Macbook M1 vs Intel Desktop

[hitherepeople]

I don't do video at all, so a stock CPU graphics is most likely ok. Porn and DAW's, and email. That's about it

[Passing Bye]

I assume that a Ryzen 9 5950X system with 16GB RAM costs the same as a Macbook Pro 13 inch with 8GB RAM?

AMD Ryzen 9 5950X CPU, if you can find one, cost over 800 bucks alone (1K if you really want to build something today), that's how much M1 Mini cost, than you need to shell out for really great cooler and PSU, good mobo (200+ bucks), decent GPU and all that.

In single core performance the difference is apparently not that big but in multi core performance the Ryzen is significantly better.

Because they aren't really comparable, Ryzen 5 3600 actually is or Intel i5-11400, upcoming M1X is what will challenge 5950X, M1 is entry level chip.

But... now of course comes the other point: mobility You can take the Macbook with you on stage or work with it on the road. At the same time, it should be very quiet since the M1 has very low power consumption (the AMD is probably around 100 watts).

This is deciding factor, do you want laptop or desktop machine and how much power do you really need and how much money are you willing to invest.

With the Macbook you won't be able to edit videos in 4K in real time (e.g. with Davinci Resolve), but with the AMD and a good GPU you can.

That's not true actually, there's full You Tube of those kind of videos, actually most videos about M1 are coming from guys editing videos on them, go check them out, it's great for editing 4K videos real time.

[BONES]

With which Intel CPU can you compare the more recent M1 Macbooks (13 inch)? I haven't heard of DAW Benchmark for a long time, I don't know if there are any more recent tests there?

It depends what you are doing with it but for all-round performance, the M1 is probably on a similar level to a mobile Core i7. This article has a good comparison between Apple, AMD and Intel CPUs -
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3600897 ... tml?page=2

It shows that the M1 is better than Intel's 10th Gen CPUs but not so when it comes to Intel's current 11th Gen processors. But you'll notice that AMD's performance chips smoke both Intel and Apple so if your reason for considering Apple is performance, you'd be better off with a Ryzen-based PC. And if it's a desktop you are considering, then Intel's desktop CPUs will also offer better performance than an M1 powered laptop.

The value proposition for PCs dropped when M1 got released. You'll now be overpaying for a PC than if you went with the cheapest Mac mini.

No way. I just did a price comparison and for the price of a Mac Mini with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, I can get an HP desktop with Core i9, which will easily outperform an M1. Walk into a big box store and you'll likely get it 20% cheaper than HP's own price. Build your own, or get a local computer vendor to do it for you, and you'll get the same for half the price.

Very interesting. There I expect a very high performance for audio production with the M1 Macbook. The laptop should be head and shoulders above my desktop machine with the i7-3770.

Any new computer will be 5 x faster than that system! I just got myself a 10th Gen Core i7 laptop and I reckon it's at least 3 x faster than the 6th Gen processor in my old one, which is probably twice as fast as your 3rd gen CPU. And Intel's 11th gen CPUs are significantly faster than my new one. So you could expect at least a 7-fold increase in performance if you went to an 11th Gen Core i7, I reckon.

I don't mind shelling for the Ryzen at all. I just can't seem to get good real-world performance value vs. what I have. I'm well aware that it's technically far superior. But how many instances of Oberhausen can I run realistically w/o my CPU meter spiking?

I just did a test - looping pattern of 8th notes, using a brass patch with 4 note polyphony (no unison) -and I got 7 instances running before it started to glitch. And that's just a 10th Gen i7 U series, nothing spectacular. With a current model Ryzen you might double that.

[hitherepeople]

10th generation? What's the model number?

[fedexnman]

I plan on building if I can get my hands on the AMD 5600g that comes out in August . It's basically the 5600 cpu but with vega6 graphics too . So no need for graphics card . I'll be coming from an i7 920 with 6gb ram and an old Nvidia 9800 card . Pretty old .

[chk071]

I'd get a desktop PC. For the same price, you get a lot more performance for your money. But, if mobility is an argument, then you probably should go with the M1 Macbook.

If you want to go with that OS, and plugins which aren't M1 native yet.

[hitherepeople]

I plan on building if I can get my hands on the AMD 5600g that comes out in August . It's basically the 5600 cpu but with vega6 graphics too . So no need for graphics card . I'll be coming from an i7 920 with 6gb ram and an old Nvidia 9800 card . Pretty old .

But I'll bet it's still a decent computer. I7's truly changed the computer landscape!

I still have my very old 860 with 8GB of ram, and still can squeeze it if this one goes down for any reason.

[4damind]

That's not true actually, there's full You Tube of those kind of videos, actually most videos about M1 are coming from guys editing videos on them, go check them out, it's great for editing 4K videos real time.

Yes, I just saw a video right now on YouTube where someone compared it with the Mini M1 and Macbook Pro M1. Only with the noise reduction effect its difficult. Otherwise, even with 8K and multiple nodes no problem. So I can't do that with my computer... it already goes down to 10 frames when I only have fade effects.... Quite amazing and that for a Mac Mini for just 800€... hmmm!

