Apparently the key to getting performance out of the Ampere Altra is … to just not use Windows? And have a very parallel workload. Yes, a single Altra core is half as fast as a single M1 Ultra core. But it really depends on your use case and other factors (e.g. power efficiency) which one is preferable.
Surely if you consider apple hardware you don't care about performance, price or supporting an ecosystem that underpins the very essence of you are trying to do.
Buying mac hardware for a linux workstation is madness.
I would argue there are zero options in x86 land that will give you the mac studio form factor (tiny, stylish, quiet) with that level of performance. PC workstations in that class are noisy big beasts. For some people how it looks is part of the set of requirements, and it is not “madness” to also care about that.
Ampere Altra on Windows: ca. 800 (1C) ca. 12800 (80C) https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/20639458
Ampere Altra on Linux: ca. 900 (1C) ca. 44000 (80C) https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ampere-altra-max-80-ccore-...
Apparently the key to getting performance out of the Ampere Altra is … to just not use Windows? And have a very parallel workload. Yes, a single Altra core is half as fast as a single M1 Ultra core. But it really depends on your use case and other factors (e.g. power efficiency) which one is preferable.