Apple Transitioning Macs to Custom Chips With 'Incredible' Performance Starting Later This Year

[djjeff]

An industry standard that has since stagnated.

Many would argue Intels stagnation was more a product of lack of competition than technical limits.

 

[iBug2]

I think it's fair to say there are 100x more developers developing in an environment that abstracts the underlying architecture than developers developing for Intel specifically. But I get your point.

I'm just saying that end-users will be puzzled by the move at first because Apple didn't explain the benefits. I got the impression that Apple wanted to say "all your favorite apps you know and love on your iPhone will have a native Mac app" but stopped short; probably because that's hyperbolic and they can't make that promise. Instead we got vague promises of power per watt and nothing else.

I know it's a developer conference, but surely Apple knows that these announcements will hit the mainstream media and news aggregators like Apple News and Google News and Facebook, and thus the masses will see it. They'll see Apple making a big move without any primary-source information about benefits to them.

I think Apple explained the benefits with that one slide. They want more performance with less power. And I bet that the first chips they release are going to put intel chips to shame. If a 2 year old iPad SoC can outperform a 2020 4 Core Intel i7, a chip designed for a laptop will smoke it. I bet that they will save that "WOW this thing is FAST!!!" effect for later when they actually release the macs.

 

[NT1440]

I think it's fair to say there are 100x more developers developing in an environment that abstracts the underlying architecture than developers developing for Intel specifically. But I get your point.

I'm just saying that end-users will be puzzled by the move at first because Apple didn't explain the benefits. I got the impression that Apple wanted to say "all your favorite apps you know and love on your iPhone will have a native Mac app" but stopped short; probably because that's hyperbolic and they can't make that promise. Instead we got vague promises of power per watt and nothing else.

I know it's a developer conference, but surely Apple knows that these announcements will hit the mainstream media and news aggregators like Apple News and Google News and Facebook, and thus the masses will see it. They'll see Apple making a big move without any primary-source information about benefits to them.

Surely that’s going to be a main focus when unveiling actual computers for users to buy?

Besides, this left plenty of room for the cottage industry of “purposely misrepresent an Apple announcement to make a point that will ultimately be proven wrong” “tech” journalists to do their clickbaity thing right?

 

[Ethosik]

One big question. My order of iMac 2019 is still awaiting and will get delivery next month. Should I cancel or it will be OK run for next 8/9 years ? Most of the iMac can run smoothly about 10 year without too much problem but I think I heard that Tim said will only support intel Mac for only 2 years ? what will happen after two years ?

Tim said the transition will be another 2 years. Which means we could have a new high end iMac/iMac Pro or Mac Pro at 1.9 years from now. Which will be supported ~5 AFTER release. I think you are safe.

 

[mrkite77]

Then how does a passively cooled iPad run faster than an actively cooled 13" MBP?

It doesn't. Geekbench sleeps between tests to prevent thermal throttling.

 

[Stephen.R]

And that cannot run on ARM, period. It's a different CPU, it's physically impossible.

I mean... it probably can, via emulation or binary translation, but it’s likely not going to be fast.

 

[pankajdoharey]

2018 iPad's are faster than 2020 13" MBP's. Their chips already outperform intels.

Well those are cherry picked Benchmarks and Intel still reign supreme on certain Floating point operations and Single threaded performance. So what I would like to see is Apple AX series beating Intel on Single threaded performance.

 

[djjeff]

no what Im saying is they will not support you as a intel user and shift forward to ARM, leaving us with hardware that still works, but in terms of usability limited. Do you think youll run iOS appa on MaC intel ? Or ARM based apps on MAC Intel ? Yes do wake up the writing is on the wall. In 2 years current machines would be hard to give away let alone sell. And based on what I saw they are going all in on ARM.

There's always the retro computer buyers

 

[Jimmy James]

Imagine if Apple’s chips become so powerful that virtualized Windows performance is close to native Intel performance.

 

[Ursadorable]

That makes absolutely no sense at all. Laptops are probably the single biggest form factor they sell right now.

For now.. The iPad is primarily a consumption device, once Mac OS 11 can run on the iPad, which is what I can see eventually happening with both sporting the same processor, the iPad will become more than capable of being just as powerful of a creation device as the Macbook.

 

[Mescagnus]

But that's a big difference, don't you see? The transition from PPC to Intel allowed software that didn't then exist on Mac at all. Will the transition from Intel to ARM offer any new software that has never been on a Mac previously? Everyone keeps mentioning ARM versions of Office and Photoshop, but we already have Office and Photoshop. That's not new.

Yes, for example all iPad and iPhone apps.

 

[NT1440]

Well those are cherry picked Benchmarks and Intel still reign supreme on certain Floating point operations and Single threaded performance. So what I would like to see is Apple AX series beating Intel on Single threaded performance.

