It wouldn’t make sense if it would compete with pro/max cpu’s.
It would be similar like having RTX3060 beating RTX2080. M2 is just base.
That said, it’s also kinda disappointing. The gap in gpu performance between M# and even entry level RTX is massive and cannot be overlooked. It seems like apple is just very slowly entering the area of gaming and 3D graphics in general. The situation is also bad cause a lot of software simply relies on Nvidias powerful gpus and technology(cuda, rtx).
I wish that apple would push harder, but it is very likely a monumental task to take on nvidia. Since nvidia in pro industry doesn’t even have a competition with amd just now catching up and even that doesn’t look too appealing.
This makes me think if Nvidia has some tricks up their sleeve if competition gets too close, or if they just keep going the direction of more power = more performance, which is kinda the opposite of apple’s M.
Well at least is seems like Apple is not doing worse than I tel GPUs but hard to compare at the moments.
And like you said the biggest issue is that the Nvidia APIs rule the 3d software world and in a lot of cases it is the only choice if you want the full feature set and best performance.
as a blender user, I would love for their gpus to go toe to toe with nividia’s best. but realistically that type of power is more niche, and apple has never really seemed interested in competing with in that category. their graphical performance has always been more tuned to video and photo workflows.
side tangent: they’re just throwing hardware video accelerators into everything now, it seems. do they assume everyone is a video editor working with prores footage? my cynical suspicion is it’s to court the YouTube ‘creator’ crowd who’ll evangelize how fast these chips are citing their video export speeds, and often incorrectly extrapolate that to overall performance.
Makes sense.
Youtube, tik toks, drone footage, GoPros and equivalent.
Note that almost everyone is a video editor today.
Still gaming is a huge market and universe aligned itself for us making gaming and 3D work technology practical the same. When i first bought my first Geforce which was the first Geforce (mine was DDR version) in 1999 i was beating SGI’s
As someone who has worked in film and video production I can tell you that it’s not that. Apple has a giant presence in the film creation profession and are improving their hardware to stay relevant in that field.
Youtube content creators getting to speak on the benefits of Prores and things of the like are just a coincidence from the democratization of film gear and film centric software that has happened in the past decade. The average Joe can now shoot and edit content with the same gear as the top Hollywood studios, in the era.
We sometimes forget that before Blackmagic Design bought Davinci Resolve (15 years ago?) that Davinci Resolve was a $100,000 color grading software that wasn’t anywhere near as capable as it is today. And before the RED 1, film cameras were only what Studios owned and everyone else had to rent.
Apple doesn’t push Prores for the sake of Youtube creators; it’s because it is still the industry standard codec. ARRI, Sony, RED, even Blackmagic cameras all support Prores. Most DP’s don’t even shoot in their camera’s version of RAW (Arri RAW, RED RAW, BMD RAW, etc) because they realize Prores 4444 or even 422 is more than capable, and is an extremely robust codec.
So no, Apple is not pushing Prores and video accelerators for the purpose of good PR on Youtube. It’s because they’re a Hugh force in the film industry and want it to stay that way.
as someone also working in film and video I agree apple considers that one of their core audiences (historically at least) so I can see why they prioritize it from that angle. I mostly was referring to its presence on the m2 air. if thats intended as more of an all-rounder machine, it feels weird that they’re throwing dedicated hardware for that specific task.
the truth probably lies somewhere in between, that they’ve already developed it for their higher end machines and its an easy marketing bullet point to throw it into their other devices.
would just be nice if they went after some rtx-like accelerators with equal vigor
I think my first gpu was an ATI all in wonder back in the day, which also was better at video than 3d, so basically I’ve been living apple life forever
The Geforce was revolutionary. I remember installing Alias Studio Tools and Catia and all of them worked well in those times when that there was a big split between “professional” and “common people-students”. I then went ATI AIW for the first and my second laptop.
I agree with you on the trickle down to their lower end products concept.
Also hope my original post didn’t sound harsh as I wasn’t meaning it that way.
In terms of deciding whether or not power efficiency or performance should be the focus, it looks like AMD at least is placing a stronger focus on performance per watt (for both Zen4 and RDNA3).
If AMD can continue to improve their GPU drivers, it looks like Apple will have stiff competition in terms of the compromise between performance and power efficiency.
And that’s good. Apple has challenged the industry to look at power efficiency. AMD have taken the challenge, meanwhile nVidia have gone in the opposite direction in terms of power efficiency.
Qualcomm have been trying to catch Apple chips performance for years in the mobile market and fail, year after year. And here they are saying that they can match M2 by the end of next year. Pretty much a year and a half behind as usual.
