’s processors. Ugh…
Bobby: No clue who he is. First time I’ve seen any of his writing. It wasn’t highly technical, and he didn’t even talk about Apple? This guy just wasted 5 minutes of my life. Guy is clueless. Sorry, don’t mean to rag on a writer (while doing nothing but), but this is horrible how much he knows nothing about Apple. Zero, if he’s thinking Apple will sell it’s processors. Ugh…
Tat crappy Walmart PC is no slower than my MacBook Air since I loaded Monterey 12.2.1