Comparing PC Parts to Apple’s M3 - Part 1
Summary
TLDRThe video compares the performance of Apple silicon to AMD and Intel CPUs in desktop PCs. They tested using native benchmarks on both Mac and Windows to isolate the CPU performance. Apple chips performed very well in single and multi-threaded tests, often surpassing the AMD Ryzen 5000 series. They matched Apple SoCs to AMD CPUs based on the test results, but noted that gaming performance depends heavily on the GPU so the matches are not definitive. One surprising result was that the Apple silicon performed extremely well in tasks like audio/video encoding, suggesting custom optimization by Apple.
Takeaways
- 😲 For the first time, they are comparing Apple silicon to PC parts for gaming using native tests
- 😎 They are starting by finding closest desktop CPUs to Apple M series chips using 7 different tests
- 🤔 Picking desktop AMD AM4 chips means limited single core performance match to Apple
- 👍 Tests included Cinebench, Blender, encoding, compression, photo processing
- 😕 Apple chips much faster at encode/decode likely due to specialization for media
- 😊 AMD Ryzen 5000 series a decent match to M2 and M3 chip performance
- ⚖️ Had to balance single vs multi core scores to find best matches
- 🤨 Even best matches not exact due to not knowing gaming bottlenecks yet
- 🙂 M2 Ultra matched to Ryzen 7 5800X3D, M2 Max/Pro to 5800X due to strength
- 😮 One tester was so impressed he bought a MacBook Air to use daily
Q & A
What is the main goal of the video?
-The main goal is to compare Apple silicon chips (M-series) to AMD and Intel desktop CPUs in terms of performance, in order to find the closest matches.
Why was it previously difficult to compare Apple and PC processors?
-Because Macs and PCs used different architectures and there were no games that could run natively on both, so direct performance comparisons were not possible.
What changed that enabled the comparison?
-A growing number of games now support Apple's Metal graphics API, allowing them to run natively on Apple silicon without any translation layer.
What are some of the tests used for benchmarking?
-Tests used include Cinebench, x264 encoding, Blender rendering, LibRaw photo processing, and others that can run natively on both Apple and AMD/Intel processors.
Which CPUs were chosen to compare to Apple's chips?
-For Apple's high-end chips like M2 Ultra, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D was chosen. Mid-range M2 and M3 chips were compared to Ryzen 7 5800X. Lower end Apple chips were matched with Ryzen 5 5600G.
How did the Apple chips compare in single-core tests?
-The Apple chips strongly outperformed the AMD/Intel chips in single-core tests like video encoding and compression.
How did they compare in multi-core tests?
-In multi-core tests like Cinebench and rendering, the performance gap was much smaller between Apple and AMD chips.
What was the main challenge in finding comparable chips?
-Apple's chips excel at single-core performance, but most multi-core PC benchmarks favor chips with more cores. Finding the right balance was difficult.
Did the testing change anyone's perceptions?
-Yes, one of the testers ended up buying a MacBook Air after being impressed by the efficiency and performance of Apple silicon.
What is the next step after matching the CPUs?
-The next step will be to test graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD to see how they compare to Apple's graphics hardware.
Outlines
😄 Introducing the Apple Silicon vs PC Hardware Comparison Project
The paragraph introduces the speaker's long-standing desire to compare Apple silicon to PC parts for gaming. With more games now supporting Apple silicon natively, the speaker is teaming up with LMG Labs to finally compare Apple chips to Nvidia and AMD GPUs. As a first step, they need to figure out which PC CPUs compare to Apple's M-series chips by testing them with a common benchmark suite.
🤔 Selecting Comparable CPU Tests Across Platforms
The paragraph discusses the process and challenges of selecting compatible CPU tests across Mac and Windows platforms. The goal was to find native tests isolating the CPU that avoid translation layers. After considering various options, the team settled on 7 tests: Cinebench, FLAC encoding, XZ/LZ4 compression, Blender rendering, C-Ray ray tracing, LibRAW photo processing, and Prime95.
😊 Reflections on the Enlightening Testing Process
The paragraph provides perspective from the LMG test developer on conducting the cross-platform testing. He describes it as an illuminating process, like piecing together a puzzle without knowing the final picture. As more results came in, the relative performance between platforms became clearer.
🧩 Reviewing the Multi-Core CPU Benchmark Results
The paragraph examines the multi-core results across the CPU tests. Observations are provided on how the performance of AMD Ryzen chips compares to Apple silicon in different tests. The extreme results in some tests like LibRAW are noted, requiring them to be weighted less in the final CPU matching.
