The 2021 Apple TV 4K should've had an A12X Bionic instead.

[Donar]

Here’s one thought though: What if this is a replay of the AppleTV HD vs 4K? AFAIK, the AppleTV HD was just the AppleTV when it was announced. It only got the 4K moniker when the higher model was released.

Yeah, that‘s what happened with the Apple TV (HD). As a replacement for the current Apple TV HD the new Apple TV 4K (A12) would be good.

Perhaps Apple is just milking the market/justifying the high price until an A15 box is released later?

Could be milking the market, or maybe they just like that the „normal“ A12 is smaller / cheaper to produce than the A12X/Z and not so in demand as the M1 and A14.

 

[oneMadRssn]

I’m guessing they are over clocking these chips to perform better than in iPhones. Time will tell. I doubt they would release a updated version that’s slower than the previous.

This is probably true. Also remember the current ATV4k has active cooling (it has a fan).

 

[gnomeisland]

This is probably true. Also remember the current ATV4k has active cooling (it has a fan).

Except what device has Apple actually ”overclocked”? The M1 mini has much better cooling than the Air or 13” Pro but any improvement is marginal and only in sustained workloads. I’m not sure the A-series chips are really designed to be “overclocked”. There are examples of them running slower in thermally constrained models but AFIAK there are no examples of the reverse. If it has a vanilla A12 I’m very skeptical it will perform meaningfully better than the iPad.

 

[gnomeisland]

The Apple TV and the other products you mentioned are quite different. The Apple TV doesn’t require including touch interface performance for example. How the iPad and iPhone are used, most likely benefit from a better processor. The Apple TV is just a streamer and casual gaming device.

That would make sense except the most important part of the AppleTV processing is arguably the GPU which is where the A10X is definitely better than the vanilla A12.

 

[oneMadRssn]

Except what device has Apple actually ”overclocked”? The M1 mini has much better cooling than the Air or 13” Pro but any improvement is marginal and only in sustained workloads. I’m not sure the A-series chips are really designed to be “overclocked”. There are examples of them running slower in thermally constrained models but AFIAK there are no examples of the reverse. If it has a vanilla A12 I’m very skeptical it will perform meaningfully better than the iPad.

You're getting a bit too hung up on the word "overclocking." It's not that Apple overclocks anything if that term means going above a permissible limit, but the chip is set to run at certain clock speeds based on the needs of the device in balancing power, efficiency, and thermal profile.

There are examples. Take the A10 for example: On the iPad 2018 and iPhone 7 the CPU cores ran at 2.34ghz, but on the iPad 2019 it was clocked slightly lower to 2.32ghz, and the 7th gen iPod Touch it was clocked much lower to 1.63ghz.

The thermal profile is important. All these chips are designed to slow down when at the top of their allowed temperature. The longer it can stay under that limit, the longer it can run at full power. As you said, active cooling thus can run allow it to run sustained workloads for longer, or indefinitely if the cooling is good enough. That alone can make the end-user performance better than the iPad.

 

[ErikGrim]

I’m also disappointed with the A12 downgrade (refuse to call it otherwise until proved wrong). The added U1 chip and better remote are interesting but not enough personally.

What added U1 chip?

 

[inkahauts]

I guess in a month we will have some data to compare the two and then we will know.

 

[George Dawes]

The new remote I love , will get at least 3 of them , upgrade the box seems pretty pointless to me . I have no idea why Apple released it , seems underpowered to me and over priced

 

[-Gonzo-]

When talking about the stuttering, was this during only the cutscenes or during actual gameplay? I only experienced this during the cutscenes, and while it was annoying, it definitely didn't ruin the game or was worth lowering the resolution.

What have you got your ATV resolution set to?
I’m in the U.K. and natively that’s a 50hz resolution which the ATV wants to default to.
Only issue with that is when playing games you get stuttering during cut scenes, setting to 60hz however fixes that issue.
Now this was first noticed while playing Asphalt 8, I haven’t noticed any stuttering myself in the game you’re talking about so maybe that’s because mines set to 60hz or possibly just wasn’t paying attention.
So if you haven’t done so already try setting to 60hz and see if that resolves the stuttering issue.

 

[gnomeisland]

What added U1 chip?

Macrumors posted in it’s article about the missing U1 in the new remote:

”It also appears that the 2021 iPad Pro models are lacking a U1 chip as well, though the new ‌Apple TV‌ does indeed have U1 support. U1 devices now include the iPhone 11 models, iPhone 12 models, new ‌Apple TV‌ 4K, and HomePod mini.”

That’s what I’m going off of, I have no insider knowledge.

 

[deconstruct60]

...

I’m subscribed to Arcade, so i would appreciate better Metal scores. After transitioning iPad Pro to M1 they should have some spare supply of A12X/A12Z.

That isn't how Apple works. The supply chain is integrated. If they know in advance they are going to be selling less A12x/z chips then they just order less in advance also.

The only way the AppleTV SoC is going to be used to soak up "slop" of excess production ( because Apple's forecast for a product was substantially wrong) is if there is some other product(s) that are in major volume production. Then Apple has a "clean up" issue and the AppleTV can be used to clean that up.

