Apple Testing at Least Nine New Macs With Four Different M2 Chip Variants

[deconstruct60]

My prediction is that the new Mac Pro will announced in less than 2 months.

back in post 101 above this one , you declare there is no M2 Ultra in 2022. Fundamentally, these two predictions are in conflict. If there is no new M2 Ultra then how does Apple get to a Mac Pro?

Only sell Mac Pro's with a M2 "double Ultra"/"Extreme" ?

There is no sensible way Apple can get to a Mac Pro with exactly the set of M1 SoCs that have already been released. There is a chance with some modifications ( provision some PCI-e lanes controllers, maybe the 'extra' memory controller that some folks are wishing for (I'm a bit skeptical). ).
The M1 Ultra really doesn't work for anything deserving of a "Mac Pro" name at all.

So likely waiting for something in at least the M2 if not the M3 line up for the Mac Pro. If Apple is going to ship a Mac Pro inside of 2022 then they will need to ship some mega package sized post M1 variant.

If banning the mega sized post M1 SoCs from 2022 then June WWDC 2022 probably isn't coming. Apple is likely not going to "sneak peak" something that is more 6 months out. ( e.g., repeat Air Power drama. Or over promise and underdeliver on the thin edge iMac transitions. ). If the Mac Pro is on "pushed from 2022" SoCs then the reveal would be probably be pushed to Fall reveal. At WWDC they can say something to the effect of " in the Fall is another day, by end of 2022 we will have revealed all of our transition plans".

 

[Tagbert]

I would suggest following update schedule:
1. WWDC announcement of m2 chip is inevitable (to make sure developers are able to utilize its power). After all, it is a main place to make preparations for incoming architecture on software side. These are newer A chip and newer M chips.
2. Apple already announced that it is completely moving to ARM within 2 years, which leaves us with MacPro to be announced. Notice that Apple started M1 transition from the slowest (in multicore benchmark) devices- Mac Mini and etc and only at later stages announcing more powerful chips. The importance of this sequencing is very high.

...

Therefore,
on WWDC Apple has to announce M2.
M2 is an ultimate Apple's answer to Intel and AMD.
Its single core results may probably exceed Alder Lake.
So this is will be fast and powerful M2.
Developers are suggested to tweak their software for the new architecture.

...

M2 is not an architecture change. It is a performance upgrade of existing chip series. Apple MAY announce M2 at WWDC but not because developers need to prepare for any code changes.

 

[EugW]

back in post 101 above this one , you declare there is no M2 Ultra in 2022. Fundamentally, these two predictions are in conflict. If there is no new M2 Ultra then how does Apple get to a Mac Pro?

Only sell Mac Pro's with a M2 "double Ultra"/"Extreme" ?

No conflict. Mac Pro announcement or sneak peek in June, but no M2 Ultra in 2022.

Why? Cuz Mac Pro likely won't have M anything. My prediction is that it will have an SoC that uses a different naming convention, since the SoC design will be quite different.

 

[eelpout]

Two entirely pointless fans, though. Even the iPad doesn't get hot with the M1...

Is my 14" MBP M1 Pro the only M1 in the world that actually gets hot; in the lap when doing Lightroom and Photoshop? Granted, it's not Intel-by-Dyson-hot and the case it's in probably doesn't help, but I'm tired of people saying it never happens.

 

[ric22]

Is my 14" MBP M1 Pro the only M1 in the world that actually gets hot; in the lap when doing Lightroom and Photoshop? Granted, it's not Intel-by-Dyson-hot and the case it's in probably doesn't help, but I'm tired of people saying it never happens.

I was talking about the M1, not the M1 Pro.

 

[StoneJack]

M2 is not an architecture change. It is a performance upgrade of existing chip series. Apple MAY announce M2 at WWDC but not because developers need to prepare for any code changes.

I think many apps underutilize ultra so optimization and tweaks are forthcoming

 

[deconstruct60]

I just checked Intel’s roadmap and I’m not sure if Apple can compete with their 13th Gen chips. The current 12th gen Alder Lake chips are already 15-20% faster in single core than the M1 and the 13th gen is going further the lead even more (15% faster than Alder Lake). The M2 will be based on the A15 and that chip was only 10% faster than the A14.

