Report: Apple Silicon iMac Featuring Desktop Class 'A14T' Chip Coming First Half of 2021

[Elijen]

Judging by the last few posts it does sound like some people (not sure how many) have an expectation that Apple is about the launch a machine, if not this 1st one this year, but definitely new year which will be as fast as, or even faster than a top of the range Intel i9 based gaming desktop.

Just let me say, I'd love to see it, and I'm sure the whole gaming industry would also love to see it.
Hardcore games, who generally have a LOT of money would be buying such machines in the tens of thousands, and Game devs would be porting over and developing new AAA titles to run on such a machine.

Sounds great yes?
Yes, I'd say so, that sounds amazing.

However, very sadly I feel these people who are hinting/expecting this as very mistaken and this is simply not going to be the case.

!00% for sure, Apple can make a CPU/GPU combo with special acceleration aspects hard coded into part of the design, and they can have software created that directly takes advantage of such custom hardware.
Take 4K / 8K video editing as an example.

But that's not the same as crushing an Intel i9 crushing gaming PC in performance.

If you disagree and think I'm wrong with my view here and it WILL be as fast as some are expecting, I'd love to hear your reasoning.

Nothing I would love to see more would be Apple leading the pack at the forefront of PC Gaming, which, apart from Video editing is one area which will simply soak up as much raw power as you can throw at it.

I welcome viewpoints telling me I'm wrong here.

Both Intel and AMD are pretty bad at single-core performance. If Apple keeps the same wattage and just slaps in the same amount of cores as Intel/AMD they already have the fastest CPU on market. Now imagine they overclock their CPUs to use more power because they can use active cooling.

This WILL happen eventually. The only question is if it's 2020 or 2021.

My quess would be the first devices are Macbook 12" that will be comparable to current Macbook Pro 13" in performance but will have much better battery life and Mac Mini aimed for developers.

Because it's Apple they will probably hold on to high performance CPUs for more expensive machines.

Look where the middle/mean of this image by Apple is:

 

[Piggie]

Both Intel and AMD are pretty bad at single-core performance. If Apple keeps the same wattage and just slaps in the same amount of cores as Intel/AMD they already have the fastest CPU on market. Now imagine they overclock their CPUs to use more power because they can use active cooling.

This WILL happen eventually. The only question is if it's 2020 or 2021.

My quess would be the first devices are Macbook 12" that will be comparable to current Macbook Pro 13" in performance but will have much better battery life and Mac Mini aimed for developers.

Because it's Apple they will probably hold on to high performance CPUs for more expensive machines.

Look where the middle/mean of this image by Apple is: View attachment 975926

I hope you are right.
But I will admit I do have my doubts as to the speed it will happen.
I suppose part of it, is me thinking, ok, take an A14 stick it in a proper? dull computer with a heavyweight dull OS on in, and THEN let's see how fast it is when it has to cope with all of that.

I may be and I hope I am totally wrong.

Apple NOT into gaming and never has been, as they simply can't compete is worrying me a bit.
If someone tells me today, take an Intel Core i9-10900 add onto that say a RTX 3080 in an amazingly powerful gaming PC, and an Apple A14. Heck, lets even more on a generation, an A15X+ whatever, on mains power with good cooling would be able to match that. I will be more than happy to say how wrong I was and how shocked and amazed I am.
Do I think Apple's Silicon even end of next years, next gen will match that.... Right not..... Nope not in any way whatsoever.

 

[jeanlain]

Judging by the last few posts it does sound like some people (not sure how many) have an expectation that Apple is about the launch a machine, if not this 1st one this year, but definitely new year which will be as fast as, or even faster than a top of the range Intel i9 based gaming desktop.

For a given level of power consumption and heat, hence size, weight and noise, Macs should be able to beat PCs, but I don't think anyone suggested that Macs would beat gaming PCs (which consume much more power than typical Macs). Apple SoCs are still very far from the fastest GPUs from AMD and Nvidia.
Futur Macs may be faster than any PC for general-purpose code, not for graphics.

 

[Piggie]

For a given level of power consumption and heat, hence size, weight and noise, Macs should be able to beat PCs, but I don't think anyone suggested that Macs would beat gaming PCs (which consume much more power than typical Macs). Apple SoCs are still very far from the fastest GPUs from AMD and Nvidia.
Futur Macs may be faster than any PC for general-purpose code, not for graphics.