💡 Best Guess CPU Matches Between AMD and Apple
The paragraph announces the CPU matches between AMD and Apple silicon that will be used for GPU testing. Since gaming bottlenecks are still unknown, these are best guesses using the test data. The choices provide a range of AMD chips to compare against the spectrum of M-series processors.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Apple Silicon
💡PC Components
💡Native Support
💡Test Bench
💡Cinebench
💡Blender
💡AMD Ryzen 5000
💡Matching
💡Gaming Performance
💡Bottleneck
Highlights
Finally able to compare Apple silicon to PC graphics cards and CPUs using native Mac games
Building custom PC test benches with CPUs that closely match Apple M-series chips
Using 7 computational benchmark tests that run natively on both Mac and PC
Apple silicon has much higher single-core performance compared to AMD Ryzen CPUs
Tests like FLAC encoding and LibRaw photo processing favor Apple silicon in ways unrelated to gaming
Chose AMD Ryzen 5000 series CPUs as closest matches to Apple M1 through M2 Ultra
5800X3D paired with M2 Ultra due to gaming-focused 3D cache
Impossible to perfectly match Apple and AMD CPUs due to architectural differences
Next phase is comparing GPUs head-to-head using the matched CPU test benches
Apple silicon has impressive efficiency and single-core speed
Picking benchmark tests that run natively on both systems is challenging
Matching CPUs reveals gaps in AMD's product stack versus Apple's range
Matching is best guess until measuring gaming bottleneck with GPUs installed
Daily driving a MacBook Air after being impressed by Apple silicon performance
Next phase compares GPUs head-to-head using the matched CPU test benches
Transcripts
[Music]
I've always had a problem comparing
Apple silicon to PC parts because gaming
wasn't ready I've always wanted to know
how Apple silicon compares to
off-the-shelf PC gpus and CPUs and
that's not something we've been able to
test because Macs and PCs now use
completely different architectures and
there were no games that ran natively on
both but that's changed check this out I
am playing Boulders Gate 3 one of the
hottest video games right now on a Mac
and it's running natively on Apple
silicon there's now a growing list of
games that support both Apple's Graphics
hardware and Metal Graphics apis without
any sort of translation layer so with
the help of lmg labs we're going to
finally compare Apple chips with PC
graphics cards and see what gpus from
Nvidia and AMD compete with Apple's M
series though not in this video that's
part two because in part one we need to
build the test benches that the gpus
will be on and those test benches have
CPUs so we're going to figure out what
CPUs are the closest to Apple silicon
and I need to ask Labs if they'll help
me what did I think oh my god well it's
going to be interesting it's going to be
a learning experience we haven't tested
Max really all that much so this is
going to be the first time Labs really
tackles Max Nicholas hey this is
Nicholas Harris he's LTT lab software
developer part of his job has been
developing and automating the tests for
PCs and all their parts here the first
step is figuring out the tests and so
Nicholas worked with test technician
John Duran to figure out how to measure
these two completely different computers
our primary goal was to find tests that
can natively work on either system to
avoid the Rosetta layer because that's
that's another variable that we want to
isolate for but we also by isolating for
the CPU that also limits us because we
do have tests that test the whole system
but we're not looking to test the memory
and the SSD and and the graphics card
yet but our current test suite for mark
bench is very Windows focused so there
wasn't really anything we could just
reuse from that there is a test
framework out there called fonics which
has been there out there for a long time
so we tried to find some that did
compression stuff that did maybe some
encoding things that were just pure
computational they came up with seven
tests and we'll get to them and their
results but first there's a problem
which I'll tell you about after award
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purchase okay so I have to confess
something I had this idea fantasy really
that Labs would test a bunch of Macs and
then compare it to a matrix of CPU data
that would show us what desktop and
laptop CPUs perfectly match their M
series counterparts but we have to use
new tests so we're starting from scratch
while we would have loved to investigate
every CPU it is wholly unreasonable to
get labs to test them all for instance
here in logistics there are about 150
different CP available to test and that
doesn't even include the laptop CPUs and
all the shapes and sizes they're cooled
in either so we have to make trade-offs
and this is about graphics cards and so
that's why we're only including desktop
components if you're after gaming
performance uh the question then becomes
like okay cool we have three contenders
right we have apple Intel and AMD Intel
changes their socket all the time but
AMD you can go back three generations on
am4 on the same platform and so it's why
we're going to be sticking with am4
chips in our conclusion though we did
run the tests on a few Intel chips
earlier in this
project all right so let's go through
the tests and the results the first we
did is of course cine bench it's widely
used in the tech media space and they
just came out with an update for it
though we did our 23 it includes both a
multi-core and single core score we
chose cine bench because it kind of
chooses itself as it's the prolific
go-to processor Benchmark and it's
really good that it supports apple
natively as well as as Windows looking
at the single core results you can see
how the newest chips rise to the top but
