I'm not saying that they'll be able to compete toe to toe with PS5 and Xbox Series X using an (as yet unreleased) A14X in terms of technology but Apple have it in their hands to get into the same ballpark if we look at the A13.
It's certainly a more feasible route to success than trying to figure out how Apple will appeal to gamers with essentially a Mac mini Pro or iMac with un-Apple-like graphics upgrade. The hardware could be improved to match Windows PCs but the price would be out of control and the OS software isn't optimised for gaming.
Even if the A14x will triple or quadruple the performance of the A13 in games(which would be quite a feat even with higher power budget and 5nm) it will not be a match for the Xbox One X in gaming performance so forget any next gen console altogether.
How much of the performance differences between ARM and the AMD APU in consoles could be in part down to mobile devices wanting to be energy efficient and also be somewhat price sensitive by limiting the amount of RAM on the device?
We hear that Apple use up to 6Gb of RAM on their iPad Pro and lesser models have a lot less RAM. What if they allowed the same ballpark - say 16Gb of RAM? - as PS5/Xbox Series X? What if the ARM CPU was properly cooled rather than having to throttle in a portable device because of battery life and heat considerations?
I don't think you understand the differences in hardware architecture.
The APUs in next gen consoles were developed from scratch as high performance computer parts so not mobile oriented but more like server oriented architectures.
Apple's ARM SOC architecture is and always was mobile oriented.
OK let's say the CPU would somehow be fine(although against a Zen 2 or 3 CPU with 8 Cores and 16 thread I wouldn't hold my breath) the GPU would totally be outclassed and it won't be because of the RAM. Apple ca pair any SOC they have even with 32GB of RAM it still wouldn't matter in gaming performance, first because the LPDDR4x RAM which Apple currently uses is already noticeably slower than desktop class DDR4 RAM(2133MHz speed vs +3000MHz) second because the gaming performance of dedicated GPUs and the APUs in the next gen console is and will mainly be influenced buy the dedicated Graphics SDRAM they use which is GDDR6 and in this context. There's nothing Apple could do to match the performance and the bandwidth of a GPU that uses dedicated GDDR6 with low power RAM or even normal desktop DDR RAM.
The cooling won't matter because it would only allow a mobile SOC to not throttle under constant heavy load so it won't magically make it much faster and it's not like Apple's tablet SOCs have a throttling problem anyway. Even if you raise the TDP and the frequency because the active cooling allows it it will only gain a little additional performance, nothing spectacular.
I'm certainly not saying that will will suddenly make it an even contest though.
Apple don't have to do deals with AMD or Intel for their IP - they have ARM - remember that AMD are just offering a custom built APU which they could equally do for Apple if they wanted but macOS is years behind driver-wise. For the record I don't think they would.
Really? because you compared or mentioned multiple times a theoretical A14X with the next gen consoles.
And the fact that Apple has ARM isn't realistically an advantage vs X86.
X86 and AMD, Nvidia GPUs have decades of software support and optimizations on their side.
This is why Sony and Microsoft decided to use standard PC CPU and GPU architectures in their consoles in the first place.
Also we don't know how evolved and capable Apple's GPU architecture is to run modern AAA games with all the eye candy and different graphic features. I suspect that without a direct license from AMD or Nvidia such a GPU can't be developed.
Intel for example is developing dedicated PC GPUs and they do have a license deal with AMD to cover GPU IP.
What would be interesting is if Apple have been able to somehow marry up an AMD graphics GPU with the ARM CPU.
It would be a waste of time and resources. AMD's Zen architecture is already excellent and it's available now. It's not even something new, AMD had this idea a few years ago but gave up on it because it didn't make much sense.
An Apple console doesn't have to be more powerful than anything either of the giants are coming up with, they just have to have software/games that are as compelling - look at Nintendo.
Nintendo is a gaming industry veteran which owns some of the most popular game IPs in the industry. This is their secret.
The solution for that is well within Apple's reach - start or acquire software houses who wouldn't ordinarily have bothered to write or port higher end games for iOS and watch them create games with more complexity than Candy Crush.
Throwing money around doesn't guarantee success, gamers will still like Mario, Zelda or Pokemon more.
