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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

#581

Post by unilynx »

deeblering4 wrote: post #300

Hopefully MacOS support for x86 won't just be 3-5 years from whenever the new ARM models come out. I have invested quite a bit into the Mac/Apple ecosystem. A big part of that reason was the longevity of the hardware, along with good resale values. I hope they do right by their existing Mac customers. As of right now I don't have a strong reason to switch away. I also hope that Apple does not blow this transition fro…

> I have invested quite a bit into the Mac/Apple ecosystem. A big part of that reason was the longevity of the hardware, along with good resale values.

Well, given that demand for x86 probably won't go away in 3-5 years and that Apple generally makes it impossible to downgrade OSX on new machines, dropping x86 support might actually increase the resale value of existing hardware.

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

#582

Post by [deleted] »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #493
kllrnohj wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple is roughly one chip cycle ahead on perfomance/watt from any other manufacturer. Eh? This is a flimsy claim. AMD's performance/watt is extremely impressive right now. Apple is ahead of Intel for sure, but Intel isn't the only other player here. > So, I’m predicting an MBP 13 - 16 range with an extra three hours of battery life+, and 20-30% faster. Alternately a Macbook Air type with 16 hours plus strong 4k per…

You're correct that AMD’s offerings are impressive, but that‘s vs an uncooled A12 chip. Add active cooling and a few more watts there's no reason why they couldn't blow the doors off.

[deleted]

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

#583

Post by AlphaSite »

outworlder wrote: post #499
StillBored wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMD is tiny compared to intel, the fact that they are besting them goes to show how they have been stuck for ~5 years. The real problem though, is that apple is actually designing a core 100% focused on the target market. Unlike intel, for whatever reason, and AMD which didn't have the funds to run a dedicated design team for laptop/desktops. So, I would expect the engineering tradeoffs for said laptop/desktop proces…

> AMD is tiny compared to intel, the fact that they are besting them goes to show how they have been stuck for ~5 years. I'm having trouble following the reasoning. > AMD which didn't have the funds to run a dedicated design team for laptop/desktops. They have plenty of funds for R&D. Problem is, processor manufacture goes much beyond the processors themselves. You have to design the entire manufacturing chain, and s…

AMD is fabless, they just didn't have any money for spinning up several different chips for different markets. They even had a single chip from desktop to high end servers (with all the tradeoffs that entails).

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

#585

Post by johnbellone »

theshrike79 wrote: post #161
Cu3PO42 wrote: post #102

I'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 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 am interested in seeing real world performance. I agree that there isn't a lot that Apple needs to do here; the most curious bit will be how much they're able to automate behind the scenes with Rosetta to help out the development community. For most of my workload I am sure that it'll be completely transparent. The only bits that'll likely be less performance will be testing in virtual machines for x86, but it isn't like I care too much about that performance. I'd take the 3+ hours on battery.

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

#586

Post by ghshephard »

chx wrote: post #404

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 is already running USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 with it's IPAD, so that's not a stretch.

The DTK has two USB-C ports (10 Gbps) and two USB-A Ports (5 Gbps) - so, they definitely have a USB story.

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

#587

Post by johnbellone »

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'd expect that the high end Mac Pro is the last model to drop.

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

#588

Post by old-gregg »

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…

I'll bite.

  > Current A12z chips are highly performant; Apple is
  > roughly one chip cycle ahead on perfomance/watt from 
  > any other manufacturer.
We haven't been able to compare them. Micro-benchmarks do not count because mobile versions of Apple chips haven't been designed for desktop requirements. People love comparing CPU cores with micro-benchmarks, but the hardest thing for a modern desktop/server chip is to feed data to many cores while maintaining cache coherence.

  > So, I’m predicting an MBP 13 - 16 range with an 
  > extra three hours of battery life+, and 20-30% faster.
Before agreeing with your estimates, I want to play with a true 8-core Apple CPU with a large multi-level cache first. Building the Linux kernel with -J16 will be a fun exercise. Look, AMD is not stupid, and they're on the same node Apple will be using, and they're not 30% faster than even a 5y.o. Skylake.

  > Apple has to pay Intel and AMD profit margins for 
  > their mac systems. They are going to be able to put 
  > this margin back into a combination of profit and 
  > tech budget as they choose.
I wonder how their conversations with TSMC go. With Intel, at least they had AMD to use as a bargaining chip. With TSMC there's no alternative.

  > One interesting question I think is outstanding - 
  > from parsing the video carefully, it seems to me 
  > that devs are going to want ARM linux virtualized
  > vs AMD64.
That's the big one. The world's software is built for and runs in data centers, not laptops. Our machines are increasingly becoming nothing but thin clients, remote displays that happen to run Javascript. CPUs do not matter. And I suspect that's the real reason they're switching.

But from the developers perspective, it's incredibly convenient to use the same platform (OS + instruction set) as the machine they're targeting, even for interpreted languages. Linus Torvalds wrote a well-articulated email about this a while ago, IIRC he was commenting on POWER, but I think his points are valid. At my company, devs keep struggling with Docker on a Mac. Add to that the ARM pain, and I wonder how many will finally get a Thinkpad. Developers will switch to ARM when majority of AWS instance types goes ARM.

P.S. I love how "old-tech" HN is, but for the love of god, give us a decent way to "reply with quote".

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

#589

Post by an_opabinia »

ianhowson wrote: post #561
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+, and 20-30% faster. I'm predicting the opposite: you won't actually see any difference. Once you look closely at power profiles on modern machines you'll see that most energy is going into display and GPU. CPUs mostly run idle. Even if you had a theoretical CPU using zero energy, most people are not going to get 30% battery life gain…

> Apple is going to save $200-$800 cost per Mac shipped

Whom is Apple going to sell binned A14s to?

Where does everyone think margin comes from in the chip business?

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

#590

Post by kllrnohj »

MR4D wrote: post #544
kllrnohj wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple is roughly one chip cycle ahead on perfomance/watt from any other manufacturer. Eh? This is a flimsy claim. AMD's performance/watt is extremely impressive right now. Apple is ahead of Intel for sure, but Intel isn't the only other player here. > So, I’m predicting an MBP 13 - 16 range with an extra three hours of battery life+, and 20-30% faster. Alternately a Macbook Air type with 16 hours plus strong 4k per…

>Eh? This is a flimsy claim. Anandtech would like to disagree with your word choice. https://www.anandtech.com/show/14892/the-apple-iphone-11-pro...

Did you read your own link?

> In virtually all of the SPECint2006 tests, Apple has gone and increased the peak power draw of the A13 SoC; and so in many cases we’re almost 1W above the A12. Here at peak performance it seems the power increase was greater than the performance increase, and that’s why in almost all workloads the A13 ends up as less efficient than the A12.

> The total power use is quite alarming here, as we’re exceeding 5W for many workloads. In 470.lbm the chip went even higher, averaging 6.27W. If I had not been actively cooling the phone and purposefully attempting it not to throttle, it would be impossible for the chip to maintain this performance for prolonged periods.

In other words, to get those good specint numbers, power was sacrificed to do it. 5W per-core power draw is right in line with a typical x86 laptop CPU, too. 4800HS sits at 35w, or 4.3w per core.

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