Intel Launches New Broadwell Core M Processors, Likely Destined for Apple's Ultra-Slim Notebook

[Gudi]

The market portion consisting of customers who have to run legacy Windows and apps written in x86 asm was never under attack. That's for Intel, AMD and Via to fight over.

The OS X on ARM rumor (already running in a secret laboratory) said it could become under attack. Believe it or not there is even new software written for x86-64 today for instance Yosemite. The PC market is shrinking but its far from being legacy.

The portion consisting of customers running portable software (which includes almost anything built with Xcode, gcc or even LLVM under Linux) will go under attack if and when vendors can ship a 4.5W TDP 64-bit ARM CPU that is either close to competitive in performance or a lot cheaper to make or buy than this sub-GHz Intel offering.

That day may never come. Other CPU manufacturers have always been cheaper than Intel, creating an incentive for PC manufacturers to replace them if possible. Still INTEL managed to fight off AMD and maintain their margins with performance gains. But ARM represents another kind of thread, to fight off ARM they need to make progress in energy consumption. And they did.

It's not enough progress to counter attack ARM in the smartphone and tablet market. But it's enough so that fanless notebooks will be energy-efficient INTEL computers, not high-performance ARM computers. And INTEL will earn good money with this monopoly.

 

[Michael Goff]

Really, if it runs 100% of the apps they use, how would that be*? Is Apple tied to Intel by some kind of blood oat?

It either fullfills your needs or it doesn't. With Ipads and Iphones all over the enterprise, there is already an incentive to app devellopers and Apple to provide and united experience over all those platforms. With the watch coming, assuredly used by business people the most, that incentive goes up again.**

Maybe true pros need to absolutely have Intel processor in their machines for now (and they'll have this option).

But, the many people who need pro-sumer software would be all right with a ARM laptop with a 4 core A9 clocked to say 1.8GHZ*** running OSX and and expanded IOS (for larger screens) depending on usage. This is obviously better for Apple since they get a bigger margin and its better for users because of the tighter integration IOS/OSX possibled with a custom SOC.

*If it would run everything they needed, they're already overpaying. They don't need a Mac, they need an iPad with a good keyboard.

**That's Microsoft's thing, the thing that Apple openly mocked and this forum joined in on. If that's what happens, I'm sure the faithful will say how it was the best thing ever.

***And you really think that clocking it up would suddenly make it competitive? You really think that clock speed is the most important thing ever? How about GPU? RAM speed? SSD speed? Are those differences going to just disappear?

 

[Gudi]

Remember when Apple first introduced the MacBook Air? People like you were on the fence complaining about processor speed and what not. And then by some miraculous turn-of-event the dumb people who actually bought really loved it.

You conveniently forget that the MacBook Air became cheaper than the MacBook Pro at one point in time. Which must have contributed enormously to its later success. Since Apple doesn't break down individual sales numbers, the first generation MacBook Airs may as well have been a flop and be ridiculed as such for good reasons.

 

[crsh1976]

No, no no no no. Just NO.

Do NOT put a Core M chip in a MBA.

Lenovo should have never slapped that processor in a premium ultrabook, it's a downgrade compared to previous U-class processors; it's intended for low-end products like the $300-400 convertibles from Asus and the like.

Intel has been intensely misleading about the Core M, presumably due to their repeated screw-ups with Broadwell that caused multiple delays, but even in their own benchmarks they've only ever compared the Core M to Atom chips, never against Haswell-Y processors (which Core M supersedes)- that says something huge.

If Apple makes something powered by a Core M, it ought to be an iPad "pro", nothing more.

 

[nksk]

Lenovo should have never slapped that processor in a premium ultrabook, it's a downgrade compared to previous U-class processors; it's intended for low-end products like the $300-400 convertibles from Asus and the like. .

Can we please stop discussing the bottom of the barrel and stick to the 5Y71? Apple is obviously not going to use a 3.5W TDP like Lenovo or cheap out by getting one of the 800MHz parts.

The only questions that are relevant are whether Apple can get to 6W/1.4GHz in a fanless Air, and if not, if the 5Y71 is good enough at 4.5W/1.2GHz.

 

[Michael Goff]

Can we please stop discussing the bottom of the barrel and stick to the 5Y71? Apple is obviously not going to use a 3.5W TDP like Lenovo or cheap out by getting one of the 800MHz parts.

The only questions that are relevant is whether Apple can get to 6W/1.4GHz in a fanless Air, and if not, if the 5Y71 is good enough at 4.5W/1.2GHz.

Considering how far behind the 3.5W one is, I doubt it'd be a real upgrade in terms of performance even at 6W. If you're okay with a performance hit for the sake of "fanless", then it will be good enough.

