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Shaky Rumor Claims Redesigned MacBook Pros Will Feature 'M1X' Chip and Remove the Front Logo

I wonder if, in 5 years, there will still be folks attempting to align the old A series naming to the M series naming.

“Well you see, while they call this an M4 chip it’s really an A19xX-plural-zed-alpha-thrice-removed, not much different from the A17-johnny-come-lately-SST-charger-dart that also never existed!”
 
cmaier said:
It's actually not cheaper to do that. You pay per wafer start, which means you want to minimize die area. The one-time costs producing separate masks for the 16 core version is tiny compared to the extra cost of all that useless silicon area.
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Guess we'll find out once the SoCs are released and somebody does the obligatory x-ray.

Though perhaps "chop" does refer to a mask that only has 16 cores instead of 32.
 
CWallace said:
Guess we'll find out once the SoCs are released and somebody does the obligatory x-ray.

Though perhaps "chop" does refer to a mask that only has 16 cores instead of 32.
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Even if apple were to do something like this, they wouldn't disable the extra cores. They would simply prevent more than 16 being used simultaneously, and they would shuffle them around in use, to allow higher clock speeds by avoiding local thermal hotspots.

We once considered having cpu features that were disabled until a user upgraded by paying on-line -would be fun to upgrade your 16 to a 32 by paying by-the-day when you have a lot work to do :)
 
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magicschoolbus said:
Wasn't there a series of Apple laptops recently that had the MacBook Pro removed on the bezel?
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My retina MacBook Pro from 2012 doesn’t have it either

trip1ex said:
i wouldn't doubt if they remove the words from the front. It seems natural and overdue actually. Having the Macbook ... on the front feels a bit tacky.

I'm surprised they haven't already done that.
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They did remove it on the 2012 model and brought it back later
 
So the higher-end Mac Mini due to come out either later this year or early next year will most likely have the M1X chip. This is pretty exciting!
 
I don't follow all the news - are we sure the high-performance part will be branded as an "M" processor? Maybe it'll have a different prefix? e.g.

A-series (iPhone)
M-series (Macbook Air, iPad Pro, 24"iMac)
"P"-series (Macbook Pro, 27" iMac, Mac Pro etc)

Then an M1x or M2 is more distinct from a P1.
 
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blazerunner said:
Im throwing a parade. Touchbar was straight TRASH. Everyone will be better off without that gimmicky garbage.
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In 2016 wasn’t the addition of the Touchbar seen as one of the reasons for the big price increase? With the Touchbar gone on the 2021 MBP models perhaps the price will be lowered.
 
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I don't care about the logo or what they call the chip. I'm happy to see the touchbar go if it means gettnig back physical keys. I'd prefer to see the touchbar replaced by adding touch to the LCD - not for OS operation but for developers to use for OPTIONAL enhancements to their apps. For instance, in FCP - the timeline could be touchable for scrubbing as it is on the touchbar. In Photoshop, you could pinch to zoom on a specific portion of your image. Users could elect to use it, ignore or disable it. This would be far more efficient than looking down at the touchbar.
 
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zorinlynx said:
Why the crap is Apple de-branding its stuff? First the iMacs and now the Macbooks? Don't they know seeing the words "Macbook Pro" especially when they show up in movies and such is great advertising?
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10/11 times when you see an apple product in a movie you will know it’s Apple without even seeing the logo or name. That’s the beauty of Apple
 
cmaier said:
It's actually not cheaper to do that. You pay per wafer start, which means you want to minimize die area. The one-time costs producing separate masks for the 16 core version is tiny compared to the extra cost of all that useless silicon area.
Click to expand...
What about 'binning'? Faulty chips that have fewer than 32, but more than 16 working cores go into the 16 core models. Isn't that what Apple are reportedly do with the 7/8 gpu core M1's?
 
wyrdness said:
What about 'binning'? Faulty chips that have fewer than 32, but more than 16 working cores go into the 16 core models. Isn't that what Apple are reportedly do with the 7/8 gpu core M1's?
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Binning is a possibility, but it’s still a waste. Most bins have all the cores working. Very very few only have 16 working - if only 16 out of 32 cores work, you can bet that a lot of other stuff is broken on the die, too.

