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Apple Considering Switch From Intel Chips in Future Macs

mrxak

mrxak

macrumors 68000
Apr 16, 2004
1,650
697
Drifting through space in a broken escape pod
This rumor gets posted several times a year, I don't know why everyone's freaking out.

Even if it's true, Apple is "considering" a switch in the "future", it can easily be a purposeful leak trying to kick Intel in the ass while they're dragging their feet on some chip or another Apple wants to buy.
 
Death-T

Death-T

macrumors regular
May 18, 2012
125
0
Savannah, Georgia
Jeez, I jumped on the Mac bandwagon four years ago. Didn't get my first one until last year. I love OS X, and my 2011 iMac and rMBP are the best computers I've ever had. But the future of Apple computers is just scary. If they keep moving in this direction I'll be going Linux full-time.
 
thekev

thekev

macrumors 604
Aug 5, 2010
7,005
3,343
AppleMacFinder said:
Actually, that could be good! x86 architecture has so much flaws and unnecessary legacy stuff...

ARM CPUs are also very energy efficient. In example, Nufront 2GHz CPU, which uses JUST 2 Watts !
While Intel CPUs could eat up to 100 Watts.
Click to expand...

I kind of hope you're trolling here, as this doesn't even resemble accurate, and it doesn't sound like sarcasm, given that you cited a brand in there. Ghz are a poor measure of overall performance without further context, regardless of architecture. The only area where they're still used is in differentiating between two very similar cpus. Intel's 17W cpus would still blow away the 2W ones you mentioned. While the ARM versions could sacrifice performance in favor of that 16W, they don't represent the entire power budget for the machine. If you aren't trolling, you should catch up on your reading:p. You're making a nonsense comparison when Intel designs cpus anywhere from sub 10W with Atom to 130+ for servers and workstations.
 
Neodym

Neodym

macrumors 68020
Jul 5, 2002
2,432
1,069
Purant said:
I can't see any pros for going ARM.

In other words: The transition to intel was painful, but I understood it was necessary. Now after all these years, all the software has proper intel support and now that it's stable again Apple might change to ARM because.... because what?
Click to expand...
For starters...

  • Become independent from another company's roadmap for crucial components
  • Have full control over the whole hardware to make optimizations or allow for individual solutions
  • Distinguish from others being "just another Intel box, just with higher prices"
  • Reduce the hardware (and related software) platforms the company has to support and develop for
  • Leverage economies of scale with millions of ARM CPU's already produced for iOS devices (--> lower product prices and/or higher profit)
  • Overcome limitations the current hardware platform is implying (e.g. no multi-CPU except with expensive Xeons)
  • Be prepared for a possibly upcoming market transition to another major hardware platform (Windows is going ARM, too)
  • Be (one of) the first in the new market (ARM on desktop) to set the standards and reap the benefits
 
P

Purant

macrumors 6502
Aug 26, 2012
305
0
Neodym said:
For starters...

  • Become independent from another company's roadmap for crucial components
  • Have full control over the whole hardware to make optimizations or allow for individual solutions
  • Distinguish from others being "just another Intel box, just with higher prices"
  • Reduce the hardware (and related software) platforms the company has to support and develop for
  • Leverage economies of scale with millions of ARM CPU's already produced for iOS devices (--> lower product prices and/or higher profit)
  • Overcome limitations the current hardware platform is implying (e.g. no multi-CPU except with expensive Xeons)
  • Be prepared for a possibly upcoming market transition to another major hardware platform (Windows is going ARM, too)
  • Be (one of) the first in the new market (ARM on desktop) to set the standards and reap the benefits
Click to expand...

That's pros for Apple, not for consumers. I am a consumer, why would I care about that? What would *I* gain from Apple going Arm?
 
roxxette

roxxette

macrumors 68000
Aug 9, 2011
1,507
0
I think whe should get a grip, i cant stress these enough theres no way these is going to be a radical overnight change after a event ! Theres no frecking way.
 
