Apple to replace Intel and move to ARM - *** Confirmed as "Apple Silicon" ***

[HACO]

Looks like the Apple silicon iMacs will have their own GPUs as well. It seems AMD is not accounted for in the ARM version of macOS.

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/31/apple-silicon-imac-custom-gpu-2021/

Seems like Apple is done with third-party CPU and GPUs. And eGPU support will likely be gone as well (unless AMD releases MacOS ARM drivers, which they might). Apple has promised to continue supporting thunderbolt in ARM macs.

Unlike Apple CPUs which are very competitive with Intel/AMD, Apple's GPUs are not there yet compared to Nvidia and AMD. However, Apple never actually used the fastest GPUs in their Mac products. All they need to do is to match or exceed Radeon 5700XT with this new iMac which is the fastest GPU in a Mac right now.

Apple hasn't proven that they can make competitive GPUs, but I'd be really excited if they did. We're getting very good competition in the CPU space with the revival of AMD and Apple/ARM closing down the gap with Intel/x86, it's about time we got some good competition in the GPU space as well.

 

[chef-borjan]

I am still holding out on a 2012 MBP, finally starting to show its age of Zoom calls. I use it for work and I really need to get something that doesn't chug quite so much. The moment laptops with Apple Silicon drop I am all in.

 

[Hades]

Does the NVidia buyout of ARM affect Apple at all? I seem to recall that the two companies don't like each other.

 

[HACO]

Does the NVidia buyout of ARM affect Apple at all? I seem to recall that the two companies don't like each other.

Since Apple designs their own cores and only use the ISA, not in the short and medium term. Apple likely has perpetual licenses to several of the future revisions of ARM ISAs and they must have planned for the event of ARM takeover by an uncooperative company. Softbank offered ARM to Apple first and Apple wasn't interested. However, at some point they have to sit down and negotiate their future relationship.

In the long term, Nvidia has the power to take ARM to the direction that they want, and Apple might not be happy with future versions of ARM ISA anymore.

I personally think this can open up an opportunity for these two to collaborate (e.g. Apple licensing some of Nvidia's technology in their own GPUs).

This mostly affects those who license ARM cores as well as the ISA, e.g. Qualcomm, Samsung, MediaTek, etc...

 

[b0rn2sk8]

No, nvidia will be required to licence the tech to anyone that wants it.

Apple wouldn’t be able to own ARM anyway, the regulators wouldn’t have it. I’m surprised they will allow nvidia because they also make Arm chips directly. I can see Qualcomm making some anti trust legal moves in the future if Nvidia’s arm offerings suddenly get better.

The whole Nvidia/Apple thing is mainly Apples problem with nvidia not the other way round. Nvidia made an engineering error on an old GPU which caused load of issues in a model of MacBook Pro.

Apple got super but hurt about it and haven’t used them since. The problem is that AMD cards are pretty poor in comparison so other than Apples pride the people who have mainly suffered in reality is Apple customers because they get a worse product than what Apple could make.

 

[HACO]

No, nvidia will be required to licence the tech to anyone that wants it.

Apple wouldn’t be able to own ARM anyway, the regulators wouldn’t have it. I’m surprised they will allow nvidia because they also make Arm chips directly. I can see Qualcomm making some anti trust legal moves in the future if Nvidia’s arm offerings suddenly get better.

It's never that simple. Sure, they would be required to continue licensing the current technology to anyone who wants it, but these requirements dilute as time goes by, because company priorities change after acquisitions. The technology that others will be able to license in 5 or 10 or 15 years time won't be a technology with similar design principles that ARM currently offers and the resources diverted to developing them won't be the same. That's where Nvidia can make its mark. They'll still give you a new Cortex A79 A80 A81 A82 core design every year for anyone to license but they could be making them with a lot less effort, progressing them at a slower pace, and diverting ARM's talent and resources towards developing something else that Nvidia prioritises more, whatever it may be.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

It's never that simple. Sure, they would be required to continue licensing the current technology to anyone who wants it, but these requirements dilute as time goes by, because company priorities change after acquisitions. The technology that others will be able to license in 5 or 10 or 15 years time won't be a technology with similar design principles that ARM currently offers and the resources diverted to developing them won't be the same. That's where Nvidia can make its mark. They'll still give you a new Cortex A79 A80 A81 A82 core design every year for anyone to license but they could be making them with a lot less effort, progressing them at a slower pace, and diverting ARM's talent and resources towards developing something else that Nvidia prioritises more, whatever it may be.

Which is why I said I expect someone Qualcomm to start anti trust proceedings of that were the case.

 

[HACO]

Which is why I said I expect someone Qualcomm to start anti trust proceedings of that were the case.

