New References to AMD Processors Discovered in macOS 10.15.4 Beta

[jblagden]

Apple should have bought AMD a couple of years ago when they were at $2 per share. Would have given them even more control over the Macs graphics and now (possibly) processors.

And it would hav taken them out of direct competition with Intel, thus allowing Intel to return to its previous pattern of complacency and non-competitive pricing. Sure, it would be great for Apple because it would make IBM Clones more expensive and thereby less competitive to Apple's systems, but overall, it would not be good.
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You’re not gonna get a high end gaming computer with an AMD SoC

No, but it's a step in the right direction. Sure, a high-end gaming computer should have something like AMD's 3600X or even the 3800X. But who knows, maybe Apple will get there. This could be just the first step; they could just be starting with APUs for systems like MacBooks and Mac Minis. Then maybe after 6-12 months, they'll switch the iMac over to AMD. Since they just redesigned the new Mac Pro, I can't see them moving to AMD for another 2-3 years, in which point, the AMD-Intel pricing situation could have changed.
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wouldn't it be better to go ARM chips instead?

Only for ultra-low-power laptops, and maybe not even then. Apple has had its eye on ARM for a while, likely due to potential cost-savings, but now they're looking at AMD as a great across-the-board money-saving option.

 

[asiga]

Maybe they want to go even thinner and they found the AMD APUs could help. But then, if they really want to put the MBA back to the original advantage it had years ago (the lightest laptop in town yet still with good performance), power consumption is not the only thing: They need to increase the screen size while at the same time make the chasis lighter (maybe with an alternative to aluminum, like other competitors are doing). Now, that 13-inch looks like a joke... it's like next year iPhones will have a bigger display than the MBA.

 

[smulji]

Maybe they want to go even thinner and they found the AMD APUs could help. But then, if they really want to put the MBA back to the original advantage it had years ago (the lightest laptop in town yet still with good performance), power consumption is not the only thing: They need to increase the screen size while at the same time make the chasis lighter (maybe with an alternative to aluminum, like other competitors are doing). Now, that 13-inch looks like a joke... it's like next year iPhones will have a bigger display than the MBA.

The current Retina MBA uses a 9W Intel processor. Intel 9W Tiger Lake processors will be arriving later this year with quad-cores and much improved iGPU performance. My guess is that the next update to the rMBA will have these processors.

 

[jblagden]

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.

Or perhaps it will give Blizzard the signal that macOS is once again a viable platform. Kinda like what happened with Oculus Rift.

 

[chatin]

AMD APU's look good on paper but Intel is not rough around the edges.

 

[smulji]

AMD APU's look good on paper but Intel is not rough around the edges.

AMD has definitely made a great comeback but I definitely wouldn't count Intel out yet

Intel's Powerful New TGL CPU Leaked - Contains An iGPU As Powerful As The Sony PS4

Benchmark suites on the cloud remain one of the more reliable methods to track upcoming releases and it looks like Intel's upcoming Tiger Lake processors will pack quite the graphical punch. Featuring 96 EUs with a clock speed of 1.2 GHz, the iGPU is capable of outputting the same graphical...

wccftech.com

 

[Zen_Arcade]

If AMD were as good as some believe, and it were as easy for Apple (and HP, Dell, etc.) to switch, those companies would have switched by now.

They have not. Hence, either AMD isn't as good as some believe, or it's not as easy for Apple, HP, Dell, etc., to switch. Or, more likely, elements of both.

 

[sublunar]

One thing that comes to mind today was Jim Keller, who worked on Apple's A4 and A5 CPUs before moving on to AMD where worked on the Zen architecture between 2012 and 2015 - now called Ryzen - before moving on to Tesla and now Intel since 2018. Perhaps we might therefore start to see some interesting Intel products in 2023?

macOS's poor performance on games (poor drivers, years behind on Metal vs DirectX) would appear to be the reasoning behind it being pointless for Apple to make a 'gaming Mac' but this year's PS5 and Xbox Series X will be using a special AMD 8 core/16 thread SoC.

If Apple thought they could make a product from that hardware (or a similar variant) it would be easy for it to be mistaken as a games machine when perhaps they might have been testing something with varying level of seriousness (be it iMac or Mac mini). Bear in mind that Sony and Microsoft won't be taking much profit from the games console hardware. Their profitability comes from the software licensing.