once all the cores get involved you can
see just how the 24 and the M2 Ultra
push it to the top sticking with single
core tests lab did a flack encode test
where they encoded a bunch of copies of
a 9-in nail song from wave to Flack we
actually struggled to find single core
tests because most most tests are all
about loading the CPU and trying to you
know how fast you compute this thing in
this test and another you'll see apple
silicon is so far ahead of the other
chips and they're all grouped together
that's why we're going to be weighing
this test less when we figure out our
matches the last single core tests are
the XZ and lz4 compression test with
both compressing an iunu image we
actually tried like four different
compression algorithms or compression
tests but not all of them worked
sometimes they worked on one but not the
other even though they're advertised for
platform so we did find that XZ and lz4
we were able to compile for for both
natively lz4 single core shakes have
slightly differently from cinam bench
with most of the ryzen 5000 is closer to
the M3 generation but it appears that
with the XZ compression test ryzen has a
bit more strength than it does in cine
bench what was it like to do all the
testing Illuminating testing is pretty
straightforward once you identify the
tests and you come up with your test
Suite the execution it's just while you
do your testing and as now as results
come in it's like putting your your
puzzle together right as the pieces
slowly fit in more you you get more of
the picture however the difference is
you're completing a puzzle that doesn't
you don't know what the end picture is
so it's interesting that way to kind of
see see the story reveal itself to you
all right so how about the puzzle pieces
that tested multiple CPU cores blender
is a popular 3D modeling program and in
it Labs rendered the barbershop scene we
might need to find a new scene as it can
render fairly quickly it's a popular
scene used to to Benchmark rendering
performance in blender in blender the
mid-range amds provide a transition
between the M2 and M3s the 5600 xng are
surprisingly weaker here another render
type test that I'd never heard of is Cay
it's a simple Ray Tracer that outputs
this '90s looking image Cay gives us
another uh render type of test but
mostly we chose it cuz it works on both
so depth we got for some of these but
it's a very simple efficient load to uh
multicore AMD is relatively weaker in
this test with the 3600 sitting between
the m1's and their different cooling the
next test Labs did is lib raw which
tests how well CPUs handle raw
photographs lib raw is also nice that it
has a built-in post-processing Benchmark
which we run 30 times on the test image
that comes with fronix and then it spits
out like a a megapixels per second Libra
is the other test we're going to have to
weigh less because of Apple silicon's
apparent Supremacy it does feel like the
Macs are especially tailored to
calculate audio and visual codecs lastly
if you're into numbers there's Prim siiv
we chose it because y cruncher doesn't
work natively on Mac because we do favor
y cruncher it's a very popular
benchmarking one but uh we found Prim
Prim prime prime CV Prime C it
calculates prime numbers up to a certain
length so we can considered that it was
kind of a it's our standin for y
cruncher and that it's something
computational uh generating number over
over a long period it's multicore as
well we learned a lot by doing this and
that is that this is hard for one
picking am4 means that we've got an
array of chips that don't quite fit with
single core performance as that's where
Apple silicon shines and these are old
but then with am5 there aren't any
low-end chips to compare with the
lower-end Mac chips either single core
is more important for gaming so we
weighed higher but we weighted Flack and
Libra less because they favor Apple
silicon egregiously in a way that's not
related to gaming all right our picks
these choices for CPUs are still even a
best guess because we don't know what's
the bottleneck CPU wise once the gpus
are installed and running games so these
are not exact matches I really was in
fantasy land thinking this was possible
but we've learned a lot we're going to
use the AMD 5800 x3d as a control and to
match the M2 Ultra because its 3D cache
really helps in gaming and the M2 Ultra
screamed well ahead in every test we
threw at it the M2 Pro and Max as well
as the M3 Pro chips will be matched
against the 5800 X the 5700x were
pitting alongside the basic M3 and the
basic M2 and M1 chips are matched
against a 5600 G I'm feeling as well as
I could the only way to feel better is
just you're never done testing you could
always test more right there's no like
oh well I guess I'm done and then walk
away with you know I solve you know
everything and that I guess is the
biggest lesson on this journey and it's
that we're always learning but now that
we have our CPUs figured out the next
step will be to test the gpus have
Nvidia and AMD met their match we're
going to have to see where they line up
but things are looking good in their own
little way personally I wasn't expecting
the Mac the apples to be as strong as
they they were I knew they were super
efficient so this is my first like
really EXP experience um now during this
project I started daily driving the
15-in MacBook Air and I loved it the
fact that I could close it neglect it
for 3 days and it still had power um I
mean I ended up buying one what you
bought a Mac from this project I mean I
did immediately sticker bomb it how dare
you but that's fine thanks for testing
this Mac address Labs uh if you want to
check out another video we did check out
the iPad tier list video and I'm curious
in the comments below who of you are
like Nicholas and bought a Mac for
gaming
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