I am not so sure an M series chip will be going into any pros, I could see Apple rolling out a new Variant of chips for the Pro Line with a much more advanced SOC and more optimized main CPUs/GPUs.
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Bloomberg: Apple Working on Next-Gen Apple Silicon Chips for MacBook Pro, iMacs, and Mac Pro Due to Launch Next Year
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Why would they?
First, while the M1 may be a general-purpose SoC, it is pretty clear that its forte is interactive video/audio editing, where it gets full advantage of the tight integration between CPU, GPU, other on-chip acceleration, OS and software. M1's limited I/O and RAM support make it useless in a server, and while future M-series processors may rectify that, Apple's #1 priority will be to design chips for the 16" MBP, iMac, and Mac Pro lines. Even the Xeon W in the Mac Pro is a workstation chip (hence "W") - Intel have other Xeon models aimed at the server market. Amazon and Ampere already have ARM chips tailored for servers.
Apple's Unique Selling Point #2 : MacOS and its user-friendly GUI. Using a GUI to configure a server is like washing your feet with socks on - that's what text editors are for - and even if you disagree with that, the way forward for GUI-based server configuration is via web technologies. There's nothing wrong with MacOS as a server OS but there's nothing to really distinguish it from Linux (which is free - just pay for as much or as little support as you need - and is already well supported on ARM and RISC-V) and there's no must-have, MacOS-only server-side software to rival Windows. Meanwhile, MacOS laptops/desktops have dumped most Mac-specific protocols for networking, file sharing etc. I think IBM even does Linux tools for Apple "fleet management".
Apple's Unique Selling Point #3 : Design. It's gonna be bolted into a rack and locked in a server room. Who cares?
Really, the XServe had a brief moment in the sun when the PPC was at its zenith and the other OS options were WIndows, Netware and commercial UNIXes which cost a fortune in per-user licensing.
There's a niche market for MacOS hosting - not sure why - but that seems to be served by a handful of firms offering Mac Mini co-hosting.
I have my doubts. I think the Macbook Pro price change had more to do with splash than anything else. When a new 16" MBP with 16gigs of RAM and 512G SSD goes for $1799, I'll be VERY surprised. With the base 16" MBP on "sale" for $2099 quite often, I'm more expecting the base 16" to come in at $1999. About $100 less than "sale" price.
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Yeah, the real joke is that even the VESA mount - something built into virtually any monitor beyond the lowest-end glorified HDMI TV - is a $200 optional extra when it would have been trivially easy to hide 4 threaded holes in that busy steampunk-looking back panel.
I think it is like the law of US restaurant portion sizes (you need to pay > $50 a head to get a portion small enough to sensibly finish) - the more you pay, the fewer accessories get included.
I think a lot of the snarky comments in this thread are from people who have only read the headline 
We already know that will not be the case
A series for both ipad and ipad pro, same for both iphone and iphone pro
So M will be for all macs
"Know" is a very strong word …
The performance difference between a baseline Mac and the highest-end Mac are enormous. No comparison to the differences between iPad and iPad Pro. And the "Pro" line for iPhones is pure marketing.
Bloomberg exclusive: The sun will come out tomorrow!
I'm sure Apple is ready to get rid of Intel much faster than we all think. No doubt Apple is sick of complaints about their Macs getting too hot or batteries draining fast. All this is due to Intel and dedicated GPU's from AMD.
They have not added an external interface for DDR.
They also have not added multilane PCIe Gen3/4.
Those peripheral and memory interfaces are power hogs.
We have not seen a true comparison to Intel and AMD cores because they have those interfaces and the M1 does not.
Sounds great, but am I the only one here who thinks that needing that many cores to surpass current performance is a bit worrying for the future? The current Macbook Pro 16" has eight cores, right? They're doing a 16-core to beat Intel? I suppose it doesn't matter how you get that higher performance as long as you get there, but I don't know, this doesn't seem like a scalable architecture.
Sure, but we were talking about the cpu/gpu going for more cores as a means of increasing performance, the M1 cores have been compared extensively in terms of perf per watt (heat) to its x86 counterparts, Apple coming out way ahead, Im talking measuring the cores' consumption, not the whole package.
There's no reason why Apple would use less power efficient interfaces (memory, PCIe, etc) than those currently on the market. Assuming similar power hogs, the cpu/gpu's themselves consuming dramatically less power for equal or superior performance, hence why they are at an advantage going forward.
I read the article. It's really nothing special. Just goes on to talk about Apples road map and how confident they are in what they are doing. Riveting stuff. Especially given that this article was written by not one but TWO people.I think a lot of the snarky comments in this thread are from people who have only read the headline
Besides, WITH a title like that, what else would be hidden within the article that we didn't know? Tim Cooks old family recipe for Corn and Crawfish Gumbo?
Single core performance is also higher, the current M1 is already faster than the i9 in the MBP16 both in single & multi threaded performance, and this is with the m1 having just 4 high performance cores, the other 4 being low powered. I dont think they would be doing 16-core to beat Intel, as they can already pull way ahead with 6 or 8 high performance cores today.
