New References to AMD Processors Discovered in macOS 10.15.4 Beta

[FlyingDutch]

APUs might be good for a cheaper iMac or a Macbook Air

Why not 13” MacBook Pro ?
By the way, so far AMD laptop processors weren’t as good as Intel counterpart. We will see for the next generation.
Different scenario for the desktop CPUs.
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If high end means starting at $2k and having user-replaceable components, shut up and take my money! If high end means $6k (like the new Mac Pro) or the $1k monitor stand, I have no choice but to look elsewhere.

I bought an Alienware for $2000 last month. No way Apple will be cheaper than Dell.
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Trust me, in order to play the latest AAA games, you need a discrete GPU at the very least! APUs/integrated GPUs, in terms of gaming, are only good for League of Legends, Fortnite and the various battle royale/MOBAs that are out there...

Keep Fortnite out of your list: it is quite heavy.

 

[MacsRgr8]

Apple
Microchip
Division
😁

 

[FlyingDutch]

That’s funny, a “gaming mac”. If that happens it better be Apple’s first Windows PC because macOS isn’t even getting new Blizzard games anymore (Overwatch, supposedly no Diablo 4 now), and the 32-bit doomsday/Catalina killed older games.

If, and it is a big if, Apple will make a gaming computer, you can bet a lot of developers will jump in.

 

[ruka.snow]

And Threadrippers for Mac Pros.

Nope, Eypc for Mac Pros. Threadrippers are not Xeon competitors, they lack the RAM support.

 

[macduke]

I think something like a Ryzen 5 4600U which has six cores, Radeon graphics and a 15W TDP would be great in a new 14” MBP. I’d get it spec’d with 32GB of RAM for longevity and a 1TB or 2TB SSD. Maybe they could even do a custom spec from AMD that fits even more horsepower into the typical 28W TDP of the smaller MBP. Looking on their site I just see 15W and 45W which is weird.

I also hope they put better FaceTime cameras in them. I work fully remotely now which means all remote meetings with coworkers and clients and a better camera is more important for a laptop which is clunky to add-on. On my iMac I can do an add-on easily since it’s all fixed.

When I work on a laptop it’s usually for less intensive workloads. Having something that can last a really long time with great battery life and excellent boost performance when I need it is ideal. Hopefully the 14” MBP redesign fits the bill and I think AMD could be a big part of making those things possible.

 

[opeter]

Nope, Eypc for Mac Pros. Threadrippers are not Xeon competitors, they lack the RAM support.

Please accept my apologies. Didn't know that.

 

[TheFluffyDuck]

Soon as Apple gives up X86 I see little reason for staying with Apple. In the late 2000s they were like a 'Swiss Army knife' for computing. Could run MacOS, windows, Play nice with Linux. Perfect for a scientist like me who deals with all kinds of software. But now MacOS has dropped 32 bit, killing off its own legacy support. It doesn't even play well with itself! If the rumours are true run on a priority ARM chipset. Yeah, not happy.

 

[itsamacthing]

APU’s run hot... always have

 

[Stephen.R]

I depend on BootCamp, so I hope that whatever Apple does allows me to continue using Windows natively.

I don't use Bootcamp at all, but I do occasionally use a Windows VM (for debugging browser-specific issues for a client), and I use a lot of Linux amd64 VMs. Both are reasonably a common use-case for developers, and yours/windows VM is obviously a reasonably common use-case for home and office users.

It is possible Apple would just say "too bad so sad" and drop x86 compatibility at the drop of a hat, but it seems hard to believe they'd spend how many years re-designing a new modular Mac Pro around workstation class x86 CPUs, only to dump x86 soon after.

It seems more likely they'd adopt something from AMD (if dropping Intel) but even then I don't think it'll be what most people keep suggesting. I find it very hard to believe Apple is interested in competing with "gaming PCs".

Anyone here remember the horrible SoftPC

I remember Connectix VirtualPC, which Microsoft bought, and then killed.