All we'd need then is for Thunderbolt on AMD motherboards.

But I'm still of the opinion that Intel will be VERY willing to do great deals for Apple and have the capability to manufacture in the volume required. The stagnation of recent years (and inability to continue with the process shrink) may well be resolved with the help of Jim Keller.

ARM and iOS/tvOS could still be utilised as a gaming platform, there's a lot of iPad applications for that already.

 

[Zdigital2015]

“I'm going to manage those things with an iPhone (or Android device) or an iPad.”

or better yet, an Apple Watch. As far the rest of your post, I agree with the overall sentiment. Apple’s future is mobile devices + wearables + services.

Watch, iPhone or iPad are what I have on me all the time, or at least 2 out of 3. I am at the point where I am trying to decide if I should keep any MacBook Pro that I currently own to keep as a companion to my 27” iMac or simply chuck them all. I am finding that I can justify an (updated) iMac Pro or a Mac Pro, but that I have no desire to continue with the MacBook Pro line. Meaning that my needs are for a very powerful desktop and a very portable device for whatever else I need to do compute wise has supplanted my traditional laptop does everything work model. I know I am not alone in this.

 

[cmaier]

One thing that comes to mind today was Jim Keller, who worked on Apple's A4 and A5 CPUs before moving on to AMD where worked on the Zen architecture between 2012 and 2015 - now called Ryzen - before moving on to Tesla and now Intel since 2018. Perhaps we might therefore start to see some interesting Intel products in 2023?

Actually, he moved from AMD to Apple then back to AMD then to Telsa and then to Intel.

At his first stint at AMD he was the architect of the LDT bus, which the rest of the world knows as "hypertransport."

 

[smulji]

Watch, iPhone or iPad are what I have on me all the time, or at least 2 out of 3. I am at the point where I am trying to decide if I should keep any MacBook Pro that I currently own to keep as a companion to my 27” iMac or simply chuck them all. I am finding that I can justify an (updated) iMac Pro or a Mac Pro, but that I have no desire to continue with the MacBook Pro line. Meaning that my needs are for a very powerful desktop and a very portable device for whatever else I need to do compute wise has supplanted my traditional laptop does everything work model. I know I am not alone in this.

"Meaning that my needs are for a very powerful desktop and a very portable device for whatever else I need to do compute wise has supplanted my traditional laptop does everything work model. I know I am not alone in this."

Agree. I'm in the same boat.

 

[jblagden]

One thing that comes to mind today was Jim Keller, who worked on Apple's A4 and A5 CPUs before moving on to AMD where worked on the Zen architecture between 2012 and 2015 - now called Ryzen - before moving on to Tesla and now Intel since 2018. Perhaps we might therefore start to see some interesting Intel products in 2023?

macOS's poor performance on games (poor drivers, years behind on Metal vs DirectX) would appear to be the reasoning behind it being pointless for Apple to make a 'gaming Mac' but this year's PS5 and Xbox Series X will be using a special AMD 8 core/16 thread SoC.

If Apple thought they could make a product from that hardware (or a similar variant) it would be easy for it to be mistaken as a games machine when perhaps they might have been testing something with varying level of seriousness (be it iMac or Mac mini). Bear in mind that Sony and Microsoft won't be taking much profit from the games console hardware. Their profitability comes from the software licensing.

All we'd need then is for Thunderbolt on AMD motherboards.

But I'm still of the opinion that Intel will be VERY willing to do great deals for Apple and have the capability to manufacture in the volume required. The stagnation of recent years (and inability to continue with the process shrink) may well be resolved with the help of Jim Keller.

ARM and iOS/tvOS could still be utilised as a gaming platform, there's a lot of iPad applications for that already.

Actually, Metal is heavily based on Vulkan, or at least is incredibly similar - so similar that the only real difference is the shaders. In fact, there's an application called MoltenVK which converts Vulkan code to Metal. Additionally, AMD GPUs favor Vulkan, which works in Apple's favor, considering that it has been using AMD GPUS for at least the last few years.

 

[bosozoku]

Yes please, APU with 8/16cores and 16CU navi graphics to the Macs!
Would fit nicely to re-designed 14 inch MacBook Pro! With scissor keyboard, I could not be any happier than to have an opportunity to such a machine!
Intel does not rock anymore!
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Yes please, APU with 8/16cores and 20CU navi graphics to the Macs!
Would fit nicely to re-designed 14 inch MacBook Pro! With scissor keyboard, I could not be any happier than to have an opportunity to such a machine!
Intel does not rock anymore!

