Apple Event to Include 13-Inch MacBook Pro, 16-Inch MacBook Pro, and 13-Inch MacBook Air With Apple Silicon Chips [Updated]

[Fomalhaut]

No redesign = no buy.
why would I go out and risk on an AS cpu if there is no gain on the hardware? Very odd.

My bets the 16” is an 10th gen intel,

But the most important part of the hardware - the CPU/GPU (and probably the memory, storage and bus technology) - will be upgraded. That is the gain.

The size and shape of an aluminium box don't have much to do with it apart from mostly aesthetic considerations.

 

[Fomalhaut]

Wouldn't that require them to gimp the 13" significantly as to not have it be vastly superior to the 16"? And if it's not vastly superior on ARM vs Intel then what was the point anyway? What if they give the 13" ProMotion, crazy battery life, better performance, ALL of these features:

But the 16", their more expensive high-end flagship super-'Pro' machine gets.... a 3% faster Intel chip and some AMD graphics? I don't see it. I think they need to bring the 16" along for the ride here.

I don't think the 13" Apple Silicon MBP (or whatever they call it) will exceed the performance of the current MBP16, particularly in GPU power. However, I believe it will definitely close the gap! I'm expecting a 30-50% CPU performance increase and for the GPU for approach (but not exceed) the AMD Radeon Pro 5300M.

The advantages of the MBP16 will still be its screen size, GPU and maybe storage options?

 

[smulji]

I think key differences of the MacBook is that it’s designed around the full-size keyboard so as to achieve the smallest possible enclosure. And no fan. I think these are two ideals still important to Apple. The name is arbitrary.

You might be right. If I remember correctly, the 12" MB had relatively thick bezels. If Apple can shrink the bezels, maybe they'll be able to implement a 13.3" size screen in that form factor, powered by Apple Silicon of course.

 

[mrkkbb]

... The 16" MBP Apple Silicon will double its performance, even running x86 apps in rosetta.

You have no basis to say that. Good luck running MATLAB, Comsol, Autocad on Rosetta with the same performance as on an x86.

 

[Fomalhaut]

Bad timing. You'll probably be upset when a refreshed Intel 16" comes out next week and your model has lost a chunk of its value overnight.

Refreshed with Intel 10th gen or Apple Silicon? If the former, it is unlikely to be a huge performance improvement over the current model.

 

[cmaier]

You have no basis to say that. Good luck running MATLAB, Comsol, Autocad on Rosetta with the same performance as on an x86.

I have plenty of basis for saying it. I designed x86 CPUs.

How about you?

 

[UncleMac]

I just don’t believe they will release an Apple Silicon laptop in the same old (and to me: dated) chassis. Switching to AS is going to be a milestone in Apple history and represent major change for the company. It doesn’t make sense to pass on the opportunity to mark this with a new design.

 

[monster620ie]

I bought a 2019 mbp 16' standard configuration that was hardly used from a friend for USD 1400 a few weeks back. Umm for that price, no regret.

 

[bklement]

Care to explain your tanty? I chose a 16" because a lot of the time I can't set up with an external monitor.

Look at your comment, lol..

 

[Omega Mac]

I have plenty of basis for saying it. I designed x86 CPUs.

How about you?

Cool - Do you have any insight if it works out cheaper at the fab level for Apple pushing their own silicon too?

There has to be a bottom line advantage here somewhere.

Say if it was 30% cheaper per chip (or do we know the average unit cost per new A chip, since the iPad and iPhone are well established lines, so this is an economy of scale exercise in many respects) - Apple might offset that by throwing more of they A silicon to compensate for performance drop, the end user will not notice, because the price tag is fine tuned to market exception for the Apple product.

Or, might we see a pricing advantage flow through to the consumer because Apple have more margin and be able to offer a bit more value across their range, but still retain the profit they like.

In short, if there is margin wiggle room, where will any fab cost advantage mostly benefit, shareholder or consumer.

