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Many problems: First in regards to VMs, if you have to emulate actual CPU you need to run the client OS you can just throw any/all hopes of decent performance out the window.

Second, software doesn't just magically re-write itself properly. In order to work on specific hardware as well as it possibly can it has to be properly optimized. Some of the clearest examples I can point to are in the gaming world. The PS3 was notably hard to program for, hence most developers didn't bother using the hardware properly, while a few did. The really good PS3 titles look damn near as good as many titles do today on the PS4 and compared well with the best PC titles of the era; they even supported things like stereoscopic rendering. The worst titles looked like absolute crap and you would swear you suddenly has a PS2 again. Within the PC world this is why game "a" will look and run beautifully on moderately powerful hardware but game "b" will run like crap on better hardware and might not even look as good. So software needs to be properly optimized to run as well as it possibly can, and this takes time, and money, and talent.

Now, what happens when you are a developer writing software for the 85% or 90% Intel/AMD based market? Do you actually go out and spend the money you have to spend to properly support that company that switched to their own CPUs? Welllllllll?? Probably not. You probably get the software working and that's it, because there isn't enough reason, financially, to do otherwise. A few companies will do in anyway, but most won't. So sure, that great "Apple CPU" might be 10% or 25% or hell, even 100% faster than an Intel/AMD CPU, but that doesn't mean the software will actually run faster. We are actually likely to see the exact opposite in many cases, unfortunately.

I would say this , I cant believe MS will want to get caught napping through another transition , you might think that Apple moving to ARM is not a transition , but if MS sits on their ass AGAIN like they did with the phones , and then some small company that only have a search engine comes along and uses another obscure san diego company that makes ARM chips to create a better then avg chromebook , something that will be competitive with the MS offering , gives it for free , open source , light and capable , full suite of office apps , what might happen then? SoftBank are pushing for performance , cloud infrastructure is being developed , mobile is a lost war now for wintel.

MS are using android for their mobile HW for god sakes , they will not let that happen again , i cannot believe they are THAT arrogant to just ignore the world around them , they will come on board and in doing so bring everything with them.
If you are a SW developer house that thinks like MS of the past , that nothing can touch you , then you will soon see the competition coming for your lunch.

I believe you are looking at the tip of your nose instead to the future , ARM is here to stay not sure how everyone just keep ignoring it , it has major traction from 2 of the 3 leading OS`s in the world , it has 3 out of the 4 biggest tech companies developing HW and SW for it (Amazon are on board).

MS will not be betting all the marbles on Intel/AMD (X86) , as they did in the past and got obliterated out of the most profitable market of our Era.

Again , look at the big picture my friend , its not apple alone that will make the SW houses (primarily windows) support ARM , its the other players in this game that you conveniently left out that will drive them forward by hook or by cook :)
 
Second, software doesn't just magically re-write itself properly. In order to work on specific hardware as well as it possibly can it has to be properly optimized.

Now, what happens when you are a developer writing software for the 85% or 90% Intel/AMD based market? Do you actually go out and spend the money you have to spend to properly support that company that switched to their own CPUs? Welllllllll?? Probably not. You probably get the software working and that's it, because there isn't enough reason, financially, to do otherwise. A few companies will do in anyway, but most won't. So sure, that great "Apple CPU" might be 10% or 25% or hell, even 100% faster than an Intel/AMD CPU, but that doesn't mean the software will actually run faster. We are actually likely to see the exact opposite in many cases, unfortunately.

This is the fear I have. Apple's grown up quite a bit over the years but their marketshare is nowhere close to Android, for example. If you want to develop an iOS app, for example, you need a Mac. (FWIW Apple's even been making strides to get full XCode on iPads.)

OS X running on x86 was the best decision Apple could have made because they were now flowing with the current, not against it. If you picked up a Mac, you could at least run Windows on it or virtualize it. And you can also use it for iOS dev. That made it a no-brainer for a lot of developers.

Going ARM only positions Apple more of a console developer instead of general computing company.

It remains to be seen what happens to Mac OS. Maybe it'll be macOS 11 now? As much as Apple says iOS and macOS won't be combined, I see it happening but in a more subtle way over time. ARM Macs are the start. Microsoft does this with their tablets, basically putting a touch screen interface on top of Windows except their implementation is crap at best.

I can see Apple working towards true convergence, where if you plug a mouse and keyboard in, you get the menubar and a more "intricate/precise" UI like macOS. Take the mouse away and you get more beefed up UI elements suitable for fingers. And it all runs on essentially one platform. iPhones are getting powerful enough that you could plugin in a monitor and get a portable machine. Again, that concept is nothing new but it hasn't been done well by anyone.

