Looks like the devkits are $500 and need to be sent back at the end of the year. Also curious that the name ARM wasn't mentioned even once. I wonder if that's just marketing or whether they're plotting to do their own ISA at some point in the future also.
Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
271–280 of 1001 posts
Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#272Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#273Beware this is an explicitly long migration. They mentioned it's supposed to take two years but when Apple switched to Intel back in 2005 I remember buying my very first MacBook one year later and still many apps were not available, conversion was everywhere etc (I believe this is why they announced Office right away). I am really excited, but I wouldn't buy a new full-apple-soc hardware until the end of next year for the sake of compatibility, and most importantly, rock solid stability.
Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#274I'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…
> I'm surprised we didn't get any performance numbers.
It's the CPU in the iPad Pro, performance numbers are out there in the wild. The only big change is the RAM. This isn't a retail product, it's a developer kit. When they release retail Macs I'm sure there will be some performance numbers.
Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
IDK, "look how good our CPU support is by running a several year old GPU limited game" fell a bit flat for me.
I think your expectations for what emulation is capable of are set a bit high. The fact that it is able to emulate a game that's a few years old at decent frame rate is more than acceptable. You didn't see Microsoft demoing games for their Surface on ARM systems at all and for good reason.
I can emulate a PS3 on my computer with better graphics at higher framerates, including GPU emulation.
It's not impressive at all.
Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#276I'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 shipping in the latest iPad Pro, so it's not like its performance is some unknown quantity: benchmarks are aplenty... Although I guess this dev kit could run at a different frequency, and have more/less memory bandwidth. Performance should still roughly be that of the iPad Pro. The A12Z is itself only a small update on the A12X from 2018, so it's basically two years behind whatever will ship in ac…
I expect DTK performs better than iPad Pro because it can supply more power and has more thermal budget (maybe still has active cooling fan).
Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
It wasn't just lack of performance numbers, there were no actual products announced. They would have had to tip their hand on a lot of info that is not helpful to customers or their ability to keep selling Intel stuff. One big question though will be how this devkit benchmarks against the current maxed Intel mac mini. I'm curious if GPU performance beats the current BlackMagic eGPU. (rx 580)
I can assure you that performance will not come anywhere close to an RX580, much less to a more modern Radeon 5700.
Where do you think it will fall? Do you think these will be compatible with eGPUs?
Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#278If I just purchased a new Macbook Pro 13 10th gen Intel, should I return it and wait for this?
I bought mine a month ago, and I'm happy to keep it. It'll be supported for (guessing) 4-5 years, at least, and the new ARM-based ones won't be available until the end of the year (and you probably don't want to be an early adopter).
Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
The last Macs that will support Boot Camp will be the best selling Macs for years. Much like the 2015 Macbook Pro I expect you'll be able sell it for more than you paid for it years later.
Remember the MacBook Pro with a DVD drive lived on for years after all its siblings were discontinued. We can expect some x86 support to remain available for years after the last new ARM machine is launched.
I think that's the mid-2012 MBP? They were still selling them in 2015, I bought one of the last ones before it was pulled from sale. It remained in the lineup because it continued to be a best-seller.
Apple was already grumpy about servicing it by 2018 or so though, even with AppleCare. (I've switched to Windows now.)
Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#280OK, so should I sell all my macOS hardware (except Hackintoshes) now? Is this exclusive or half-baked like MS Surface ARM, i.e. some running on Intel, some on ARM? If it is half-baked, what's the point of fragmenting macOS and apps it can run? What's the best non-Apple notebook these days?
> What's the best non-Apple notebook these days?
That's pretty subjective depending on operating system and use case. If you want Linux, Dell makes some really good options (XPS Developer Edition), System76 and Purism make some nice hardware for libre software purists.
For Windows laptops there are tons of options and it all boils down to thermal performance and power versus weight and expense. No notebook will defy the laws of physics so there are trade-offs, especially when you start wanting to play games, which I have generally found just isn't worth the trouble on a laptop. Dell's XPS and Lenovo's Thinkpad lines are solid in terms of providing options that fit a lot of different use cases.
I've found that the new Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 environment is great for a lot of the command line Linuxy stuff I took for granted in MacOS. Apple's hardware used to be my default option for computing on the go while I would use native Linux on my desktop, because so much of my development stuff requires some flavor of Linux compatibility. Now, with WSL2, Windows works perfectly for what I need. Microsoft's Linux support is so good that I would not buy another Apple laptop if I were in the market now (it feels really weird typing that) - there is just nothing justifying Apple's premium price anymore, for the type of work I do (YMMV).
The thing that's different about buying non-Apple computing hardware is that you have many more options. Apple takes kind of a dictatorial role in giving you one option at any given screen size or price point. Want a GPU? Buy a 16" Macbook Pro. Want a desktop class CPU? Buy an iMac (or spend $10k+ on a reasonably spec'ed Mac Pro). People put up with this in large part because of Apple's marketing. MacOS Catalina was a disaster but at this point a lot of people have low grade Stockholm syndrome. The relationship is totally different on the PC side where you can practically find anything to match whatever particular use case you have; there are a lot more options, and you have a more active role in figuring that out and purchasing what works for you.