> Does anyone know how cost effective a base M1 Mac Studio would be compared to a PC build with comparable cost?

If you normalize to performance, building a comparable PC for things like compiling code can be about half the price. Intel and AMD’s latest top-end consumer CPUs are very, very fast and significantly cheaper.

> Is the power efficiency of Apple Silicon still a major advantage in a desktop system?

If you’re going for ultimate silence and/or you need the smallest machine possible, power efficiency matters.

If you’re spending 99% of your time in the code editor and web browser, your CPU is going to be mostly idle anyway and peak power usage basically doesn’t matter. A decently configured AMD or even Intel system with reasonable fan curves can be plenty quiet for the 1% of time that you’re at 100% CPU usage (hint: embrace the high temperatures and let it throttle, it’s fine).

I watched one guy build a hackentosh for the same price as a Mac mini and compared them. The intel based one wins in multi threaded workloads but the M1 wins in single threaded, power efficiency, and things which it has hardware acceleration like video encoding.

It’s about half the cost to build your own based on Ryzen thread ripper and DDR5. I’ve done this before however, it’s not ARM64. It also requires like 1000w power supply. Can you build a machine just as capable? Yes. Will it be as efficient? No. Will it be Arm? Probably not. That said, I run Apple MacBook Air as my daily so YMMV.

*edit* ok a bit more than half. Chip shortage has scalpers sitting on threadrippers.

If you leave it switched on using 5 cents worth of electricity an hour, how long does it take to cost more?

Do you need a Threadripper to compete with M1 Ultra? Ryzen 9 7950X seems pretty comparable and doesn't require a 1000W PSU unless you must pair it with a 4090 or something.

Depends, how cache friendly is your workload? The M1 ultra has more than 4x the memory bandwidth of the threadripper. Of course the GPU makes a big difference in cost and power use. If you need a 4090, there's nothing comparable. But if the Apple iGPU is enough you save a ton of power and space.

Only you can answer that question. You just stated the tradeoffs.

Compact quiet low power unexpandable box vs large noisy power hungry expandable box. Pick your poison.

I'd also do more research if I'd plan to run Linux on an Apple box. Just because it's good for TFA's use case, it may not be good for yours.

The 20-core Mac Studio with 128GB RAM is $4,800

It would be interesting to see a 24 or 32 core Threadripper vs the Mac Studio. I didn't price out the full system but those CPUs are in the $1300-2800 range

I save 20€ per month by using my Macbook instead of desktop PC in electricity. At least 720 euros from three years.

I dont think this mac consumes much less than a amd 7950x capped at 65W.

Depends, whats the GPU on the 7950x?

I dont think gpu power is relevant for people installing linux on their m1/2 as long as it can play youtube at 4k.

Light gaming seems common, asahi linux streams have have minecraft, tux racer, mario kart, and related. Seems like a fair amount of ML (both inference and training) going on. PyTouch now works with CPU and GPU (via metal), and seen some posts on using the special matrix accelerator (AMX) to achieve a 7x improvement over the GPUs. One bonus is the GPU (and AMX) can access all memory, not just the 8-16GB that's common on GPUs these days.

I'm not a heavy gamer, but having some 3D is nice. I'd likely buy a 7900 (non-x) or 7800X3D if buying now, but not going to spend $800 and up for current gen GPUs, maybe get a 3060 or 3060 Ti. The Mac Studio is looking pretty promising, hopefully it's refreshed with the M2 CPUs RSN.

Not yet but maybe soon https://old.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/10prw2c/stable_...

It really depends on how much you were planning to lard up that Mac with expensive Apple memory and storage. The more of that you want or need, the better the PC is going to look. Ballparking:

  ATX case $100
  650W ATX PSU apparently these are the smallest now? $100
  Z690 motherboard you can spend a lot here but say $250
  Reputable DDR5 DIMMs: $70 per 16GB, $120 for 32GB, $220 for 64GB
  Reputable 1TB SSD $100
  Excellent and quiet air cooler: $100
  CPU similar in single-thread perf to M2: $400

You'll note the absence of GPU. I personally don't use them so I see no value in Apple's supposedly quite good ones. And we don't have 4x Thunderbolt ports that will set you back another $100. But we're up to $1200 which is noticeably less than any Mac Studio model.

The stock Mac Mini with M2, 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD is $600. Pretty good deal for what you're getting.

You can get a Ryzen 6800H mini PC with 32GB RAM and a 500GB SSD for less than $600 these days.