 

[theluggage]

Nope, Eypc for Mac Pros. Threadrippers are not Xeon competitors, they lack the RAM support.

...but they would be perfect to fill the hole between the $3000 iMac and the ~$15,000 you need to throw at a Mac Pro before the specs begin to make sense (the $6k 24-core upgrade is needed to use the full 1.5TB RAM capability anyway). Sadly, I'm not sure that's a gap that Apple intends to fill until they've exhausted the supply of loyalists willing to pay $6000 for $3000 worth of hardware in a $500 case.

As I understand it, the RAM issue is that Threadripper itself can support 2TB of unregistered RAM, and the 128GB max - 8 x 16GB sticks - is simply because >16GB unregistered sticks weren't actually available until recently. OTOH, Xeons which could support 2TB of RAM and MacPro-numbers of PCIe lanes weren't available until recently either - and any hypothetical AMD Mac isn't necessarily going to be using this quarter's chips.

 

[koyoot]

Yes it does. ARM is an architecture. Zen is an implementation. It’s perfectly possible to make an implementation of ARM that blows Zen away. I designed processors at AMD, so I know the ladies and gentlemen who could do it

So why nobody designed ARM CPUs that blow past Zen architecture?

Maybe in High-TDP scenarios its not better than x86, eh, as has been proven, already by benchmarks that I provided in this very thread?

This is garbage. I designed many commercial CPUs, with several different architectures, and I designed the x86-64 integer 64-bit instructions. There is nothing inherently better about x86 than ARM that causes it to be any faster. You pick an architecture, then you design the CPU, and if you are a good designer and targeting high speed, you get high speed.

Not everyone is a good designer.

So why hasn't everybody designed High-Performance CPUs that blows past Zen or Intel, if it is so easy?

Why Benchmarks from Phoronix show that ARM is nowhere near x86 performance?

If you are such good designer of CPUs why don't you go and design ARM CPU that is faster than x86 CPU are?

 

[nylonsteel]

ah the intel vs amd wars - like the good ol days
work at both before - both are great
cool when gordon moore was around

 

[cylack]

A Mac gaming computer doesn't seem as far fetched now as in the past because the next gen Xbox and Playstation consoles will both be using AMD graphics cards. Shouldn't be hard to program for the Mac if it uses the same graphics cards as these consoles.

 

[TVOR]

ARM is not ready, and will never be ready to replace x86 for anything High-Performance. There is a very good reason why there does not exist a single SuperComputer that is based on ARM, all of them are based on x86. Apple is not going to change this.

Oh is that right? https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/...rcomputers-fujitsu-a64fx-arm-processors-2020/

 

[koyoot]

Oh is that right? https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/...rcomputers-fujitsu-a64fx-arm-processors-2020/

Yes it is that right:

Benchmarking Amazon's ARM Graviton CPU With EC2's A1 Instances - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

POWER9 & ARM Performance Against Intel Xeon Cascadelake + AMD EPYC Rome Review - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X Offers Incredible Linux Performance Review - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

And remember: Cavium uses the same ARM v8 architecture, as Graviton 1.

 

[Boomish69]

Exactly why I think the Mac Pro is a failed release..And this year is only going to get worse for Intel especially as far as Laptops are concerned.

AMD 3990x crushing a Mac Pro

 

[Smearbrick]

wouldn't it be better to go ARM chips instead?

Enough with this. Not happening. Not across their entire line.

 

[sentential]

Exactly why I think the Mac Pro is a failed release..And this year is only going to get worse for Intel especially as far as Laptops are concerned.

AMD 3990x crushing a Mac Pro

I think everyone is being a bit short sighted here. While I would welcome AMD into the mix for say a Mac mini, iMac or Mac Pro I would NOT for any laptop. The power delivery just isn’t there and I don’t think people will be happy with the outcome for a PC.

Now as a gaming console like a Apple TV Pro? Now we’re talking!