T

TauCeti808

macrumors newbie
Nov 15, 2010
8
0
It really depends what People are doing with their gear. I can not really imagine that I will ever develop any software on an ARM machine or playing a performance hungry game.

But for a lot of other stuff like mail, communication, media consumption, project management, office tasks, web surfing a quad core with 16+x GB looks extremly uber powered.

At the end it probably just means that their will be some kind of pro market (small) and a huge consumer market.

However my persistent impression is, that Apple under serves the pro market since 2 or 3 years. They really have changed their strategy, but that also is happening with Microsoft because their is this huge vibrant market. And nobody can ignore this market without risking to be driven out of business (look at Nokia).

So the question remains which platform is best for developing software, producing content, etc - does question really matter!?

Will we go back to cross-compilers like in the 80ties?
 
H

hoon2999

macrumors regular
Mar 30, 2012
137
119
so.. apple wants people to think that they'll change to some ridiculous chipset and forcing them to think that this is only chance to buy macs with intel chip. with their shares declining, i guess they need to try everything.
maybe not :p
 
D

drorpheus

macrumors regular
Nov 20, 2010
160
1
It will be fine. If you have to have the latest Intel everything go buy a Dell or a HP or Build your own from Newegg or Frys or TigerDirect. Intel is the most UNinnovative chip company on the planet. Everything they offer is dated and technology of the past. Chips still running on the most bloated architecture and while its not as slow as it was, its still slow. Its all the most unsecure. Still offering dual and quad core chips, barely breached 3Ghz chips, that's 7 years of Intel Innovation for ya. IBM had 3.2Ghz 3 core and 8 core single socket chips (so power was never an issue) in Fall 05/06, had Apple chose the 8 and went halves with Sony you'd have had 16 core cpus in early 2007 running on air.

For all the doubters, the answer is sitting right in front of your face, like it or not most of your self fulfilled dreams of why Apple left IBM for Intel is wrong, its real simple, Steve Jobs wanted to sell laptops, he wanted that more than anything, IBM couldn't cool down they're chips (they are masters of high power computing, not mobile consumer use) Apple approached PA Semi to fill this void with low power RISC POWER chips licensed from IBM, but it wouldn't be shippable until Spring 07, Apple didn't want to wait another year so they chose Intel, Intel's could be stuffed in laptops. Apple bought PA Semi 2 years later, has all the talent and technologies and patents PA Semi owned. 3 yrs Later you have the iPad, running on an Apple RISC chip design by Apple to be made by whoever they choose, shipped in mass volume with near flawless fail rate.


With all the money Apple has they can do a number of things, staying with Intel only holds them back. Look the MacPro hasn't been touched for almost 3 years now, and that's not because Intel's chips are so fast that they need dry Ice to cool it. Intel doesn't need Apple they're in the other 99% of every other consumer computer, that's why there's never much innovation, there's no need because they have no competition. Both companies will be fine without each other, they both survived without each other before, they can do it again. Apple's basically at where Snow Leopard started with OSX and RISC, if they stopped all R&D they day they switched to Intel, clearly they haven't since you have iOS.

I personally can not wait, maybe we can finally get over the bump in the road Apple's currently stuck at with Intel.
 
G

gpat

macrumors 68000
Mar 1, 2011
1,870
5,044
Italy
unobtainium said:
Jump ship to where? It's conceivable that all or most PCs will become ARM-based in the next decade. This is the tech battle of a generation coming up (intel vs. Arm). Intel is reaching down, ARM is reaching up, becoming more and more powerful.
Click to expand...

I can say with confidence that you have no idea what you're talking about. The most powerful ARM chip you can get now is 1/12 as powerful as an high-end Intel chip, even an aging one, such as the Xeon in the 2010 Mac Pro. There is no way that the "Pro" machines will feature those chips in the near future, unless they only keep the "Pro" name and become oversized toys for people having more money than sense. Which is completely possible.
 
