I was wondering why Gamer Nexus (a very rigorous YouTube review channel) didn't sent a M1 device, while those Apple fanboy channels got it. Probably the dude would've torn the M1 performance claims apart.
Gamers Nexus also does CPU tests, when reviewing CPUs. Gaming benchmarks are an aside.
Also if Apple's opening statement for M1 is that its industry-leading, then they should let these reviewers substantiate it, because that's what they usually review.
The power-sipping, integrated GPU has performance 30% better than a GTX 1050 Ti [1].
The GTX 1050 Ti is still a current, sold product [2], selling for $150 or so USD [3], and consumes about 75-100W in your PC.
We can no true Scotsman this, but that GPU performance is a literal magnitude+ greater than what the majority of users have in their computers (and I am including full desktops in this discussion). The overwhelming majority of users are not paying $500-$1000 for a GPU (now add the 700W+ PSU, and what in effect becomes a space heater), which is the current going rate for the mythical gaming market.
Is it intended for enthusiast gamers who have giant $1000 graphics cards sucking 300W? No, of course not. There is no surprise that Apple didn't send it to a guy who targets that crowd. But for the vast majority of people that chip would represent a pretty significant upgrade over what they currently have.
[1] - Even in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, demonstrated purely given that it was running under Rosetta 2, it did quite decent.
[2] - Current products from EVGA, Gigabyte, ASUS and others feature the GTX 1050 Ti, making it a current product.
[3] - Which is a range, and above, that similar cards sell for. If you can time travel you may be able to get an equal performance level for less, but I lack time travel abilities.
>The GTX 1050 Ti is still a current, sold product, selling for $250 or so USD
That's very misleading. The card was released more than 4 years ago and has a MSRP of $139[1]. It's neither a current or expensive product.
The $250 price is almost certainty because it's "rare", not because it's actually worth that much. See for instance, i7-6700k being sold for $279[2] when you can get a similar performing current gen i3 for $115[3]
"The 2080 Max-Q in my laptop is fairly underpowered"
The 2080 Max-Q only exists in ~$3000 gaming laptops. Poor battery life, 4lb+ laptops. There is no universe where that is "fairly underpowered" unless we've moved the goal posts to pretend that everyone is rolling with a GTX 3080 and anything less is unbearable. In the real world you have to go to the seriously compromised "gaming" tier to get better graphics performance.
"but in terms of raw power it's just not there"
That depends upon what we define as the destination. It in no way competes with dedicated gaming rigs, as I made clear. Not by a huge margin. It isn't going to be something a guy reviewing 300W, $1000 GPUs will care about. That isn't the target market.
But the vast majority of people don't having those gaming rigs. Laptops that have better GPUs are a _tiny_, minuscule component of the market. And if you actually use those dedicated GPUs, you'd better be plugged in.
So when we talk about "gaming" we get into a No True Scotsman thing (to repeat myself) where it isn't gaming unless it's someone playing Warzone at 120Hz at 4K. But a pretty heady number of users are doing things like Civilization, The Sims, Roblox, Minecraft, and similar gaming. The M1 can host that style of gaming with ease.
"thanks mostly to TSMC's 5nm process"
It's kind of interesting that we're at this point. Apple has made a pretty capable GPU, stellar CPU cores, stellar inference cores, among other remarkable hardware. It was pretty stellar at 7nm too. It's all being dismissed as the 5nm advantage. I don't think it's remotely so simple.
The 2080 Max-Q only exists in ~$3000 gaming laptops. Poor battery life, 4lb+ laptops.
I have an ASUS Zephyrus G14.
1680g(3.7lb) as checked just a minute ago using a kitchen scale. I don't know about battery life because I capped the charging at 80% and it still lasts a whole day of normal usage if need be. MSRP ~$1,500 in the US.
I don't think it's remotely so simple.
If you compare it to the Ryzen 4xxx mobile CPUs it checks out - performance increase is roughly as expected given the difference in feature size.
A disclaimer on your battery life: that is doing literally nothing with the 2080. Effectively turning it off and carrying it around as an extra cost/weight for nothing.
Because the moment you use that 2080, your battery life will be South of 3 hours with a 100% charge and a factory new battery. You'll also have a jet engine fan and a leg burning device.
GPU perf/watt is mainly depends on manufacturing process so comparing it to 1050Ti is just for indicating its performance, not for comparing to others. M1's CPU is really impressive but I don't think GPU is impressive but well done for mobile use.
That was some Fake news using worthless benchmarks. It's not even near 1050 Ti in the real world, check any game, M1 gets destroyed by that 4 year old 1050 Ti GPU. For example, Shadow of the Tomb Raider 45 fps 1080p medium vs 26 fps on M1.
You might say it's because of Rosetta (not that it makes any difference because probably most games will never be ported anyway, so Rosetta is all you get when talking about current games), but there's another game which has Apple Sillicon support - World of Warcraft. That one measures high 30s to mid 40s fps on ultra 1080p vs 58.1 avg fps on 1050 Ti. Comparisons are from userbenchmark.com regarding 1050 Ti and youtuber tests regarding M1.
So all those claims "30 % better" were just a manipulative scam using benchmarks nobody cares about.
World of Warcraft on M1 (which is as good as it will get on Apple Sillicon because it has support, not emulated via Rosetta) :
https://youtu.be/Cu8gEq-Os_E?t=192
Note that a laptop chip also isn't a gaming product, for obvious reasons.