Apple needs to go AMD and dump Intel...

[magbarn]

Check out AMD's latest competitor for laptops: Renoir
Anandtech Ryzen 4000 review

OUCH!! Although there's a "10th gen" 45 watt CPU coming out from Intel, it's really another 14+++++nm REHASH
(granted the i9-9880H gets ~3500 on this benchmark, the battery life would even be worse)

Meanwhile, the battery life is killer too, the Razer's battery is even bigger and it still loses big time:

The iGPU is being used on both, 120hz does eat up battery like crazy though

A YouTube review showing an Intel overclocked CPU to 90 watts barely beating a 35 watt Renoir:

Here's a blender benchmark
notice how a 35 watt AMD chip is killing the Intel chips using so much more juice

As this chip is using 35 watts vs the 45 watt Intel designs that the MBP 16 currently uses, you'll have a much faster laptop with much more battery life and less heat

 

[ctjack]

So do you consider Ryzen 4000 laptops instead of your MBP 16?
On topic: they could have long term contracts with Intel, problems with TB3 with AMD, ARM coming up. That being said, no way Apple moves to AMD. Because if it moved, then it will be used for really short time until ARM.

 

[magbarn]

So do you consider Ryzen 4000 laptops instead of your MBP 16?
On topic: they could have long term contracts with Intel, problems with TB3 with AMD, ARM coming up. That being said, no way Apple moves to AMD. Because if it moved, then it will be used for really short time until ARM.

MBP 16 much better than that ASUS laptop everywhere else but performance. Switching to AMD would give much more performance will running cooler and longer lasting battery at the same time.
I'm still not convinced Apple can release AXX chips that can compete with x86 8 core CPU's with this generation after emulation.

 

[throAU]

They won't.

Because whilst AMD are kicking intel into next year, moving from one third party who can screw up and limit their product line to another is not solving the problem of being dependent on third parties.

Apple have been stuck with 68k being lacklustre when Motorola fell behind, then ppc being lacklustre (when it fell behind/focused on servers not laptops like Apple wanted) and now intel being lacklustre.

This time around however, they have their own highly performant ARM based architecture they can make and tweak to their own requirements - and not rely on someone else to build something appropriate. Some other company that is trying to sell to the rest of the market as well.

The next CPU shift will be to in-house ARM, make no mistake. They can tweak it to do what they want, aren't held hostage to another company's designs, and it can give them a competitive edge that others (PC vendors) won't be able to buy off the shelf for themselves.

Will it cut off the ability to run PC software? Yes. Unless under emulation. I don't think apple cares. Those who need high performance will run the Apple native applications. Those who need PC applications aren't core apple customers anyway, and would be better off buying a PC for less money if that's what they want. I'm not saying I agree 100% as I'm someone who runs Fusion on my Mac, but from a business perspective for Apple I'm a minority case.

Apple already control a huge segment of the computing landscape via the iPhone and iPad. You may think "they're only low power mobile devices!". Well. Look what happened to the desktop market vs. laptops, and the mainframe market vs. desktops before that.

Mobile will mostly kill the desktop/laptop market just like those two segments killed the mainframe (yes, sure they still exist, just not in the same numbers***) in the past, for exactly the same reasons: portability and adequate performance at much lower cost.

Using the same family of chips as the dominant platform(s) moving forward makes sense.



edit:
*** cloud != mainframe. Cloud = huge numbers of consumer grade servers. Nothing like the old S390, etc. The cloud isn't run on mainframe gear.

 

[sakagura]

Per core performance is mostly what people experience using laptops and most users don't tap into maxing all cores. So when it comes to single core or per core performance Intel's chips are still in the lead thanks to higher clock speeds and better turbo boosting.

It also takes too long for an AMD logic board to get Thunderbolt certification and there are some reliability issues there.

Also, why have you posted midrange 6 core Intel vs high end 8 core AMD benchmark? That's what desperate tech reviewers do when they are trying to pump their AMD stocks even though the stocks are known to be very overvalued relative to earnings. You have to be aware about their intentions when they are reviewing like that.

The future in many laptops will be the heterogenous anyway, similiar to ARM's big.LITTLE.

 

[throAU]

Also, why have you posted 6 core Intel vs 8 core AMD benchmark? That's what desperate tech reviewers do when they are trying to pump their AMD stocks even though the stocks are known to be very overvalued relative to earnings.

Because the AMD 8 cores are cheaper and consume less power.

the customer doesn't care how many whatever the box has. They care about how much they pay and what performance they get. And probably how long the battery lasts.

This is what tech reviewers who care about real world use of a device do (vs. arbitrary metrics to try and be "Fair" for some abstract non-real-world definition of "fair").

 

[DeepIn2U]

Some things that

Still has USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ... not Thunderbolt. So not an equal comparison for real use cases that many MBP users enjoy.
180W power adaptor!!

The support drivers for the entire architecture is needed along with longevity of the processor/architecture has yet to be proven. Just a handful of vendors doesn't prove its fully ready for a 4yr term/life-cycle but it looks promising.