KnightWRX

KnightWRX

macrumors Pentium
Jan 28, 2009
15,046
4
Quebec, Canada
brdeveloper said:
What about a 32-core ARM processors in a Macbook Air? Same performance per watt, big redundancy... you can turn on-off as many CPUs you need on a certain time. If you need doing something faster, you can basically split a task into various parallel threads. Also, you can place two separated 16-core ARMs in the case for better heat dissipation or other design constraints.
Click to expand...

Because most software is not written in a way to run in such a parallele execution environnement, just putting in more cores does not give you the equivalent of an Intel solution.

And a 32 core ARM processor, on top of being less able to perform, wouldn't be more power efficient than an x86 quad-core or even dual-core machine.

There is nothing to gain here except being different. Which is dumb. Change just to be different brings nothing good, especially when it hurts with compatibility.

Many gaming titles on Macs these days exist just because the Mac is x86 and software porting houses use the Windows code base wrapped around with a specific WINE build (Guild Wars 2, Batman: Arkham stuff, etc..). Forget that with ARM Macs. Same for all the virtualization stuff (VMWare, Parallele, Virtual Box). Forget Bootcamp and running Windows 8, you'll be stuck with Windows RT which is not compatible with the full suite of Windows software out there.

Older titles not actively developped ? Forget getting the vendor to rebuild them for ARM, heck tons of it wasn't even rebuilt for Intel!
 
roxxette

roxxette

macrumors 68000
Aug 9, 2011
1,507
0
drorpheus said:
It will be fine. If you have to have the latest Intel everything go buy a Dell or a HP or Build your own from Newegg or Frys or TigerDirect. Intel is the most UNinnovative chip company on the planet. Everything they offer is dated and technology of the past. Chips still running on the most bloated architecture and while its not as slow as it was, its still slow. Its all the most unsecure. Still offering dual and quad core chips, barely breached 3Ghz chips, that's 7 years of Intel Innovation for ya. IBM had 3.2Ghz 3 core and 8 core single socket chips (so power was never an issue) in Fall 05/06, had Apple chose the 8 and went halves with Sony you'd have had 16 core cpus in early 2007 running on air.

For all the doubters, the answer is sitting right in front of your face, like it or not most of your self fulfilled dreams of why Apple left IBM for Intel is wrong, its real simple, Steve Jobs wanted to sell laptops, he wanted that more than anything, IBM couldn't cool down they're chips (they are masters of high power computing, not mobile consumer use) Apple approached PA Semi to fill this void with low power RISC POWER chips licensed from IBM, but it wouldn't be shippable until Spring 07, Apple didn't want to wait another year so they chose Intel, Intel's could be stuffed in laptops. Apple bought PA Semi 2 years later, has all the talent and technologies and patents PA Semi owned. 3 yrs Later you have the iPad, running on an Apple RISC chip design by Apple to be made by whoever they choose, shipped in mass volume with near flawless fail rate.


With all the money Apple has they can do a number of things, staying with Intel only holds them back. Look the MacPro hasn't been touched for almost 3 years now, and that's not because Intel's chips are so fast that they need dry Ice to cool it. Intel doesn't need Apple they're in the other 99% of every other consumer computer, that's why there's never much innovation, there's no need because they have no competition. Both companies will be fine without each other, they both survived without each other before, they can do it again. Apple's basically at where Snow Leopard started with OSX and RISC, if they stopped all R&D they day they switched to Intel, clearly they haven't since you have iOS.

I personally can not wait, maybe we can finally get over the bump in the road Apple's currently stuck at with Intel.
Click to expand...

Yeah everyone else is to blame for apple fail in the laptop/desktop side....
 