1. Apple increased the base line , entry point for the Mac Pro by about 100% with the 2019 model. ( ~ $3,000 -> ~$6,000 ). If they cut that in half.... you'd still be at $3,000. That's a probably a pretty big 'if' also. By yeah if they cut the number of slots from 8 to 2 (maybe 3) there will be a price cut. Chop down the max RAM capacity... probably some price cut there too.
2. At the low end there really isn't a signficant Intel tax.
Intel Xeon W-3223 lists for $749
Intel® Xeon® W-3223 Processor (16.5M Cache, 3.50 GHz) - Product Specifications | Intel
Intel® Xeon® W-3223 Processor (16.5M Cache, 3.50 GHz) quick reference with specifications, features, and technologies.
ark.intel.com
That is only approximately 13% of the price of the entry Mac Pro 2019. The other 87% is a much higher contributor to the price of the main. If strip out the processor, you'd still be in the > $5,000 range in price.
That primarily isn't an "Intel tax.
You can hand wave at the $3000 " > 1TB RAM" tax at the top for the 24 and 28 core models but that is as much Apple as it is Intel. Intel will sell you the variants without the tax. Apple won't. Howver,, point at the top end of the BTO scale is mostly misdirection if talking lower overall system costs across the board. Apple's 'tax' at that top end is quite high also.
Apple has a (relatively to rest of Mac market ) "low volume" tax on the Mac Pro 2019. M-series probably isn't going to change the low volume much at all.
The classic "X Mac " / "Mac X" crowd for the most part moaned and groaned about Mac Pro 2013 prices all through that era. They often moaned at the 2009-2012 mark of $2,500 era also. What those folks mainly have wanted is a iMac fratricide killer in the iMac 27" range. The "half sized" Mac Pro pretty likely won't be that. More likely a "retreat" to something a bit above the Mac Pro 2013's $3K spot.
The "charge back" for the SoC is going to be higher ( in part probably due to much lower volume.). Apple will tweak other components ( base SSD capacity and RAM ) to drive off any other SoC cost reductions that may appear.
The current M-series variant of the Mac Mini costs a bit less. But the users are also getting less. Less max RAM, less display outputs. If you get less then you should pay less. Pretty good chance Apple will slap a different M-series in some higher end Mini's that probably won't get a price drop ( as the ports and displays come back and max RAM doesn't drop as far. )
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The "updated" Performance Controller will be their #1 Technical Hurdle !
It Acts as both an Arbiter & a Scheduler.
It Acts as both an Arbiter & a Scheduler.
This is a meaningless statement. If Apple calls it an M, it’s an M. When you refer to an “M series chip” do you mean ”a chip named M?” or “the same chip that already exists” or “a chip based on the same SoC blocks?”
if it’s the last option, that’s surely wrong. The pros will definitely get a chip with the same core designs, but a lot more of them (Possibly also clocked faster).
having more money is different that spending more money. That big pile of money in the Scrooge McDuck money pit isn't all Apple money. Pragmatically a large chunk of that is stockholders money. That money is largely there to be invested to get a larger return , not spend just for building bigger technology marvels.
[ Another approximately $100B is to cover the 10's of billions in bonds Apple borrowed to pay out dividends and duck paying taxes. So counting that doesn't really "count" either. That money isn't going to buy any new super tech either. ]
The Mac Pro was lost in Rip van Winkle slumber from 2014-2017 and Apple had billions swashing around in the money pit.
Apple spent $1B buying up Intel's cell modem business last year. Are they shipping a competitive 5G modem this year? Nope. Next year. Probably not. So it also isn't just how much money. It is also when you spent it.
They’ve already beaten Intel, they’re doing 16 cores to beat themselves and provide a more significant delta front the current 8 core machines.
You have to go back to the 2014-15 era to find Nvidia graphics in default configurations. Apple pragmatically 'quit' around 2013-14. It took a bit longer to flush them from every shipping system.
So yeah... it wouldn't be too difficult to be a several multiples faster than 5-6 year old GPUs using the most bleeding edge fab process possible ( so 3-4 Moore's law generations and billions of allocated transistors ahead.).
Additionally, It isn't too hard to be 2x the 5700 since the AMD RX 6900 is nominally shipping. So Apple's GPU competitor has already done that. It is Apple that is trailing (and question whether AMD gets to 5nm before Apple can catch up). Doubtful this in comparison to the stuff that Apple has pragmatically blocked from the Mac OS.
Also a bit doubtful this in comparison to computational focused solutions like the AMD MI100 and Nvidia A100.
Apple's hard stance about not letting in 3rd party GPUs to macOS 11 on Apple Silicon will turn out to be convenient for Apple next year if freeze Intel , Nvidia, and AMD comparison in the past while rolling out future product.
"Faster than an iMac Pro that we haven't significantly touched in 4-5 years".
Apple is out to wipe out all the iGPUs and a hefty chunk of the dGPUs they currently use. Up through the MBP 16" was pretty clear from the M1 results. That basically would take out the 21-24" iMac also since that was never a GPU speed daemon either.
This article suggest the iMac 27" is targeted also. But it is still a bit dubious that Apple is going to run this all the way up through the Mac Pro. They are multiples slower now. That would just to get to parity and the competition would have moved on in 12-19 months (so would be behind again.). Pretty good chance those "largest" GPUs are more laptop focused than "high end desktop" focused.