I agree with the author, this is bluster pure and simple and is old info. Apple has no intention to go AMD and it would be stupid to do so now. The time to make this decision was 2 years ago not now.

Tiger Lake is the real deal and it’s less than a year before we will see the “willow cove” uArch proliferate and by that point AMD is back to being the budget brand again.

I am by no means some kind of fanboy I am simply stating facts as evidenced below. Only way this still makes sense is if Apple got advanced knowledge about Ryzen gen 4 being as good as rumored but the listed chips aren’t them.

Intel Tiger Lake 10nm CPU Shows Up in Geekbench - 4 Core, 1.2 GHz Chip Outperforms 6 Core, 1.6 GHz Comet Lake 10th Gen CPU

Intel's Tiger Lake 10nm CPUs have once again shown up on Geekbench with performance that exceeds a 6 core 10th Gen chip with just 4 cores.

www.google.com

 

[koyoot]

I think everyone is being a bit short sighted here. While I would welcome AMD into the mix for say a Mac mini, iMac or Mac Pro I would NOT for any laptop. The power delivery just isn’t there and I don’t think people will be happy with the outcome for a PC.

Now as a gaming console like a Apple TV Pro? Now we’re talking!

I agree with the author, this is bluster pure and simple and is old info. Apple has no intention to go AMD and it would be stupid to do so now. The time to make this decision was 2 years ago not now.

Tiger Lake is the real deal and it’s less than a year before we will see the “willow cove” uArch proliferate and by that point AMD is back to being the budget brand again.

I am by no means some kind of fanboy I am simply stating facts as evidenced below. Only way this still makes sense is if Apple got advanced knowledge about Ryzen gen 4 being as good as rumored but the listed chips aren’t them.

Intel Tiger Lake 10nm CPU Shows Up in Geekbench - 4 Core, 1.2 GHz Chip Outperforms 6 Core, 1.6 GHz Comet Lake 10th Gen CPU

Intel's Tiger Lake 10nm CPUs have once again shown up on Geekbench with performance that exceeds a 6 core 10th Gen chip with just 4 cores.

www.google.com

What power delivery? Have you heard about Sleugh of Laptops with AMD APU called Renoir?

There was even first review of Renoir based laptop that has shown very good battery life of that laptop with from 7 to 10 hours of Battery life, under standard conditions.

Tiger Lake is going to be 2021 product. That is assuming Intel can actually deliver it. JUst like they did delivered 10 nm process 4 years ago, and now we are on 7 nm Intel process. Oh wait, we're not.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/ez9iu0

 

[cmaier]

So why nobody designed ARM CPUs that blow past Zen architecture?

Maybe in High-TDP scenarios its not better than x86, eh, as has been proven, already by benchmarks that I provided in this very thread?


So why hasn't everybody designed High-Performance CPUs that blows past Zen or Intel, if it is so easy?

Why Benchmarks from Phoronix show that ARM is nowhere near x86 performance?

If you are such good designer of CPUs why don't you go and design ARM CPU that is faster than x86 CPU are?

nobody has done it because nobody who can do it has been asked to do it. The best cpu designers are at AMD, Apple, and Intel. When one of thhose companies has a reason to do so, they will. You can’t compare the people working at amazon or Qualcomm or Samsung or whatever, who run synthesis tools and write logic in Verilog, to the experienced designers at Apple (who came from AMD or from intrinsity which was exponential technology where I also worked) who design by manually instantiating critical path gates themselves.

Your entire argument is incredibly misplaced. You can’t talk TDP when you are talking instruction set architecture. You can take any ISA and get any result you want. The reason x86 chips are generally better in high performance scenarios at the moment is that ARM chips are generally designed with micro architectures and physical designs that target low power consumption at the expense of performance. But that’s due to market forces, not due to anything inherent in the ISA.
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Are they at Apple now or still at AMD?

Most of them are at Apple. Many are retired. Some are at AMD. I also worked at Exponential Technology. Intrinsity was formerly EVSX which spun out of Exponential’s Austin office, and they formed an early core of Apple’s A-series designers.

