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

[cmaier]

There is a reason they didn’t mention the term ARM once at all in the keynote. It is because Apple’s ISA is probably not compatible fully with the standard ARM instruction set. Well it probably is, but they have probably implemented so many custom instructions in order to integrate functionality fully optimized with their custom chip designs that macOS probably won’t even run on anything other than Apple Silicon at all.

They didn’t mention it in the keynote because the keynote is a sales endeavor and regular users don’t care about ISA.

It was mentioned quite clearly that it is Arm in the afternoon session.

Also:

“ The system prefers to execute an app’s arm64 instructions on Apple silicon.” (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple_silicon/about_the_rosetta_translation_environment)

 

[smulji]

Oh, I get their motivations, but I think if the complaint is that Apple hasn't demonstrated that it can replace R9/i9 or Threadripper/Xeon class hardware with their in-house silicon, there's a point. They haven't.

Apple has said they will transition the entire Mac lineup to custom silicon within two years. That includes Mac Pro. if they say that, it means they have a roadmap and are confident they can pull it off.
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Apple did *exactly* this in the PPC to Intel transition. This takes time. They will transition the product line over time. That means they will start with one or two machines on Apple Silicon, then 6-8 months later, during normal refresh cycle the next machine, and on and on.

I believe in 2006 the first Intel Mac was the consumer MacBook. For this transition I would guess:
Fall 2020: new MacBook 12" or MacBook Air, Mac mini / maybe iMac
Spring 2021: MacBook Pro
Fall 2021: iMac
Fall 2022: Mac Pro

The first Intel Mac was the 15" MBP

 

[MyopicPaideia]

I'm waiting to see how they'll support PCI and Thunderbolt specially.
As far as I know, the A12z has no PCI support on the i/o controller.

Really? I thought they were running PCI-e for the SSD in the iPad? As for Thunderbolt...3 is out of the question and the question will be whether Apple can release the first Apple Silicon Macs with USB4 or not - where Thunderbolt 4 will be integrated and included into that standard. Q4 2020 is actually the target for USB4 on the first consumer devices, so it would certainly not be out of the realm of posibility.

 

[Billiejoe87]

Anyone know what this means for the LG Ultrafine series apple is still selling? Will it be incompatible with any new Mac? I'd like to think since these literally are only designed to work with apple devices and the iPad Pro is compatible with it, that this won't be a problem, but who knows?

 

[Nugget]

Apple has said they will transition the entire Mac lineup to custom silicon within two years. That includes Mac Pro. if they say that, it means they have a roadmap and are confident they can pull it off.

There was a period of time when Apple were confident that the 2013 Mac Pro was the future of their high end desktop strategy. Confidence is not a demonstration.

 

[anshuvorty]

There is a reason they didn’t mention the term ARM once at all in the keynote. It is because Apple’s ISA is probably not compatible fully with the standard ARM instruction set. Well it probably is, but they have probably implemented so many custom instructions in order to integrate functionality fully optimized with their custom chip designs that macOS probably won’t even run on anything other than Apple Silicon at all.

Total ecosystem lockdown....complete...man, once this vision is fully realized within the next 2 years, if SJ was alive, he would've been so happy....I bet he would be grinning ear to ear....

This is the vision Apple was aspiring towards all along....the only holdout was the laptop/desktop and if Apple can meet or exceed the performance of the Intel-based Xeon Mac Pro that they released last year with an Apple Silicon-based variant, that vision would've been met....

Then, they could finally focus their full efforts on complementing this rich ecosystem with the much-rumored Apple Glass and other products.

 

[Coconut Bean]

How do you know Apple aren't better chip designers at this point, or in the future, than Intel or AMD? Look what they've done in the phone/tablet realm.

It's to be seen. they are better at designing phone chips.

Anything above low-power CPUs will be hard to beat, maybe can offer equivalence in some applications with ******** of optimizations and some dedicated hardware.

Chip design is very complicated and just because someone created one kind of chips doesn't equate into superiority in other fields. See Intel's numerous tries with graphics:
* Pretty week integrated gpu
* Larrabee - kind of a success as some supercomputers used it
* Straight up leasing chip design from AMD
* Xe Graphics might be something

 

[MyopicPaideia]

They didn’t mention it in the keynote because the keynote is a sales endeavor and regular users don’t care about ISA.

It was mentioned quite clearly that it is Arm in the afternoon session.

Also:

“ The system prefers to execute an app’s arm64 instructions on Apple silicon.” (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple_silicon/about_the_rosetta_translation_environment)

Thanks for that! I fully get where you are coming from, and I am not saying that Apple Silicon is not using the ARM ISA, I am just speculating that it is some kind of customized and extended instruction set rendering it not very useful on say, standard Cortex core designs? Or am I completely off base here? I am just a hobbyist, unlike you (I really respect your input on this subject, by the way, always have done here in the forums)

 

[anshuvorty]

Anyone know what this means for the LG Ultrafine series apple is still selling? Will it be incompatible with any new Mac? I'd like to think since these literally are only designed to work with apple devices and the iPad Pro is compatible with it, that this won't be a problem, but who knows?

Displays, I think, are platform agonistic. I mean, even Apple's own Cinema Display XDR works with Windows (but with limited functionality).

So, I think the same will be true with the LG Ultrafine series. They will still work.

 

[MyopicPaideia]

There needs to be motivation though.

Even Microsoft isn’t committed enough to compile its own apps for windows on arm.

🤣 But they are for macOS 11 on Apple Silicon!!

 

[pankajdoharey]

Apple admitted that PowerPC wasn’t it all those years ago in favour of Intel.

Do you really think they’d be switching to their own chips if they weren’t as good as Intels (at the very least?)

It would be suicide.

