Apple Plans to Ditch Intel and Use Custom Mac Chips Starting in 2020

[JoEw]

Do you really think an A-series processor could really beat a desktop grade processor? I really hope that people don't truly believe this mess after seeing a geekbench result...

Apple aren't defying the laws of physics with their CPU's. They are well designed for their specific purpose but they aren't close to a desktop CPU. Coffee Lake and Ryzen wipe the floor with them. I'm hoping Apple are going for their own range of fully scaled CPU's but if it's ARM based I'd be concerned.

Yes, because the A series as of today runs in the thermal constraint of an iPad and an iPhone.. and sips battery and still benchmarks crazy numbers.
ARM definitely has an advantage performance wise over x86 it's a far simpler and smaller instruction set. x86 has decades of legacy support too.

 

[DNichter]

Developing with 1st gen software AND 1st gen hardware.

What could possibly go wrong?.....

Maybe they’ll keep making apps until that point, I might be wrong though.

 

[apolloa]

I don't think it would be a massive challenge to convince Adobe and Microsoft to re-write their desktop apps for the Mac. Not that I think that moving away from Intel would be all that great of an idea.

IMO Wrong! It would be a MONUMENTAL MASSIVE HUMANGOUS GIGANTIC challenge, because the Mac, and this is a FACT, has a tiny percentage of the global PC market, one of the main reasons you have programmes like Adobe ones now is down to Apple using Intel chips, it’s not a massive rewrite of the entire code to work on none X86 hardware, which is what this story would seem to suggest.

 

[gugy]

Not sure what to think of this. While I do think it's interesting to see Apple move into their own chip and stay away from Intel production woes on the other hand the fact the Mac can run Windows is huge for a lot of people. Not myself, I hate Windows but I know too many people who purchase Macs do the ability to run both platforms.

 

[GoodWheaties]

It's not about performance. It's about performance per watt. ARM tumps Intel every which way in that regard. When MS was testing Windows on ARM, their beta testers thought that the battery meter was broken because it never went down - that's how much better ARM is for battery life.

Personally, and professionally, I'm more worried about how non-app-store apps will fare. Developers like to use macs for their unix underpinnings, that's going to be a huge headache for a lot of people -- far more than the PPC -> x86 transition was.

I would check out some of the comparisons that have been done with the Windows Snapdragon 835 tablets vs x86 Windows tablets. Yes the battery life is better on the Snapdragon but the performance is laughable at best. The i7-5Y75 absolutely trounces it in nearly every way.

 

[poi ran]

I think ARM CPUs will give enough power in 2020 for most computers. Considering how cheap CPUs are these days I can't see Apple making much money from dumping Intel, unless they want to hike prices. I worry about compatibility and support. There is a saying Macs last longer than PCs, but that wasn't true if you bought a Mac PPC or early intel in 2005-2007. Once the Core 2 duo models appeared in Macs it was true again though. (And these days I'd say Windows 7 or 10 doesn't need more resources than MacOS, possibly even less - MacOS on 4GB is horrible)

Me personally? I like creating DVDs and Bluray for personal use. Yes, I'm old fashioned. I absolutely must have programs like Multi-AVCHD, Subtitle Edit, Opti Drive Control and other Windows programs or older Mac programs available. Support for creating Blu-rays on Mac is slim. I really need a virtual Windows. I realise I'm the odd one out though, most people don't care about optical disks these days unfortunately. I also do x264 _software_ encodes, as I find hardware produces inferior results (at the moment); last time I checked it seems my 2009 core i7 matches modern 13" Macbook Pros quite well but sure, Apple A13 with 8 high performance cores in an Imac will surely smash my machine to bits if given a chance.

As for gaming, and streaming:
Latency is a problem for many games, but not all. I expect more games to be played in browsers and/or streaming clients in the future. Most high end phones today, if connected to a TV, would have enough power for most games most people want to play. In a couple of years I'm sure a thumb stick "game PC" will be affordable, just plug it into a hdmi port and play on wireless joypads/keyboards, with power rivalling xbox or playstation consoles (except when consoles are just released perhaps).
I'm not sure desktop- or laptop gaming is something Apple needs to focus on at all as they won't get the high end gamers anyway. Apple can and should focus on iOS games and allow them to be mirrored/streamed to TVs and/or computer screens.

(I know there are thumb stick PCs already, but to compete with consoles they need to be cheaper - which they will be for sure)

 

[DNichter]

Let's not forget, though, that the "pros" are what helped keep Apple afloat in the early-to-mid nineties when things were looking bleak. They're the group that has invested a lot in Apple over the years--piss them off and Apple may come to regret it.

If there is money to be made, there will likely always be “pros”.

 

[Little Endian]

I don't see this shift happening overnight. I think we will see more ARM based chips in Macs supplementing Intel chips, sort of like what we are seeing with the T1 and T2. Apple will most likely develop ever more powerful ARM based chips in conjunction with Intel based Macs that will allow it to produce more powerful systems that will be able to differentiate the Mac from competitors who are solely using Intel based chips.

 

[Kaibelf]

Well, so it's beginning. I wonder how many people will choose to move on from Apple due to lack of X86 support. I for one will not be buying a Mac that I cannot run windows on

Who says you won’t be able to? Isn’t Microsoft also working on a way to run windows on ARM at this very moment?

 

[tkatz]

...I even had Windows running on my PowerMac G5 with virtual PC.

