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Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

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Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#101

Post by shaabanban »

Slartie wrote: post #58
cmer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious that they said nothing about virtualizing Windows. That can’t be a mistake or oversight. Odd.

I noticed that too. Might have trademark or legal reasons though. Technically, if they're able to dynamically translate x86 to ARM as they've explicitly stated (with JIT of JS and the JVM as the example) they should be able to dynamically translate x86 VMs regardless of what OS they contain, which would allow x86 Windows to be virtualized with better-than-interpreted performance. Or at least that's what I hope ;-) I'…

I don’t think that would perform very well without some hardware support for it as well. Not an expert on this by any stretch but as I understand it modern virtualization is almost always hardware accelerated which I can’t imagine is a viable option if you’re translating the binaries with Rosetta.

Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#102

Post by Cu3PO42 »

I'm surprised we didn't get any performance numbers. Either raw power or at least power efficiency and projected battery life improvements. Seeing as this is a major reason for the transition (according to them), it feels very weird.

They're shipping a 'Development Transition Kit' Mac mini with an A12Z this week, so it's not like the numbers are going to stay private for a long time. Even if there's an NDA, someone's bound to break it.

Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#103

Post by valuearb »

snowwrestler wrote: post #66

My comment from a week ago: "What would keep Apple from shipping machines with both ARM and Intel CPUs in them? The ARM CPU would run the OS and decide when to ship jobs over to the Intel CPU. I can’t imagine that the home-grown ARM CPU would add much to the total price of the computer." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23530084

Dual CPUs never made any sense. That’s why they are doing emulation and binary conversion.

Maybe Apple adds the i86 instruction set as a module in their SOCs, but they aren’t paying intel CPU prices on their ARM Macs.

Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#104

Post by CameronNemo »

nailer wrote: post #63
ogre_codes wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be so sure, there are a fair number of people who want a machine that will run x86 for various reasons. Windows support/ Linux support. Even considering how impressive x86 VMs looked in the demo, lots of people will prefer using intel silicon for guaranteed compatibility.

Linux and Windows have both supported ARM for a while now.

Zoom does not release binaries for ARM linux.

Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#106

Post by toyg »

jdhn wrote: post #48
jccalhoun wrote: post #19

Tim Cook just said they have new intel macs in the pipeline. Those will go over like a lead balloon.

I'm in the market for a new laptop, and if I knew how long the Intel macs would be supported, I could see myself picking one up. Unfortunately, nothing was said about that so I guess I'm holding off.

They said the transition should take 2 years. I wouldn't expect much more than that.

Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#107

Post by pedrocr »

jdhn wrote: post #31
nouveaux wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not they think that or they can, they have been developing GPUs for iOS devices. It'll be interesting to see what they do for their desktops.

I agree. I know they're currently using AMD GPUs, but how much longer will they keep using AMD if they believe that their own in house chips can do a better job? Also, I'm curious as to whether they would try to sell their GPUs (iGPU?) to gamers who traditionally don't stay within the Mac ecosystem at all. Having a 3rd major player in the GPU space would be wild.

> Having a 3rd major player in the GPU space would be wild.

Reportedly 4th as Intel is supposedly trying once again for that market.

Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#108

Post by jandrese »

stu2b50 wrote: post #53
jdhn wrote: post #2

I was interested by the GPU that was mentioned in the slide, does this mean that Apple is thinking that they have the expertise to take on Nvidia and AMD in that space?

The advantage Apple has is that Nvidia and AMD and Intel have to actually make money from their chips. Apple can break even or make a loss on the chips themselves. So maybe, they certainly have the budget to try.

I don't expect Apple to sell the hardware for cost. They are quite adept at selling products with a hefty profit margin.

Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#109

Post by lasagnaphil »

aldanor wrote: post #40

So, if I install numpy via conda on a Mac now, it's backed by Intel MKL and is thus amazingly fast. What will it be replaced with? Has anyone at Apple thought about use cases like this?..

I bet that they already have some low-level math library that uses ARM NEON intrinsics; you would definitely need them to port performance-demanding apps like Final Cut Pro / Maya / Photoshop / etc.

Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#110

Post by jedieaston »

mrkstu wrote: post #85

Rosetta 2 - the interesting bit was that it was going to pre-translate binaries instead of at runtime. The implications for actual VM emulation is that Rosetta won't work for run time environments like OS emulation. They touched on it briefly with the emulation technologies bit, but it looks like it will be separate from, and likely much less performant than Rosetta.

The emulation thing seemed to me to be Hypervisor.framework for ARM, as they showed Linux and Docker running (which both run on ARM), but not Windows (which an average user may be more interested in).
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