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

[Abazigal]

The time for the Mac X is finally coming.

It's the rumored "smaller Mac Pro", which will be considerably cheaper without Intel Tax and the need for hyper-cooling their steampunk Xeons.

I wouldn’t be so optimistic.

This year’s Mac offerings have shown that while the M1 chips may be cheaper to produce, Apple intends to pocket the difference. It’s not unreasonable for them to do so. These chips will not have been cheap to design, and from a consumer perspective, the M1 Macs are faster and sport longer battery life than their predecessors, so I am getting more value for my money, vis-a-vis.

If by Mac X, you mean a mid-tier headless Mac tower (ala the guts of an imac without the display), I doubt Apple will ever release one. In my opinion, the imac remains the quintessential Mac in Apple’s eyes. An integrated solution that just works out of the box.

So my guess is that the Mac lineup will remain largely unchanged. The Mac mini for budget-conscious Mac desktop users, the imac which suffices for the general consumer and most professionals especially with the M1x chip resolving the issue of thermal throttling), and the Mac Pro for power users with workflows so powerful / specialised that they cannot be met even with a souped-up imac or iMac Pro.

One concern I would like to see Apple address is the issue of expansion with the imac and iMac Pro. From all accounts, the M1 chip is as fast as it is because everything is integrated onto it. This means, amongst other things, that the ram and storage cannot be upgraded separately. You are stuck with whatever you bought at the point of configuration.

What does this mean for pro Mac users who need 64, 128, even 1 tb of ram? Will Apple throw them a bone by making ram upgrades cheaper, or force them to buy their ridiculous markups?

Personally, I bought my 5k imac mainly for the display. The fusion drive is showing its age, and in hindsight, I should have paid extra for flash storage. If and when Apple updates their iMac next year, I probably will not be able to resist.

 

[Spock]

Intrigued what they'll use for their high-end GPU options. Is it even possible/practical to cram 32 graphics cores on the same SOC as (up to) 24 Firestorms & Icestorm cores? Or would it need to be a custom discrete GPU?

If the performance-per-core of the CPUs is so high too, these would make great gaming CPUs. It's a pity Apple have always struggled so much with supporting/investing in Mac gaming.

I'd be surprised if an Apple Silicon games/media console isn't somewhere in the works. Have there been rumours of an M1 AppleTV?

The M stands for Mac, the Apple TV will continue to use the A series chip like the other iOS devices.

 

[ghost187]

People act like it’s only Intel that’s doomed. Nvidia and AMD only have a few short months left before they’re completely eclipsed as well.

 

[vailr]

People act like it’s only Intel that’s doomed. Nvidia and AMD only have a few short months left before they’re completely eclipsed as well.

Not at all likely. Do you really think Apple engineers are that much smarter than AMD or NVidia GPU designers? If that were true, Apple would begin designing graphics cards that could also be used in the other 90% of the PC market held by Windows machines.

 

[k2k koos]

If they manage to complete this transition with in a year, I’ll be impressed. They gave themselves extra time with Intel, but Apple wasn’t designing the processors back then.
Looking forward to seeing the performance offered by an arm based Mac Pro.

In the end, the PPC-Intel transition was also completed much faster than they initially said, Steve Jobs said 24 months, it turned out to be 18, Considering the transition was announced in June, approx 7 months of the transition have already passed. I expect it to be completed 4th quarter of financial year 2021 on that basis...

 

[apparatchik]

An Apple GPU that's NOT on a discrete graphics card seems unlikely to be performance competitive with a 3rd-party AMD/NVidia/Intel discrete graphics card GPU. Therefore: a new 2022 Mac Pro with an ARM CPU (instead of an Intel CPU) would likely still require a graphics card of some kind.

The M1's iGPU is already on par with notebook discrete cards... this on a fanless design, I dont see why beefed up versions wouldnt compete with dedicated graphics in the high-end, specially with hardware optimization for common professional tasks such as audio/video encoding, machine-learning, et al...

The fact that the gpu on Apple's chip is integrated is just a detail, and it has been pointed out it might even be an advantage, they outperform some low to midrange discrete cards on a similar thermal envelope.

 

[GadgetBen]

And the award for the laziest piece of journalism goes to..... Bloomberg!

Talk about stating the obvious.

 

[Basic75]

Of course...anyone knew this

Exactly, what else were they going to do, switch back to Intel or AMD?

 

[gnomeisland]

The current 8-core GPU gives us a metal score of >20.000 and >2.5 Tflops. Does this mean a 128-core GPU wil score >320.000 and >40 Tflops?

Probably not exactly, but pretty close. That would put it at or a little above the 3090 with probably 60% of the power draw (so still under 200W). That's very doable for a properly cooled iMac Pro or resigned Mini/Mini Pro.