Yeah I ran that too. It was complete crap. It was usable when needed but it was nothing like when we got Parallels and then Fusion on the Intel based Macs. Emulation vs Virtualization, night vs day.

If the new chip isn't natively x86 compatible, then it will be back to emulation.

 

[groove-agent]

Wonder if there'll be a "macOS has been living a double life" announcement at this WWDC or maybe next year then.

I think WWDC is going to be huge this year.

 

[Davrosuk]

They don't understand a balanced system.
They don't understand that the MMU in an Intel CPU is far superior to ARM.
Getting cache coherency across two clusters in a BIG.little ARM architecture is a whole lot different than a Quad Socket Xeon 7 system. You can have up to 96 processor cores and 192 threads.

You just can't compare ARM to Intel.
Replacing a Xeon with an ARM is some analysts wet dream. But that's all it is.

I get the distinct impression you have vested interest in Intel doing well

I’ll just leave this here: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/20/fujitsu_arm_supercomputer/

 

[now i see it]

The switch off of Intel will never happen. This "rumor" is a well crafted lie.

 

[MichaelDT]

If this is true, I predict: partnership with intel, with intel and arm cores both a custom Apple chip. Why? Apple isn’t concerned intel isn’t making fast chips, they are. It’s about the interfaces on the chip.

 

[kazmac]

Wait and see. Honestly, I just want my Apple products to run smoothly, with as few bugs (glitches and security) as possible. If I have to pay more than now, not sure how I'll feel about that.

 

[techwhiz]

Yes, because the A series as of today runs in the thermal constraint of an iPad and an iPhone.. and sips battery and still benchmarks crazy numbers.
ARM definitely has an advantage performance wise over x86 it's a far simpler and smaller instruction set. x86 has decades of legacy support too.

Okay, then show me the current ARM processor that can outperform my 10 year old MacPro with eight cores.

 

[groove-agent]

I think Apple is frustrated with Intel's productivity and figures they can do better. We shall see.

Oh how I hated the transition period from Power PC to Intel. Every app had to be updated and of course for a very long time that didn't happen, so we used Rosetta to emulate Power PC on Intel. Finally at some point Rosetta became obsolete and a few years ago, all apps are natively Intel. You'd think that no one would ever want to go through such a transition again...

I guess in 20 years we'll look back and it will have been worth it. But it's not like Intel is making bad processors either.

 

[Janichsan]

And Parallels or Fusion won’t allow you to do so?

Who said you can't run windows? I am sure they will have a solution like Parallels that will smoke native speed

You guys don't really know that VMware and Parallels only can offer support for other operating systems because Apple uses Intel CPUs?

Plot the actual benchmark speed changes over the last 10 years, ARM vs. x86. X86 doesn’t look so good.

Not really. Top-end x86 CPUs still leave top-end ARM CPUs in the dust. ARM CPUs might look impressive at the moment since they massively increased their performance in the last time, but they are coming from far behind.

Intel CPUs have been fairly stagnant because they are already operating close to the limits of the laws of physics. ARM CPUs will hit the same limits more sooner than later.

 

[CLS727]

What Intel Chip would be the equivalent of the new A11 Bionic chip in the X ?

Could that run OS X High Sierra?

This could make it easier for an iPad to run the full desktop OS if you dock with mouse and keyboard.

 

[Hps1]

IMO Wrong! It would be a MONUMENTAL MASSIVE HUMANGOUS GIGANTIC challenge,

Yeah. Adobe will probably be into it. C4D, Maya, Houdini, Octane, Redshift etc? Slim to no chance.

If there is money to be made, there will likely always be “pros”.

Sure. But it is difficult to keep clients when your competition works multiple times faster than you. Apple need CUDA to keep designers. It is essential. OpenCL is not an option. I hope in ten years than the "pros" of the Mac world are not just coding the next flappy bird.

 

[DNichter]

It’s time to move forward. You can’t hold onto x86 and it’s ancient way of thinking forever. Best Mac news I have heard in years, maybe enough to bring me back.
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What Intel Chip would be the equivalent of the new A11 Bionic chip in the X ?

Whatever is in the base MacBook would be comparable.

 

[MrBat]

If you're going to divorce from Intel, at least stay on x86 and ask AMD for a custom design. They would literally bend over for the occasion.

I'd rather have Apple buying AMD and get them to design custom CPU and GPU. AMD got Ryzen, Threadripper and EPYC with lots of PCI Express lanes.

 

[unobtainium]

This will surely be a soft launch in 2020, with the 12" MacBook being first to use an ARM chip. Slowly over time it could work its way up through lower end devices. It will be more than a couple years before Pro models will be able to switch to ARM.

 

[groove-agent]

I suspect this will eventually kill hackintoshing once MacOS goes completely ARM.

 

[DNichter]

Yeah. Adobe will probably be into it. C4D, Maya, Houdini, Octane, Redshift etc? Slim to no chance.



Sure. But it is difficult to keep clients when your competition works multiple times faster than you. Apple need CUDA to keep designers. It is essential. OpenCL is not an option. I hope in ten years than the "pros" of the Mac world are not just coding the next flappy bird.

I don’t see anything being slower. They aren’t slapping an A11 chip in a MacBook. This is likely a chip but it just for this machine (laptop, desktop, or otherwise). I’d actually imagine this creating another app craze as it did when the iOS App Store came to be. iOS development focus passed by macOS long ago.