I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised in the not to distant future my friend.

 

[iBug2]

It doesn't. Geekbench sleeps between tests to prevent thermal throttling.

Sorry but they test these things with more real time tasks like video encoding. Same results. iPads are just faster.

Hell, my iPad Pro is faster at photo editing compared to my 2017 iMac 27".

 

[Detektiv-Pinky]

Hows it going to be an enlarged iPad? The developer kit just has an iPad chip. The actual Macs will haveMac specific chips

No, they won't. The Macs are not selling in large enough quantities to justify a custom chip design. It will maybe have a a few more cores enabled, but nothing dramatic.

 

[pankajdoharey]

The problem is that such translations end up hurting performance. I doubt many Windows users will be willing to move to ARM and run the majority of software through translation. Furthermore few developers have incentive to make native ARM applications. The x64 market is just too large and Microsoft doesn't have the leverage like Apple does.

Yes that I true though, it depends on how good a Job Microsoft does with its rosetta equivalent, I still remember PowerPC to Intel transition using Rosetta and for me most apps worked really well even games I couldn't tell the difference at that time.

 

[BeatCrazy]

I hope you are right. Looks like they were using Pro Display XDR with an ARM developer kit, meaning Thundebolt 3 / custom controllers work just fine already and there will be no need in T2 chip and no kernel panics associated to it.

ARM MacBook Pro should be more stable and secure than Intel version and that what makes me most excited about the transition.

The Mac mini dev hardware uses USB-C, so a 10Gbps connection is what they were sending to the Pro Display XDR. Not Thunderbolt 3.

 

[scupking]

I'm guessing the A14X or Z will be the chip going into the desktop and laptops. That's going to be one hell of a chip at 5nm. The current A12Z in the iPad is already a beast and outperforms most laptops and mid range desktops.

 

[Macbookprodude]

Not really true, that is, if one has an ARM PC.. then its possible.

It took Apple less than four years to obsolete the last G5s after the switch to Intel. So another full-on architecture change. For this of us with 2019 MBPs or Mac Pros this’ll be fun.

And it also means goodby Hackintosh users or unsupported Macs. Been fun having you.
[/QUOT

 

[iBug2]

Well those are cherry picked Benchmarks and Intel still reign supreme on certain Floating point operations and Single threaded performance. So what I would like to see is Apple AX series beating Intel on Single threaded performance.

I use the same software on my intel iMac and A12Z iPad Pro. iPad even beats my iMac in certain tasks, let alone my old MBP.

 

[ssgbryan]

Incorrect. It was 6 years from release of the Intel Mac Pro until Rosetta was removed with OSX Lion.

Don't forget how long 10.6.8 was still being used by a sizable portion of the OSX community.

I didn't transition off of 10.6.8 until 10.10 was out.

 

[gnipgnop]

Yeah I'm also wondering about the GPU's in the Apple silicon macs. The CPU's they have rival intel already, but the GPU of A12Z is 10 times less powerful than the AMD Vega II they ship. Or 5 times less powerful than 5600M. These dGPU's are quite a bit above the Apple Silicon for now. So we have to wait and see if they incorporate some custom GPU we have not heard about, or simply go with dGPU from AMD.

Not sure where you're getting those GPU comparisons. According to NotebookCheck, the A12Z GPU falls in-between the Radeon Pro 555 and the GeForce GTX 960M. That's currently considered mid-range for a laptop GPU and the A12Z isn't really that different than the 2 year old A12X. Whatever Mac model is released first with ARM, it's not going to be using a 2 year old GPU design.

 

[Toby_95]

Well those are cherry picked Benchmarks and Intel still reign supreme on certain Floating point operations and Single threaded performance. So what I would like to see is Apple AX series beating Intel on Single threaded performance.

I’m sure we will be seeing that once the hardware exists/is released. Apple wouldn’t be taking this roadmap if that wasn’t the end goal

 

[Stephen.R]

Intel is the king of chips for a reason.

Inherited legacy (like “real life” kings)?

 

[iBug2]

Not sure where you're getting those GPU comparisons. According to NotebookCheck, the A12Z GPU falls in-between the Radeon Pro 555 and the GeForce GTX 960M. That's currently considered mid-range for a laptop GPU and the A12Z isn't really that different than the 2 year old A12X. Whatever consumer model is released first, it's not going to be using a 2 year old GPU design.

Metal compute scores: A12Z 10K, 5600M 50K, Vega II 100K.

 

[NT1440]

No, they won't. The Macs are not selling in large enough quantities to justify a custom chip design. It will maybe have a a few more cores enabled, but nothing dramatic.

Sure, but that’s been Apples game plan for at least 5+ years now. Make a chip architecture that can scale.

I really do think people are going to be genuinely shocked when they get these things into laptops.