Thanks for that. I agree with you about the graphics.
I don't think people who work for Nvidia are dumb, and Apply can simply blast past their dedicated GPU's

Regards the speed of the CPU vs the power draw the chip has. Yes for sure, of course. Apple has excelled in this dept without any question. And for mobile devices they are amazing.

But of course, when it comes to a desktop, all that changes, when you are running on mains power, no-one really cares if you are drawing 15w or 100w to power your 27" desktop. So whilst it's a nice number to show of I suspect very few would focus on this number as opposed to how fast it is.

I'll still admit, I'm expecting low power, great battery life laptop/s which can run specific software very well, and just about ok for other software.
I'd love to be shocked and get more but that's what I'm ready to see.

As I said, a number of people seem to be expecting Apple's Arm to basically blast past everything else on the market .
As if the same real-world design limitations simply don't apply to Apple.

Perhaps one day, but I suspect it's further away than some think.
Again, I'd love to be proven wrong on any/all of this.

Finger crossed we are shocked in a good way in the next few weeks, and not just a "well, it's not bad for a 1st try" type of product.

 

[Fomalhaut]

Those telephone CPUs are already faster than many desktop CPUs.

Apple is not putting them into desktop PCs. They are putting them in Macs.

I would argue than an iMac is by definitely a desktop personal computer, which I think is what Elijen means.

But the person who mentioned "telephone CPUs" has obviously not read any news about Apple A-series SoC performance for a few years.....

 

[Fomalhaut]

Judging by the last few posts it does sound like some people (not sure how many) have an expectation that Apple is about the launch a machine, if not this 1st one this year, but definitely new year which will be as fast as, or even faster than a top of the range Intel i9 based gaming desktop.

Just let me say, I'd love to see it, and I'm sure the whole gaming industry would also love to see it.
Hardcore games, who generally have a LOT of money would be buying such machines in the tens of thousands, and Game devs would be porting over and developing new AAA titles to run on such a machine.

Sounds great yes?
Yes, I'd say so, that sounds amazing.

However, very sadly I feel these people who are hinting/expecting this as very mistaken and this is simply not going to be the case.

!00% for sure, Apple can make a CPU/GPU combo with special acceleration aspects hard coded into part of the design, and they can have software created that directly takes advantage of such custom hardware.
Take 4K / 8K video editing as an example.

But that's not the same as crushing an Intel i9 crushing gaming PC in performance.

If you disagree and think I'm wrong with my view here and it WILL be as fast as some are expecting, I'd love to hear your reasoning.

Nothing I would love to see more would be Apple leading the pack at the forefront of PC Gaming, which, apart from Video editing is one area which will simply soak up as much raw power as you can throw at it.

I welcome viewpoints telling me I'm wrong here.

The limitation will be in the GPUs I think. If current A-series SPEC/Geekbench iOS performance is repeated under MacOS, then I'm fairly confident that Apple will match Intel i9 performance sometime next year in an MBP16 or desktop equivalent.

Their GPU performance remains to be proven. Will they create powerful SoCs like the 180-200W TPD AMD APUs used in new gaming consoles? Or do they have some discrete GPU design in the works - the rumored "Lifuka"? How would this work with unified memory? will they use HMB2, DDR5 or even GDDR6 memory to get the bandwidth? Has Apple developed some super-fast interconnect bus between GPU & SoC?

I don't think Apple will be challenging desktop Windows gaming rigs with high-end PCIe GPUs in the short term. They may have specialized SoC components or accelerator boards in the Mac Pro (like the Afterburner card) for specific tasks like video rendering.

It will be fascinating to watch their development over the next few years.

 

[cczhu]

All the issues that i have seen reported on the Apple Communities Forums were mainly targeting the iMac 2020 with the 5700XT card.

Issues mentioned were:
1) Glitch line (affected around 60% the iMacs)
2) Weird graphics anomaly in the corner areas of the screen (I personally didn't have this issue)
3) True Tone showing on for half the screen and off for the other half (a simple toggle of on/off fixed it) but was sporadic.
4) Intermittent blue tooth connectivity drops (i had this with my second unit (Replacement unit), but not the first one)
5) Lock ups and reboots (had this happen on both units - initial purchase unit and replacement). Seemed like the replacement unit did it more frequently as i had only had the problem once with my first unit.. but repeatedly with my replacement unit.