[Scotty]

[quote="Passing Bye" post_id=8169587 time=1627234857 user_id=340863

Care to share any further info and benchmarks to back up those claims, mainstream benchmarks shows that M1 outperforms it in single core performance and they aren't comparable in multi core obviously, but seems like whole Apple Silicon architecture is better deal for audio, already provided testing done by Blue Cat's developer and seem like Urs from U He did some great stuff too.

I'm interested in Ryzen 5 5600X mostly, do you have any info how it stacks up to 5950X, seems like single core performance is similar and of course 5950X have more cores and have more juice, but as both are same series Zen 3, is it pretty much the same deal for low latency audio? I think yes, but want to confirm.
[/quote]

Not sure where you are seeing m1 beating the 5950x in single core. This page is one summary which shows the m1 losing out on single core (in non audio related tasks) in Cinebench r23 Geekbench is the one that most often is quoted on Quora and Reddit. But the m1 isn't dominant in cinebench r23 . Geekbench favours faster memory and the m1 is insanely fast there. It held a 5% advantage on that test but lost in r23 . https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_c ... 5950x-1749 Even with that 8gigs of memory is another bottle neck even if it functions as if it had more capacity than it does which seems to be how people are experiencing it. If you do heavy workloads which require large sample libraries 16 gigs may not be enough. Media composers with orchestral rigs would be too constrained 16 gigs of ram. Here my biggest projects are about 22gigs of ram and that is big by my standards. I hate large projects like these. Not enough brain power to manage it.

The 5950x clearly eviscerated the M1 in multicore as you would expect. There are limits to assessing the performance based on one test. More data is needed but it isn't a slam dunk for the m1 in single core.


Again I am not religious abut this... the m1 is an incredible processor. I strongly suspect that a 16 core m1 would be very competitive with Ryzen 5900 series. ARM based is the future. The budget , mobility, the amount of ram you need, expandability are all factors that determine workflow and fit at least as I see it.

Regarding M1 being a "better deal" that depends. You have to understand that your workflow may not be my workflow. Have you seen media composers who do orchestral work?They load templates with 1000s of tracks all preloaded with sample libraries with each articulation pre loaded so that there is little keyswitching needed. That is on the extreme but there are users who need that kind of performance or they wind up running satellite machines which increases the complexity. My use case I do videos with public domain old footage and I have restore those videos and I use AI based software. So I have mixed used scenarios. Audio first , video second. I use light orchestral backing in my music and lots of layering and I record at 32 sample latency off the floor to record live bands (pre covid) .

I would have to replicate every single post I have seen by pictus to give any more useful information and at that point I am just a faker and you deserve better than me. Best ask Pictus to weigh in on this. I followed him wherever he popped across the internet and heeded his advice including specific part selection, memory tuning recommendations etc.

[BONES]

10th generation? What's the model number?

10510U. Very common for last year's higher end PC laptops and still sold in current models, too.

Care to share any further info and benchmarks to back up those claims, mainstream benchmarks shows that M1 outperforms it in single core performance and they aren't comparable in multi core obviously, but seems like whole Apple Silicon architecture is better deal for audio, already provided testing done by Blue Cat's developer and seem like Urs from U He did some great stuff too.

If you are only doing audio, you don't need all that performance. Just look at what these guys are using now. But if you want a well-balanced system you can use for a variety of tasks, an Intel or AMD system is going to be a better option at this point.

[4damind]

It shows that the M1 is better than Intel's 10th Gen CPUs but not so when it comes to Intel's current 11th Gen processors. But you'll notice that AMD's performance chips smoke both Intel and Apple so if your reason for considering Apple is performance, you'd be better off with a Ryzen-based PC. And if it's a desktop you are considering, then Intel's desktop CPUs will also offer better performance than an M1 powered laptop.

Yes, that is certainly true. Dell's G7 laptops could not do that much worse in terms of overall performance. The price is similar to a Macbook Pro, but with more memory and a larger screen...

Is the 5700G. more performant than the M1? It would be very interesting in terms of price (I assume it will cost around 300€?) and you save the extra GPU. If you add it all up, you'll probably get under 1000€ for a quite performant machine (not speaking about TPM and all this needed stuff for Win11).

[chk071]

not speaking about TPM and all this needed stuff for Win11

Don't worry. That stuff is bog standard for any current computer you buy.

[Passing Bye]

I plan on building if I can get my hands on the AMD 5600g that comes out in August . It's basically the 5600 cpu but with vega6 graphics too . So no need for graphics card . I'll be coming from an i7 920 with 6gb ram and an old Nvidia 9800 card . Pretty old .

I was thinking about that, but this video pretty much nudged me back to 5600X and fact I got GPU laying around.

https://youtu.be/ReN06Kw4y4I

[Passing Bye]

Not sure where you are seeing m1 beating the 5950x in single core.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AM ... 3862vs4104

Do you know anything about whole 5600X vs 5900x vs 5950X deal, can one expect same low latency performance? There was some low latency bottleneck on Zen 2, is this solved for all Zen 3's, seems like people that report things all got 5950X, it's bloody overkill for me, 5600X is actually amazing if it shares same low latency performance.

[fedexnman]

Yeah if you got a good GPU card I'd go for the 5600x . I may go all out will see .