The key is the battery life under full load or idle is going to be key and I'm sure Apple is watching.

The critical part is ... platform future path .... THAT is why Apple left PowerPC for Intel so what is AMD proposing and what is their plan in case THEY themselves get complacent like Intel has after a 10yr (?) partnership with Apple?

 

[throAU]

Per core performance is mostly what people experience using laptops and most users don't tap into maxing all cores. So when it comes to single core or per core performance Intel's chips are still in the lead thanks to higher clock speeds and better turbo boosting.

You might want to go look at some Ryzen 3000 (desktop)/4000 (notebook) series benchmarks and compare IPC vs. intel.

They are getting same/virtually same single threaded performance as intel at lower clocks in most things these days.

The days of intel being better for IPC are OVER. And no one cares if intel can do 5Ghz in a notebook for 5 seconds when it brings such a huge battery life hit.

 

[sakagura]

Because the AMD 8 cores are cheaper and consume less power.

Consumers buy the whole system not the CPU. Switching to AMD might be a slight more profit but it won't being the cost of the system down. It certainly won't be anywhere near as profitable as the in-house heterogenous processors that will come.

Brand tribalism is idiotic. Let it go before it wastes your online time and your energy.
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The days of intel being better for IPC are OVER. And no one cares if intel can do 5Ghz in a notebook for 5 seconds when it brings such a huge battery life hit.

No matter what you do...no matter what specs sheets and marketing pages say....you will always be getting those 2 and a half to 3 hours battery life, especially if you're a heavy multitasker. It doesn't matter if the laptop has G4, Intel, AMD, whatever. Marketing and real use are world's apart.

 

[magbarn]

1. Per core performance is mostly what people experience using laptops and most users don't tap into maxing all cores. So when it comes to single core or per core performance Intel's chips are still in the lead thanks to higher clock speeds and better turbo boosting.

2. It also takes too long for an AMD logic board to get Thunderbolt certification and there are some reliability issues there.

3. Also, why have you posted midrange 6 core Intel vs high end 8 core AMD benchmark? That's what desperate tech reviewers do when they are trying to pump their AMD stocks even though the stocks are known to be very overvalued relative to earnings. You have to be aware about their intentions when they are reviewing like that.

4. The future in many laptops will be the heterogenous anyway, similiar to ARM's big.LITTLE.

1. No, we're talking about users who care about multi core performance. Let the Facebook/coffee shop users have their MB Air's with crappy multicore performance when stressed. My MBP 16, finally is much faster than my 2015 MBP 15 when processing RAW photo's and 4K video. It still runs hot and chews through the battery. A CPU using 10 watts less would help in that department.

2. Easy for Apple's engineers

3. I knew this would come up is why I posted pics from a youtube reviewer who was comparing Intel's 8 core i9 mobile chip overlocked and running at 90 watts which is just beating AMD's 35 watt chip
Anandtech has been pretty neutral and seemingly supported Intel until the latest gen of Ryzen chips
They were using price as a comparison, I do wish they benchmarked the i9 Razer though.

4. That remains to be seen.

 

[throAU]

Consumers buy the whole system not the CPU. Switching to AMD might be a slight more profit but it won't being the cost of the system down. It certainly won't be anywhere near as profitable as the in-house heterogenous processors that will come.

Brand tribalism is idiotic. Let it go before it wastes your online time and your energy.

Lol.

this isn't brand tribalism. This is reality. But hey, stick your head in the sand. I own machines from both brands, and was intel exclusive from 1989-2012. Since then I've purchased 3 intel machines and 2x AMD.

No matter what you do...no matter what specs sheets and marketing pages say....you will always be getting those 2 and a half to 3 hours battery life, especially if you're a heavy multitasker.

Speaking of tribalism... have you even looked at any of the reviews of these current machines?

Because if you did, you'd see AMD winning the battery life numbers by a MILE - with much better performance. It isn't even close. Even reviewers accused of being total intel shills for the past 5 years have been giving AMD massive recommendations.

Reason? Intel bet the farm on 10nm being good, and rolled snake eyes. Their 10nm process is pretty bad. It can't clock as high as 14nm and only has a small niche where it might make sense in the ultrabook segment. And even then it's a case of making lemonade (small low clock, low power chips) because of all the lemons they have (poor yields on 10nm and inability to clock it above 4ghz).

Their 14nm process was pretty amazing by 2015-2016. Too bad we're in 2020 and the rest of the industry has moved on, while intel can only build anything bigger than 4 low powered cores on 14nm++++.


If you think you'll be getting even 2.5 hrs of battery life with the new high end intel mobile parts with "heavy multitasking"... guess again. You'll get nearer 30-40 minutes, unless OEMs double their battery size.

 

[impulse462]

Will it cut off the ability to run PC software? Yes. Unless under emulation. I don't think apple cares. Those who need high performance will run the Apple native applications. Those who need PC applications aren't core apple customers anyway, and would be better off buying a PC for less money if that's what they want. I'm not saying I agree 100% as I'm someone who runs Fusion on my Mac, but from a business perspective for Apple I'm a minority case.

