3

I just had the opportunity to compare the lualatex compilation times for a 650 page book on a 3.2 GHz Intel Xeon W from 2017 (iMac Pro) with the same on a new Macbook Pro 16" with M1 Max. I ran both compilations twice. The performance should be a function not only of processor but also of disk speed, but I presume most of it is cached the second time and SSD speed on both is fast. I just used a simple unix time command for the timing.

The Xeon takes about 36 seconds, the Macbook Pro about 20 seconds.

ivo Welch
  • 3,766
  • 5
    sorry but it's not a question, you could perhaps make this fit the site format by asking for suitable hardware and then posting an answer. – David Carlisle Nov 20 '21 at 22:59
  • 1
    @ivoWelch - Given the plethora of recent reports on how quick the newly-released M1Pro and M1Max systems are when running various "industry benchmarks", which are of dubious relevance for most real-world users, it would actually be quite interesting to hear about how much of a performance improvement is achievable when doing something as fancy as compiling a LaTeX document. Hence, do please take up David C. on his suggestion to edit the posting so that it's centered around a question, say, how much speed-up people experience from switching their computers to newer and faster hardware. – Mico Nov 21 '21 at 08:42
  • 1
    Great news that the new 16" M1-Max MacBook Pro is so fast -- especially as I have one on order and should receive it in the next few days. :-) The new machine will replace a late-2019 13" MacBook Air with a 1.6 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5 CPU. – Mico Nov 21 '21 at 08:43
  • Just got my new 16" M1 Max MacBookPro (Model Identifier: MacBookPro18,2; 32 GByte RAM) and have compared its TeX compilation performance to that of my previous laptop, a late-2019 13" MacBookAir (Model Identifier: MacBookAir 8,2; 1.6 GHz dual core Intel Core i5 CPU; 16 GByte RAM). Both are running MacOS 12.1 "Monterey" and MacTeX2021 (w/ all updates installed). A 350-page book (with many embedded images, lots of cross-references, ToC and Index) takes 47 seconds to compile on the two year old MacBookAir, but only 22 seconds on the brand new M1 Max MacBookPro. Yay! – Mico Dec 23 '21 at 18:43
  • great. looks like we are looking at roughly doubling single-core performance. nothing to sneer at! (now all we need is some multicore processing, and we can get it down to 5 seconds ;-).) – ivo Welch Dec 24 '21 at 22:13
  • ( there's the existing question Tips for choosing hardware for best LaTeX compile performance - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange but this one doesn't really look like a question... ) – user202729 Jun 27 '22 at 06:21

0 Answers0