CES 2021: Intel Highlights Next-Generation 'Alder Lake' Chips

[ian87w]

Much as I would totally be okay with another Intel 16" MacBook Pro, I have a feeling we're done seeing new Intel Mac releases.

It's obviously done. Apple wouldn't spend that huge amount of R&D on the transition just to keep using intel. The words of "other intel macs to come" are just lip service. Remember during the powerPC to intel transition, Jobs said the same thing about "other PPC macs yet to come," they never did.

And just because intel announced this, doesn't mean they can actually ship it in volume. Second half of 2021 is a huge range, and can mean practically the end of 2021. Apple's problem with intel is intel's inability to meet their own roadmap schedule, and delays over delays.

 

[Mizhou]

Their roadmap just leaked...

It's Glacial Lake, then Crater Lake and then they move onto the Playa and Salt Flats architectures.

I think the next processor series will be Shore, starting with Desolate Shore, because all PC makers have abandoned Intel.

 

[Suckfest 9001]

Kind of adorable seeing people here that think intel actually gives a crap about Macs. They make chips for gaming machines and windows workstations which still have a much larger market share

 

[macduke]

So us Apple Fan boys can dog on it.

That’s good enough reason for me!

Suck it, Intel! Your ancient technology is DOA.

 

[Digital Dude]

Why waste the bandwidth by writing an article about a totally irrelevant technology on an Apple-centric site?

I joined this forum in 2006 due to my interest in 'technology' and not just Apple products. Hundreds if not thousands of articles are posted on here each year on so-called 'irrelevant technology.' Be it a new Pixel, Go Pro, Microsoft Edge, Outlook, Firefox, Apple's Intel-based computers, or third-party monitors; it's all good. ✌️

 

[Starfyre]

So Intel had this technology for a while and they chose not to release it until they realized they were behind thinking they could have gotten away with holding this technology back until how long? I wonder when Intel was planning on showing Alder Lake... 2030? Thank goodness AMD and Apple chose to accelerate technology instead of stunt it with mini incremental updates.

 

[ian87w]

Kind of adorable seeing people here that think intel actually gives a crap about Macs. They make chips for gaming machines and windows workstations which still have a much larger market share

Yes and no. Apple was still a huge contract for intel, and losing them would still be a good kick in the nuts for intel. AMD has been gaining on the gaming front, especially with a lot of those are custom built PCs. The market that intel still owns for now is the Windows laptop market. But then we see OEMs starting to try pushing Snapdragon chips for their laptops. Once Microsoft perfected their x86-64 emulation, we might see interesting things happening.

 

[eMacKilla]

I'm really curious to see how they perform.

 

[calstanford]

intel is master of overpromising and then underdelivering. Let's talk about these chips when they're really out and see if they're as good as promised.

 

[Volkhard Juergens]

And its cooled by a Rolls Royce Trend Turbo Fan😅

 

[brdeveloper]

There honestly should be more Intel chips going forward, but thermal changes indicate it will only be in the older (today’s) form factors. No one can accuse Apple of a slow architecture transition!
So the elephant in the room is that the M1 machine is totally impractical for many due to hardware limitations on multiple displays.

It’s still not clear to me whether that’s due to the CPU, the GPU, power to I/O, or some other reason having to do with the chipset/SoC architecture. Anyone know? Despite impressive performance, this bottleneck actually makes the Pro in MacBook Pro a misnomer.

To me the main issue with M1 Macs is if will they support my Apogee Element 46 without issues someday. It's very promising having a totally silent Mac Mini, but I'm still cautious about third-party hardware support.

 

[Solomani]

2022: ‘Drowning Lake’ architecture.

Or like that lake in South America..... Lake Titicaca. 😂

 

[pearvsapple]

Faster than anything Apple has.

 

[seanoo]

2022: ‘Drowning Lake’ architecture.

Spring 2022: Drowning Lake has been pushed to late 2023. Intel disclosed that 7nm plans have been ‘scaled back’ and initial releases on the new platform will focus on enhancing performance of 10nm chips.

Fall 2023: Drowning Lake chips intended for use in high end ultrabooks revealed to be rebadged Haswell 65W dual cores.

Spring 2024: intel inexplicably wins bid for use of forthcoming Pelican Lake 7nm design in NASA’s SLS modules, expected to reach first orbit by end of 2026.

 

[cmaier]

Spring 2022: Drowning Lake has been pushed to late 2023. Intel disclosed that 7nm plans have been ‘scaled back’ and initial releases on the new platform will focus on enhancing performance of 10nm chips.

