I gotta say, ever since throwing an AMD CPU in my gaming PC, **** Intel. Really wish apple would experiment with an AMD Mac.
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Intel Unveils 10th-Generation 'Comet Lake' Processors Appropriate for Updated iMacs
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Why do people keep calling that "throttling"? Intel isn't saying that the CPU is intended for sustained 5.3 GHz. It's intended for boosts of 5.3 GHz.
Likewise, the 9900K is not designed to maintain 5.0 GHz. Its clock rate is 3.6 GHz. It will only do 5.0 GHz in short bursts, and only with up to 2 cores of its eight running.
Throttling would imply it could not do base clock for sustained workflows. Turbo Boost should be viewed as a bonus and achieving a sustained turbo boost on Intel S-chips usually requires liquid cooling.
Mojave forever!
It’s a shame too, just as the gaming ecosystem started to become viable on macOS. I still play UT2004, which thankfully got the Intel update way back.
That special deal was nothing special and was just 2 old products. Nothing AMD couldn't offer Apple. The tech from AMD is better for performance with multiple cores with lower power, 2 things Apple loves. AMD also does custom CPUs (think gaming consoles) that would also be a huge deal for Apple. It's a win win for Apple.
AMD has kicked Intel's ass for a long time in the past too. The Athlon was faster than a P3/P4 for a long time. The Opteron was a better server CPU for a long time as well. They got distracted and fell behind. Ryzen/Threadripper/EPYC are much better CPU's than anything Intel.
Heck our current 64-bit instruction set is courtesy of AMD. Intel was too busy chasing Itanic that AMD whipped their butts with 64-bit.
When Apple substantially refresh products in their lineup, I expect the biggest feature will be the inclusion of ARM processors.
For machines like the iMac, my guess is they’ll have both an ARM and x86 core - the OS and as many applications as possible will run on the ARM core, and any legacy Apps will run on the x86 core with only virtualised access to memory.
A faster x86 core is nice, but I think we all know that Apple sees its future making its own hardware for the Mac as they do for their iOS devices.
for that reason, I don’t think they’ll bother switching to AMD, either (unless AMD are willing to let Apple integrate Ryzen cores in their own SoCs).
For machines like the iMac, my guess is they’ll have both an ARM and x86 core - the OS and as many applications as possible will run on the ARM core, and any legacy Apps will run on the x86 core with only virtualised access to memory.
A faster x86 core is nice, but I think we all know that Apple sees its future making its own hardware for the Mac as they do for their iOS devices.
for that reason, I don’t think they’ll bother switching to AMD, either (unless AMD are willing to let Apple integrate Ryzen cores in their own SoCs).
AMD is also dabbling in ARM:
On desktop and server, yes. On mobile, AMD never seemed interested or able to compete with Pentium M and beyond. It’s only with Renoir that things have gotten interesting.
True. It’s not as though AMD don’t have their fair share of recent Intel extensions, though.
They are in 2021. Desktop 10nm.
10nm is basically going to be used in two places. mobile/laptops ( so classic Y , U , H series. ) and in a subset of the large scale Xeon SP ( and probably Xeon W ) line ups. The first will probably lean on iGPU preformance increases and Thunderbolt/USB4 integration as perks. The latter try to hold on to profitabilities and hold the ground on sub 24 core single+multithreaded workload mix performance.
AMD is doing their Zen update iterations with the mobile updates coming last. Intel it putting their mobile forward in rollout as a countermeasure to hold more ground. And laptop are way over 65% of the market anyway in mainstream personal computer space anyway. Defending that is far more critical than desktops.
There is debate was to whether Rocket Lake ( next after Comet Lake ) is a backport of the 10nm designs onto 14nm. If they are then the core count probalby will go down. The iGPU may be stripped out also ( bond a 10nm iGPU into a chip package. ) . If they do backport it probably would be 'hot rodded' on clocks even higher than Comet Lake is.
That's what I was thinking, does the thermal limit fit inside iMacs or do they need to use the internals of iMac Pro to supply these chips with enough cooling. It will be interesting to see A15XX inside of macs.
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Yes, why change what is working? But I would like to see the iMacs with the new 6K nano glass display at the same price point
As long as it sustains the minimum clock speed is sustained, that’s all anyone should expect. Turbo Boost and Thermal Velocity Boost are simply icing on the cake, not the cake itself.
Because without using better processing such as 10nm or 7nm, all they can do is increasing the performance while they have to suffer its temperature and power consumption. Intel really hates to show both aspects when they advertise in real life.
Yes, you can still increase the clock speed and cores but in return, it will consume much more powers and increase the temperature dramatically. This is what I call cheating. AMD can also do that but they dont wanna sacrifice the power consumption and temperature.
Intel 14nm has to increase its power up to 94W to match AMD Ryzen with 35W. This is why 7nm, 10nm, or 5nm matters. The clock speed doesnt represent the overall performance.
It drives me nuts too. It’s simply a talking point for people to b**** about something, anything. This is why Apple is moving to Arm.
Ryzen is not a server or workstation grade CPU. It does not support buffered ECC RAM, 6 channels, and more. For iMac, it's fine but not for iMac Pro.
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Wait until next year.
It should. There will be an 8-core iMac.
I suppose there will be an i9 10-core as well, but it’s bumping up against the iMac Pro, the W-2200 upgrade to which may see the end of the 8-core Xeon.
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The iPad is a computer that can perform LOL
Good point, because they rarely see iMac bezels, they see their iPad and iPhone bezels all the time though!
I think the year over year performance difference is going to be surprising and impressive! Some folks sitting with shiny new less than 2 year old Intel machines are likely to be tempted.
They abandoned PowerPC in a little over a year. I think they wouldn’t go with ARM unless they were willing to get the whole line updated in less than two years.
Only thing, though, Apple doesn’t have anything remotely like a PDS slot anymore. However, now I’m thinking...Intel over USB-4?
A nice portable ARM system, then connect to what’s essentially an Intel NUC controlled by the Mac which drives a couple other screens.
I don’t think so, just review units as far as I can tell. Same thing happened with 8th and 9th Gen. Intel announced CPUs, Dell offered for sale shortly after with at least a 6 to 8 week lead time, and with the 8th Gen, Apple took heat for not announcing new MBPs at WWDC, they didn’t, took incredible heat and then had units on sale before Dell had shipped any 8th Gen units. This is typical. So I suspect that no one is shipping anything to end customers yet.
AMD was OK in mobile - not the best but serviceable. The Ryzen, even the older ones were competitive with Intel's stuff. Few would notice the differences and at the price points they were in they were good. Bought my Dad a 15" HP ENVY with Ryzen and it is a great machine.
My next laptop will have AMD in it. All I want is for the OEM's to build a premium 2-in-1 with 4k and AMD. I'll buy today.
It doesn’t really mean much. It means Apple has the option to move to that chip, but we already knew that, since the roadmap isn’t a big secret.
Whether or when Apple releases an upgrade to this chip? Who knows. The iMac is about a year old, so they probably will.
Then what is the point of even upgrading to the highest CPU and paying that extra cost if the boost clock is only hit once in a while? It doesn't help with tasks that demand that extra speed for sustained periods of time.
The boost is hit all the time, for short bursts. If you need high performance for sustained periods (you probably don’t), get a Xeon.