JonPais wrote:'Fully configured' can mean whatever you want it to mean. A 16" M1 Max with 32GB RAM runs just $3,500 and trounces PCs running over $5,000. And it runs whisper quiet.
The M1 machines are very impressive for laptops, but we've seen in this thread that in GPU bound tests, they're still some way from beating a higher end desktop GPU.
My Hackintosh was about the same price as a 64GB M1 Max and it's twice as fast in Uli's test as the M1 Max 64GB, and four times faster than the M1 Pro 32GB. In the earlier Fusion composition test, which is primarily CPU-bound, it was just under twice as fast as the 32GB M1 Pro. (We don't have an M1 Max test for that, but as it's CPU bound I would expect similar results to the Pro).
Mark's 10+ year old Mac Pro with 2+ years old Radeon VII is a couple of minutes faster than the M1 Max 64 in this GPU-bound test, and 2.5x the speed of the M1 Pro 32GB.
The new M1 machines are great laptops, but from all I've seen I think it's hyperbole to say they're workstation beaters.
One of the reasons I was keen to participate in this benchmark is that I built my machine a year ago, and when the M1 Max system came out and the first benchmarks appeared I started to wonder if I should have waited a year, and got one of those instead. Then I could have had portability and top class performance. Based on these results, I'm now re-assured in my decision to build a year ago. If portability was a primary concern, the M1 Max would have been very interesting to me. But as a workstation user, I'm still glad to have a full desktop - which could be upgraded even further if I wanted (more RAM, second GPU).
We'll have to wait until next year to see what Apple does in the workstation space, like a new iMac Pro and Mac Pro.