Fall 2023: Drowning Lake chips intended for use in high end ultrabooks revealed to be rebadged Haswell 65W dual cores.

Spring 2024: intel inexplicably wins bid for use of forthcoming Pelican Lake 7nm design in NASA’s SLS modules, expected to reach first orbit by end of 2026.

Weirdly, Drowning Lake is 14++++ feet deep.

 

[hagjohn]

No thanks. I'll stick to M1.

 

[thekev]

NOT sure Apple has many of them, as it's mostly a Consumer-oriented products & services company, but Businesses, especially Medium-sized & BIGGER, typically cannot adopt New Tech, like an M1 or newer Apple Silicon processor, unless/until it's been signed-off by Software QA !

And that point will be different for each company / division.

I suspect many such business will Buy Up ALL the remaining Intel-based Macs they can get their hands on (in the near term, that is).

Also, the DRAM limit in the M1 is a HUGE hurdle to many High-Perf applications !

As some point, Apple will need to RE-design the DRAM Controller in a follow-up Apple Silicon chip, so that it supports the typical Desktop / Workstation / Server memory architecture (& components).

Otherwise, Intel-based Macs will be with us ALL for a very, very long time !

Graphic design and similar areas used to be highly dominated by Macs, in addition to companies running FCPX and a couple other packages. That is probably it though.

It's unlikely to be an issue more than a year or two out, so many of those purchases would be in the near term. If depreciated, those things are a five year write off. I guess that might extend it a few years, but I think you'll start to see third party application support drop off earlier than that.

 

[magicschoolbus]

It's a repeat of history. Remember the Pentium 4 days, where those were huge power sucking chips with so so performance that only have GHz as its main feature. AMD trounced intel back then. Then intel was forced to innovate with the Core series.

The cycle is repeating. Competition is healthy.

Is healthy? TSMC seems to be the only company capable of producing chips.

 

[pacalis]

It's a repeat of history. Remember the Pentium 4 days, where those were huge power sucking chips with so so performance that only have GHz as its main feature. AMD trounced intel back then. Then intel was forced to innovate with the Core series.

The cycle is repeating. Competition is healthy.

It's not a cycle. Intel has been disrupted by mobile and is now being overtaken in their higher end consumer business. In the US, Apple will likely take 20%+ of the market and 80% of the profit share.

The technology and business models have evolved which is why Apple is now 10X the company Intel is. Apple will not go back.

 

[farqueue]

still behind compared to m1 and ryzen’s 7nm

 

[ian87w]

Because it shows you why Apple will not "take over". These new Intel chips will find their way into new $600 PC notebooks and people will see the $600 price and not even consider buying a Mac.

My neighbor did just that. He looked around and saw a $600 PC with 14" screen and compared it to a $1,000 mac with 13" screen and did not have to think hard which to buy. What will happen with these new Intel chips is that the cheaper PC will now have a much longer battery life, narrowing the advantage of the Mac.

$600 PCs don't use the latest and greatest. Right now, one needs the 11th gen i7 to compete with the M1 performance wise, and that i7 still lose in terms of thermals. Most current $600 laptops are still on 10th gen i5 or so, and they hardly get any better battery life than the 11th gen.

So for performance and battery life, M1 is still king. One can simply try running Windows update or play a youtube video on an intel machine to starts getting some heat and/or fans running.

But, I do agree that majority of marketshare is on laptops $600 and below. And since Apple is not playing in that price bracket, intel will remain comfortable until Microsoft perfected their x86-64 emulation on ARM.

 

[ian87w]

Is healthy? TSMC seems to be the only company capable of producing chips.

We won't see intel even trying doing these things if there's no competition. We would still be stuck with another tock iteration of Broadwell/Skylake. So I'd say competition is healthy. AMD is back from the desktop/performance side, while ARM is slowly lurking on the mobile side.

 

[travelsheep]

too little too late

 

[Kilibee]

So Intel had this technology for a while and they chose not to release it until they realized they were behind thinking they could have gotten away with holding this technology back until how long?

Certainly Apple had a much better insight into their roadmaps during the last years than the public, so I doubt this is news for them. However, Intel has been dragging their feet for years now, so I wouldn't expect it to be available in 2020 anyway.

If suitable for a CPU replacement, Apple might still use it for a small speed bump, but I would not place a bet on it.

Every relevant model will be released on Apple Silicon.

 

[Kilibee]

Faster than anything Apple has.

Faster in 2022 than anything Apple has now.

There, fixed it for you.