Gen 13 15% faster at normal , base clocks or at " burn power like it is going out of style" super duper Turbo clocks? In the rumors, I've seen there has been a range of uplifts for Gen 13 like 8-15% or 5-10% ... you are solely cherry picking off just the largest numbers you can find. There is a fairly high likelihood that those are relatively corner cases.

As much as Apple likes to brag about having a "desktop" processor speeds, they are not trying to make desktop processors that sacrifice everything to just to high the trendy single threaded drag race benchmarks. Where is where is most of Gen 13 uplift coming from. Cranked higher clocks (more optimized transistor design library) or major improvements in architecture? I don't think there is much public insight there.


Apple will have something competitive, but Apple is probably going to build something that is the best , balanced solution they can that is mostly tuned to laptops ( since that is most of what the volume of the Mac units sales are). Obsessively focusing on Intel (or AMD ) to solely drive what there are going to do probably is not the.

Apple has multiple competitors besides Intel. On the GPU side are new AMD (RDNA3 7000 series ) and Nvidia ( Lovelace 4000 series ) updates coming in late 2022 also. Does Apple fail to match those to beat Intel on some narrow benchmark? Probably not. Vice versa? Probably not.

All that said. Pretty good chance A15 is somewhat not material here. M2 is more likely based on the TSMC N4, A16 cores. That won't leapfrog Apple far into the lead. but it is also not the 'huge hole' you are trying to characterize this as. Apple is jumping two generations also ( M-series just skipped using one in deployed SoCs. )

 

[EugW]

All that said. Pretty good chance A15 is somewhat not material here. M2 is more likely based on the TSMC N4, A16 cores. That won't leapfrog Apple far into the lead. but it is also not the 'huge hole' you are trying to characterize this as. Apple is jumping two generations also ( M-series just skipped using one in deployed SoCs. )

I'm very curious which cores M2 series will use. I'm no expert but at this point I too am favouring A16, just because of the timing.

However, I'm less convinced about the Mac Pro, re: A15 vs A16 cores. Or perhaps A15.5? It will be interesting to hear what Apple has to say about that, but I wouldn't be surprised if Apple might be a little vague on that, at least in their keynote.

 

[zarmanto]

... I do expect Apple to announce the Apple Silicon Mac Pro at WWDC, but not give a release date because I could see it slip into 2023.

I do not believe we will see an M1 Pro Mac mini configuration. I'm not sure we'll see an M2 Pro Mac mini configuration, but if we do, my thinking is 2023. Same with an M2 Pro and M2 Max MacBook Pro. And the M2 iMac 24" (with possibly an M2 Pro configuration if Apple does not release an Apple Silicon version of the iMac 5K 27").

Everything you said makes perfect sense... but I'm reeling a bit from the sheer number of instances of the word Pro.

 

[anthonymoody]

So lemme get this straight. After releasing a variety of machines with all sorts of variants of the M1 chip, Apple is going to release replacements with variants of the M2 chip?

Who could've predicted this? I'm completely bowled over. These guys should be given a Pulitzer.

 

[Mr. Dee]

I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple doesn’t wait until March 2023 to introduce the Mac Pro with M2 Ultra based on 3 NM. It will make it be a clear stand out from the rest of the product line but also not too stressful in terms of production since those needing it will be niche and small.

We need to accept that reality that not a lot of Mac users are hungry for a form factor like the Mac Pro. Looking at the Mac Studio forums here, doesn’t seem like many are buying it. Not that it’s a flop, just that many people don’t need a stationary desktop these days.

 

[eelpout]

We need to accept that reality that not a lot of Mac users are hungry for a form factor like the Mac Pro. Looking at the Mac Studio forums here, doesn’t seem like many are buying it. Not that it’s a flop, just that many people don’t need a stationary desktop these days.

Or, not a desktop that starts at $1999.

 

[chucker23n1]

I just checked Intel’s roadmap and I’m not sure if Apple can compete with their 13th Gen chips. The current 12th gen Alder Lake chips are already 15-20% faster in single core than the M1 and the 13th gen is going further the lead even more (15% faster than Alder Lake). The M2 will be based on the A15 and that chip was only 10% faster than the A14.