Apple is right, fingers and mouse need different/separate UIs. However, that doesn't mean it can't be one OS. That obviously could open the door to touch screen iMacs and such. Most users probably won't want to be touching their screens all day long but it could be useful for some applications like kiosks.
 
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firewood,


I know that Mathematica currently runs on ARM (Rasberry Pi). Please see the attached picture to my original post.

Compare the WolframMark benchmarks.

You can respond back to me if you think you have a valid counter-argument.


richmlow



False. Mathematica not only runs only run on an ARM platform, but you can get Mathematica for free on Raspberry Pi's (a popular educational ARM platform) running Raspbian. See: https://www.wolfram.com/raspberry-pi/
 
firewood,


I know that Mathematica currently runs on ARM (Rasberry Pi). Please see the attached picture to my original post.

Compare the WolframMark benchmarks.

You can respond back to me if you think you have a valid counter-argument.


richmlow
How is your graph relevant? Just like not all x86 processors are equally performant, so, too, not all ARM processors are equally performant.

"Electrical cars are faster than gas powered cars! Look at this graph comparing a Tesla model S to a 1973 chevy impala!"
 
This is why I switched my Intel Macs to Windows. I switched because Catalina bricked my network file shares where as Windows 10 does it perfectly fine.
So...turns out that Apple's moving to their own ARM chips. Looks like these two Macs

2018 Mac Mini
2017 MacBook Air

will be my last Macs ever.
Dunno what I'm gonna do when they die. Here's hoping I can find small form factor systems like the Mac mini that'll run Windows and reliable thin and light laptops for Windows 10 10-15 years down the line
 
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Assuming that this rumor is finally true, I think it's logical to see a MBA replacement that will utilize a slightly beefed-up version of the A12z in the iPad Pro. If it's fast enough it will run emulation on "native" MacOS software fast enough that it will not be a noticeable performance hit, and native iPadOS apps would run just like on iPadOS. For a large segment of Apple's laptop market, this would be a perfect device. Meanwhile, they could leave the Intel chips in the iMacs and the "Pro" line of MacBooks for now. As applications transition to full native capabilities on the ARM version of MacOS, they could transition to higher-performance ARM chips in their higher-end machines. More likely they won't though, as their install base on those machines is pretty tiny so engineering a chip for that makes little sense, when Intel (or maybe AMD some day) is already putting the work in to build those chips for a vastly larger install base. The added plus of having the ARM in the low end is it also turns up some heat on Intel, even if its minor.

I don't see a huge plus for Apple in trying to move their entire computer line to ARM vs. the costs to do so. They are profit-motivated and the sales in those segments seem unlikely to recoup the costs required. At the low end, however, they would likely make *more* profit as they can leverage what they're already doing for their iPads vs. paying Intel for what amounts to pretty weak cheap with poor thermals.

Using same CPU does NOT give you access to iPadOS apps automatically.
It will only run macOS apps and Catalyst apps.

People always thinking user land application goes with CPU. In real life they are not.
Those app are bind to iOS and cocoa touch framework and need to be re-worked to run on macOS regardless of what CPU that macOS is running on.

Apple explicitly prohibit developer to link iOS and Catalyst binaries together even they have same CPU architecture.
 
Could you elaborate more on this plz? Why do you think that?

There isn't much reason for big companies to adopt RISC-V. ARM license rates are not that high, and whether you use RISC-V or ARM you can still get sued by third parties for patent infringement. At least if you are using ARM, ARM will typically come to your defense in the lawsuit, and maybe even indemnify you against any monetary loss if you lose the suit. With RISC-V you are on your own. On a technical level, there is little advantage to RISC-V over ARM (that could change, but any advantages one ISA or the other has would typically flip flop over time since both are fundamentally similar architectures).
 
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cmaier,


The WolframMark benchmark graph is relevant because it compares various CPUs against each other (under a specific battery of computationally intensive mathematical tasks).

I’m stating the obvious.

richmlow


How is your graph relevant? Just like not all x86 processors are equally performant, so, too, not all ARM processors are equally performant.

"Electrical cars are faster than gas powered cars! Look at this graph comparing a Tesla model S to a 1973 chevy impala!"
 
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cmaier,


The WolframMarkbenchmark graph is relevant because it compares various CPUs against each other (under a specific battery of computationally intensive mathematical tasks).

