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Stealing the MacBook Pro's 14" Screen
- Thread starter iRun26.2
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Personally, I am hoping if the ARM Mac is true for next year, that it is limited to the non "pro" devices. I don't believe the ARM architecture is robust enough (at least yet) for heavy lifting computing. I see no problem if he MacBook and the MacBook Air switch to ARM next year. The Intel CPU in the MacBook is already underpowered, and the MacBook Air could go back to being the "lightest" Mac. If they switch on the Pro side (MacBook Pro, iMac Pro, Mac Pro, etc...), I am expecting a huge backlash. I fully expect this transition to occur, unless Intel somehow makes some major strides, and soon. The whole reason that Apple switched from PowerPC to Intel, was that IBM/Motorolla was unable to provide the CPUs that Apple wanted, and is why you never saw a G5 PowerBook. The G5 CPU was just too hot (sound familiar LOL) to go into a notebook.
(Edited) Sorry, I got my PowerPC G4 CPU and PowerPC G5 CPU mixed up. I changed it above
(Edited) Sorry, I got my PowerPC G4 CPU and PowerPC G5 CPU mixed up. I changed it above
Rumours suggest the 14" has been pushed back to early-mid next year, due to the pandemic and supply chain issues.
I can't imagine that the MacBook Pro's will switch over to ARM right away (if ever). I want my 14" Intel based MacBook Pro!Personally, I am hoping if the ARM Mac is true for next year, that it is limited to the non "pro" devices. I don't believe the ARM architecture is robust enough (at least yet) for heavy lifting computing. I see no problem if he MacBook and the MacBook Air switch to ARM next year. The Intel CPU in the MacBook is already underpowered, and the MacBook Air could go back to being the "lightest" Mac. If they switch on the Pro side (MacBook Pro, iMac Pro, Mac Pro, etc...), I am expecting a huge backlash. I fully expect this transition to occur, unless Intel somehow makes some major strides, and soon. The whole reason that Apple switched from PowerPC to Intel, was that IBM/Motorolla was unable to provide the CPUs that Apple wanted, and is why you never saw a G5 PowerBook. The G5 CPU was just too hot (sound familiar LOL) to go into a notebook.
(Edited) Sorry, I got my PowerPC G4 CPU and PowerPC G5 CPU mixed up. I changed it above
When ARM Macbook Pros give you 2-day battery life, significantly more single-threaded and multi-threaded performance, you'll switch.
Intel CPUs are just bad. AMD GPUs are bad too.
Apple is using the worst combination right now. It should be AMD CPUs and Nvidia GPUs.
While I'd love to be surprised, there will be no switching from me until my old Window's base engineering tools work.
I'm not sure, simply because the 13" MBP was updated, and I don't think they'd announce or unveil a new machine that was intended to compete (or replace) one that was just upgraded a mere weeks ago
I have seen several articles and opinion pieces talk about how Apple's ARM CPUs now outperform Intel CPUs, and they often point to GeekBench for proof of this. GeekBench is meaningless when it comes to actual computing power, as it is just a synthetic benchmark, and is "bursty." You need long-running tasks to see how devices perform, because the workload increases, heat goes up. As heat goes up, many CPUs (including Apple A series), throttle down, which means performance goes down. There is no reason that when appropriately engineered, and software is appropriately written, that ARM CPUs can't match or exceed x86, but it has not been done yet. Most ARM designs (including Apples) have been for low-power, low-voltage environments. It will be interesting to see if Apple has a "new" spin of the A-series for its bigger devices, or if they are just going to go the iPad route, and tweak the iPhone CPUs (A14Z or something). Microsoft already tried this with both the original Surface (non-Pro) and most recently the Surface Pro X (which looks nice for a Windows device) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-pro-x/8vdnrp2m6hhc?activetab=overview. Neither of these ARM based devices performed as well as Intel counterparts. The Surface Pro X at least had an emulation (not virtualization like Parallels or Vmware) for x86 32-bit apps, but performance was just Ok, apps like Chrome (before ARM versions came out) performed terribly on it. With the emulation layer, you still had most software available for it, even if it ran poorly. Will have to be careful with the marketing spin though. If Apple touts performance compared to the older MacBook (non Pro, or Air, and no longer seems to be sold), it won't take much to have a system run "better" as the Intel CPU in that was severely under-powered.
However, I am going to make a prediction here, June 11 2020, and will see what happens. I predict that the first ARM based Mac systems, will finally solve many of the things people currently complain about Macs. Namely the poor FaceTime camera, and the thermals. A fast clocked A13+ at like 3.0 GHz would run most light-weight or browser based apps really well, wouldn't require much power and would run cooler. I would expect it to falter running something like FinalCut or LogicPro though (meaning not run as well).
Rich S.
Doesn't count. You have to look no farther than the iPad Pro to see the potential of Apple's own chips. They're begging for software powerful enough to take advantage of the hardware.
I am still waiting for some real confirmation of that idea. Yes Apple's ARM chips are better than pretty much every SnapDragon SOC out there, but until someone creates a "real" desktop level app compiled for ARM, we won't really know how they will perform. The closest thing out there, are the Windows 10 on ARM devices. We will have to wait and see what Apple has up their sleeve. If any current tech company can do it, it will be Apple, but until I see real evidence, I will remain skeptical.
Rich S.
This is just from my experience, and my opinion... Most of the applications that folks use these days are NOT compute bound. That is why SmartPhones and Tablets have been so popular for day-to-day stuff for many folks. It is why some people could actually replace their laptop with an iPad and never look back. The applications that ARE compute bound are for things that do "rendering" or high-fidelity games (not the simple ones you find on your iPhone or iPad). Other areas are applications used in research such as Mathmatica. This is the reason that I think that the ARM switch is going to happen sooner rather than later. Many, many people do not need the potential power of an Intel CPU (or AMD for that matter), and they never use it, and will not miss it. For those of us that do need it, I am hoping that Apple does not switch over until the application are ready. There is no inherent advantage that x86 has over ARM, they just work two different ways. Software just needs to be written (actually the compiler would do this) to know how to best leverage the hardware. x86 is CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computing) while ARM is (Reduced Instruction Set Computing). What this means to the lay person, is that an x86 CPU executes (this is way oversimplification, but it makes it easier to understand
) multi-step instructions per clock cycle, and ARM execute single-step instructions per clock cycle. (BTW, for folks aware of buzzwords like IPS or Instructions Per Clock, this is not what I am describing here, that is an enhancement on top of this ). This is not cut and dry either due to the architecture differences. On one architecture it may take 2 clock cycles to multiply a 128-bit integer, and only take 1 on the other. This is why I say it all depends on the software Good luck!
Rich S.
I am quite sure Apple has their complete operating system and all of the standard apps running right now on ARM (flawlessly).I am still waiting for some real confirmation of that idea. Yes Apple's ARM chips are better than pretty much every SnapDragon SOC out there, but until someone creates a "real" desktop level app compiled for ARM, we won't really know how they will perform. The closest thing out there, are the Windows 10 on ARM devices. We will have to wait and see what Apple has up their sleeve. If any current tech company can do it, it will be Apple, but until I see real evidence, I will remain skeptical.
Rich S.