Abazigal

Abazigal

Contributor
Jul 18, 2011
19,543
21,974
Singapore
Overg said:
This will be mega disaster far worse then the maps.
The only reason people from windows buy Mac is the ability to run both.
Apple takin it out is dearh blow to Mac line.
Click to expand...
Not true for me. When I switched over to the iMac, it was because I was getting increasingly fed up with windows and wanted a change. That I could install windows in boot camp wasn't even a consideration.

Aside from office, I was okay using apple's own custom software. That I can load windows to play my games is a nice feature, but one I can live without.

Still, it won't be an easy transition, so apple had better have a better move than 'take it or leave it' attitude with maps.
 
Firen

Firen

macrumors regular
Jun 15, 2009
133
0
Vienna, Austria
If they do this I'm gone as well... I got a Mac because I knew I could run Windows on it as well on the side for programs I need for university.

And now many programs (and games!) are available for Mac as well and mainly because they now use an intel processor...

Pleeeease Apple, don't be so stupid!
 
Renzatic

Renzatic

Suspended
Aug 3, 2011
9,561
10,118
Gramps, what the hell am I paying you for?
drorpheus said:
It will be fine. If you have to have the latest Intel everything go buy a Dell or a HP or Build your own from Newegg or Frys or TigerDirect. Intel is the most UNinnovative chip company on the planet. Everything they offer is dated and technology of the past. Chips still running on the most bloated architecture and while its not as slow as it was, its still slow. Its all the most unsecure. Still offering dual and quad core chips, barely breached 3Ghz chips, that's 7 years of Intel Innovation for ya. IBM had 3.2Ghz 3 core and 8 core single socket chips (so power was never an issue) in Fall 05/06, had Apple chose the 8 and went halves with Sony you'd have had 16 core cpus in early 2007 running on air.
Click to expand...

One of the weird things about posting on Macrumors is that there are so many uninformed people around here, it's sometimes kinda hard to tell if someone's trolling, or if they're being sincere.

And what does a CPU have to do with security anyway? I've seen that mentioned a couple of times now. It's like saying rotary engines are are less secure than V8s because someone stole your car after you got one.
 
T

The Bulge

macrumors 6502
Oct 27, 2012
260
0
Up your ass.
KnightWRX said:
Because most software is not written in a way to run in such a parallele execution environnement, just putting in more cores does not give you the equivalent of an Intel solution.

And a 32 core ARM processor, on top of being less able to perform, wouldn't be more power efficient than an x86 quad-core or even dual-core machine.

There is nothing to gain here except being different. Which is dumb. Change just to be different brings nothing good, especially when it hurts with compatibility.

Many gaming titles on Macs these days exist just because the Mac is x86 and software porting houses use the Windows code base wrapped around with a specific WINE build (Guild Wars 2, Batman: Arkham stuff, etc..). Forget that with ARM Macs. Same for all the virtualization stuff (VMWare, Parallele, Virtual Box). Forget Bootcamp and running Windows 8, you'll be stuck with Windows RT which is not compatible with the full suite of Windows software out there.

Older titles not actively developped ? Forget getting the vendor to rebuild them for ARM, heck tons of it wasn't even rebuilt for Intel!
Click to expand...

Apple must know something you don't.
 
E

eslu

macrumors newbie
Nov 6, 2012
1
0
This can be pretty cool! Seriously, ARM got real potential beating x86. (With 64bit ARM)
Imagine several ARM processors on a motherboard, this is cheaper and runs cooler than several Intel processors. NVIDIA and AMD have already said they will use ARM on their graphics cards.
 
S

Setok

macrumors newbie
May 12, 2009
25
1
Helsinki
To read up on the desktop machines that ARM really was originally built for, go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RiscPC

Those were really powerful machines for the time with an amazing OS that did anti-aliased fonts and had loadable kernel modules and stuff like ZIP files as folders (which we still don't really see).

The fact that Intel is #1 today on desktops is really one of those Betamax vs VHS things. Ie. it wasn't technology that did it. In fact in those days x86 was laughably bad. Intel has had to put serious work into engineering around the limitations of the x86 architecture.
 
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