I know I do expect them to be good but Intel is the grand daddy of chip manufacturing, they invented the microprocessor so I won't underestimate Intel.

 

[cmaier]

Thanks for that! I fully get where you are coming from, and I am not saying that Apple Silicon is not using the ARM ISA, I am just speculating that it is some kind of customized and extended instruction set rendering it not very useful on say, standard Cortex core designs? Or am I completely off base here? I am just a hobbyist, unlike you (I really respect your input on this subject, by the way, always have done here in the forums)

We won’t likely know for sure until someone tries to run the OS on a random arm chip, but it’s highly likely that the ISA is compliant with the specification, and any extensions are the sorts of extensions that are perfectly allowable within the arm specification.

 

[smulji]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1275150124742840321

 

[cmaier]

I know I do expect them to be good but Intel is the grand daddy of chip manufacturing, they invented the microprocessor so I won't underestimate Intel.

If you mean the first single-chip microprocessor, those guys don’t work there anymore

 

[iDron]

It’s really not so big a market that it’s worth apple’s time. They may, as you suggest, work with some partner to add the ability.

At least it is important enough for them to mention the virtualization in their keynote. However they just showed a debian linux VM which I feel is very odd... Nobody uses that on a Mac.

 

[cmaier]

At least it is important enough for them to mention the virtualization in their keynote. However they just showed a debian linux VM which I feel is very odd... Nobody uses that on a Mac.

Yep. They did the easy part - virtualization of arm. Low effort. So it’s worth that much to them.

 

[esk]

I'm just concerned that all Intel Macs will only receive os updates until 2022. Which basically makes my 2019 imac obsolete within 3 years...

 

[haydn!]

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.

I think backwards support will be around a little longer this time. The active user base is 10 times bigger today than it was back when they shifted to Intel.

 

[Coconut Bean]

I think it is hilarious how some are trying to draw parallels in performance between a 5-7 watt chip designed to be passively cooled (any past and current a series processor) and a actively cooled 20 watt plus intel chip.... Of course it is not going to exactly match the performance on all fronts but it comes pretty damn close. Imagine an unchained a series processor with the same tdp (that doesn’t overrun its tdp for short burst benchmarking)....

My point is that no one can truly judge the performance of these processors until we actually see them. I think we are going to be presently surprised. (The fact that the A12z could even run shadow of the tomb raider in emulation mode no less at what looked like an acceptable frame rate is impressive to me)

The claims of equivalence is based on the few benchmarks that are actually natively supported right? What about all the benchmarks any x86 can run but none of the iPhones / iPads ?

The TFlops of performance are actually numbers related to some operations within the dedicated neural core and not general performance from what I can collect..

 

[anshuvorty]

Yep. They did the easy part - virtualization of arm. Low effort. So it’s worth that much to them.

Or maybe they just couldn't get more support added to the virtualization stack prior to the filming of WWDC...you have to remember that this was all prepared before time, without much notice because of COVID-19. Let's see what Apple formally announces at the Fall event where we might actually see the reveal of the Apple Silicon-based Macs and then make conclusions. I think making conclusions now is a little premature.

 

[Chippy99]

Well FWIW I have been holding off buying my next computer until yesterday. (Currently using a late 2012 27" i7 iMac). Should I wait for the new iMac's or finally succumb and switch to Windows.

Yesterday killed off the iMac for me. I am not waiting 6 months for an iMac model I probably don't want, and perhaps 2 years for the one I do?

I am not buying an iMac which will not run much if the software I want ... Or will only run it in emulation mode. (It's bad enough with Catalina and no 32 bit support). I am not buying an iMac which won't run Windows in bootcamp. And neither am I buying a new Intel iMac which will be obsolete in less than 2 years.

I understand that Apple wants everyone locked in to the Apple ecosystem and for dedicated Apple fans, this may all be fine, with your iPhone, iPad, watch and God knows what else.

But for someone like me who has an Android phone, a Samsung Galaxy tablet, yes a MacBook but also a work PC, this is a move in entirely the wrong direction.

So goodbye iMac my old friend. It's been fun but time to say goodbye.

 

[smulji]

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There was a period of time when Apple were confident that the 2013 Mac Pro was the future of their high end desktop strategy. Confidence is not a demonstration.

This is the 3rd time the Mac is going through a silicon architecture transition. The first two times were near seamless. People can what they want about Apple but they have shown themselves to be leaders in these types of transitions. They have the history to back it up. So unless this transition proves to be a major f**kup, I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Nugget]

Application and Desktop Delivery | Parallels RAS

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Well that blog entry sure used a lot of words to say nothing at all.

 

[Chippy99]

Application and Desktop Delivery | Parallels RAS

Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is a complete application delivery and VDI solution empowering the creation of digital workspaces! Read more.

www.parallels.com

[automerge]1592894644[/automerge]

This is the 3rd time the Mac is going through a silicon architecture transition. The first two times were near seamless. People can what they want about Apple but they have shown themselves to be leaders in these types of transitions. They have the history to back it up. So unless this transition proves to be a major f**kup, I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt.

The major **** up - not the only one but the major one - is yesterday rendering all Intel Macs unpurchaseable, whilst not having the new product available for up to 2 years.

You'd have to be pretty bonkers or desperate to buy an Intel based iMac tomorrow IMO. So what is someone looking for a new iMac right now supposed to do?

 

[Stephen.R]

There is a reason they didn’t mention the term ARM once at all in the keynote. It is because Apple’s ISA is probably not compatible fully with the standard ARM instruction set. Well it probably is, but they have probably implemented so many custom instructions in order to integrate functionality fully optimized with their custom chip designs that macOS probably won’t even run on anything other than Apple Silicon at all.

That's a lot of "probably"'s and just as many self contradictions.