 

[cal321]

There are actually many words where we as a nation have gotten rid of excess vowels to save precious bandwidth. Color is another word that fits the mold.

Yes... and many words you have also extended. For example, 'gotten'. What's your point?

 

[crsh1976]

Can we please stop discussing the bottom of the barrel and stick to the 5Y71? Apple is obviously not going to use a 3.5W TDP like Lenovo or cheap out by getting one of the 800MHz parts.

The only questions that are relevant are whether Apple can get to 6W/1.4GHz in a fanless Air, and if not, if the 5Y71 is good enough at 4.5W/1.2GHz.

You seriously think going with a TDP of 4.5W instead of 3.5 will automagically make this processor shine?

 

[kingkiowa]

timing

So i'm thinking about walking into the apple store and buying a new MacBook Air 13" 128gb this week.. Instead of the 11" because of the obvious increase in screen size, and the unexpected increase in battery life is appealing as well for an extra $50.

Should I do this or should I be waiting for new MacBooks of some kind soon. Any expected realistic release date? Thanks!

 

[SusanK]

Made me giggle. Thankyou.

You're welcome!

 

[nksk]

You seriously think going with a TDP of 4.5W instead of 3.5 will automagically make this processor shine?

Well I'm not willing to predict it'll "shine", but the difference is huge. On the 5Y71, the 3.5W config specifies 600MHz and the 4.5W config 1.2GHz.

 

[SusanK]

You guys just wait till Apple start to use floppy disks again...

And 14.4 modems

 

[Keirasplace]

*If it would run everything they needed, they're already overpaying. They don't need a Mac, they need an iPad with a good keyboard.

**That's Microsoft's thing, the thing that Apple openly mocked and this forum joined in on. If that's what happens, I'm sure the faithful will say how it was the best thing ever.

***And you really think that clocking it up would suddenly make it competitive? You really think that clock speed is the most important thing ever? How about GPU? RAM speed? SSD speed? Are those differences going to just disappear?

The GPU/CPU in the A8X with extra cores for both the CPU and GPU (seemingly there's almost drop ins from what I saw of the die and Imagination's information) pumped up to 1.8GHZ, puts it well into the performance range of bottom 50% of all laptops. The current GPU on the A8X is no slouch, not sure you'd think it is?

When the thermal envelloppe and power consumption of a device is the main consideration, there is a limit in clock speed. In a slightly bigger device, with a bigger battery, say 10mm thick, you could pump up the clock rate considerably. When they move to the new fin process next year, there will be little power and heat penalty to pushing the clock much higher than now and then you'd see the A9X potential performance be much higher, approaching the current laptop mid range. Same thing with Ram, bigger battery equals possibility to put more Ram in and they will.

BTW, we're not talking beating a i7 here, we're talking about beating every other fanless laptop out there, which it can do handily by next year.

 

[MacLC]

The MBA hardly needs to get thinner. As for ARM, there's nothing about ARM that would prevent it from having the same performance as an x86. It would require a big deep pipeline and a bunch of extra circuitry, and power use would skyrocket, but you could do it. It would probably use less power than an x86 too, since it's a lot simpler design without tons of legacy cruft wasting power and die area.

That is a great point that most people miss. ARM processors have always been designed to fit inside an extremely low heat envelope. With no major market for RISC-based desktop CPUs there has not been a need for ARM to develop desktop CPUs. If a market existed then ARM would produce for it.

The RISC design that ARM employs and AIM used to employ has always been more efficient than Intel's CISC design. AIM failed when Motorola bailed after Steve Jobs killed clones and IBM focused on server CPUs. Ironically back then Apple was a major investor in ARM.

 

[Michael Goff]

The GPU/CPU in the A8X with extra cores for both the CPU and GPU (seemingly there's almost drop ins from what I saw of the die and Imagination's information) pumped up to 1.8GHZ, puts it well into the performance range of bottom 50% of all laptops. The current GPU on the A8X is no slouch, not sure you'd think it is?

When the thermal envelloppe and power consumption of a device is the main consideration, there is a limit in clock speed. In a slightly bigger device, with a bigger battery, say 10mm thick, you could pump up the clock rate considerably. When they move to the new fin process next year, there will be little power and heat penalty to pushing the clock much higher than now and then you'd see the A9X potential performance be much higher, approaching the current laptop mid range. Same thing with Ram, bigger battery equals possibility to put more Ram in and they will.

BTW, we're not talking beating a i7 here, we're talking about beating every other fanless laptop out there, which it can do handily by next year.

It's a slouch next to Core M, even. Also, can I borrow your crystal ball?

 

[Naimfan]

I simply don't think there is a point to a laptop that is slower just to be fanless and thinner.

