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

theverge.com

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

#161

Post by theshrike79 »

Cu3PO42 wrote: post #102

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…

The A12Z is already faster than every tablet and phone in existence. Depending on the benchmark, it smokes about 80% of off the shelf PC hardware.

They really don't need to do that much.

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

#162

Post by messe »

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?..

numpy is backed by BLAS and LAPACK. It just happens that on your system on macOS those libraries are provided my MKL. There are other implementations of BLAS and LAPACK out there.

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

#163

Post by mantap »

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.

They explicitly said that it can perform both static and dynamic translation for JITs. I wouldn't be surprised if there is substantial hardware support too.

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

#164

Post by Gaelan »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #139
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 think for this reason they are not going to discontinue intel based macs as x86 is the default for many high performance software.

They claimed they would "complete this transition" in 2 years.

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

#166

Post by acomjean »

goodbye hackintosh.. They were fun.

It will be interesting if one very big company can keep the whole stack going.. Even ps4/xbox went to the common architecture of x86. It could pay off big in price/performance but its risky..

after waiting for years for anyone to replace x86, with a better design, nobody could (Not even intel).

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

#167

Post by itchynosedev »

Cu3PO42 wrote: post #102

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…

From what I understood the transition is of strategic nature. Less dependency on third party suppliers for vital components.

The performance and/or battery gains is almost incidental.

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

#168

Post by sigjuice »

ogre_codes wrote: post #43
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 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.

Did they say the Linux VMs in the demo were x86? They said "virtualization", which to me, implies ARM Linux.

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

#170

Post by jfkebwjsbx »

Cu3PO42 wrote: post #102

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…

The major reason for the transition is higher margins, plain and simple.

For customers, both average users and developers it will be a pain with little to be gained.

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