So an a series desktop could be the equivalent of 19 x a12 socs at the same power consumption.
It seems to me that arm based A series cpu’ s have great potential to overcome x86 based cpu’ s.
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AnandTech Calls A12 Bionic in iPhone XS 'Just Margins Off' Best Desktop CPUs in New Review
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It seems to me that arm based A series cpu’ s have great potential to overcome x86 based cpu’ s.
Not to belittle it, but the only issue with Boot Camp and Mojave I'm aware of relates to rare 3 TB configurations on older machines, which don't work well with APFS and Boot Camp's EFI.
One can legitimately complain that they didn't fix it before release, but this seems far to specific to me to be indicative of them moving away from Boot Camp altogether. Rather, it seems to indicate that they don't care enough about those relatively old computers.
I… don't follow. Boot Camp is obsolete because Chrome is the new Internet Explorer?
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It's possible that Apple Ax scales up a lot to desktop-class CPUs, but we don't know at all if it does or doesn't.
Then do it and then talk. Still don't see why you'd want a crippled garbage bin processor as your driving force behind a workstation.
I'll ask yet again:
WHY do so many of you continue to push the ARM agenda in desktops?
Until we see how ARM performs with macOS and the most demanding pro apps and games @4K, I think any comparisons to high-end Intel and AMD CPUs is pointless. There’s also the difference between RISC and CISC.
iOS is pretty lightweight and doesn’t have half of what it going on behind the scenes in macOS. If we compare the A12 to the first CPU/SoC in the first iPhone, the performance increase has been extraordinary without a doubt. Even comparing the A12 to something like the A7, the first ARM chip with 64-bit capability.
[doublepost=1538775877][/doublepost]There’s also the problem of being able to run multiple systems on ARM. What about Bootcamp? What about all the Linux distros? What about VM support?
iOS is pretty lightweight and doesn’t have half of what it going on behind the scenes in macOS. If we compare the A12 to the first CPU/SoC in the first iPhone, the performance increase has been extraordinary without a doubt. Even comparing the A12 to something like the A7, the first ARM chip with 64-bit capability.
[doublepost=1538775877][/doublepost]There’s also the problem of being able to run multiple systems on ARM. What about Bootcamp? What about all the Linux distros? What about VM support?
The Year-old A11 still outperforms Android’s flagship CPUs. And not by a small amount. Pretty sad...
I kinda feel bad for Apple’s software team, considering that they have absolutely zero excuses with how amazing and powerful the hardware is that they have to work with. It would be interesting to see the relationship between the hardware and software teams at Apple: The hardware team sitting back in their chairs, relaxing as they watch the software team frantically sweat and toil trying to reach the same standards of quality. Or, perhaps, it is the exact opposite, and maybe that’s why Apple is in the current situation they are now in.
I kinda feel bad for Apple’s software team, considering that they have absolutely zero excuses with how amazing and powerful the hardware is that they have to work with. It would be interesting to see the relationship between the hardware and software teams at Apple: The hardware team sitting back in their chairs, relaxing as they watch the software team frantically sweat and toil trying to reach the same standards of quality. Or, perhaps, it is the exact opposite, and maybe that’s why Apple is in the current situation they are now in.
This should be irrelevant soon. SSHD was only introduced because of the exhorbitant cost of true SSDs. It’s like a stopgap just how 720p sets were on the way to 1080p sets. I don’t think anyone should bother buying iMacs with SSHDs. If you can’t afford 1TB NVMe just supplement with external SSDs. It’s not like those iMacs will be moving around much and the physical space these external disks take up is insignificant on a desk.
[doublepost=1538776358][/doublepost]Also once Intel finally gets 7nm yields to where they should be, most of this will probably be irrelevant as well. I don’t expect Intel to be in this situation for very long. They have been around forever and always manage to leave everyone else behind after overcoming road blocks. It’s happened several times before and will happen again. If you don’t have Intel Inside, you don’t have ****! Just like if it ain’t Boeing, I’m not going lol!
No, there isn't. RISC/CISC hasn't been a meaningful designation since the 1990s.
A modern x86 CPU is internally "RISC" and only externally emulates the classic x86 instruction set.
It has some less cruft because it's younger, but other than that, it really isn't that different.
I assume by "SSHD" you mean Fusion Drive. The Boot Camp / 3 TB issue is unrelated to Fusion Drive.