 

[07151129]

Actually, Metal is heavily based on Vulkan, or at least is incredibly similar - so similar that the only real difference is the shaders. In fact, there's an application called MoltenVK which converts Vulkan code to Metal. Additionally, AMD GPUs favor Vulkan, which works in Apple's favor, considering that it has been using AMD GPUS for at least the last few years.

No, it's not "incredibly similar". MoltenVK covers only a small subset of VK. There are features only supported by VK and vice versa. A lot of software based on VK does not work with MoltenVK (e.g. rpcs3).

Anyway, the whole rumour is silly. You can't assume anything based on just a few strings in the driver. The proprietary AMD GPU driver is by itself cross-platform and is meant to support many GPU models. It would have been a lot more plausible if there was other code to support the CPUs in question (both in bootloader and drivers), but there's none.

 

[PostApple2016BrainWash]

You still dont understand. Y series can go lower than 9W. This is not possible with APU at 15W

You don't understand that Intel can't go fanless if it is going to offer the same Ryzen 5 4500U APU core count at lower TDP. Therefore, AMD Ryzen 4000 APU is a more favorable choice for Apple Macbook Air.

 

[smulji]

You don't understand that Intel can't go fanless if it is going to offer the same Ryzen 5 4500U APU core count at lower TDP. Therefore, AMD Ryzen 4000 APU is a more favorable choice for Apple Macbook Air.

I'll bet money that this is the next processor the rMBA gets

Intel Tiger Lake-Y 10nm CPU Makes Early Benchmark Debut With Gen12 Xe Graphics

In this case, benchmark entries in both Geekbench 5 and SiSoftware were uncovered by TUM_APISAK.

hothardware.com

 

[high heaven]

Gaming on Mac is a joke. I would stick with Nvidia Now

You don't understand that Intel can't go fanless if it is going to offer the same Ryzen 5 4500U APU core count at lower TDP. Therefore, AMD Ryzen 4000 APU is a more favorable choice for Apple Macbook Air.

WTH are you talking about? 4500U has TDP 15W and MBA is not a fanless laptop. Clearly, you dont understand why MBA can not use the AMD U series. There are reasons why Intel made both U and Y series. Decreasing TDP does not mean it can be used since you need to consider its temperature, power consumption, and more.

 

[lilkwarrior]

Depends what you need the CPU for. For instance, gaming benefits most from good single core performance and Intel still seems to have AMD beat there. Not by much anymore though.

That is going away rapidly with the next-gen of games approaching—especially more so now that Windows 7 is dead (thus DX11 single-core oriented way of working will be increasingly uncommon beyond games that are eSports-oriented or depend on China that usually upgrades to new gen of hardware extremely slowly)

Game developers can unapolgetically use multiple cores & etc via Vulkan & DX12. The developments of Apple making it more easier for gaming-oriented GPUs being used vs only workstation GPUs (more expensive but very invaluably optimized for pro software) can entice games increasingly using Vulkan for cross-platform games.

 

[PostApple2016BrainWash]

WTH are you talking about? 4500U has TDP 15W and MBA is not a fanless laptop. Clearly, you dont understand why MBA can not use the AMD U series. There are reasons why Intel made both U and Y series. Decreasing TDP does not mean it can be used since you need to consider its temperature, power consumption, and more.

We are talking about different TDP from AMD APU that can be used.
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I'll bet money that this is the next processor the rMBA gets

Intel Tiger Lake-Y 10nm CPU Makes Early Benchmark Debut With Gen12 Xe Graphics

In this case, benchmark entries in both Geekbench 5 and SiSoftware were uncovered by TUM_APISAK.

hothardware.com

Apple is going to pay more by using Intel CPU like cost extra 2-3x for the MBA.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Apple is going to pay more by using Intel CPU like cost extra 2-3x for the MBA.

Apple doesn’t overpay. Intel knows Apple has options.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Intel would beat AMD’s price 🤷‍♂️

 

[PostApple2016BrainWash]

Apple doesn’t overpay. Intel knows Apple has options.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Intel would beat AMD’s price 🤷‍♂️

Unlikely. But Apple might not want to stick with Intel CPU if it can't deliver the performance improvement as fast as AMD.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Unlikely. But Apple might not want to stick with Intel CPU if it can't deliver the performance improvement as fast as AMD.