I’m stating the obvious.

richmlow

It doesn't compare anything against APPLE'S ARM cpu - not even one of their existing A-series chips. It's against a random low-power ARM chip. It tells you absolutely ZERO about how a Mac with an ARM chip will perform. Just like you can't determine anything about a 2020 Chevy Corvette by looking at track data from a 1975 Chevy Chevette, even though they are both "Chevys"
 
This is the fear I have. Apple's grown up quite a bit over the years but their marketshare is nowhere close to Android, for example. If you want to develop an iOS app, for example, you need a Mac. (FWIW Apple's even been making strides to get full XCode on iPads.)

OS X running on x86 was the best decision Apple could have made because they were now flowing with the current, not against it. If you picked up a Mac, you could at least run Windows on it or virtualize it. And you can also use it for iOS dev. That made it a no-brainer for a lot of developers.

Going ARM only positions Apple more of a console developer instead of general computing company.

It remains to be seen what happens to Mac OS. Maybe it'll be macOS 11 now? As much as Apple says iOS and macOS won't be combined, I see it happening but in a more subtle way over time. ARM Macs are the start. Microsoft does this with their tablets, basically putting a touch screen interface on top of Windows except their implementation is crap at best.

I can see Apple working towards true convergence, where if you plug a mouse and keyboard in, you get the menubar and a more "intricate/precise" UI like macOS. Take the mouse away and you get more beefed up UI elements suitable for fingers. And it all runs on essentially one platform. iPhones are getting powerful enough that you could plugin in a monitor and get a portable machine. Again, that concept is nothing new but it hasn't been done well by anyone.

Apple is right, fingers and mouse need different/separate UIs. However, that doesn't mean it can't be one OS. That obviously could open the door to touch screen iMacs and such. Most users probably won't want to be touching their screens all day long but it could be useful for some applications like kiosks.

ARM is the current today.
There's more ARM device than x86 device in the wild. And as a CPU the only thing that matters is performance and efficiency.
As long as Intel can not provide that--just like how IBM PowerPC did in 2005-- Apple will drop them and switch to a better solution.

We are buying CPU for performance not for let it hijack our self into it. There's nothing special about Intel's x86. Just like there's nothing sepcial about PowerPC.
 
cmaier,


Please read my original post more clearly.

I said that as it stands, I cannot run Mathematica on an ARM platform. I also said that if Apple can create ARM desktop computers which equal (or surpass) my current Intel system while running Mathematica, then I’m happy to give my money to Apple!

End of thread....I’m not going to argue with you.

richmlow


It doesn't compare anything against APPLE'S ARM cpu - not even one of their existing A-series chips. It's against a random low-power ARM chip. It tells you absolutely ZERO about how a Mac with an ARM chip will perform. Just like you can't determine anything about a 2020 Chevy Corvette by looking at track data from a 1975 Chevy Chevette, even though they are both "Chevys"
 
cmaier,


The WolframMark benchmark graph is relevant because it compares various CPUs against each other (under a specific battery of computationally intensive mathematical tasks).

I’m stating the obvious.

richmlow

The graph is relevant for ARMv6 reference processor rev-7 (v61).

ARMv6's poster boy is ARM11. A major CPU used in smartphones in 2008.

That's a at least 10 years old CPU and you are expecting that thing representing today's ARM CPU performance?

We are at ARMv8.2 already and just grab a Pi 4 you will see huge improvement in performance.

You can not run Mathematica efficiently on a ARM11 CPU 10 years ago. But that have no relation to today's performance.
We already know A13 have much better single core performance than 3700k(we do not know your CPU spec, but since A13 is about 80-90% of a 5.0GHz 9900k single core, it is more than safe to say A13 have better single core performance than your result too), so there should not be any problem for your Wolfram use case.

Especially when your use case already runs on ARM Linux for more than 10 years. You are in best shape for this transition and you didn't even notice that. All low level optimization for heavy calculation was done for the past decade.
 
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Unfortunately, running Mathematica on even the most recent version of Raspberry Pi would be HOPELESS for my current workflow.


richmlow



The graph is relevant for ARMv6 reference processor rev-7 (v61).

ARMv6's poster boy is ARM11. A major CPU used in smartphones in 2008.

That's a at least 10 years old CPU and you are expecting that thing representing today's ARM CPU performance?

We are at ARMv8.2 already and just grab a Pi 4 you will see huge improvement in performance.
 
Unfortunately, running Mathematica on even the most recent version of Raspberry Pi would be HOPELESS for my current workflow.


richmlow

Can you provide a Pi 4 with 4GB ram result using same bench?

Thx in advance.

At least Pi4 is running ARMv8, same instruction set of iPhone CPUs. It is much slower than a iPhone but reasonably cheap and much much faster than the ARM11 chip with 256MB ram in original Pi.