Several exponential people and several people from DEC’s alpha team went to Apple. They thought alike, and together formed much of the core team that built AMD-64 (which is now x86-64).

a bunch of dec people also went to PA Semiconductor, and then Apple acquired them, too.

So there is a common design ethos among all those companies. And it’s very different from how amazon or Qualcomm or NVIDIA or Samsung would design chips.

 

[koyoot]

nobody has done it because nobody who can do it has been asked to do it. The best cpu designers are at AMD, Apple, and Intel. When one of thhose companies has a reason to do so, they will. You can’t compare the people working at amazon or Qualcomm or Samsung or whatever, who run synthesis tools and write logic in Verilog, to the experienced designers at Apple (who came from AMD or from intrinsity which was exponential technology where I also worked) who design by manually instantiating critical path gates themselves.

Your entire argument is incredibly misplaced. You can’t talk TDP when you are talking instruction set architecture. You can take any ISA and get any result you want. The reason x86 chips are generally better in high performance scenarios at the moment is that ARM chips are generally designed with micro architectures and physical designs that target low power consumption at the expense of performance. But that’s due to market forces, not due to anything inherent in the ISA.

Benchmarking Amazon's ARM Graviton CPU With EC2's A1 Instances - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

POWER9 & ARM Performance Against Intel Xeon Cascadelake + AMD EPYC Rome Review - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X Offers Incredible Linux Performance Review - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

Apple the savior of ARM architecture. I wonder only why they couldn't put ARM on their computers years ago. Maybe as David Kanter said years ago:

Waiting for Mac Pro 7,1 A1991 (no more)

David Kanter on RWT forums: "OK, so you are still wrong on this point IPC != performance. Scaling up perf isn't free. It can be done, obviously (since Intel has done so, and they hardly have a monopoly on good design). But there's no guarantee that Apple can get to high frequencies without...

forums.macrumors.com

Their cores simply cannot scale beyond 4GHz, which is the main reason why ARM even from Apple never will be able to match Intel or AMD?

You, as a CPU designer should know perfectly well that the higher you go with core clocks, the less IPC you have. ARM does not scale with high power thermal envelopes.

ARM - as a Services-access only product, and Chromebook competitor - sure, that will happen.

But ARM will NEVER replace x86 for anything High Performance. Which the benchmarks and those posts should tell yhou exactly why.

 

[cmaier]

Benchmarking Amazon's ARM Graviton CPU With EC2's A1 Instances - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

POWER9 & ARM Performance Against Intel Xeon Cascadelake + AMD EPYC Rome Review - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X Offers Incredible Linux Performance Review - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

Apple the savior of ARM architecture. I wonder only why they couldn't put ARM on their computers years ago. Maybe as David Kanter said years ago:

Waiting for Mac Pro 7,1 A1991 (no more)

David Kanter on RWT forums: "OK, so you are still wrong on this point IPC != performance. Scaling up perf isn't free. It can be done, obviously (since Intel has done so, and they hardly have a monopoly on good design). But there's no guarantee that Apple can get to high frequencies without...

forums.macrumors.com

Their cores simply cannot scale beyond 4GHz, which is the main reason why ARM even from Apple never will be able to match Intel or AMD?

You, as a CPU designer should know perfectly well that the higher you go with core clocks, the less IPC you have. ARM does not scale with high power thermal envelopes.

ARM - as a Services-access only product, and Chromebook competitor - sure, that will happen.

But ARM will NEVER replace x86 for anything High Performance. Which the benchmarks and those posts should tell yhou exactly why.

Again, more garbage. First, all else being equal you don’t want to increase frequency to improve performance, you prefer to increase IPC, because P=CV squared f.

second, you can increase both frequency and IPC, if you are willing to increase power.

third, because you don’t have to dedicate pipe stages to microcode sequencing and a complex instruction decoder, you are actually better off with ARM where you can essentially take any x86 design, remove 20 percent of the core which is dedicated to that stuff, twiddle the instruction decoder a bit and now you have an ARM chip that is identical to an x86 chip but with fewer pipe stages and this higher IPC.