If the M2 is based on the A15 (which as the months pass, is becoming less likely — the A16 is already knocking on the door), and if they can't increase its clock much, and if Raptor Lake is more or less on schedule, yeah.

I know, Intel chips use way more power

Right. That's kind of a big one.

Like, you could get an Alder Lake-H chip in a laptop and have it perform faster in single-core than an M1 Max. But unless you're into something very heavy and bulky, that's probably not actually what you're gonna get. Instead, you'll get one that's far more thermally throttled in practice.

Single core performance is important, but I wouldn't say "most tasks day to day" are still single core. Even refreshing a web page is going to fire up multiple threads which will run on more than one core. That said, things that can only take advantage of a "few" cores will still start to lag behind...

Yes, but now that basically anything has four cores or more, adding even more cores isn't going to speed up refreshing a web page. Making each core's single-threaded performance, however, will.

 

[thefourthpope]

Would be ridiculous to see new 14" and 16" M2 MacBook Pros this year. I just got the 16" M1 Max.

Ridiculous for your wallet, not Apple’s. And we know which they care about.

 

[name99]

Wayne Ma had stated his information said the M2 was going to be 4 performance cores with 4 efficiency cores and then 9 (binned) or 10 GPU cores. He also said there would be an "M2 Duo" that was two M2s stitched together that would have 8 P cores + 8 E cores and 20 GPU cores.

In January, Dylandkt tweeted the existence of a "12 core M1 variant" with 10 P cores and 2 E cores and 16 or 32 GPU cores that I started a thread upon. Based on the claims of 12 cores for the M2 Pro and M2 Max, his information might have been pointing to that as Mark Gurman believes the M2 Pro will have 16 GPU cores and the M2 Max would have 32 GPU cores. Though if M2 has 10 GPU cores, one would think Pro would be 20, Max 40 and Ultra 80...



Majin Bu has claimed that Apple can use the UltraFusion interconnect to link two M1 Ultras together along their vertical axis (so they would be side-by-side).

As for RAM, there have been rumors Apple is developing a memory controller that can access DIMMs outside of the SoC package (though at much slower speeds) to allow for larger RAM capacities than the presumed 256GB of 2xM1 Ultra.

None of which answer the question I posed...
All of those are obvious extensions. The question I pose is the only non-obvious part (ie the part that corresponds to "I actually know something" as opposed to "I am making obvious and trivial guesses"...)

 

[Blue Sun]

Surely the base M2 models will come first, and the M2 Pro, Max and Ultra variants next year?

 

[Tagbert]

I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple doesn’t wait until March 2023 to introduce the Mac Pro with M2 Ultra based on 3 NM. It will make it be a clear stand out from the rest of the product line but also not too stressful in terms of production since those needing it will be niche and small.

We need to accept that reality that not a lot of Mac users are hungry for a form factor like the Mac Pro. Looking at the Mac Studio forums here, doesn’t seem like many are buying it. Not that it’s a flop, just that many people don’t need a stationary desktop these days.

I they don't ship a new Mac Pro by this year, then they will have missed their announced goal of completing the Apple Silicon transition within 2 years. Of course that is a self-imposed deadline but they will likely feel that they need to meet that goal unless there is some strong reason they cannot. It will look like a miss if they don't. It doesn't matter that most Mac customers will never even see, let alone buy a Mac Pro. It is a halo product that shows off their expertise and to have it come out late will be a black mark on it.

 

[chucker23n1]

ie the part that corresponds to "I actually know something"

I'm sure we can set up an interview between you and a member of Srouji's team any second, but until then, you'll have to make do with speculation, on a site with literally "rumors" in its name.

Surely the base M2 models will come first, and the M2 Pro, Max and Ultra variants next year?

That would be my guess. Kind of pointless to introduce the M1 Ultra just months before the M2 Ultra is coming. But, on a grander scale, the M1 is the one with the massive sales numbers, and also the easiest to engineer.

 

[EugW]

Surely the base M2 models will come first, and the M2 Pro, Max and Ultra variants next year?

Definitely no M2 Ultra this year, but I don't think we should put M2 Pro and M2 Max in the same category since the M2 Ultra won't be used in any of the MacBook Pros. I guess it comes down whether or not you believe Apple will update the 14" and 16" MacBook Pros this year.