Apple already control a huge segment of the computing landscape via the iPhone and iPad. You may think "they're only low power mobile devices!". Well. Look what happened to the desktop market vs. laptops, and the mainframe market vs. desktops before that.

Mobile will mostly kill the desktop/laptop market just like those two segments killed the mainframe (yes, sure they still exist, just not in the same numbers***) in the past, for exactly the same reasons: portability and adequate performance at much lower cost.

Using the same family of chips as the dominant platform(s) moving forward makes sense.



edit:
*** cloud != mainframe. Cloud = huge numbers of consumer grade servers. Nothing like the old S390, etc. The cloud isn't run on mainframe gear.

This sort of attitude is what led apple to make those cancerous butterfly keyboards. they just assumed all the low tech people would move to the ipad...but they kept buying macbook airs with terrible screens instead.

Also i'm not sure what youre getting at when you say you dont run "PC" applications? I run plenty of programs on macOS that require an intel cpu... that is not a minority amongst mac users by a long shot

 

[throAU]

Also i'm not sure what youre getting at when you say you dont run "PC" applications? I run plenty of programs on macOS that require an intel cpu... that is not a minority amongst mac users by a long shot

In that case, if anything is on the Mac or iOS App Store, apple have been dealing with intermediate byte code on the store for a couple of years now. they have the ability to recompile App Store apps for new architecture.

Nobody's talking about Apple's biggest developer news: Bitcode

Apple has a new way of ensuring your apps work on new hardware, even if you had no idea it was coming.

thenextweb.com

e.g., when they release their new ARM processor machines, anything on the Mac app store that was submitted with the intermediate "bitcode" format will be recompiled in the cloud by apple for ARM and users will just get the ARM version with "zero effort" (assuming they aren't doing seriously dumb non-portable low level stuff in their code and are using published apple APIs) on the part of the developer.

See the date on the article above? Apple have been making moves to be ready for this (or any similar) switch for the past 5 years. At least. It's a big reason they put so much support behind the open source LLVM project. A lot of people don't understand and just think LLVM/CLANG is another C compiler suite, like GCC. Its a bit more than that.

LLVM is a paradigm shift and will help Apple hop from x86/x64 to ARM fairly easily.

 

[impulse462]

In that case, if anything is on the Mac or iOS App Store, apple have been dealign with intermediate byte code on the store for a couple of years now. they have the ability to recompile App Store apps for new architecture.

Nobody's talking about Apple's biggest developer news: Bitcode

Apple has a new way of ensuring your apps work on new hardware, even if you had no idea it was coming.

thenextweb.com

its true, but they run like ****. i mean look at slack or any app that was an app store app repackaged for the mac. they all run terribly. although i guess since they would be technically on AXX cpus maybe they wouldn't.

in any case, i'm not disagreeing with you on the fact that they are moving to ARM. i'm saying that them just cutting off access to developer tools/apps (which i personally use), especially for MBP16 people would be a terrible mistake. they already ****ed up once with the keyboard. destroying software compatibility would kill it

 

[throAU]

in any case, i'm not disagreeing with you on the fact that they are moving to ARM. i'm saying that them just cutting off access to developer tools/apps (which i personally use), especially for MBP16 people would be a terrible mistake. they already ****ed up once with the keyboard. destroying software compatibility would kill it

You or I might think it could be a mistake, but the majority of Apple's computer customers don't care. They buy Macs for Final Cut, Logic, etc. App Store apps. Because if they're running Adobe, etc. without any apple exclusive in their workflow, then the PC is just cheaper for more performance at most price points.

OR - they buy lightweight web browsing machines to run mostly cloud apps. In either case, most of their customers are not heavily dependent on architecture dependent software. Or rather, they're not heavily dependent on software that Apple doesn't have the ability to control / recompile.

I'm sure apple would be willing to shed 10-15% (probably more - in the short erm) of the Mac user base to gain exclusivity and full development control on the processor architecture inside it. Which would then enable them to outperform the market (within the niche their products are used in) via their own custom software+hardware combination that others can't compete with.

 

[Salomonander]

Everybody raves about the ryzen and their low power consumption... but then every review i read of the new asus notebook complains about lots of heat and excessive fans. maybe they are not that efficient in real life applications?

 

[throAU]

Everybody raves about the ryzen and their low power consumption... but then every review i read of the new asus notebook complains about lots of heat and excessive fans. maybe they are not that efficient in real life applications?

Wait for the Cooper lake reviews of the new 5.3ghz thing

 

[magbarn]

Everybody raves about the ryzen and their low power consumption... but then every review i read of the new asus notebook complains about lots of heat and excessive fans. maybe they are not that efficient in real life applications?

Well asus did put a hot full fat gpu instead a much cooler running max q so there’s that. The battery tests don’t lie though. if it was running hot because it was inefficient not because of cooling issues the battery life would be much poorer.

 

[macnmac]

Everybody raves about the ryzen and their low power consumption... but then every review i read of the new asus notebook complains about lots of heat and excessive fans. maybe they are not that efficient in real life applications?

maybe its not the chip issue but the crappy build of asus?