Pretty sure the NVIDIA Shield runs on a Tegra X1+, so you’re argument is rendered null and void.
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Bloomberg: Apple's First Arm Mac to Launch by 2021 With 12-Core Processor
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Pretty sure the NVIDIA Shield runs on a Tegra X1+, so you’re argument is rendered null and void.
Yes. The devil is in the nature of the device and it's input/output and the apis for that. Touch, mouse, k/b.
There's a lot of smoke and mirrors re: any 'Mac' device. It's been 'next year' for a while now. But the ARM chips are real close to many Intel CPUs now. The ground work seems like it's been prepared for some time regarding the underpinnings. Or when there are whispers of X-Code on iPad the gig is up.
If Apple consolidated their OS teams, surely the hardware will follow in due course.
But yeah, 'how this shakes' out. Shame we don't have Jobs on stage this time to announce he's leaving Intel behind. It would have been sheer bloody poetry.
Azrael.
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Apple gave the PC world good design. eg. Bondai iMac in a world of beige...
But whilst Apple have been asleep at the wheel re: iMac (ironically) for ten years and 6 years for the Mac Pro...
You have to say that much of the PC world has caught up in design from flashy cases (some gaudy, yes...but others very nice...) and even ram, motherboards and gpus and fans have RGB plastered with stylish finesse.
And they're ahead, generally, on bezels/borders. See 'Panda' iMac...which is...well...out of date. Or the largesse of bezel.
Razor have a mighty fine looking eGPU. Prefer it and the Sonnet's design to the black magic one. And you can update them...and they're cheaper.
It's saying something when even I'm going dual platform Mac/PC. Design. Value. Power. Efficiency. Choice. These are no longer the sole province of Mac.
And Windows is far less bad than it used to be.
Azrael.
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NVIDIA won’t give an arm and a leg, they would have wanted an arm and a leg from Apple, which I think is why things soured. Egos on both sides are high. There are real technical, business goals and political walls that divide the two companies with no easy answers.
Again, I don’t know what the actual story is, so I am talking out my *** a bit and with some insight of my own, but it won’t stand up in court.
The relationship is over for the foreseeable future, in my opinion. I honestly see AMD GPUs on higher end Mac models and Apple-designed iGPUs on the lower end Mac models when Apple flips the switches.
Thanks for the details. it was a long time ago so my memory of the events is a bit lacking.No there wasn’t. It was something Exponential Technology was trying to do, but the x704, when it was released, could only run PowerPC instructions. (I know, I helped design that chip)
There was also an IBM project to do an x86, but it was apparently never going to also run PowerPC code. Nothing was ever released.
Agreed, far less bad. Their early 10 platform is what made me want to switch to MacOS. I have been eyeing the new lenovo ideapads for a little bit, and I think I want to pull the trigger. What would be the easiest way to go back? In your opinion. I still have my macbook, tablet, and phones, so I will probably keep those.
It depends on what you want to do right now. And if you have the money. And if you're ok 'buying now.' And seeing what Apple come up with later. This ARM thing is at least a year (WWDC 21?) away.
The way Apple Mac kit is at the moment I wouldn't blame someone seeking 'value' from Windows or at least having a dual set up if there is attractive kit on the PC side.
eg. PC 12 core with 5700XT? £1300. inc. Vat. Compare that to the mini Mac.
I'll be buying a desktop from these guys and probably trying a Hack' / PC dual boot. They have laptops too.
I recommended you have a look around. There's plenty of choice in design, specs and price.
Keep your Mac stuff. You can always be dual platform for now until Apple release the new iMac or tip their ARM Mac hand.
If people want customers to be more loyal only to the Mac platform...they're going to have to offer more compelling desktops and better value.
Azrael.
The way Apple Mac kit is at the moment I wouldn't blame someone seeking 'value' from Windows or at least having a dual set up if there is attractive kit on the PC side.
eg. PC 12 core with 5700XT? £1300. inc. Vat. Compare that to the mini Mac.
I'll be buying a desktop from these guys and probably trying a Hack' / PC dual boot. They have laptops too.
I recommended you have a look around. There's plenty of choice in design, specs and price.
Keep your Mac stuff. You can always be dual platform for now until Apple release the new iMac or tip their ARM Mac hand.
If people want customers to be more loyal only to the Mac platform...they're going to have to offer more compelling desktops and better value.
Azrael.
It depends on what you want to do right now. And if you have the money. And if you're ok 'buying now.' And seeing what Apple come up with later. This ARM thing is at least a year (WWDC 21?) away.
The way Apple Mac kit is at the moment I wouldn't blame someone seeking 'value' from Windows or at least having a dual set up if there is attractive kit on the PC side.
eg. PC 12 core with 5700XT? £1300. inc. Vat. Compare that to the mini Mac.