I also would bet good money that the vast majority of 7-gpu core M1’s have all their cores capable of working (i.e. they would work if they hadn’t been purposely disabled).
 
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cmaier said:
It's actually not cheaper to do that. You pay per wafer start, which means you want to minimize die area. The one-time costs producing separate masks for the 16 core version is tiny compared to the extra cost of all that useless silicon area.
Click to expand...
What if Apple are doing some sort of binning - for example - for a 32 core CPU, if 1-15 cores fail on it, deactivate them down to make it a 16 core chip instead? I guess it depends on how efficient the manufacturing is.

nol2001 said:
In 2016 wasn’t the addition of the Touchbar seen as one of the reasons for the big price increase? With the Touchbar gone on the 2021 MBP models perhaps the price will be lowered.
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There was the T2 CPU in general plus TouchID. The T2 has been rolled into the CPU but TouchID has stayed. If Apple were rolling back on the Touch Bar then aside from the fact that they were recycling the existing case designs for the new M1 Macs wouldn't they want to get rid of Touch Bar with the advent of ARM and specifically for MacBooks - if they brought in miniLED screens which have contributed to the price increase on the iPad Pro 12.9"?

I guess the next chance they get will be with a major redesign which is obviously coming with the next 14" and 16" MacBook Pros. And if they have mini LED screen they might also be a power drain they so they can have a brighter main display on the bigger laptops which leads to the removal of the Touch Bar.
 
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cmaier said:
Binning is a possibility, but it’s still a waste. Most bins have all the cores working. Very very few only have 16 working - if only 16 out of 32 cores work, you can bet that a lot of other stuff is broken on the die, too.

I also would bet good money that the vast majority of 7-gpu core M1’s have all their cores capable of working (i.e. they would work if they hadn’t been purposely disabled).
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Yes, they might just deactivate a full 16 cores if they find even 1 faulty one, but still better than throwing it away. We just don't know the waste statistics yet.

And also with the 7 GPU core M1s, it would be fair call to neuter a perfectly good M1 CPU just to fit it to the entry level MBA.
 
LucidX said:
I don't care about the logo or what they call the chip. I'm happy to see the touchbar go if it means gettnig back physical keys. I'd prefer to see the touchbar replaced by adding touch to the LCD - not for OS operation but for developers to use for OPTIONAL enhancements to their apps. For instance, in FCP - the timeline could be touchable for scrubbing as it is on the touchbar. In Photoshop, you could pinch to zoom on a specific portion of your image. Users could elect to use it, ignore or disable it. This would be far more efficient than looking down at the touchbar.
Click to expand...
If Apple made it an optional extra would it not be relatively expensive? Wouldn't they also have considered putting Touch Bar on the iMac keyboards going forward?

Maybe it's something for a full size keyboard
 
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sublunar said:
Yes, they might just deactivate a full 16 cores if they find even 1 faulty one, but still better than throwing it away. We just don't know the waste statistics yet.

And also with the 7 GPU core M1s, it would be fair call to neuter a perfectly good M1 CPU just to fit it to the entry level MBA.
Click to expand...

We used to do that. We initially sold two different chips because of yield/binning, and after the yield got better, we had to neuter chips to keep up with demand. Again, one has to keep in mind correlation of defects - if there’s a defect bad enough to knock out a GPU core on these things, which are a small fraction of the overall die area, then there probably are a bunch of other things messed up too. Die that have defects tend to have a lot of defects.
 
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LucidX said:
I don't like sacrificing a thunderbolt port for magsafe, not at all. I hope this rumor is false. The 16" MacBookPro should retain 4 thunderbolt 4 ports each with power delivery.
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Yes but are you going to use all four ports if there's a built-in SD card reader and a HDMI and Magsafe is providing the power? Are Apple in fact expecting more people to dock at home onto a Thunderbolt dock?
 
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