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Apple's rumored M7 Ultra targets 1.5TB and Blackwell-class AI performance

tomshardware.com

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Re: Apple's rumored M7 Ultra targets 1.5TB and Blackwell-class AI performance

#7
post #3

The CPU/NPU/GPU part is probably coming, but the 1.5TB of RAM might be delayed a bit. More interesting footnotes are the server chips: is the MacPro making a comeback?

Maybe they are just for internal use? I doubt Apple is going back on the server market, and given how little they have invested in the Mac Pro, I doubt they are going to make a new version. There is little advantage compared to the Mac Studio for most users. External GPU support would change that, but it doesn't seem to be what they want.

Re: Apple's rumored M7 Ultra targets 1.5TB and Blackwell-class AI performance

#8
It's pretty interesting that Apple was so quick to get to industry-leading status on their CPUs, but their GPUs are still in a state where they won't match Nvidia's GPUs from 2024 until at least next year, and will need a significantly bigger chip to do so.

Similar story with Qualcomm but to a lesser degree (both on the CPU and GPU side). I wonder why that is.

Lack of priority? Legitimately harder problem to solve? Experience from mobile scaling to desktop differently than CPU experience?

Re: Apple's rumored M7 Ultra targets 1.5TB and Blackwell-class AI performance

#9
post #3

The CPU/NPU/GPU part is probably coming, but the 1.5TB of RAM might be delayed a bit. More interesting footnotes are the server chips: is the MacPro making a comeback?

Really just depends on what the market looks like in a year or two. If things stay on the current trajectory, then yeah, they won't sell this. If the AI market gets spooked and sells off, it might be available.

Whether or not this thing is commercially available though, they basically have no choice but to at least keep up the R&D spend, or they'll be even further behind once RAM availability eventually eases up.

Re: Apple's rumored M7 Ultra targets 1.5TB and Blackwell-class AI performance

#10

It's pretty interesting that Apple was so quick to get to industry-leading status on their CPUs, but their GPUs are still in a state where they won't match Nvidia's GPUs from 2024 until at least next year, and will need a significantly bigger chip to do so. Similar story with Qualcomm but to a lesser degree (both on the CPU and GPU side). I wonder why that is. Lack of priority? Legitimately harder problem to solve? E…

The M-series are ARM chips based on the A series from the iPhones. Therefore Apple had ten years of chip design (plus the prior decades of ARM history) to rely on. The GPUs and modems were a much more recent effort.

(My take. happy to be corrected by someone with chip design experience who can comment.)

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