Bloomberg: Apple Working on Next-Gen Apple Silicon Chips for MacBook Pro, iMacs, and Mac Pro Due to Launch Next Year

[HowardEv]

And why should I have to schlep around a battery and inverter when a battery could easily fit inside the case, probably be smaller than the 120v power supply, and the M1 chip and MacOS come with battery management? That just goes to waste without a battery.

 

[Alan Wynn]

Can Logic use an Air to control a Mini? Logic has a remote app for iOS.

Sure, using VNC. I am not sure why one would do that, given that an Air is about the same speed at the Mac mini. No one is building your solution, however. It solves no identified problem.

 

[Alan Wynn]

And why should I have to schlep around a battery and inverter when a battery could easily fit inside the case, probably be smaller than the 120v power supply, and the M1 chip and MacOS come with battery management? That just goes to waste without a battery.

Because Apple builds a battery powered solution (MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro systems) that for some completely incomprehensible reason you do not want. You want a battery powered M1 Mac mini, he offered you a solution that met your specifications. Apple is not building a portable system without a screen. It meets no identified need.

 

[UBS28]

As if nobody else was saying this.

 

[Fomalhaut]

I’m hoping Apple wows us with a wireless video connection. Logic would run the GUI on the cool laptop, and do the audio processing on the portable cpu. Then the engineer could also be surfing the web on the couch, without affecting playback of the mix or recording from the interface.

I know you have a specific product in mind, but can't you achieve what you need with a combination of a Mac laptop or iPad, with screen sharing / SideCar? An MBA would be ideal for audio because it doesn't have a fan, and wouldn't need to process much if the actual work is being done on the remote computer, so it will run cool.

If you are in a studio, or at home, or even on-stage, then you will always have access to main power, so I don't really see the need for a battery power Mac Mini or similar. If you are truly mobile, then an all-in-one laptop sounds like it would be much more convenient.

The solution to your problem already exists I think...If not, then you could probably adapt an M1 Mini to fit a battery in the spare internal space.

 

[Boil]

Might we get back to talk about the new smaller Mac Pro & the attendant chips that go within...?

M1P SoC:

28 Performance cores
4 Efficiency cores
32 GPU cores
24 Neural Engine cores
64GB HBM3

Secondary memory subsystem - eight DDR5 DIMM slots - supports up to 1TB memory

Quad NVMe PCIe Gen4 x4 SSDs - up to 16TB total storage

Four PCIe Gen4 x16 expansion slots - two single-slot width, two double-slot width

Support for:

Apple 64 & 128 core GPUs
Apple NVMe RAID storage cards
Apple Afterburner cards
Apple Neural Engine cards
Third-party audio PCIe cards

Six USB4 / TB4 ports

One HDMI port

Two 10Gb Ethernet ports

420W Platinum-rated PSU

Make Cheesegrater 2.0 smaller all around; (HxDxW) 320x320x180mm - 18.5L

Drop from three fans to two fans

Drop the handles & feet (or, have a pop-up handle, like the Lian-Li TU150 chassis, just more Apple-ified)

Space Black & Space Grey color options

New Apple Low-Profile Mechanical Keyboard & Apple 3D Mouse (same Space Black & Space Grey color options)

Apple should pick up a comprehensive 3D app & roll that into an all-inclusive DCC suite (FCPX, LPX, & the new 3D hotness), include a three-year license with a new Mac Pro purchase...!

 

[Spectrum]

Might we get back to talk about the new smaller Mac Pro & the attendant chips that go within...?

M1P SoC:

28 Performance cores
4 Efficiency cores
32 GPU cores
24 Neural Engine cores
64GB HBM3

Secondary memory subsystem - eight DDR5 DIMM slots - supports up to 1TB memory

Quad NVMe PCIe Gen4 x4 SSDs - up to 16TB total storage

Four PCIe Gen4 x16 expansion slots - two single-slot width, two double-slot width

Support for:

Apple 64 & 128 core GPUs
Apple NVMe RAID storage cards
Apple Afterburner cards
Apple Neural Engine cards
Third-party audio PCIe cards

Six USB4 / TB4 ports

One HDMI port

Two 10Gb Ethernet ports

420W Platinum-rated PSU

Make Cheesegrater 2.0 smaller all around; (HxDxW) 320x320x180mm - 18.5L

Drop from three fans to two fans

Drop the handles & feet (or, have a pop-up handle, like the Lian-Li TU150 chassis, just more Apple-ified)

Space Black & Space Grey color options

New Apple Low-Profile Mechanical Keyboard & Apple 3D Mouse (same Space Black & Space Grey color options)

Apple should pick up a comprehensive 3D app & roll that into an all-inclusive DCC suite (FCPX, LPX, & the new 3D hotness), include a three-year license with a new Mac Pro purchase...!

If it is indeed a smaller case, do you think the exisiting Afterburner etc cards will be compatible...I'm thinking not.

Will two separate RAM systems work?

With 8 performance cores already on the lowest spec mac (the air), I can see a need for >28 on the Mac Pro.
Based on current products, 2-4 cores on Air, 4-8 on MBPro, 8-28 on iMac and MacPro, I would expect a new MacPro to need to top out at 64 cores (if that is possible).

 

[Boil]

With 8 performance cores already on the lowest spec mac (the air), I can see a need for >28 on the Mac Pro.
Based on current products, 2-4 cores on Air, 4-8 on MBPro, 8-28 on iMac and MacPro, I would expect a new MacPro to need to top out at 64 cores (if that is possible).

