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Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

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Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#111

Post by moffkalast »

nordsieck wrote: post #96
hbn wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know people have made naive comments about computers for years, "why would you ever need more than 8MB of RAM?", etc But I genuinely believe 4k is the upper limit where you stop seeing benefits in increased resolution for a monitor. Our eyes do have limits after all! I have pretty good vision and 4k is enough, and at that point I'd prefer focus on other aspects of picture quality like color accuracy and higher refr…

> But I genuinely believe 4k is the upper limit where you stop seeing benefits in increased resolution for a monitor. Our eyes do have limits after all! I think it depends on how big the monitor is. You're probably right for 27" monitors. But running a 43" TV as a monitor, the pixel density is quite a bit lower than I'd like.

But simultaneously you won't be looking at that giant monitor from the same distance, but much further away. So it really shouldn't make that much of a difference as long as the angular resolution checks out.

I've currently got a 32" one running 1080p, from a normal viewing distance I can't see any pixels at all. Going beyond that and having to render 4x as much already seems super gratuitous. 8K is just completely ridiculous unless you're projecting a DnD game board or something that will be viewed up close.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#113

Post by avisser »

newaccount74 wrote: post #54
xiphias2 wrote: post #34

M2 was a skip generation for me, looking forward to M3. Maybe the same with iPhone. I generally care about process node as the main feature of a computer.

The M2 Pro chips finally allow 8k displays! That's a pretty significant new feature (at least on Macs, Windows has supported 8k displays for some time already).

I'm over 40. I can't see all the pixels on a 4k display, let alone 8k. I'm still happy with my 2013 MBP w/ Retina.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#114

Post by etempleton »

bioemerl wrote: post #25
etempleton wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they? With the current arrangement they get all the benefits and none of the risk. If TSMC falters they can go to whoever supplants TSMC and make the same arrangement and continue to have the latest and greatest chips.

> Why would they? They could annihilate all competition in the market except for them. Every single Android phone would be forced to use subpar manufacturing from there on out.

So Apple would spend probably over 100 billion dollars to buy TSMC and make them a less profitable company by not serving other companies?

All this would do would weaken TSMC and strengthen other chip manufacturers for a couple years of absolute chip dominance. But they already have chip dominance, so it is for essentially zero gain.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#115

Post by karolist »

helf wrote: post #59
xiphias2 wrote: post #34

M2 was a skip generation for me, looking forward to M3. Maybe the same with iPhone. I generally care about process node as the main feature of a computer.

You care about the process node as a main feature? Really? I mean, it's nice and all, but the MAIN FEATURE?

me too, I love my 2019 Intel MBP, it keeps me warm in the evenings.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#116

Post by dmitriid »

jojobas wrote: post #12

Why does TSMC do that? When Apple has better options TSMS will be dumped, as with IBM and Intel before. Why hurt goodwill with other customers?

Because those customers rarely have anywhere to go. because those customers would dump TSMC the instant there would be a better proposition?

Apple is the customer you want to maintain goodwill with.

Hell, there were times when Samsung was experiencing issues with sourcing their own chips for their own phones because they sold everything to Apple.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#117

Post by hedora »

notjustanymike wrote: post #89
bookofjoe wrote: post #51

>Apple’s iPod, by comparison, was made far more pocketable thanks to the inclusion of a 1.8-inch Toshiba hard drive. The story behind how Apple came to acquire these hard drives for the original iPod is interesting. >Jobs had expressed interest in building a portable music player in late 2000 and had tasked Jon Rubinstein with making it happen. The problem, however, was that Jobs wanted a player that was small and sl…

Interesting article, thanks for that. One of my key takeaways is the iPod represented not one but multiple simultaneous tech revolutions. Consumer storage until then unseen, paired with material and interface design that companies hadn't considered a priority.

I wouldn’t read it that way. Jobs was good at noticing something would become possible 2-3 years before the rest of the industry. Flash-based players existed back then, and would have followed the trajectory the iPod jumped on a few years after it launched. The iPod interface was middling. (iTunes really, really sucked, but the device was nice)

Enabling podcasts was a big deal though. I’ll give them that.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#118

Post by llampx »

hbn wrote: post #91
dewey wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know zero people with a 8k display, I wouldn't call that a significant new feature.

I know people have made naive comments about computers for years, "why would you ever need more than 8MB of RAM?", etc But I genuinely believe 4k is the upper limit where you stop seeing benefits in increased resolution for a monitor. Our eyes do have limits after all! I have pretty good vision and 4k is enough, and at that point I'd prefer focus on other aspects of picture quality like color accuracy and higher refr…

I think VR can definitely benefit from more pixels.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#119

Post by cubefox »

bookofjoe wrote: post #51

>Apple’s iPod, by comparison, was made far more pocketable thanks to the inclusion of a 1.8-inch Toshiba hard drive. The story behind how Apple came to acquire these hard drives for the original iPod is interesting. >Jobs had expressed interest in building a portable music player in late 2000 and had tasked Jon Rubinstein with making it happen. The problem, however, was that Jobs wanted a player that was small and sl…

I'm not sure how big a difference this made. If I remember correctly there were iPod alternatives with similar drives pretty quickly.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#120

Post by ChoGGi »

sigmar wrote: post #105
Aromasin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your definition of "supply". The argument is mainly just semantics. They're not wrong per-se. A better phrase might have been "production" rather than supply. I agree, supply sounds like I'm buying an off the shelf component, not a custom designed wafer. In short, Apple is set to purchase every wafer that TSMC produces when they launch their N3 node. How long for should have, but hasn't, been specified. It…

>It's safe to assume that by "entire supply" they mean "until TSMCs next node" Is that really safe to assume? Maybe the original paywalled story is more precise with language, but the use of "all available orders" and "100% of the initial N3 supply" seems so vague to me. Could initial mean first month of full scale production?

Looks like all production till somewhere around Q4 2024.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-15th-gen-arrow-lake-...

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