If Nvidia designs an equivalent part for themselves to make Nvidia mobile SoCs, while licensing a worse part to others so that they can't compete with Nvidia's offering, sure. That's a classic anti-trust case. If Nvidia takes ARM's resources away to develop desktop, laptop and server class 15w-250w CPUs to compete with Intel and AMD, without licensing it to anyone, Qualcomm has no case.

Anti-trust arguments have to be precise and the bar to proving them is incredibly high. Unless Nvidia makes the rookiest of mistakes in their strategy, nothing is going to happen.

 

[HACO]

First Geekbench benchmark of A14, which is the family of processors we'll see in ASi macs.

https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/4006878

Single core: 1583

At least in Geekbench, single core performance is faster than Core i9-10885H (~1300) and 4900HS (~1200). Can't compare multicore results because ASi Macs won't be just two performance cores like A14.

Mandatory disclaimer that this is only Geekbench. We'll have to wait until the first ASi mac is released before we can run proper benchmarks directly comparing these together.

 

[HACO]

https://9to5mac.com/2020/10/04/ipad...eb-as-apple-reportedly-prepares-a14-apple-tv/

GPU metal results are out:

A14: 12571
A12Z: 11665
A12X: 10860
A13: 7308
A12: 5242

Looks like Apple massively undersold A14's GPU in the iPad Air keynote.

As a comparison:

Geforce GTX 960 scores about 12500.
Radeon RX 5700XT is about 65,000, that's what you get in the top of the line iMac.
Radeon RX 5600M is about 40,000, that's the top-of-the-line MBP GPU.
Radeon RX 5500M is about 28,000, that's the typical 16-inch MBP GPU.
Intel Iris Plus graphics (in 13-inch MBPs) will score about 8500.

Obviously this is a ~5w SoC so comparing to those 100w+ dedicated GPUs is not suitable. Looks like ASi macs will have better GPUs than Intel ones, but the gap is still pretty big compared to those with dedicated GPUs. It remains to be seen whether Apple will release dedicated GPUs or not.

 

[Ryan-3]

Even with these reported benchmark results, I couldn't be happier with going for my MBP as it'll take time before everything is compatible with these new systems. But once it is, these things will be rather epic. Having that sort of power within an SoC of that power is a big achievement.

 

[HACO]

Even with these reported benchmark results, I couldn't be happier with going for my MBP as it'll take time before everything is compatible with these new systems. But once it is, these things will be rather epic. Having that sort of power within an SoC of that power is a big achievement.

Yeah. It will take more than 5 years for half of the Mac user base to be on AS instead of Intel. Your Intel Mac will be great for several years, and by then we’ll be on the third or fourth generation of AS macs, so the software support will be great and Apple will have sorted issues out, also more time to develop faster GPUs to close down the gap with AMD and Nvidia.

 

[Feek]

If there's a MacBook equivalent with the same nice slim form factor as my current 12 incher then I'll be all over it as I don't need a powerhouse laptop.

 

[Deleted member 209350]

Hearing rumours that the macbook pro's processor could be 12 cores. Makes a bit of sense as the phones are on 6 cores, ipad on 8 cores and macbook on 12.

Personally would like to see the phones bumped to 8, and ipads to 10

 

[Deleted member 209350]

https://9to5mac.com/2020/10/04/ipad...eb-as-apple-reportedly-prepares-a14-apple-tv/

GPU metal results are out:

A14: 12571
A12Z: 11665
A12X: 10860
A13: 7308
A12: 5242

Looks like Apple massively undersold A14's GPU in the iPad Air keynote.

As a comparison:

Geforce GTX 960 scores about 12500.
Radeon RX 5700XT is about 65,000, that's what you get in the top of the line iMac.
Radeon RX 5600M is about 40,000, that's the top-of-the-line MBP GPU.
Radeon RX 5500M is about 28,000, that's the typical 16-inch MBP GPU.
Intel Iris Plus graphics (in 13-inch MBPs) will score about 8500.

Obviously this is a ~5w SoC so comparing to those 100w+ dedicated GPUs is not suitable. Looks like ASi macs will have better GPUs than Intel ones, but the gap is still pretty big compared to those with dedicated GPUs. It remains to be seen whether Apple will release dedicated GPUs or not.

A better comparison would be something like A14 vs an AMD APU like the 4800U for example

 

[HACO]

A better comparison would be something like A14 vs an AMD APU like the 4800U for example

Metal is only available on iOS and macOS.

 

[ChrisD.]

Personally would like to see the phones bumped to 8

Agreed, my iPhone 11 Pro is so frustratingly slow.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Agreed, my iPhone 11 Pro is so frustratingly slow.

I assume this isn’t a serious post?

 

[MagicBoy]

Agreed, my iPhone 11 Pro is so frustratingly slow.

Well played.

 

[ChrisD.]

I assume this isn’t a serious post?

Of course it isn’t.