There was an MacOS update, that seemed to fix the Bluetooth and Glitch line (which was a 1 pixel line that would just flash out of no where, but always seemed to originate from the mouse cursor to an edge of the screen..)
The other issue it seemed to address was lock ups and reboot (for some people).

If you are looking at the new iMac 2020 and are looking at the 5500 card or the non XT card you should be fine, There were some people who posted issue with the 5500XT version of the card, but they were far and few. The 5700XT seemed to be the largest of pool when it came to issues reported.

Don't get me wrong i loved the new iMac, but the issues at first were just causing tons of reliability and productivity issues for me. I am hoping when they do get everything resolved that i will get a chance to pick up the 2020 again. My biggest reason for the purchase was the nano texture glass (which is awesome! if you are trying to cut down on screen reflection), but also the SSD storage options for 4gb and 8gb... Going from the Vega Pro 48 card to the 5700XT was also good, but the Vega is more a video editing card where i feel the 5700XT is more for graphics, games and general multimedia stuff. All-in-all your really cant go wrong with either card and it mainly just depends on what you are using it for.. I would definitely recommend checking out the forums and seeing if anyone else is still reporting issues prior to getting the 5700XT option.

Hope this helps (Links to the Apple Community Forum issues, well 2 of them.)

Link to forum:

iMac 27 inch 2020 - Screen Glitch (Random… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

Link for True Tone issue

my imac 2020 has problem sometimes showin… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

thanks for the insight! very helpful! Currently I have the iMac 2020 with 5500XT. It's a great machine but the fun is too loud for my ears so I am getting a replacement.

I am leaning towards an upgrade to 5700XT because I need the extra graphics power to drive extra 4K/5K monitor(s).
I think most of these issues are software based so hopefully Apple has addressed or will address them soon.

Just read that 6800XT came out today, not sure if iMac is going to adopt that as a upgrade option soon.

 

[Fomalhaut]

Thanks for that. I agree with you about the graphics.
I don't think people who work for Nvidia are dumb, and Apply can simply blast past their dedicated GPU's

Regards the speed of the CPU vs the power draw the chip has. Yes for sure, of course. Apple has excelled in this dept without any question. And for mobile devices they are amazing.

But of course, when it comes to a desktop, all that changes, when you are running on mains power, no-one really cares if you are drawing 15w or 100w to power your 27" desktop. So whilst it's a nice number to show of I suspect very few would focus on this number as opposed to how fast it is.

I'll still admit, I'm expecting low power, great battery life laptop/s which can run specific software very well, and just about ok for other software.
I'd love to be shocked and get more but that's what I'm ready to see.

As I said, a number of people seem to be expecting Apple's Arm to basically blast past everything else on the market .
As if the same real-world design limitations simply don't apply to Apple.

Perhaps one day, but I suspect it's further away than some think.
Again, I'd love to be proven wrong on any/all of this.

Finger crossed we are shocked in a good way in the next few weeks, and not just a "well, it's not bad for a 1st try" type of product.

I agree that Apple are unlikely to suddenly surpass high-end discrete GPU boards with an SoC solution - although they should be able to match console APUs in Apple Silicon desktop machines with 100-150W TDP.

However, power usage / TDP is still really important in desktops because that directly affects CPU temperature and cooling requirements to avoid thermal throttling. iMacs are far from ideal in this respect, so keeping the TDP low whilst maintaining good performance is an important design goal.

Like you, I don't expect Apple Silicon performance will transcend the laws of physics. There will be limits to clock speed and core count to fit within the thermal budget available in portable or thin devices.

I'm hoping for 30-50% performance improvements and maybe 50-70% battery life improvements.

 

[smulji]

I don't think people who work for Nvidia are dumb, and Apply can simply blast past their dedicated GPU's

Once upon a time, the people working at Intel were thinking the same thing with respect to CPU's.

 

[CWallace]

I don't think people who work for Nvidia are dumb, and Apple can simply blast past their dedicated GPU's...

Once upon a time, the people working at Intel were thinking the same thing with respect to CPU's.

We should also take note that Apple is developing their SoCs and GPUs specifically for the operating systems and the applications that run on them. Intel and nVidia (and AMD) are working on more "general purpose" hardware that has to be more generalized.

So even if Apple is not "king" in raw benchmarks, it might very well be able to perform better where it counts - the OS and the apps that run on it.