 

[benno_007]

Why do you want a redesign? Does it really matter what the machine looks like so long as it has a good screen and a working keyboard?

The sharp edges cause tendonitis and numbness in my wrists/hands (and yes its probably just how i use it), would love a bit of a softer front top edge.

 

[ajfahey]

Refreshed with Intel 10th gen or Apple Silicon? If the former, it is unlikely to be a huge performance improvement over the current model.

No it isn’t.

 

[Fomalhaut]

I own a 2012 and a mid 2015 MBP, an imac, mac mini, and owned 4 previous MBPs and other intel machines going back to the core duos, I would have much rather seen a move to AMD Ryzen chips and Radeon 6000 GPUs, than see Apple start from scratch with new, unproven "low-power" chips. Unless these have 24-48 hr battery life, I'm not sure i'm interested. So many apps are going to be running under emulation or are just straight up not going to get re-coded.

Hardly "unproven" - Apple has been developing their A-series chips for the last 10 years with millions of happy iPhone and iPad owners.

There is enough commonality between iOS and MacOS to be fairly confident that they will run MacOS very well. Also, there is nothing inherently low-power (in terms of performance) about Apple Silicon or ARM - there are 80-128 core ARM-based CPU already running in data centers. If you were referring to electrical power, then ARM-based CPU do very well in performance/Watt, you can more readily run more cores or higher frequency at the same TDP as Intel/AMD.

Most apps will not require any re-coding, or very minimal amounts (to cater for asymmetric cores), because they can be simply recompiled for ARM (assuming no use of low-level Intel-specific code).

 

[Fomalhaut]

Yep. Apple’s silicon may be able to sprint for short bursts, how how fast can it run a marathon?

Cooling.

Put that A14 into a laptop designed for 30W TDPs, give it 8 performance cores and a good GPU, and watch it fly....without throttling.

 

[Fomalhaut]

Where did you get that from? We dint even know whether the concept of base and boost clocks applies to Apple CPU, that’s Intel marketing scheme. Apples all-core sustained clock is usually just couple % lower than its max single core clock, but I don’t think that anyone has measured that out yet for the A14 (we have figures for the A13 courtesy of anandtech).

Anyway, 1.8 ghz sounds to me like the frequency of the efficiency cores.

I think he may have got it from:

Apple A14 Bionic - Benchmark, Test and Specs

Apple A14 Bionic - Benchmark, Geekbench 5, Cinebench R20, Cinebench R23, Cinebench R15 and FP32 iGPU (GFLOPS) benchmark results

www.cpu-monkey.com

But, these tables are confused by the fact the A-series chips have heterogeneous cores. For example, here:

Apple A13 Bionic vs Apple A14 Bionic - GadgetVersus

Comparison between Apple A13 Bionic and Apple A14 Bionic with the specifications of the processors, the number of cores, threads, cache memory, also the performance in benchmark platforms such as Geekbench, Passmark, Cinebench or AnTuTu.

gadgetversus.com

...they also quote "base" and "turbo" frequencies, but these simply align to the (presumably fixed) frequencies of the performance and low energy cores. AFAIK, the Apple SoCs run at a fixed frequency; I've never seen any mention of base and turbo frequencies.

 

[richinaus]

I have plenty of basis for saying it. I designed x86 CPUs.

How about you?

I believe you 100% that the AS chips will be much better.

However does your confidence extend to these developers jumping on board with lots of resources to nail native code optimised for AS for apps that they barely support for intel Macs.

I am looking forward to comparing a MBP16 with a HPZbook studio G7 and a AS MBP all running the same app. I will have access to all of these as soon as Apple ships.

 

[Brien]

Apple Rule #1. never buy an Apple Gen 1 product.

True except for my S0 AW

 

[richinaus]

Hardly "unproven" - Apple has been developing their A-series chips for the last 10 years with millions of happy iPhone and iPad owners.