 

[name99]

Can anyone explain to me why the M2 will make a difference over the M1 to 95% of the Mac users? Hell, 99%. And while you are at it can you explain why YouTubers think they need to 'shoot' in 8k for a video of them unboxing something in their living room that most will watch on a small 11-16in iPad/Notebook screen? And why they believe they are "real;" cinematographers?

People have been saying that since at least 2000. And yet we still want faster computers.
The excess compute has been used up, among other things
- better graphics and smoother UI
- security features
- easier programmability
- same performance in a smaller, lighter, much longer battery life device

Functionality that doesn't exist yet, but should, includes
- much better searching. Spotlight was fine technology for 2005. It's a pathetic embarrassment for 2022. Everything on my local network (ie across all my devices) whether text, image, text as image, sound or video, should be searchable, with searches using the same level of smarts as Google (spelling correction, synonyms, and so on).
- everything I write and cut/paste should be stored in an on-going, easily searchable log, so I can go back a day or a week to find something I know I wrote that I threw away but now want
- everything I read (on internet or locally) should be indexed and recorded so, same thing, I can do a vague search for "that article about Chinese schools I read three months ago" and get a useful answer
- everything I write (in email, comments, text message, etc) should firstly have INTELLIGENT spelling/grammar correction applied, not this 1990s BS NLP we have today. But it should also be scanned for tone and emotion, with an intelligent secretary (if I want) reminding me "that's some strong language! do you want me to hold onto this for a day before I send it out, and maybe you'll change your mind?"

Look at what Google does with the web (in terms of search and NLP), something possible with literal warehouses of compute. We deserve the same functionality on our desktops, applied to our local data, and whatever we read remotely.

 

[Boil]

What if the entire M2 family is:

• M2
• M2 Pro
• M2 Ultra / Extreme

And the entire M2 Mac family released is:

• M2 13" MacBook
• M2 24" iMac
• M2 Mac mini
• M2 Pro Mac mini
• M2 Ultra / Extreme Mac Pro

All released before the end of 2022, then Apple pivots to the M3 line-up for 2023/24, which would be a complete line-up; meaning the aforementioned models in M3 form, along with the MacBook Pro laptops & the Mac Studio desktops...?

 

[chucker23n1]

What if the entire M2 family is:

• M2
• M2 Pro
• M2 Ultra / Extreme

And the entire M2 Mac family released is:

• M2 13" MacBook
• M2 24" iMac
• M2 Mac mini
• M2 Pro Mac mini
• M2 Ultra / Extreme Mac Pro

All released before the end of 2022, then Apple pivots to the M3 line-up for 2023/24, which would be a complete line-up; meaning the aforementioned models in M3 form, along with the MacBook Pro laptops & the Mac Studio desktops...?

I don’t think we’ll see the entire most of the Mac line-up overhauled in just eight months.

 

[Boil]

What if the entire M2 family is:

• M2
• M2 Pro
• M2 Ultra / Extreme

And the entire M2 Mac family released is:

• M2 13" MacBook
• M2 24" iMac
• M2 Mac mini
• M2 Pro Mac mini
• M2 Ultra / Extreme Mac Pro

All released before the end of 2022, then Apple pivots to the M3 line-up for 2023/24, which would be a complete line-up; meaning the aforementioned models in M3 form, along with the MacBook Pro laptops & the Mac Studio desktops...?

I don’t think we’ll see the entire Mac line-up overhauled in just eight months.

Where exactly did I say that the entire Mac line-up would be overhauled in eight months...?

I said that a LIMITED selection of Macs could be moved to SOME of the M2 family of SoCs this year, and then said that the ENTIRE Mac family could be moved to the ENTIRE M3 family of SoCs over the 2023/24 timeframe...

 

[chucker23n1]

Where exactly did I say that the entire Mac line-up would be overhauled in eight months...?

I said that a LIMITED selection of Macs could be moved to SOME of the M2 family of SoCs this year, and then said that the ENTIRE Mac family could be moved to the ENTIRE M3 family of SoCs over the 2023/24 timeframe...

Right. It just seems like a lot of Macs in relatively little time.

 

[JoeDezibel]

If someone here knows Bloomberg in person, tell him to shut the f..k up!