BTW Can you limit the ram usage to 256MB and compare that result to the 10 years old ARM11?
Having more ram is really important in this test and I bet that ARM11 is paging out a lot during the test.

Even a Pi 1 should be at least comparable to a G5(about 1/4 of a dual core G5), instead of 14 times difference.
 
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If switching to ARM means we lose the ability to virtualize Windows, I'm out. Will be moving back to a Dell or something and be running Linux as my OS. What a shame.

Now the question is.. do I upgrade my 2013 Macbook Pro 13" now (to, say, a current MacBook Air), or do I wait? Leaning towards upgrading now, since it'll probably be good for at least 3-5 years if needed.

I still despise iOS because it's like trying to use a computer with one hand and that had has only two fingers. iOS is just too restrictive.
 
If switching to ARM means we lose the ability to virtualize Windows, I'm out. Will be moving back to a Dell or something and be running Linux as my OS. What a shame.

Now the question is.. do I upgrade my 2013 Macbook Pro 13" now (to, say, a current MacBook Air), or do I wait? Leaning towards upgrading now, since it'll probably be good for at least 3-5 years if needed.

I still despise iOS because it's like trying to use a computer with one hand and that had has only two fingers. iOS is just too restrictive.
I'd wait. There will likely still be a couple new Intel-based machines released, and, if not, the cost of intel-based machines may very well drop as people get rid of them to get ARM machines.
 
If switching to ARM means we lose the ability to virtualize Windows, I'm out. Will be moving back to a Dell or something and be running Linux as my OS. What a shame.

Now the question is.. do I upgrade my 2013 Macbook Pro 13" now (to, say, a current MacBook Air), or do I wait? Leaning towards upgrading now, since it'll probably be good for at least 3-5 years if needed.

I still despise iOS because it's like trying to use a computer with one hand and that had has only two fingers. iOS is just too restrictive.

Why not just running windows?
If you need windows you can really just try it out. It isn't that bad.

I will never recommend using Linux with graphical interface for anyone who never knows how to work with terminal shell.
 
Why not just running windows?
If you need windows you can really just try it out. It isn't that bad.

I will never recommend using Linux with graphical interface for anyone who never knows how to work with terminal shell.
I assume he knows how to use linux.

Personally, I never recommend linux to anyone who could instead be running actual UNIX :)

(I actually still miss using Solaris. Loved me some Solaris action.)
 
I assume he knows how to use linux.

Personally, I never recommend linux to anyone who could instead be running actual UNIX :)

(I actually still miss using Solaris. Loved me some Solaris action.)

I was a Sun reseller back in the days. 480 was the best. Hate when Oracle acquired them. Everything went wrong after that.
Glad I was grown up with Sun SPARC instead of a x86 only world.

I do recommend using Windows and WSL for Linux workflows. Windows does have much better and much easier to use driver support from OEMs.

Running real UNIX today usually means writing your own driver for your computer--or using Mac and claim you are indeed running real UNIX.

And people are acting like when Apple release a ARM computer their current one will explode or something. They shouldn't be panic and could just use their current Mac for the next few years.
 
And people are acting like when Apple release a ARM computer their current one will explode or something. They shouldn't be panic and could just use their current Mac for the next few years.

Three year life cycle on laptops. And with all the rumours it might be harder to get a new Mac through the purchasing department.
 
Three year life cycle on laptops. And with all the rumours it might be harder to get a new Mac through the purchasing department.

Intel have basically no power efficiency improvement for the past 5 year on laptop already. The only thing they did was adding more power to the chip and generating more heat by asking OEM to put better thermal solutions.
Any laptop that have a Skylake CPU could survive the ARM transition for the next 2-3 year without any problem--if the keyboard last anyway.
 
Intel have basically no power efficiency improvement for the past 5 year on laptop already. The only thing they did was adding more power to the chip and generating more heat by asking OEM to put better thermal solutions.
Any laptop that have a Skylake CPU could survive the ARM transition for the next 2-3 year without any problem--if the keyboard last anyway.

If ARM happens it'll be irrelevant. I can edit my photos on a iPad Pro and get a x86 based machine with linux for work.
 
Intel have basically no power efficiency improvement for the past 5 year on laptop already. The only thing they did was adding more power to the chip and generating more heat by asking OEM to put better thermal solutions.
Any laptop that have a Skylake CPU could survive the ARM transition for the next 2-3 year without any problem--if the keyboard last anyway.
Battery bulge. It will be battery bulge that kills you, not the new scissor keyboards :)
 
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