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Intel Unveils 10th-Generation 'Comet Lake' Processors Appropriate for Updated iMacs
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Good old times. Must have been about 20 years ago when I bought one, I think it was 2nd gen. It was my first >1GHz CPU if I remember correctly (I replaced it later with two Athlon MPs in a dual socket board). Everyone had one, everyone said Intel will be doomed within a year or two. And then AMD had nothing for almost two decades. The situation right now, reminds me a lot of what happened back then.
AMD has other problems and will therefore never replace Intel. Their ability (or lack thereof) to supply large numbers of CPUs is ridiculous. Order 10000 or 20000 CPUs from Intel and AMD and see who can deliver them in a reasonable timeframe. Imagine what would happen if everyone would do it... "Checkout... expected delivery date from AMD in 60 months". When I last spoke to my contacts at Oracle, they told me they're planning to put more EPYCs in their datacenters, but just to run some experiments. The large majority of their systems is Intel and that's not going to change. AMD is not able to ship CPUs in quantities for a single company running international datacenters. Everyone going AMD? Good luck.
AMD GPUs are not going to take over either. I like them, I have some, in my Macs and also for Windows/Linux. But for Deep Learning? That's either naive wishful thinking or a massive lack of understanding how this market works. I run Titan RTX and RTX 8000 on local machines under the desk for quick experiments, Quad V100 in local server to dig a little deeper and the serious number crunching is done on clusters. We've just upgraded a local cluster last year for over $16M. None of this is running AMD, no company is offering it. Smaller dealers do, they build servers with AMD hardware, but can't guarantee service within 24h. If something breaks and is not back up and running again the next day, that's unacceptable. It's just not possible with AMD.
Software is another issue. Look at what NVIDIA offers, all the libs and frameworks. AMD has next to nothing, no support either. It doesn't help that Lisa Su is at some conference and shows a 10 second video of how they've done DNA sequencing. They have nothing, they're more than a decade behind NVIDIA when it comes to software. I wish they'd change, but it seems like an impossible task. Where are the AMD GPU clusters with 500+ or 1000+ GPUs? NVIDIA on the other hand not only has the hardware, but also the support. They keep sending out invitations to researchers to visit their super-computer centers to optimize parallelization... for free. They even offer we can bring along our students to teach them there, hands on. When was the last time AMD did that? The whole research world is on NVIDIA and that's not going to change.
If you're running a small company developing a single software product, starting from scratch, without external resources, sure, you can go with AMD. Apple can do it, because they have or are creating their own eco system. They want stuff to run on their devices, which they also supply. They don't care about the rest of the world, CUDA, OpenGL, whatever, they're moving away from it. Their money is on Metal for macOS and iOS, but they're also isolating those devices from everything else. It just doesn't work for the majority of researchers and companies out there. For a single end user who runs a gaming PC, a computer for making youtube videos, some music or photos... maybe.
People have to understand that hardware price doesn't matter. Even if AMD is twice as fast and half the price, just buy more NVIDIA cards or Intel CPUs and blow more money at it. As long as there's no support and software from AMD, they could give it away for free and people would still buy Intel and NVIDIA. Again, that is professional use in companies and research. For the one end user at home who wants a running system for games, browsing the web and emails, that's different.
Thunderbolt is royalty free and the spec was donated to USB forum. But the certification is not. I have been very clear from the start.
How do you know this?
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You're right.
Thanks for that. Good to know. Then I do hope this means new 16” with 10th gen i9 is coming soon.
I rarely do this “waiting for the next one” thing because there’s always something better around the corner, but right now my 2017 maxed out 15” is just about cutting it for my needs. I really want to replace it with a 64GB RAM 8TB storage and better CPU and GPU like what’s in the current $6K+ 16”, but with the new 13” just released I feel a new 16” on the near horizon and I’d hate to get the current one if a new one comes out soon after. I’m hoping it’s sooner rather than later and that I can hold out. I guess we’ll see.
I can't believe I'm saying this. But AMD seemed to have copied Intel about multithreading and a few other features like correcting instructions. That's one reason why they're doing so well. But I'm not 100% sure. Did AMD copy Intel?
Lots of people copy others. AMD and Intel weren't the first to have multiple cores. AMD is good. They did their own thing too. I'm not saying AMD is bad or copying is bad. I just wouldn't bash either AMD or Intel.
Lots of people copy others. AMD and Intel weren't the first to have multiple cores. AMD is good. They did their own thing too. I'm not saying AMD is bad or copying is bad. I just wouldn't bash either AMD or Intel.
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I'm sorry. But I must argue again. A processor refresh from Intel might be good because almost all of Intel's 10th gen chips might have hyperthreading (https://www.engadget.com/2020-03-03-intel-10th-gen-desktop-processors.html).
So if you want 6 cores and 12 threads, you can probably just get an i5 instead of an expensive i7, like how you must in 8th gen. So I think you'll save money and have better value. I'm hoping and crossing my fingers for saving and better value.
So if you want 6 cores and 12 threads, you can probably just get an i5 instead of an expensive i7, like how you must in 8th gen. So I think you'll save money and have better value. I'm hoping and crossing my fingers for saving and better value.
What is your mac’s cost per month since you bought it until now?? Must be low. Treat yourself to one of those i9s an extra $200-$300 will probably be justified for as long as you keep a mac going. (That’s what I’ll be doing when I replace my Mac Mini)
