Meanwhile, you and I will enjoy our more than capable machines running 32GB DDR4 and Intel chips.
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Next-Generation DDR5 RAM Will Double Speeds of DDR4 RAM as MacBook Pro Remains on LPDDR3
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It sounds like with Apple relying on Intel's chips, they will continue to have issues with everything syncing up to allow the best of all worlds in a MacBook Pro. You can have a fast chip, but not a lot of RAM. Or Fast RAM, but not a fast chip. Or a lot of RAM but 2 hours battery life. And so on. Ugh.
Maybe this is why Apple is dropping support for Imagination Technologies GPUs and developing their own, part of a process of developing their own complete chip sets where their computers can have the best of all worlds at the same time and for every release target. Granted, ditching Intel won't be easy and they probably don't want to do it, but if Intel can't deliver then they may have no choice.
Maybe this is why Apple is dropping support for Imagination Technologies GPUs and developing their own, part of a process of developing their own complete chip sets where their computers can have the best of all worlds at the same time and for every release target. Granted, ditching Intel won't be easy and they probably don't want to do it, but if Intel can't deliver then they may have no choice.
DDR 4, at least in desktop class has been mainstream since the release of Socket 1151 boards by Intel, which was during the Broadwell release. DDR4 has been the on the market since 2014, and available by virtually all PC manufacturers in some form since.
I think maybe Apple need to lower their profit margin just a tiny bit and go for more recent tech, yes? As they are being seriously challenged in the design department these days some things need to change.
Are you saying Apple should design (and potentially are) a chip that has the power of an i5 or i7 with integrated graphics on par with something from Nvidia or AMD GPUs? Just to put LPDDR4 in their Macbooks?
Somehow I think the Mac update schedule would get exponentially longer if they tried this. If Intel is having trouble maintaining their roadmap, I doubt Apple could push out equivalent (or better) CPUs faster.
it takes a lot of time, money and resources to design a CPU. Even AMD, with decades of x86 architecture knowledge, who invented the x64 extension set, Still took nearly 5 years to design RyZen.
Most of Intel's product roadmap is years in advance.
Apple would probably take a good 6-10 years from now to design a new CPU from scratch, nevermind a CPU+GPU that even comes close to rivaling the existing desktop class parts.
Intel has been the pinnacle manufacturer in the CPU industry for how long? 10 years or more? There is a reason for that. And if Apple wants to design an APU that will allow for LPDDR4 in the MBP they can go right ahead, but they will charge $5k for it and it will do nothing but fall short of every future Intel chip to come. I dont understand why everyone has their panties in a wad over RAM. You get a good CPU with great caching capabilities and you dont need the latest and greatest RAM. There is a reason Apple did what they did. That doesnt excuse the ridiculous price tag for the MBP however...
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Well said. And many feel that Ryzen STILL doesnt beat Kabylake...
DDR3 doubles the speed of DDR2, and DDR4 doubles the speed of DDR3. That is a fact. So why wouldnt DDR5 double the speed of DDR4? By speed we arent talking the frequency...
Youre right though, what does he mean by "speed"? Frequency? Latency? What?
This is news that the DDR5 spec has been finalized. RAM chip makers will now assess whether or not they will produce DDR5. Not one has yet announced a plan to mfg/sell DDR5. While I wish Apple seemed more committed to their PCs, jumping on this link-bait article as proof they no longer care about PCs is just absurd.
Anyone else more than a little weirded out / amazed that we're actually talking about the year 2020 as a not-too-distant-future date?! I mean, yeah, it's eons in tech years (and I do hope Apple get on the ball with their computer tech; I mean c'mon), but we're almost there!
The truth is halfway in between. The memory bus is doubled in bandwidth. The actual memory cells remain at the same speed. To fill the bus, the RAM chip reads more data in parallel and prefetches more. This has happened for generations. DDR1-400, DDR2-800, DDR3-1600, and DDR4-1600 use the same memory cell speed (200 MHz).
Yeah, this can't be restated enough. Intel is a big part of the problem. I feel like they've suddenly slowed to a crawl.
Some of it is understandable, because Moore's law seems to be hitting a brick wall, but other things (like lack of support for LPDDR4 for years) are inexcusable.
Comments like these make it seem like people didn't even read the article.
Skylake *doesn't support* LPDDR4. It's not about profit margins, it's about battery life. Using regular DDR4 would mean a huge hit to battery life.
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There is no alternative to Intel (which is probably part of the problem..)
Apple can keep working on their own ARM-based chips, but it will be years before they come close to challenging Intel for speed and power. And imagine the outrage if Apple tried to release an ARM-based Macbook, let alone a MacBook "Pro".
ARM is designed for mobile devices that consume much less power. As you stated, it would take years for apple to design a chip that competed, therefore it's not a good solution. Im actually defending Apple on the decision to go with intel on this. Seems like most people on here dont realize that LPDDR3 is perfectly capable when running alongside the latest Intel chips. And DDR5, despite the title of this article is a long way off. People have two choices: More RAM and less battery life, or better battery life and LPDDR3 RAM. But they will complain about both.
DDR3 allowed for higher (not twice as high) memory clock speeds and had an 8x prefetch buffer window size, while DDR2 had a 4x prefetch buffer... which would (not even theoretically) double the overall memory speed because a) a LOT higher latency and b) refresh.
DDR4 now had the same 8x prefetch buffer (but again higher clocked speeds) so I really don't know where the 2x speed over DDR3 is... Yes, it will greatly increase the bandwidth, but that's nothing our typical desktop workloads profit from anyways.
The above underlined part is categorically false. While the active power consumption is similar the standby power isn't even close with LPDDR taking about 1/5 the power of DDR4. Given the amount of time my laptop spends in standby (I will frequently travel without my power-supply for short trips of a day or so) the standby power draw rates are CRITICAL in real-life use cases.