I'll be buying a desktop from these guys and probably trying a Hack' / PC dual boot. They have laptops too.
I recommended you have a look around. There's plenty of choice in design, specs and price.
Keep your Mac stuff. You can always be dual platform for now until Apple release the new iMac or tip their ARM Mac hand.
If people want customers to be more loyal only to the Mac platform...they're going to have to offer more compelling desktops and better value.
Azrael.
The appeal to mac was that I can dock my laptop and use it as my main machine and then my laptop and be in the ecosystem. That didn't work out as planned due to the age of my machine, and in terms of value, I could get a Windows laptop with better specs and dock that instead. I don't have a single mac in my house capable of Catalina without patches except for my hackintosh. High Sierra is running out of support in a year or so, so I am planning on getting out soon. I will eventually replace my macbook with a used macbook air, and it's possible I can wait for that because an air checks the boxes, but I would only be able to afford an older one, so I'd have to look into specs.
Agreed, some people are completely absurd by claiming x86 does not have any major performance improvement. In fact, the Apple SoC is not guaranteed to offer 2-3x improvements in single-thread performance over the next few years and barely any faster than Intel 14nm CPU.
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You can say Intel, or AMD, has performance advantages over, say, A13. You cannot say x86 has performance advantages over Arm.
The latter is like saying blue cars have performance advantages over yellow cars.
Thank you for a nice processor. My G4 PowerBook is still running strong, Quad G5 is also running strong plus PB Pismo - PowerPC made Apple feel like a real Macintosh computer. So thank you for that.
It depends on what you want to do right now. And if you have the money. And if you're ok 'buying now.' And seeing what Apple come up with later. This ARM thing is at least a year (WWDC 21?) away.
The way Apple Mac kit is at the moment I wouldn't blame someone seeking 'value' from Windows or at least having a dual set up if there is attractive kit on the PC side.
eg. PC 12 core with 5700XT? £1300. inc. Vat. Compare that to the mini Mac.
I'll be buying a desktop from these guys and probably trying a Hack' / PC dual boot. They have laptops too.
I recommended you have a look around. There's plenty of choice in design, specs and price.
Keep your Mac stuff. You can always be dual platform for now until Apple release the new iMac or tip their ARM Mac hand.
If people want customers to be more loyal only to the Mac platform...they're going to have to offer more compelling desktops and better value.
Azrael.
Compelling desktops?!? Desktops are as boring as it gets. There’s nothing compelling on the PC OEM side either. Why do people on these forums keep thinking that Apple is suddenly going to start spitting out generic slotboxes like Acer, Dell, HP or Lenovo? The 2019 Mac Pro is simply a huge concession to those few hard-core people that wanted a slot box. This has been Apple since the switch to Intel. Different form factor to prevent direct comparisons to a tower PC. Apple will never compete with some POS HP Pavilion on price and the desktop is where all the comparisons happen, because users cannot build their own laptop out of parts from Computer Shopper/PC Parts Picker.
People are not going to be more loyal on the Mac side when Apple makes more compelling desktops because 1. Apple isn’t going to make them and 2. If they did, people on these forums would nitpick them to death the way they do on Anandtech or Toms Hardware or HardOCP, et al. That part of PC culture can just stay on those sites, there are already to many of them here anyways griping about price as though PC OEMs can thrive on s*** margins, much less Apple. Moving to ARM/Arm will at least stop that segment in its tracks.
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Apple will probably continue selling Intel-based Macs for another 18-24 months, with the Mac Pro being the last model to be replaced. But make no mistake, Apple will complexity abandon x86 with 3-5 years once they make the transition to ARM/Arm.
NONE of us has any idea what Apple has up it’s sleeve performance-wise. Everyone assume the first product out of the gate will be a 12” MacBook replacement and the 23” iMac. If the A14X can provide Core i9-9900K-style oomph in a 12” MacBook and a 23” iMac, people are going to eat them up. Especially the 12” MacBook, considered what an anemic, over-priced piece of kit it was. Thanks Intel!
People are more likely to welcome the 12” ARM-Based Mac but it’s not practical for replacing x86 in the entire lineup just for a slight increase in performance and the same power consumption as Intel.
But people that depend on software that runs on x86 will abandon Apple first. And they will sell them longer than 18 - 24 months, because there won't be a lot in the way of ARM native software available in 18 - 24 months. Software is developed in multi-year cycles. No one is going to interrupt a development cycle for the small fraction of early adopters. 1st iteration will be ARM native with not much in the way of new features. And if the PPC/Intel transition was an indicator - you will be looking at 3 - 5 years. Have fun with emulation. On the other hand, you will be able to run Candy Crush natively on an ARM based macbook air.