My understanding is that GPU functions scale easier than CPU functions (in the single-user/workstation space that Macs operate in) so scaling up the GPU over the CPU makes sense at a certain point. Very interested to see how/what memory architecture Apple uses to keep all those cores fed if it sticks to unified memory.

 

[PsykX]

Apple set the bar and of course a lot of people would be deceived if they put an M1 in the iMacs.

But the reality is, they could put an M1 and it would be an awesome machine. Maybe that's what they'll do with the lower end version / school version of the iMac.

But knowing they have something even better in mind, maybe a 12 or 16 performance cores, this machine is going to crush, and I want it on my desk ASAP.

 

[Makosuke]

Extrapolating only slightly, an 8-performance-core part would theoretically perform in the ballpark of the current 18-core iMac Pro, run rings around even the top-of-line current regular iMac, and should be relatively competitive with the current-gen highest-end Ryzen and i9 desktop parts. In around a 40W TDP (with GPU!), which is absolutely ridiculous.

Intel and AMD will probably have better available by that time next year, but even that theoretical chip would have nobody at all complaining in anything other than a Mac Pro compared to the currently available lineup.

A 16-core part, though? If they can maintain close to the current levels of per-core performance at that scale, it would comfortably upgrade even the top-of-line Mac Pro and would probably outperform anything available today.

I'll miss being able to load up my iMac with relatively inexpensive 3rd party RAM, but oh well.

I'll go on record that the GPU is where I'm more skeptical that Apple is going to be able to replace dedicated GPUs at the high end without some hit in performance. The GPU performance on the M1 is very impressive, but when I look at what's in a top-of-line Intel iMac, or the Pro range, I question whether they're going to be able to throw enough GPU cores at it to push performance past what it's replacing without hitting some kind of bottleneck in the design.

But, hey, who knows. Making some HUGE assumptions about performance and linear scaling, and maybe glossing over something that I don't understand, 64 of the current GPU cores seems like it would indeed be competitive at the high end, and in any case shouldn't pull more than 80W, which is hugely impressive. It would be pretty hilarious if Apple ends up topping not only the big CPU makers but also winning the GPU war.

 

[oneMadRssn]

I'm curious if, and how, Apple chips will interface with discrete GPUs. I believe some pros would still prefer discrete GPUs. Or is this the end of discrete graphics on Mac?

 

[TheMacDaddy1]

Depends, if we end up with a massive die the heat is more spread out, but of course this introduces latency.

Yes you will hit all the problems other Chip makers hit today. However if you are starting out smaller (5NM) you will have an advantage. Plus the financial backing of Apple to help come up with fixes.

That all said you will see the same kind of cooling efforts you see today. Big copper based heat syncs with big fans or water cooling. I suspect that will only be needed in the new Mac Pro’s.

 

[calstanford]

Great article. Who knew Apple was working on new chips? I thought the M1 was it and they'd just close shop now. But seems not!

 

[buttongerald]

I believe some pros would still prefer discrete GPUs.

Correct. And many of us will for some time to come.

is this the end of discrete graphics on Mac?

For Apples sake I hope not. The M1 is impressive for what it is, but has a lot of room for improvement. I see people praising it and saying it can hold its own against certain dedicated GPUs, but the problem is those cards it can hold its own against are several years old and or are mobile cards.

If I am buying a new desktop from Apple I want the option of a higher end card and NOT something comparable to a 3-4 year old low range, laptop graphics card.

As I said earlier, the M1 looks promising, but the next few chips Apple introduce will need to start taking more leaps in power, otherwise they will spend each generation trying to play catch up with the others.

 

[drsox]

Well thank christ that Bloomberg cleared this up. I figured with the release of M1 in the MacBooks and Mac mini that apple were done with the whole "electronic business" mumbo-jumbo and we getting back to work focusing on their brand of corn harvesters.

Or growing Macs on trees rather than building them.

 

[mjtomlin71]

 

[Stevez67]

Correct. And many of us will for some time to come.


For Apples sake I hope not. The M1 is impressive for what it is, but has a lot of room for improvement. I see people praising it and saying it can hold its own against certain dedicated GPUs, but the problem is those cards it can hold its own against are several years old and or are mobile cards.

If I am buying a new desktop from Apple I want the option of a higher end card and NOT something comparable to a 3-4 year old low range, laptop graphics card.

As I said earlier, the M1 looks promising, but the next few chips Apple introduce will need to start taking more leaps in power, otherwise they will spend each generation trying to play catch up with the others.

