True. And given recent performance this time it could be the other way around. Anyway, it remains to be interesting, nothing seems certain
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Bloomberg: Apple's First Arm Mac to Launch by 2021 With 12-Core Processor
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AMD has an internal culture that prevents long runs of success. I doubt it will be any different this time.
True... the question was ARM. But there was another question asking "Will companies stick to Intel forever?"
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Those same companies aren’t doing anything new. One of the most excited days in my life up until then was walking into Fry’s and Best Buy in the mid-1990’s and seeing AMD chips I designed in machines people could buy, including HP, Compaq, etc. Even Dell eventually.
The fact that they used AMD in some models was never an indications that they weren’t going to “stick to Intel,” as evidenced by the following two decades.
Gotcha.
Companies could still use Intel even if they also use AMD and/or ARM.
I didn't think it through. Thanks!
Right, lots of people buy their computer to do nothing but run their recording studio, and Apple used to better than Windows for ProTools. Now there are problems, the raw speed is interrupted by background tasks...
Yes... email, documents, and general office tasks can all be done in a browser.
But what about all the applications that AREN'T those?
Scientific research, high-frequency stock trading, industrial applications, the list goes on...
I hear what you're saying... most of YOUR customers' tasks can be handled in a browser. And most consumer tasks can too.
But no one is designing the next spaceship or making Avatar 2 on a Chromebook...
There is, and will be, a need for faster computers.
Or Digitally communicating around the world via radio. Can't do THAT in a cloud!
Their success is now pretty much tied* to TSMC and they have been very consistent. I think it will be different.
And Lisa Su seems to be doing a great job.
*although they could still switch manufacturer, if someone else does a better job.
Except that it not only depends on the fab, but also on your ability to create a design that works well. Getting only one of those right doesn't help you much.
Not really. TSMC seems to do a great job at manufacturing, but good designs matter.
Both Apple and Qualcomm tend to have TSMC manufacture, and both are ARM, but Apple's design is clearly way better at single-threaded performance. Same ISA, same manufacturer, different design.
Agreed all the way. The fact that Macs are expensive + not user-friendly anymore should help buyers make an informed decision. Some people have the money to burn & don't care though
🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
The fact that they've finally made SSDs standard in the Mac Mini (which should've happened years ago), yet still drag their feet on the iMacs is galling (I know larger SSDs would inflate the price - but at this point, I don't think enough people would care).
In 1996 they were doing a great job too. And fab is only one part of the success. I worked there for a decade. I predict people won’t be crowing about “give us AMD” in about 2 years.
You’ve obviously never coded anything that does any interesting DSP if you feel like that. The fact that you have to worry about that trade off constantly is Illustrative of my point. physical modeling could be a thing with an order of magnitude shift in CPU. Right now it’s a toy
Whereas Intel will never be able to match Apple, because Apple can (1) switch to whatever fab is winning at any given time (including Intel, who will happily take Apple’s money) and (2) put all sorts of custom blocks on their SoC or in the CPU package that provide it with custom encode/decode, AI, video/audio processing, etc., whereas Intel makes chips for everyone so it only puts things on the silicon that will have wide applicability to all its customers.
Yeah, a strong case can be made that Apple is simply ripe for in-house CPU design including for the Macs. (They clearly are for iOS devices.)
It continues to bemuse me that most other vendors have abandoned custom ARM designs. Current Snapdragon Kryo CPUs are Cortex, as are current Samsung Exynos chips, and most Nvidia Tegra chips.
Designing CPUs is hard. What a lot of companies tried to do is use ASIC methodology, because it worked fine for their chipsets, gpus, network chips, etc., and that’s what their designers knew how to do. That simply is not competitive with what AMD, Intel or Apple do.
Or ARM itself
Exynos is a good example. Samsung failed for years to develop a better ARMv8 microarchitecture than what you can just license from ARM. Also NVidias Denver efforts where not really better than the commodity ARM Cortex-A cores.