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Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

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Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#211

Post by SigmundA »

willis936 wrote: post #206
SigmundA wrote: post #141

Really would like to know more about the GPU and Ram. At 128 gpu cores vs the 8 in the M1 you talking 16 times the potential GPU power which could put it up there near the top of discrete GPU's.

It takes a lot to scale a GPU up that far. Memory throughput requirements (the actually expensive part) increase linearly with number of cores. It will either cost a large fortune and use a Lot of power or be memory throughput starved (and cost a small fortune).

Tile based deferred renders help with memory bandwidth requirement (partly why UMA mobile GPUs and the M1 use it). The M1 has 16mb of cache coherent with CPU and GPU and then there is tile memory in each core.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#212

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

_ph_ wrote: post #134

As someone who planned to buy the new MacPro since the first rumors and only skipped it when I learned how much the prices had risen compared to its predecessor - and the entry level 8core Xeon wasn't that impressive either - I am so ready to finally upgrade my aged iMac. The 4+4 core M1 already gets glowing reviews, it will be very impressive with 16+4 or even 32+8 cores. I like those rumors very much!

I bought a 10-core iMac Pro, and it's a screamer - super-fast and super-reliable even after 16+ hours of use a day. So I don't regret that choice, even if it was the most expensive computer I've ever bought.

A 32+8 core M1 for a less insane price sounds like an easy upgrade choice. The lingering question is memory. 16GB won't be enough.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#213

Post by paulpan »

mraza007 wrote: post #205

So does it mean I should wait for the newer mac to come out As I was thinking to buy M1 mac

Yes, at least a few weeks until WWDC 2021. But it also depends on your use case.

Seems from this article that 1) New Macbook Pro 16 and 14 likely announced at WWDC in June with a "M1X" SOC 2) New Macbook Air and Mini refresh in the fall with an "M2" SOC

M1X > M2 > M1 in terms of pure performance. So if you need high performance, then at least wait for WWDC. If not, then can probably get the M1 now or wait until the expected sales post WWDC.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#214

Post by katbyte »

D13Fd wrote: post #33
EForEndeavour wrote: post #27

> Apple plans to launch the redesigned MacBook Pros in 14-inch and 16-inch screen sizes. They’ll have a redesigned chassis, magnetic MagSafe charger and more ports for connecting external drives and devices. Apple is also bringing back the HDMI port and SD card slot, which it nixed in previous versions, sparking criticism from photographers and the like. Even if they continue to force the anti-feature that is the Tou…

I've had MacBooks since 2005, and I'm an amateur photographer. I really don't miss the ports or MagSafe at all. I actually like the USB charging better, as it allows you to connect the cord to either side, and it doesn't get accidentally knocked out if I use it on my lap. I've found that the cord being on other side is nearly as good as magsafe anyway, as it will be better positioned to pull out if it gets yanked. Ye…

Each to their own but magsafe saves my laptop frequently, it’s nice to not have to worry about it being yanked off a table. I have a ton of usb a stuff that doesnt have a usb c counterpart, and likely never will. I tried to use a USB drive to move stuff between two computers and we ran into a “one is usb a only one is USB c only” problem

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#215

Post by snowwrestler »

988747 wrote: post #115
oneeach wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the use cases. The Mac Pro is a desktop, always plugged in and used for the power. The M1 is on a laptop running on a battery where efficiency is more important to improve the battery life.

So why put efficiency cores in the desktop processor at all?

Heat.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#216

Post by x0x0 »

skrtskrt wrote: post #189
kobe_bryant wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure they're done with the touch bar

Are there any rumors about that? That's the only change that my next laptop isn't a ThinkPad

The image here

https://9to5mac.com/2021/04/21/apple-ransomware-leak-new-mac...

looks like it has physical keys.

I think that's the right side of the laptop, so from the bottom up, it is shift, return, \, delete, and the connectors for the fingerprint sensor.

hallelujah

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#217

Post by paulpan »

SigmundA wrote: post #141

Really would like to know more about the GPU and Ram. At 128 gpu cores vs the 8 in the M1 you talking 16 times the potential GPU power which could put it up there near the top of discrete GPU's.

Curious about this too. Anything more than 16 GPU cores seems like it'd too big to fit on die (share with CPU cores and everything else), so may need to be a discrete solution.

Would Apple then make discrete GPU solutions using PCIe5? Makes sense for the Mac Pro given the edge cases for requiring multi-GPU solutions.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#218

Post by aaronbrethorst »

skrtskrt wrote: post #189
kobe_bryant wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure they're done with the touch bar

Are there any rumors about that? That's the only change that my next laptop isn't a ThinkPad

You hate the Touch Bar so much that if Apple's next round of laptops includes one you'll stop using macOS and start using Linux (or Windows) on your laptop instead?

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#219

Post by Symmetry »

bombcar wrote: post #155
Symmetry wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems a bit weird to me. Many programs are hard to multithread but I'd expect that if any given program can make effective use of 8 threads it can probably keep scaling to 16 and 32. The hard part is getting from 1 to 2 and 2 to 4. So I'd expect that in most cases having more than 8 high performance cores doesn't make that much sense.

A Mac Pro is likely to be dedicated to those workloads which ARE easy to thread - video editing and processing - or simply have multiple applications running simultaneously. Someone who doesn't need more performance cores is unlikely to invest in a Mac Pro.

I'm confused at this response. My thought is that instead of 32 high performance cores and 8 efficiency cores it might be better to have 8 high performance cores and ~100 efficiency ones which ought to be about the same area and power but provide a lot more throughput if software can utilize that level of parallelism.

There's a lot of software that won't scale to 108 cores, of course, but again I expect the amount of software that could usefully scale to 40 parallel threads but can't scale to 108 to be fairly small.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#220

Post by plowman »

mraza007 wrote: post #205

So does it mean I should wait for the newer mac to come out As I was thinking to buy M1 mac

Yes, you should wait, especially if you're looking for a 16" MacBook Pro.

The first batch of M1 macs were announced on Nov 10th, 2020, and the 16" MacBook Pro hasn't been refreshed with an M* chip yet, so that will probably happen soon. The article claims it will happen "early summer", but within the next 6 months is a pretty safe bet.

Here's a good guide on how long each specific Mac has gone without updating, with guesses on when it's a bad idea to buy now: https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#MacBook_Pro_16

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