The M1-powered MacBook Air, as well as the 13" M1-powered MacBook Pro & the M1-powered Mac mini, all have four performance cores & four efficiency cores...

 

[Spectrum]

The M1-powered MacBook Air, as well as the 13" M1-powered MacBook Pro & the M1-powered Mac mini, all have four performance cores & four efficiency cores...

Ah yes! I missed that entirely. I keep reading that it has 8 cores. Point well taken then...

This makes me wonder what we'll see in the 16 inch MBPro...Only 8 performance cores? This seems a much more modest upgrade from the current Intel solutions (albeit at presumably much lower wattage of course).

 

[cmaier]

If it is indeed a smaller case, do you think the exisiting Afterburner etc cards will be compatible...I'm thinking not.

Will two separate RAM systems work?

With 8 performance cores already on the lowest spec mac (the air), I can see a need for >28 on the Mac Pro.
Based on current products, 2-4 cores on Air, 4-8 on MBPro, 8-28 on iMac and MacPro, I would expect a new MacPro to need to top out at 64 cores (if that is possible).

If apple is going to make a custom SoC for this thing, no reason for there to be a separate afterburner. They can stick it on the SoC, or in the SoC package. Since it doesn’t seem that the FPGA is actually being reconfigured during use, and given the comparative logic density between the FPGA and the SoC, all of the functionality of the FPGA would easily fit in a tiny corner of the SoC.

 

[Spectrum]

If apple is going to make a custom SoC for this thing, no reason for there to be a separate afterburner. They can stick it on the SoC, or in the SoC package. Since it doesn’t seem that the FPGA is actually being reconfigured during use, and given the comparative logic density between the FPGA and the SoC, all of the functionality of the FPGA would easily fit in a tiny corner of the SoC.

Is the After burner card an FPGA?!?

 

[Boil]

Is the After burner card an FPGA?!?

Cut to even more creativity.

Afterburner is a hardware accelerator card built with an FPGA, or programmable ASIC. With over a million logic cells, it can process up to 6.3 billion pixels per second. And when installed in Mac Pro, the system is capable of handling up to 6 streams of 8K ProRes RAW or 23 streams of 4K ProRes RAW. This means you can free up your cores to enable even more creative effects and processing.

 

[cmaier]

Is the After burner card an FPGA?!?

Yep. And seemingly not because they are using it in a manner where it reconfigures itself during use. Possibly its an FPGA to allow updates to add codecs. Most likely, though, it’s an FPGA because that was the least amount of engineering effort and, given the price they can charge, the economics worked.

But I would certainly assume that in any future Apole Silicon version of Mac Pro the afterburner functionality is in the SoC.

 

[Alan Wynn]

Yep. And seemingly not because they are using it in a manner where it reconfigures itself during use. Possibly its an FPGA to allow updates to add codecs. Most likely, though, it’s an FPGA because that was the least amount of engineering effort and, given the price they can charge, the economics worked.

My understanding was that they planned to it be upgradable with new functionality. I do not think they actually ever did it, but that was the original plan.

But I would certainly assume that in any future Apole Silicon version of Mac Pro the afterburner functionality is in the SoC.

Agreed. Even if one just added that as a section of the package.

 

[cmaier]

My understanding was that they planned to it be upgradable with new functionality. I do not think they actually ever did it, but that was the original plan.

Agreed. Even if one just added that as a section of the package.

Yeah, that’s another possibility, but I never saw them say why they used an FPGA. After all, most new functionality could probably be accomplished just by updating firmware, and it‘s not like every CODEC really benefits from changing how the FPGA is configured.

 

[Boil]

I just cannot envision how Apple could take such a large card & shrink it down to fit in the corner of the much Much MUCH smaller SoC...?!?

 

[cmaier]

I just cannot envision how Apple could take such a large card & shrink it down to fit in the corner of the much Much MUCH smaller SoC...?!?

That’s the miracle of custom integrated circuits.

 

[Spectrum]

Thanks for the info all. I'd not heard about FPGAs until I backed this (completely unrelated) ZX Spectrum Next project on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spectrumnext/zx-spectrum-next-issue-2, which can mimic a real 8-bit Z80A (among others).

I had no idea that Apple would consider an FPGA as a commercial solution...but it does perhaps make sense if they think the number of units sold is going to be very low—or indeed they intend to update the FPGA down the line.

Does anyone know what physical FPGA they are using? Is it, itself, custom?

 

[cmaier]

Thanks for the info all. I'd not heard about FPGAs until I backed this (completely unrelated) ZX Spectrum Next project on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spectrumnext/zx-spectrum-next-issue-2, which can mimic a real 8-bit Z80A (among others).

I had no idea that Apple would consider an FPGA as a commercial solution...but it does perhaps make sense if they think the number of units sold is going to be very low—or indeed they intend to update the FPGA down the line.

Does anyone know what physical FPGA they are using? Is it, itself, custom?

Not clear. Almost certainly not custom. I’ve seen information that suggests it could be either Altera or Xilinx, but I haven’t seen a tear down.

I’ve actually used FPGAs myself, and while they can do neat tricks, it is usually better to just use an ASIC/SoC if you have sufficient volume to make it worthwhile. I’ve only used FPGAs for prototyping or emulation, myself.

 

[ThinkBetterApple]

The smaller Mac Pro lmao