Add to this the upgrade-ability. Most gamers on desktop solutions upgrade CPUs (when the Mobo doesn't change sockets) and discrete graphics cards every year or two to maintain top-end gaming performance, and that's something you can't do with a SoC.

 

[oneMadRssn]

Correct. And many of us will for some time to come.


For Apples sake I hope not. The M1 is impressive for what it is, but has a lot of room for improvement. I see people praising it and saying it can hold its own against certain dedicated GPUs, but the problem is those cards it can hold its own against are several years old and or are mobile cards.

If I am buying a new desktop from Apple I want the option of a higher end card and NOT something comparable to a 3-4 year old low range, laptop graphics card.

As I said earlier, the M1 looks promising, but the next few chips Apple introduce will need to start taking more leaps in power, otherwise they will spend each generation trying to play catch up with the others.

My understanding it's more than just raw power. Hypothetically if Apple came out with an M2 today which had GPU cores faster than the latest and greatest from nVidia and AMD, some people would still need to use the nVidia and AMD cards for their proprietary technology. Each supplier has a bucket of proprietary tech that various applications have been designed to take advantage of. If it can be easily abstracted, then switching to an Apple solution should be easy. But if it's deeply integrated into a proprietary API, then switching won't be so easy. For example, if a researcher's application relies heavily on nVidia Volta, they won't be able to switch away anytime soon.

 

[hifimacianer]

Reminder to myself: Sell my late 2015 4Ghz 27" 5K iMac, before it's too late...

 

[anakin44011]

I wouldn’t be so optimistic.

This year’s Mac offerings have shown that while the M1 chips may be cheaper to produce, Apple intends to pocket the difference. It’s not unreasonable for them to do so. These chips will not have been cheap to design, and from a consumer perspective, the M1 Macs are faster and sport longer battery life than their predecessors, so I am getting more value for my money, vis-a-vis.

If by Mac X, you mean a mid-tier headless Mac tower (ala the guts of an imac without the display), I doubt Apple will ever release one. In my opinion, the imac remains the quintessential Mac in Apple’s eyes. An integrated solution that just works out of the box.

So my guess is that the Mac lineup will remain largely unchanged. The Mac mini for budget-conscious Mac desktop users, the imac which suffices for the general consumer and most professionals especially with the M1x chip resolving the issue of thermal throttling), and the Mac Pro for power users with workflows so powerful / specialised that they cannot be met even with a souped-up imac or iMac Pro.

One concern I would like to see Apple address is the issue of expansion with the imac and iMac Pro. From all accounts, the M1 chip is as fast as it is because everything is integrated onto it. This means, amongst other things, that the ram and storage cannot be upgraded separately. You are stuck with whatever you bought at the point of configuration.

What does this mean for pro Mac users who need 64, 128, even 1 tb of ram? Will Apple throw them a bone by making ram upgrades cheaper, or force them to buy their ridiculous markups?

Personally, I bought my 5k imac mainly for the display. The fusion drive is showing its age, and in hindsight, I should have paid extra for flash storage. If and when Apple updates their iMac next year, I probably will not be able to resist.

Hey - have you tried running off an external SSD connected to the USB port? I've done this for my 2012 iMac and now my 2015 iMac (I get my wife's hand-me-downs for my basement music studio). While I'm sure it is not as fast as the internal SSDs, the external SSDs are still a complete game-changer in responsiveness. Your fusion drive becomes your second hard drive.

 

[fourthtunz]

It costs $200 to add 8gb of ram to a new Mini. It also costs $200 to go from 256gb of storage to 512. I think it's hard to argue that there isn't an Apple tax when breathing a sigh of relief from an 'intel tax'.

well if you believe that the Mac is a superior machine to the other pcs out there then its not a tax.
Same as high end anything, better just costs more.

 

[CyberBob859]

The time for the Mac X is finally coming.

It's the rumored "smaller Mac Pro", which will be considerably cheaper without Intel Tax and the need for hyper-cooling their steampunk Xeons.

The revival of the Trashcan Mac Pro! They said they scrapped it because "they were painted into a thermal corner." M-series chips don't have that problem.

I don't think they'll do it, but that design should be technically feasible now.

 

[cgsnipinva]

And of course, predictabl, AMD announced plans to introduce it’s own ARM CPU.

Yes and I don't blame them. As mentioned in another thread - this is the impact Apple Silicon will have on the industry - moving industry wide investments into ARM for mainstream computing. I would hope Intel would do so as well.

 

[cgsnipinva]

You’ll end up with thermal issues... that’s the constraint you hit when just throwing more cores in, I think.

===

Will Apple be reentering the dedicated server market?

Agreed - but in desktop and high end laptop you can have active cooling as with current processors - but the power draw would still be lower. I don't think this would be the problem.