 

[MikeZTM]

Judging by the last few posts it does sound like some people (not sure how many) have an expectation that Apple is about the launch a machine, if not this 1st one this year, but definitely new year which will be as fast as, or even faster than a top of the range Intel i9 based gaming desktop.

Just let me say, I'd love to see it, and I'm sure the whole gaming industry would also love to see it.
Hardcore games, who generally have a LOT of money would be buying such machines in the tens of thousands, and Game devs would be porting over and developing new AAA titles to run on such a machine.

Sounds great yes?
Yes, I'd say so, that sounds amazing.

However, very sadly I feel these people who are hinting/expecting this as very mistaken and this is simply not going to be the case.

!00% for sure, Apple can make a CPU/GPU combo with special acceleration aspects hard coded into part of the design, and they can have software created that directly takes advantage of such custom hardware.
Take 4K / 8K video editing as an example.

But that's not the same as crushing an Intel i9 crushing gaming PC in performance.

If you disagree and think I'm wrong with my view here and it WILL be as fast as some are expecting, I'd love to hear your reasoning.

Nothing I would love to see more would be Apple leading the pack at the forefront of PC Gaming, which, apart from Video editing is one area which will simply soak up as much raw power as you can throw at it.

I welcome viewpoints telling me I'm wrong here.

SPEC perf result is general propose not specific workload.

And game performance is a huge category. Recently most hardcore eSport (CS:GO/PUBG) games start to reply on ram latency more than CPU single core performance. Basically overclocking RAM on a Intel platform from 2666 to 4266 can increases CS:GO performance by 100fps or even more.

A14 will 100% crush an Intel i9 on most if not all single core workload. That is by SPEC perf which Intel is also using to prove their CPU performance.

But there's much more factor about gamming performance. I bet Apple will push LPDDR family ram for all their product lines for more power efficiency. That move alone will bring about 60ns (nano-seconds) more latency to the RAM and mostly destroy hardcore eSport performance.

So it will be just a normal new Mac. Not much more than it was with Intel. Just doing same stuff but faster. I do not expect CPU performance alone will attract game developers.

If the game you play already runs well on Intel Mac today then I bet it will be mostly running faster on a same price range Apple Silicon Mac.


Plus, you do care about power consumption on desktop -- 15W vs 100W means you can put 6x 15W CPU "chiplet" in the same machine and got a flat 6x multithread performance. The difference between desktop and laptop is just power envelope. After all you still can not put a 1000W CPU in a normal mid-tower case.

 

[MikeZTM]

We should also take note that Apple is developing their SoCs and GPUs specifically for the operating systems and the applications that run on them. Intel and nVidia (and AMD) are working on more "general purpose" hardware that has to be more generalized.

So even if Apple is not "king" in raw benchmarks, it might very well be able to perform better where it counts - the OS and the apps that run on it.

I think Apple just "accidentally" becomes the king in raw benchmarks when they building the chip for their software.

 

[Elijen]

I would argue than an iMac is by definitely a desktop personal computer, which I think is what Elijen means.

But the person who mentioned "telephone CPUs" has obviously not read any news about Apple A-series SoC performance for a few years.....

The difference between Mac and PC is that all Macs are made by Apple. They don't need to support all the peripherals and features Intel does.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Just let me say, I'd love to see it, and I'm sure the whole gaming industry would also love to see it.
Hardcore games, who generally have a LOT of money would be buying such machines in the tens of thousands, and Game devs would be porting over and developing new AAA titles to run on such a machine.

No, the gaming industry wouldn’t care (save for a few developers that don’t mind tossing macOS a bone every now and again). Apple could produce a 13“ system that destroys the MBP in both CPU and GPU even when connected to a 5K monitor, BUT it’s STILL macOS. Any game made for macOS is NEVER going to sell to the entire base and, when you take a percentage of all PC’s for macOS and then another smaller percentage for macOS gaming, it’ll never be enough for developers to expend AAA effort for.

Intel, Nvidia, AMD... they’re not stupid. BUT, they do have a business model that forces them to produce a range of products for a range of needs across a range of prices, configurations and use cases. COULD they do what Apple’s attempting to do and produce a high performance low power GPU? SURELY! But, they have to adhere to their manufactured price/performance gradient that says “low power only does this, high power picks up from there” and they can’t mix the two.