Those of us that actually use our computers will (if they haven't already) abandon OSX. Apple is like Harley-Davidson - they compete on nostalgia & lifestyle, because they certainly can't compete on price or performance.
Some of us actually DO stuff with our computers. From your post, I would say that you don't. I could care less what the enclosure looks like - that isn't what I buy a computer for. It is a tool, not a piece of artwork to show off. Take a look at my sig - that simply isn't enough for 3d art, at the hobbyist level.
For those of us that DO stuff, desktops are not boring. I don't find a 10 - 15% performance increase every 12 - 18 months boring - I find it to be just the opposite. I like the ability to do more - but then for me, the computer is a tool.
If Apple has the CPUs ready, there will be a strong, predictable cadence and an end to x86 on the Mac inside of two years or less. Apple did it with PowerPC to Intel, they’ll do it with Intel to ARM.
Apple is not going to move to AMD. Let it go.
Apple is going to move to ARM/Arm in totality and x86 will be out. Practical is not a consideration to Apple, for better or worse.
Ampere already made ARM CPU with 80 cores and 210W power consumption While Intel Xeon 28 cores consume much more than 300W.
Do you buy a new Mac every year? I mean maybe you do, I don’t know. I know I don’t buy a new Mac every year. I don’t even buy a new iPad every year but I know a lot of people constantly do.
My point is that if you do work on you Mac, I understand why you are worried about this change over. Just like people who did work on their PowerPC Mac back in 2005 when Apple announced the transition from PowerPC to Intel and the same when they went from Motorola to PowerPC.
And just like then, you can buy the newest and best Intel Mac’s this year and maybe even next year and use that for your work needs until you’re software you need moves over. And like I’ve said in other topics here, Apple has a big advantage they didn’t have before. They have been selling ARM based computers for a while. They are called iPad’s and Apple has been slowing separating iPads from iOS. Everything from adding mouse support to making iPadOS separate from iOS and adding exclusive features for the iPad.
Developers will move over their app’s just like they did (for the most part) last time. I’m sure some companies might have been left behind and choose to go to Windows. But I doubt that will happen for the majority the of use cases. And if Apple does leverage their huge existing user base of the iPad to entice developers even less people will be left behind.
If you already left Mac behind then why you care about their next change?
And BTW 32bit to 64bit change was from 10 years ago when Snow Leopard came out.
If a software have never been maintained for 10 years you better consider it legacy and run it in virtual environment to minimize the security problem it definitely have.
That would depend. Is there any software you need to use for your job? If so might be a good time to upgrade and you can use that until your specific apps make the move over.
Also if you can afford to buy a new MacBook Pro in 3-4 years from now. Because I’d expect in 2023 - 2024 the Intel Mac’s won’t get new OS updates.
AMD is doing well now and I do have a AMD 3900x in my gamming desktop.
But that didn't change the fact that you have to re compile all your apps to get the most out of it.
Apple is always the software + hardware + best optimization guy. I do not think they will take the performance regression on a new CPU for just a little gain.
Remember Apple planned to release a LPDDR4 32GB ram MacBook Pro in 2016. It took Intel 5 years to finally deliver it.
And AMD just have LPDDR4 support this year same as Intel.
My job I use Windows and its at work. My Mac would be a personal machine which I use to watch movies, surf the web, write letters, update my resume, download photos from my Canon Camera, and simple tasks like this. I will go for the 16GB of RAM option to prepare for the future.
I hope I am not along thinking that this is a really bad idea if it applies across the line up. I don't have any issues with an experiment with one device (similar to what Microsoft is doing) but using the Intel family chipsets was one of the single greatest architecture things Apple ever did. I'm worried that if they splitter it too much it will fork the pro end of things who do want Xeon processors and cause divergence within macOS.
Imagine a Mac Pro with 80 ARM cores. And not have to worry that the machine will over heat because it takes up a lot less energy.
Or Imagine Apple making its own version of the Amazon Graviton2. And putting that in the first Arm Mac Pro.
ARM has a lot of potential. And once Apple does this and does it well, I expect Windows PC manufactures to want someARM love too.
So then they may make Windows 10 (or whatever version) compatible with ARM and so we have boot camp again on the Mac.
I would be very interested if Microsoft makes Windows 10 ARM able to be installed on a Mac.
It is already available now.
And it is not a special version. There's no "Windows 10 ARM" version. Just Windows 10 with x86/x64 and now arm64.
You can have your Windows 10 pro or even enterprise license activated on a arm64 machine with everything that version should have.
The only question is if Apple will allow this to happen or not--they have to provide a lot of driver to make this works just like how BootCamp was.