There is enough commonality between iOS and MacOS to be fairly confident that they will run MacOS very well. Also, there is nothing inherently low-power (in terms of performance) about Apple Silicon or ARM - there are 80-128 core ARM-based CPU already running in data centers. If you were referring to electrical power, then ARM-based CPU do very well in performance/Watt, you can more readily run more cores or higher frequency at the same TDP as Intel/AMD.

Most apps will not require any re-coding, or very minimal amounts (to cater for asymmetric cores), because they can be simply recompiled for ARM (assuming no use of low-level Intel-specific code).

The issue for me is yes the apps will work, but they were not designed for Metal in the first place, so already run terribly on a mac vs windows [they run massively better in bootcamp for example so its not the hardware thats an issue].

So this is where I am coming from. If the mac apps already run like a dog in comparison to windows because the developers dont put the resources in to the mac versions, what chance is there that they are going to sort them out for AS? Basically no chance. Rely on Rosetta and say you have a mac version........ its rubbish.
I am not blaming Apple for any of this, and know these AS computers will fly, but I have no confidence at all that the apps I use will.

I am talking about :

Autocad
Rhino
Fusion 360
Twinmotion

Note these are all apps that rely on an gpu, and leverage it a lot. I think Autocad is the only one that has metal support, the rest ........

 

[richinaus]

True except for my S0 AW

Yep I was at the front door on pre-release day. Still works fine although slowly.

The only computer I have big regrets ever buying was the first intel laptops..... However that was the old Apple. I have more faith this time round, as really there isn’t anything that is ‘new’.
The issue for me will be apps as mentioned previously.

 

[theorist9]

Wolfram says Mathematica (v. 12.1.0 and later; current verson is 12.1.1) will be ready to run on the first AS Macs, so I'll be looking forward to seeing some benchmarks with that. I don't know if it will be running natively or through Rosetta, but I expect it will be the former, since they have a committment to the Mac platform, and an interest in having MMA continue to perform on it as well as possible. Plus they've had an ARM-based version for the Raspberry Pi since 2013.

 

[Brien]

Yep I was at the front door on pre-release day. Still works fine although slowly.

The only computer I have big regrets ever buying was the first intel laptops..... However that was the old Apple. I have more faith this time round, as really there isn’t anything that is ‘new’.
The issue for me will be apps as mentioned previously.

My 1st gen Black MacBook was a lemon, as was my Rev A iBook G4.

First generation MacBook Pro no issues

 

[richinaus]

My 1st gen Black MacBook was a lemon, as was my Rev A iBook G4.

First generation MacBook Pro no issues

Maybe I should have clarified - it was the software not the hardware I had issues with.

 

[AdamNC]

Ok my 2020 iPad Pro beats in geekbench scores my 2020 13 i7 MacBook Pro. Single core 1100 to 1345, multi 4120 to 4345. Then the biggest gain is the GPU. 10340 to 12355. I think the 13 MBP thats coming next week is going to be shocking.

 

[amartinez1660]

It depends on what kind of chips they use for the 13". At this stage, most likely bet is a quad core CPU and 8 core GPU. That won't be enough to outperform the Intel i9 (although the A14 will certainly be snappier in Safari )

I hope is more than that. An iPad Pro from 2018 already had 8 core CPUs and 7 GPU. Single core, multi core and GPU scores were up to par with a fully cooled MacBook Pro 13” 2020.

Don’t know what’s gonna happen really but I find it likely that it’s going to smoke the i9s

 

[Tech198]

"Update: Bloomberg updated its original article and has clarified that the 13-inch ‌MacBook Air‌ and ‌MacBook Pro‌ are further along in production than the 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌, and that "at least those two laptops" will be shown off at the event. It's possible, then, that we'll see just the smaller notebooks with no mention of the 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌, but there's still a chance we'll see all three."

in other words, "wait and see"

ok. i will