Pier
kiffaudio.com
So why are you looking for a new machine?
M1 Ultra vs M2 Max
- Thread starter Yamaoka86
- Start date
- Watchers 33
jbuhler
Senior Member
With a recent update, the university has now installed all sorts of intrusive software on the 2020 i9 iMac I primarily use for music and video production so I’m now looking to buy a new machine sooner rather than later. The iMac has 128GB and I’d say I’m routinely using between 70 and 100 GBs for my sessions. I know the Silicon machines use virtual memory much more efficiently, but I am curious about how much RAM is likely needed to have similar performance, 64GB, 96GB or 128GB, and also what size internal drive to look at. I know I need at least 1TB. I’m also looking for a desktop machine, so likely one of the studios with whatever chip set.
Pros and cons of various configurations? I have been following these discussions but not carefully until now because I thought I still had some years to go with the i9, which would in fact be a perfectly serviceable machine it it wasn’t for the required university software. So pointing me to some particularly good threads (there are a lot) would also be much appreciated.
Pros and cons of various configurations? I have been following these discussions but not carefully until now because I thought I still had some years to go with the i9, which would in fact be a perfectly serviceable machine it it wasn’t for the required university software. So pointing me to some particularly good threads (there are a lot) would also be much appreciated.
iMovieShout
(aka jpb007.uk) I have a dream 🎬
So whilst its a great machine, it is a Windows machine which is plagued by the usual Windows updates, driver compatibility issues etc etc. When Windows is behaving its great, but when it isn't... then I have to fall back on my mobile rig, which can be for weeks sometimes.
Before the workstation I was using a 2012MacPro and a whole bunch of VEPro servers, which was fine, but I was beating my head against the RAM limitations and often spending time waiting for the servers to come back online from their frequent maintenance update (Windows again!!).
So, to round up - the M2Ultra appears to offer a way back to the quiet straightforward life of actually spending more time being productive, creating and keeping clients happy. From my experience, Apple = the good life, Windows = great performance but....
HCMarkus
TL;DR
Due to the inability to add RAM to Apple Silicon ("AS") Macs, I'd say allocate your $$$ towards RAM and skimp on storage if money is an issue. External storage is easily added, is a lot less costly than Apple's onboard SSDs, and can get you very close to the same level of performance, surely to the point access speed is not an issue in audio production.
If you are happy with the i9 performance, take a look at Geekbench scores for that machine vs AS machines. Depending on your workflow, the single-core performance is likely to be the only limit and, as you'll note, the single core CPU scores for all the AS machines is similar (M1 to M1, M2 to M2), and considerably higher than that of the Intel predecessors. The AS multi-core scores soar from there.
I have an M1 Ultra and have yet to get close to hitting the CPU limit although I have managed to tax a single core on occasion.
Pier
kiffaudio.com
TB 3/4 has a bandwidth of 40Gbps but in practice it can only reach about 23Gbps of data transfer. This is because 8Gbps is reserved for video and then there's some overhead of the TB protocol.
More info here.
In my M2 MBP I get about 5.7 Gigabytes per second of read speed which is about 45Gbps (gigabits per second). So it's about double the max data transfer speed on TB.
Don't get me wrong. 23Gbps is fast and is plenty for loading samples and audio tracks. But it's not even close to internal speeds.
I’d be curious if Cubase is taking full advantage of the efficiency cores (like Reaper). Would you mind checking and reporting if core usage on a demanding project as the guy in the video I posted did (around 9:25 mark)?
It looks like when using Logic, comparing the M1U to the M2M is like comparing a 16c to an 8c computer, whereas when using Reaper it is like a 20c vs 12c comparison (of course bearing in mind that the efficiency cores are a bit slower). But generally, I deduce that in a DAW like Reaper the multi-core performance of a M2M should be a bit closer to the M1U than in a DAW like Logic. No ideas about Cubase until someone checks this.
HCMarkus
TL;DR
Yeah, but...
Remember what we're doing with Audio, too, especially VI Sample data... lots of little bitty random reads, and I haven't seen people talking about 4k Read speeds for the internal Apple SSDs.
I'll throw in the obligatory reminder:
Don't RAID VI Sample data drives. The speed you lose may be your own.
OP
OP
Yamaoka86
Member
I would love to test both ultras side by side. The problem is I have to return the M1U in the next 9 days and have to wait about five weeks for the M2U BTO (could save 600€ buying from a dealer instead of the Apple Store).
Therefore I have to wait five weeks. Because of that I would go straight to the M2U/128/2TB instead of testing smaller units like the M2M.
I could use a test project for the M1U and later run the same project on the M2U for test purposes.
Pier
kiffaudio.com
Totally understandable. Whatever test you can run is valuable. We generally need more music/audio-focused testing and comparing of the higher end Apple Silicon Macs as most of what can be found online is about video/graphics and stuff utilizing GPU. The music/audio tests are mostly just about rendering times or track count of identical tracks. You could not know beforehand if the M1 cores are fast enough to allow you to do something specific like fast staccato ostinatos at 32ms buffer size, because no comparable tests are available. You even don't know yet if the M2 cores allow that. And we don't know things like how big a project can be until the M2M runs out of cores and how much bigger it can be with the M1U or M2U. I think all of these types of tests we need to source from a forum like this where many audio-power-users are active and can push these systems in ways that matter to us.
Looks good, thanks for checking!
iMovieShout
(aka jpb007.uk) I have a dream 🎬
Really useful, thanks. Well, thats the M2Ultra Studio option out of the window and I'll wait and see what the M3Ultra MacPro brings as internal speeds definately win the day. With my current PC workstation and 18TB internal NVMe drives I'm getting around 3.5 to 4GB/sec read bandwidth average (not bad for an old beast). So if I were to upgrade it would have to be to a MacPro or maybe (just maybe) the newer SuperMicro dual-CPU motherboard with PCIE Gen5, though the CPUs are still insanely $$$$expensive
Pier
kiffaudio.com
Yeah. I felt a little bamboozled recently when I learned that real data transfer speeds of TB4 are actually close to half the advertised 40Gbps.
Nothing will ever beat PCIe but 23Gbps is plenty unless you're working with 8K/12K video files. And it's quite amazing to have that sort of speed in a laptop using an external port with power and video data.
Logic seems to use the efficiency cores more than the others. This isn't a big project with billions of tracks going, but you get the idea:
HCMarkus
TL;DR
Curious as to your workflow. Is SSD speed is more important than CPU horsepower?
Perhaps video is your priority, in which case I should be clued in by your name...
Hmm interesting. Not sure why it was different for James Zhan in his test.
Vik
Vi-k
TR909sample
Senior Member
Great, that’s the tests we actually need to see. Just people using their new machines for composing music.
Looks like you are using roughly around 1/3 to 1/2 of your system’s CPU power. Are you actually running 90 instrument tracks (Kontakt etc) directly on the system without VEP server or is there a fair chunk of audio tracks too? Looks like you are using an M2 Max (given the 4e-cores and 8c-cores)?
