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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

#971

Post by imtringued »

gsnedders wrote: post #832
01100011 wrote: post #820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, they're going to make their own GPU. A recruiter from Apple reached out to me a few weeks ago trying to poach me from my job at a large GPU manufacturer.

They already have their own, custom GPU on their A-Series SoCs, so them hiring people working on GPUs is hardly surprising? I'd expect them to replace where they use Intel's integrated parts with their own, which might push them a bit higher end than where they have been previously, but I doubt they're chasing after the dedicated side of things?

In theory they could slap on HBM [0] for a decent performance boost. It would eliminate the need for a dedicated GPU in Macbooks and low end iMacs.

[0] https://www.amd.com/system/files/49010-gddr5-hbm-1260x709.pn...

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

#972

Post by [deleted] »

Macha wrote: post #808
liamness wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's some mad lad adding PCIe slots to a Raspberry Pi 4: https://twitter.com/domipheus/status/1167566293861588992 It's definitely possible, just need to expost the PCIe lanes in a sensible way (this has been rare to see on ARM-based machines so far) and have PCIe device manufacturers distribute drivers for ARM macOS.

PCIe is surprisingly robust for a high performance interface. fail0verflow mentioned doing PCIe over serial so they could mitm some of the communication when hacking the ps4.

[deleted]

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

#973

Post by 9OzUIvDwF4LvfUM »

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…

Maya was running using Rosetta 2 translation rather than being ported.

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

#974

Post by vernie »

dindresto wrote: post #940
berkut wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems (wasn't really that clear?) that Maya was running emulation? (as in, x64 binary). I don't think Maya's viewport on MacOS actually runs with Metal (it's still OpenGL), so I doubt it's a native port. Did it do any CPU-intensive stuff (skinning, deformation), or was it just GPU-intensive viewing? High-end VFX will be interesting for this with Apple (Maya, Houdini, Nuke) - already there was quite a lot of anger…

As Apple's own GPUs do not run full OpenGL, does this in turn mean they didn't only create a x86 to ARM translation layer but also a full OpenGL implementation running on top of Metal? Similar to other projects implementing OpenGL on top of Vulkan? Or did they actually invest the time to implement OpenGL directly in their graphics drivers? That seems a bit weird considering OpenGL has been deprecated in macOS already…

iOS's ES support is implemented on top of Metal, don't see why this would be any different.

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

#975

Post by msie »

valuearb wrote: post #525
msie wrote: post #381

I'm too old for this. That's great. But what's more important to me is: - Apple being hostile to developers: app approvals (Hey) - Apple hardware being hard or impossible to upgrade - MacOS turning into iOS (don't want)

Apple isn’t being hostile to Hey! They are being hostile to Apple. Imagine building a large new Paid App that you expect Apple to host and distribute for free worldwide by gaming their payment system.

Look at Netflix app. They are doing the same thing but being treated differently.

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

#976

Post by ericzawo »

j0hnml wrote: post #138
ericzawo wrote: post #8

I really wonder if this will result in the Mac-ification of iPad. Would love to finally run a MacOS environment on a tablet.

Also interesting that the dev kits use the same chip as the latest iPad Pros (A12Z). I’d love to see the two OSes merge to some extent because I love writing on the tablet but find iPadOS not the best for general dev work.

Oh, 1,000%. Even basic tasks like working on a file, then pasting said file to a cloud storage app and then to an email/slack channel take an order of magnitude longer than it would on a computer. Long way to go before the iPad becomes a true Pro machine, but for some fields, it's basically there. Still, such simple quality of life improves that are mainstay/muscle memory on computers essentially take time and animations and taps to execute.

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

#977

Post by shmerl »

mozey wrote: post #906
shmerl wrote: post #100

Good time for anyone who was using macOS for gaming or anything else for that matter to switch to Linux. OpenGL bit rot, refusal to support Vulkan, dropping of 32-bit, dropping of x86_64 architecture - all that should have been a hint. Backwards compatibility is not even an option there (besides for emulation).

I started using MacBooks when they switched to Intel around 2008. Maybe this is a sign to move on. Currently using a mid 2014 model, I like the slim form factor, but I don't like the absence of an ethernet port. I don't care much for the retina display, my 2008 matte model was better. Been looking at the Lenovo T470. I need something that would be easy to replace quickly anywhere in the world. What should I get?

Lenovo Thinkpad laptops are pretty good, and in my experience run Linux very well. Get something with AMD APU (there should be new models coming out soon with Zen 2 + Vega).

The only annoyance is their refusal to refund Windows tax. But now Lenovo partnered with RedHat/IBM and started selling some laptops with Linux pre-installed (Fedora), so you can avoid Windows tax there, even if you don't plan to use Fedora. I hope that will eventually extend to all their models.

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

#978

Post by hajile »

Analemma_ wrote: post #67
udev wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what the cost of the transition mini is.

The last time Apple transitioned to a new architecture, the dev kits were loaners you had to give back.

Those dev kits ran on P4 processors. IIRC, they later sent all the devs a Core 2 mac pro.

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

#979

Post by francoisp »

rimliu wrote: post #955
francoisp wrote: post #859

I think this is exactly the wrong direction. First no more geforce for you. Then the ram is not upgradeable anymore. Oh here goes all ports except a usb3 and you need to carry a full case of dongles. Then the escape key.(It must have escaped the non sense!!!) Then the SSD is soldered. Then this fancy useless color bar and T2. Now you can't run linux with VB or parallels or dual boot to Windoze. They are trying their…

If you want a Windows machine, get a Windows machine.

Hello, thanks for the comment, I might. Do you have any suggestion HW wise? If I switch again, it will be for linux as my daily driver thought. I've been happy with the MBP line, and my 2015 MBPs are still the best hardware I've owned. I like Apple's services, I use iCloud, and the calendar and contact sync with my iphones and ipads just works. I like macosx because it's real unix, integrates well with the rest just mentionned. I run ubuntu for GPUs for DL on a dedicated ws; I wish I could do some small models on the go better than CPU speed, instead of remoting. I have several VMs in VirtualBox (that can just now as of VB6 do nesting!! that's great! (real containers AND kvm on macosx thru proxmox) but that wont work with ARM... ). I still need some win7 or win10 for legacy stuff or for clients, Vbox does the trick for most of it, and if I need the metal performance of the gfx in windows I have a small bootcamp partition. I use extensively Targed Display Mode with old imac27s, and I LOVE that feature; a 27 inch monitor with a server to do backend tasks on my desk, hard to beat.

All this to say, to repro my setup with Linux and another brand of intel powered machine, I'll waste an amazing amount of time. Intel is not going anywhere. They might have missed a beat or two, but they will pump out the best CPUs again in a short time. AMD got the upper hand for while back when the transition to x64 happened with the first real dual cores. Intel is not looking great right now I'll give you that, but chances are they will come back. Maybe. But in any case, this is a "if it works dont fix it". This CPU change will force a bunch of ppl to fix something that worked.

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

#980

Post by nardi »

I don't understand why folks are doubting the possible performance gains here. The latest iPads are already faster than the vast majority of PC laptops, including almost all MacBooks in single-core performance. And that's with the thermal constraints of an iPad. Can you imagine what that exact same chip can do with better cooling?

I guess we won't have to imagine long, though, since that's exactly what we'll see with the developer kit. Can't wait to see benchmarks of those.

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