Fourth, you are confusing ARM’s designs with ARMs instruction set architecture. Apple does not use ARMs design. They don’t even use ARMs micro architecture. They implement the whole thing themselves. Of course you can’t take an ARM design with a microarchitecture targeted at servers or mobile and get magical results.

but I can turn any x86 design into an arm design by ripping out a ton of unnecessary circuitry, So how can it possibly be that ARM ISA is inherently slower? That’s something only someone who never designed commercial products would say.

hell, I designed several risc chips that were faster than their contemporary x86 competition. Sparc, PowerPC, and even f-risc which nobody ever heard of. DEC used to blow away intel. HP did it with PA-RISC, which intel acquired and which influenced itanium. Arm is just another risc architecture.

 

[koyoot]

Again, more garbage. First, all else being equal you don’t want to increase frequency to improve performance, you prefer to increase IPC, because P=CV squared f.

second, you can increase both frequency and IPC, if you are willing to increase power.

third, because you don’t have to dedicate pipe stages to microcode sequencing and a complex instruction decoder, you are actually better off with ARM where you can essentially take any x86 design, remove 20 percent of the core which is dedicated to that stuff, twiddle the instruction decoder a bit and now you have an ARM chip that is identical to an x86 chip but with fewer pipe stages and this higher IPC.

Fourth, you are confusing ARM’s designs with ARMs instruction set architecture. Apple does not use ARMs design. They don’t even use ARMs micro architecture. They implement the whole thing themselves. Of course you can’t take an ARM design with a microarchitecture targeted at servers or mobile and get magical results.

but I can turn any x86 design into an arm design by ripping out a ton of unnecessary circuitry, So how can it possibly be that ARM ISA is inherently slower? That’s something only someone who never designed commercial products would say.

hell, I designed several risc chips that were faster than their contemporary x86 competition. Sparc, PowerPC, and even f-risc which nobody ever heard of. DEC used to blow away intel. HP did it with PA-RISC, which intel acquired and which influenced itanium. Arm is just another risc architecture.

So why haven't they moved to ARM years ago, if they could do such things as you say, and why they test AMD APUs in transition to x86 AMD based Macs, instead of ARM, if everything what you say is so simple?

Maybe its because x86 is for High-Performance better, instead of ARM?

 

[thadoggfather]

I would actually legit love this

 

[DanBig]

Unfortunately Threadripper doesn’t support large ECC RAM configs, which max out at 1.5 TB on Mac Pro. AMD’s memory controller doesn’t allow RDIMM or LRDIMM on Threadripper; I haven’t seen any TR build with even 512GB of ECC RAM. Mac Pro could use the (more expensive) EPYC line though.

Threadripper is a trimmed Epyc chip design. Apple could get AMD to create a version of Threadripper with ECC and larger RAM support. Basically, something halfway between the two chips and offer PCI 5 support for Mac Pro!
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Does ECC memory really that matter? I mean for a desktop user?

With larger memory and what iMac Pro's & Mac Pro's are designed to do it does make a difference! You don't want a defect to show up in the middle of your work. Let is be a bunch of pixels with wacky colors or a complete shift of half of your image or video, Pops or a tone in the middle of your music score!
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Most Macs are probably intel integrated graphics which are really lackluster.

AMD has been killing intel in discrete CPUs but I doubt Apple would budge for that. There isn't that much difference particularly considering that value of money is the main reason to choose AMD and I doubt Apples moves in similar ways as a common client.

On the other hand having Macbooks of all kinds (Mac Minis and iMacs too) with a single AMD APU (like those codename Renoir and Picasso the news mentions) would be pretty great.

Apple uses the imbedded Intel graphics even in the dual GPU fitted iMac's & MacBook Pro's. So having AMD's APU's in the iMac or MacBook Pro's won't be any different!