 

[639051]

No. Thinhgs that dissipate heat have fans for a reason. I’m pretty sure that when this starts to do anything more taxing than browsing and mails you’ll notice. And turn down your central heating. And have a heat related failure a couple of years down the road.

Since you're not working for Intel designing their chips, I think it's safe to say we can trust them over you. Pretty sure they have an idea as to what they are doing.

 

[kingkiowa]

So i'm thinking about walking into the apple store and buying a new MacBook Air 13" 128gb this week.. Instead of the 11" because of the obvious increase in screen size, and the unexpected increase in battery life is appealing as well for an extra $50.

Should I do this or should I be waiting for new MacBooks of some kind soon. Any expected realistic release date? Thanks!

Answer my question o' wise apple people.

 

[nksk]

Answer my question o' wise apple people.

I'd wait, but you may not want to. I've been expecting a Retina version since 2013, but then they didn't do it with Haswell, and in 2014 Broadwell was delayed. Personally, I refuse to upgrade before I can get one. (Despite my comments in this thread, a fanless design would just be icing on the cake. What I'm really waiting for is Retina.)

That said, if you need one now it's not a bad choice. If you're unlucky, they'll release the new model right before or after Christmas. Worst case, they wait for Skylake.

 

[willcapellaro]

Why not just buy a usb drive? Done and done. What's the point of having so much storage inside the machine?

Sure it's possible, but much less convenient. It opens me up to being stranded with my data, just not able to access it. Ie, with a MBA or a mythical iPad Pro I can still work on the bus or plugged into a hotel TV.

There's clearly an opportunity to do something like docking. Dell has designed to it inelegantly for what seems like a decade. Apple _almost_ has this feature operational if they cared to put the effort in to make it more usable.

They'd reap some additional praise from people who want to use a retina iMac as a docked setup, via booting from a target disk laptop. Though expensive, those can boot from any recent mac. For those users, getting the cheapest thunderbolt 2 macbook air would be optimal.

 

[kingkiowa]

I'd wait, but you may not want to. I've been expecting a Retina version since 2013, but then they didn't do it with Haswell, and in 2014 Broadwell was delayed. Personally, I refuse to upgrade before I can get one. (Despite my comments in this thread, a fanless design would just be icing on the cake. What I'm really waiting for is Retina.)

That said, if you need one now it's not a bad choice. If you're unlucky, they'll release the new model right before or after Christmas. Worst case, they wait for Skylake.

Wondering what the return policy is incase they do release one after I get it.

When would they possibly announce this in 2014 ? Any events or anything remotely possible coming up ?

 

[Count Blah]

Not true, as long as there is thermal headroom the chips will run at much higher clocks even when multiple cores are in use.

For example, the Surface Pro 3 runs at 2.6Ghz with both cores when W is low. When W is high it will fall back to 1.8Ghz (i5-4300U). If you are able to hit tJunction the CPU will throttle even more. Core M basically will do the same thing.

Won't be very effective, if Microsoft refuses to have a version of windows that runs on it natively.

To be honest I kind of hope Apple does a high powered ARM core. Intel hasn't had any real competition since Athlon64. Just look at how we are "just now" hitting 4Ghz. Intels chips have been able to do it for years, they just never bothered to bin them that way..

Always that took someone doing as little as just interacting with the device for a couple minuted, to reach throttling speed. Basically, showing a video(let alone ripping one at the same time), or moving a window around the screen will peg the thermals in no time flat.

 

[MacBH928]

So glad that I'm not the only one who's fed up with the obsession over thinness.

Don't under-value thinness . I have an iPad 3 and just removing the case that I had on it made all the difference. So it is with my iphone 5.

But thinness is not always the right thing to do, for example, in the case of iMac and Mac Pro, thinner is not necessarily better.

I think its very clear that for those looking for mobility they should go with Macbook Air and for performance they should go for heavier macbook PRO, but Apple seems to agree as long as its thinner is better for everyone, even if it is a desktop iMac

 

[Naimfan]

Apple is obviously not going to . . . cheap out . . .

And yet that is EXACTLY what Apple did with the new Mini and with the "cheap" (read: rip-off) iMac.

 

[SolarShane]

You do realize it was Apple who pushed Intel in this direction? Demanding better performance per watt rather than raw performance. Thinner, lighter, cooler, quieter - not just faster and faster, as if speed is all that matters.

This new Core M chip is what Apple always demanded and finally Intel is coming around to deliver. A 4.5W TDP Intel CPU is precisely what will prevent PC manufacturers (including Apple Mac) from switching to ARM anytime soon. The rumor is dead just as you started to believe it. Intel repelled the possibility of an ARMed attack on it's PC business.

Yet a 800MHz processor in a 2014 MacBook Air? Hell no!

Apple is going backwards. First with the Mac mini "update", and now this? What's next? Single core processors in an iMac?