Who knows what the future will bring? But there’s no reason to think Apple pays 2-3x for Intel rather than AMD CPUs.

Apple doesn’t pay even 5% more than they have to, let alone 100-200% more. That would be insane, and Tim Apple, the very stable supply chain genius, isn’t crazy 🤣

 

[sentential]

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

Well here's a side by side of a current APU like the one you mentioned vs Ice Lake which again is Tiger Lake on a unoptimized 10nm fab and according to the them Ice Lake is a better chip.

Go read this AMD vs Intel comparison of the Surface Laptop 3

AMD’s desktop comeback hasn’t quite reached laptops

www.theverge.com

No that is wholly incorrect. Tiger Lake is already sampling, in leaked benchmarks and according to Intel will be here prior to the back to school season of June-September and that is straight from the horse's mouth:

Intel Tiger Lake: everything we know so far

Intel Tiger Lake appearing today

www.techradar.com

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?

Because enterprise uses CPUs for things other than games? Like AVX512. You can't change the laws of physics. The reason why "ARM" is better on a performance per die space than X86 is because as was stated before the software feature set and the fact that it has to run all kinds of programs compatibility wise which in turn take up a large part of the die space.

Ever wonder why Apple dropped 32bit support on IOS? Wonder no more.
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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.

All true he just doesn't get it. X86 isn't magic it's just a platform and series of instruction sets. Apple can make ARM look good because they pick and chose what instruction sets they use including them dropping all 32bit support. That wasn't done because they wanted to modernize the App Store, it was done because die space especially in mobile is at a premium and removing 32bit instructions as you've stated allowed for more cache and GPU cores.
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I'll bet money that this is the next processor the rMBA gets

Intel Tiger Lake-Y 10nm CPU Makes Early Benchmark Debut With Gen12 Xe Graphics

In this case, benchmark entries in both Geekbench 5 and SiSoftware were uncovered by TUM_APISAK.

hothardware.com

Absolutely and that's what I'm waiting on to replace my MBA
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Yes please, APU with 8/16cores and 16CU navi graphics to the Macs!
Would fit nicely to re-designed 14 inch MacBook Pro! With scissor keyboard, I could not be any happier than to have an opportunity to such a machine!
Intel does not rock anymore!
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Cores are meaningless. Tiger Lake quads are meaningfully faster than current Coffee Lake hex. Rocket Lake next year will back port Tiger Lake to 14nm so you're looking at 8-10 core chips near 5ghz which would completely decimate Ryzen.

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.

wccftech.com

 

[koyoot]

Well here's a side by side of a current APU like the one you mentioned vs Ice Lake which again is Tiger Lake on a unoptimized 10nm fab and according to the them Ice Lake is a better chip.

THIS is actually latest LAptop with Latest AMD APU. You should update your data more often.

 

[theluggage]

Nobody has mentioned Apple's move to LLVM bitcode/IL which - if I'm not mistaken, would allow for most applications built in objective c or swift to be be compiled to bitcode - and from there to any one of several backed ISAs (PowerPC G5...)?

It oils the wheels for applications entirely built in Objective C or Swift and distributed through the App Store - but those apps really aren't the problem - they're exactly the apps that would be trivial to just re-compile for ARM anyway. The question is, how much "legacy" software and abandonware is still hanging around that has x86-specific code (e.g. bits of assembly language or specific optimisation for Intel acceleration technologies) and, frankly, the only people who can answer that are the people working on those codebases.

However, Mac OS software has gone through so many 'extinction events' (68k->PPC, MacOS 9 -> X, PPC->Intel, x86-32->x86-64) that it should be in much better shape than Windows by now. Really depends on how much of a rush job that PPC to x86 port was...

C.f. Windows, which is technically further ahead, since most modern Windows software is already shipped as bytecode for a virtual machine and executed via JIT compilation on the user's machine (bitcode/IL compilation happens on the App Store server). It's just that Windows has to cater for a huge, ultra-conservative and slow to change corporate sector running software written 20+ years ago.

Last week I fired up some Windows 95 software - in binary form - I worked on over 20 years ago on Win 10 and it worked fine - both the UI that I wrote and the backend .dll that I didn't (although, coincidentally, it was actually a port of an ARM application and most of the backend source was portable...)