Because intel is in a stand still, nearly no innovation, just optimizations and better cooling to push clock speeds . No 7nm, no real advancements.
At the time intel goes to 7nm, apple will be at 5nm.
And why are these pc guys always on the fence: “ no way that a 5w soc can keep up with a 95w cpu” . No it can’ t ! but an arm based A soc from apple that runs at 95 watts, surely can/could .
Intel has been arrogant, and has gotten lazy because of nearly no competition, and they were taken by surprise by amd and have to scramble now. What is next : cappuccino lake?
Time that another big player puts the pressure on them, so they wake up.
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Real world, there isn’t. This is synthetic and honestly doesn’t mean much for user experience. Even an A9 feels perfectly smooth and fast on iOS 12.
That is the correct term: Solid State Hybrid Drive. Typically it is one unit but Apple has a separate small capacity SSD and a normal HDD which they combine into one volume.
A hybrid drive typically refers to a hard disk with a large flash-based read cache. Fusion Drive isn't a caching mechanism.
And, again, even if it were, that would be completely moot, as the Boot Camp 3 TB Mojave issue has absolutely nothing to do with Fusion Drive.
If the rumours are true (that intel are basically shrinking their 14nm to ~12nm and branding it '10nm' with virtually no density increase at all) then it's possible intel might only just be releasing what they had planned to be 10nm by the time apple are at 5... I know the varying density means it's not an apples to apples comparison, but rule of thumb is intel has been approx one cycle ahead of the competition, so 10nm TSMC would be equivalent to intel's 14nm - so TSMC are now going better than intel with 7nm. It's a shame as Intel have paid the price for being overly ambitious, not arrogant with their market position - and they deliver absolutely cracking products at their best.
Unfortunately that were 2 different scenarious that kinda merged as the discussion was about desktop usage of the Axx CPUs.
The OS' behavious that you already described in detail.
The amount of RAM needed to keep Apps running.
The latter of course depends on the Apps running. Some might use a few 100MB -or even less, others maybe almost a GB, let alone games.
My personal observation is, that in a (let's call it) "productive scenario" (using Adobe Reader, Outlook, Safari, Skype, Photos, some messenger Apps) not all Apps can be kept in RAM, as they take their time to resume. Keeping all those Apps open (or suspended) in memory requires a certain amount of it. To achive that I highly doubt 4GB RAM are sufficient, mostly because some Apps are RAM hogs, especially browsers and PDF readers (large PDFs).
tl;dr: So, yes, the 4G are plenty if we suspend background Apps/tabs and swap their memory to NAND, for "real" (parallel) multitasking with GUI Apps actually running "minimized" I'd opt for 6GB as minimum for practical use.
There's no reason why an A-series CP{U can't run Mac OS, nor why an Intel CPU can't run iOS.
Benefits/drawbacks of ARM on the desktop aside, I'm really curious how Apple could scale this up if power consumption and heat dissipation wasn't as constrained as it is in a smartphone/tablet.
Agreed on the A-series running macOS, but not Intel mobile CPU running iOS, when in a device as small as the iPhone as it would just fry the entire thing.
Is that why, when I re-open some apps after time away, the app appears briefly in the state it was before I exited but quickly returns to the default view?
Subsequent posts do reference come comparison benchmarks to Intel processors. However, the article references the performance of the A12 and not the actual iPhone. It would be really difficult to compare actual iPhone performance against desktop CPUs in synthetic benchmarks due to the thermal limitations of a mobile device (e.g. the mobile device would throttle and not allow for sustained performance). But just echoing other people's thoughts, it would be very interesting to see what the A12 could do if it were put in a laptop or desktop with proper thermal management.
I wouldn't say we push, rather "observe the market". x86 is falling behind. If we put a passive cooled ARM inside a MacBook that has more power than a quadcore i5, let alone a dual core M series like in the 12"MB, I'm in for it.
Or in other words: even older iPhones seem to greatly outperform the Macbook 12 while newers apparently can play in the ballpark of a Macbook Pro.
Especially on low end devices that won't run CPU intensive tasks such as a 12"MB or MB Air (successor): If I get 4 times the performance/watt it doesn't matter if a (hopefully then available) x86 emulator is only 25% efficient.
Yes. It depends on how the app is made — a well-designed app shouldn't let that happen; rather, it should figure out exactly what you were doing before and bring you back to that view. A more lazily-developed app will do what you're reporting — it will launch, and start from scratch.