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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

#401

Post by nicoburns »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #334
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.

> Rosetta won't work for run time environments like OS emulation They literally showed a demo of Parallels with Ubuntu for Intel running inside it.

Yes, but probably a native ARM version of Ubuntu rather than an emulated x86 version.

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

#402

Post by jfkebwjsbx »

objclxt wrote: post #243
jfkebwjsbx wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unlikely - being able to have full control of your roadmap is a huge strategic advantage. Profits and revenue are nice, but if Apple was interested in that they could dual source x86 from AMD and drive cost down. You don’t think companies like Oculus are envious of Apple’s flexibility from not having to rely on Qualcomm for their mobile SoCs? It’s not just about profit margin.

> Profits and revenue are nice, but if Apple was interested in that they could dual source x86 from AMD and drive cost down.

If Apple could do that and play it to their advantage, they would have done so a long time ago.

Higher margins and profits are the drivers in the end. Strategic control or not is just a way they use to achieve that. It is a publicly traded company, after all.

> You don’t think companies like Oculus are envious of Apple’s flexibility from not having to rely on Qualcomm for their mobile SoCs?

I doubt Oculus cares given their goal. There are pros and cons of vertically integrating an entire company into one.

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

#403

Post by StillBored »

cestith wrote: post #363

I almost didn't want to upvote this because it was at 486 points. I'm sure anything close to the same performance as the Intel chips will have better battery life, especially since they can put in as fine-grained support for throttling and idling as they want. These should cost them loads less per unit than what Intel's selling them, too. They could cut prices a bit and still have higher margins.

This is likely a larger reason for the move than the perf/efficiency. Apple likes to ship "premium" products, which forces them into the premium/high margin price tiers with intel/etc.

So they will gain a bit with a product laser focused on its market, but alongside that, they won't be paying the kings ransom intel wants for a couple additional cores, or a couple Mhz boost. So they can simplify the binning into best in class, and good yields for the volume product, and pocket the margins on the best in class product segment rather than giving it all to intel.

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

#404

Post by chx »

I searched this thread for Thunderbolt and USB and nothing.

The only way this can work if they implement USB 4. That's earlier than expected but not by much. USB 4 came out last September and everyone was guesstimating 18 months before the first systems ship with it. AMD shipping it with the Ryzen 4xxx laptop chips would've been a really big win but apparently it was too early. And now, as with Thunderbolt, it seems Apple will be the first.

As far as I understand these things, you can connect a TB3 device to a full featured USB 4 port (which Intel plans to market as TB4 just to increase confusion as if there isn't of that around USB C). Not necessarily the other way around: the USB 4 bus while compatible with the TB3 bus, can contain USB packets, TB3 only carried PCIe and DP packets.

Areca has an amazing SAN-in-a-box product: it's a 24 bay 4U RAID box which allows as many as nine TB3 hosts to connect to it at the same time and it's immensely popular with various movie / TV show production. It's less than 10K USD which is an absolute bargain for the capabilities. Consider the 2K price of just one 40gbps Ethernet to TB3 adapter which you'd need for a traditional SAN.

Devices like these make TB3 compatibility an absolute must for Macbooks.

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

#405

Post by AgloeDreams »

fomine3 wrote: post #193
theshrike79 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I believe Apple can make processors for laptop and normal desktop in A-series way but I'm curious how they make for Mac Pro. Adopting architecture like chiplet?

I imagine they may use a mass amount of SOCs. Keep in mind that their Laptop game plan may be to build CPUs to the Max limits of the TDP and then use their (rather incredible) power management system to reduce power far below Intel chips for normal use. This is the iPad Game-plan, the chip is rarely ever fully hammered. You may see a 12 core Macbook Air capable of (unsustained) desktop Ryzen-level performance but it will generally be ran as 6 low power cores and one or two high power cores, with bursts of insanity when needed. If you can pool a few of those together, it would be easy to beat Intel's server offerings.

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

#406

Post by criddell »

sschueller wrote: post #298

They will lock down their PCs like the iPhone. Good luck booting anything other than macos or getting you Mac fixed anywhere other than Apple. No thanks, switching back to Linux. I'm done with this crap.

> They will lock down their PCs like the iPhone.

Did they say that in the keynote?

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

#407

Post by paulpan »

ksec wrote: post #258

Apple ported many Pro Apps to ARM , especially their Logic Pro, Photoshop and they were showcasing Maya on ARM. That is about as Pro as it gets for Mac. That reads to me Apple isn't going to have Intel for some high end Pro machine. They intended to go all in with ARM. i.e There will be a Mac Pro with High TDP ARM Chip. I wonder what are the owner of Mac Pro feeling now having just spend a $5K+ Mac Pro with Intel. Qu…

> What happens to GPU? Having their own GPU for iMac and Mac Pro as well? Dual GPU options where Apple GPU for power efficiency? This feels like additional complexity.

I think GPU scaling will be much harder than CPU, so whereas Apple can surpass Intel CPUs for all but the highest segments, putting together a standalone GPU will be hard and very interesting to see. For an entry-level GPU? No issues. But what about a midrange (AMD RX 5700XT or Nvidia 2070S)? And not to mention the top-tier Nvidia 2080ti.

The other unspoken risk is that while Apple may be vertically integrating its SOC, it still relies on a fab like TSMC. Intel's recent problem is rooted in their inability to move off legacy 14nm fabrication process. TSMC may have done great in 7nm and now to 5nm transition, but what happens if/when they stumble? Would Apple also want to acquire them or build its own fabs to mitigate this risk?

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

#408

Post by radiator »

QuixoticQuibit wrote: post #198

I really wonder what this says about the x86 platform going forward. Mobile completely passed it by. I’ve been seeing more hype about ARM servers for a while with AWS Graviton instances, the new #1 supercomputer in the TOP500, etc. And of course today we see that Apple plans to transition their Macs to their own ARM chips. Even Microsoft made an ARM-based Windows/Surface product but it didn’t seem to amount to much.…

It was about time. The architecture has so much technical baggage. I don't even think it was intended to last that long.

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

#410

Post by chooseaname »

vessenes wrote: post #305

Commenters here seem dubious. I’ll take the contra-position. This feels to me like it’s going to be great; a big win for consumers and developers. Current A12z chips are highly performant; Apple is roughly one chip cycle ahead on perfomance/watt from any other manufacturer. I presume their consumer hardware will launch with an A13Z, or maybe an A14 type chip. Apple has consistently shipped new chip designs on time; I…

> So, I’m predicting an MBP 13 - 16 range with an extra three hours of battery life+f

I predict they'll have the same battery life. Any savings will be used to reduce the battery size.

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