The AppleTV 4K got the A10X toward the first half of the A10X lifecycle.... not the very extreme tail end. iPad Pro 2017 variants came out in June 2017 and by September 2017 the AppleTV got it. The A12X didn't show up until over a full year later from A10X rollout ( September 2018). After that the 'X' variant more firmly on a two year cadence. ( skipping A-series with odd numbers and appearing with even ones. That coincided with a major process shrink. ).


The context at this point is different. The A14X is pragmatically the M1 this time. iPad Pro has another whole product line to soak up excess. ... the Mac line up. AppleTV isn't going to cut it. AppleTV volume is probably down what it was 4-5 years ago. if not in absolute units terms, certainly in terms of market share and impact. The Apple TV+ app running running on the top volume smartTV/dongle Operating systems means that the whole AppleTV services stack is generating far more revenue than AppleTV ( and/or Arcade).

Going with the A12 at the same price point points to Apple going to higher margins on lower volume. Apple isn't gong to try to go "toe to toe" on pricing with Roku , FireTV, GoogleTV. Neither are they going to go "toe to toe" with XBox and PS5. There is a high volume bulk customer for the A12 in the entry iPad model ( 6h gen , 2000). Apple could push a minor feature bump on the entry iPad and still keep the a12 in 2021.


Apple Arcade probably is not a high driver of AppleTV. The bulk of the users are on phones. The median of the phones is probably in the A12-like range in terms of performance. The games will be tuned to the median. ( if playing the console market strategy then optimization to the median is the "play").


[ Thee isn't gobs of excess 7nm capacity. AMD/Nvidia/Intel/etc. are soaking up anything Apple is ramping down on. So the smaller A12 gets a higher unit count of a single wafer than the A12X. it is just cheaper to make and "good enough". ]

Maybe Apple wants to sell us a MacMini with „Apple TV mode“ instead of an actual Apple TV? 😆

For a primarily "gamer for fun focused" system? What is missing? AppleTV+ app, check. Arcade , check . HDMI socket, check. Connect game controller to Mac ? check ( https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210414 ).

That said are they really going "hard" up against Xbox and PS5 in the hard core 4K gaming market? No. stripping some ports off the Mini to hit a $300-400 price tag probably wouldn't help than the $699 one the Mini has already. ( and at some point the used Mini's will drop onto the market at lower prices).

 

[gnomeisland]

You're getting a bit too hung up on the word "overclocking." It's not that Apple overclocks anything if that term means going above a permissible limit, but the chip is set to run at certain clock speeds based on the needs of the device in balancing power, efficiency, and thermal profile.

There are examples. Take the A10 for example: On the iPad 2018 and iPhone 7 the CPU cores ran at 2.34ghz, but on the iPad 2019 it was clocked slightly lower to 2.32ghz, and the 7th gen iPod Touch it was clocked much lower to 1.63ghz.

The thermal profile is important. All these chips are designed to slow down when at the top of their allowed temperature. The longer it can stay under that limit, the longer it can run at full power. As you said, active cooling thus can run allow it to run sustained workloads for longer, or indefinitely if the cooling is good enough. That alone can make the end-user performance better than the iPad.

I understand the theory, I’m saying there isn’t a lot of real-world evidence to support better performance relative to the 2017 AppleTV due to active cooling. The developer DTK, with a giant chassis & active cooling, doesn’t perform better than the 2018/2021 iPad Pro. We see the same thing comparing the M1 Macs with and without active cooling. So iPad benchmarks are a good indicator of peak performance.

In the context of Apple’s designs active cooling seems to sustain peak performance but not increase peak performance. Given that both the 2017 & 2021 AppleTV models have active cooling hoping that feature alone will create a bigger performance jump than we see when comparing the A10X iPad Pro to the A12 iPads seems futile.

So unless Apple has been underclocking the A12 this whole time, or this is a tweaked part, the iPad scores are good measure and the new CPU is a side grade at best (faster single core, slower GPU). Love to be wrong about this and give Apple some more of my money.

 

[deconstruct60]

This new Apple TV 4K should have used an A12X Bionic and not the A12, as the A12X Bionic is the true successor to the A10X Fusion (see 2017 iPad Pro and 2018 iPad Pro). The A12 is barely toe to toe with the A10X, synthetic benchmarks aside. A12, first seen on the iPhone XS and XS Max pale in comparison to the iPad Pro with the A12X and even the iPad Pro with A10X. This is repeated again with the 3rd Gen iPad Air from 2019.

One of the substantive issues is the 2021 isn't 2017-2019.

tvOS has be coupled to HomePod OS. tvOS more tightly coupled to iOS (and their being no iPadOS) meant that the AppleTV 4K and the iPad Pro weren't that apart in SoC usage.

Apple has shifted since 2017-2018 context. AppleTV isn't the exclusive steamer provider of AppleTV+. Are there any decent TVs sold anymore that does not have a SmartTV OS varaint in them? Apple Aracde has more clearly shown were it does and doesn't have major market driving traction.

The first three things Apple highlights on the AppleTV marketing page are
1. TV/media streaming abilities. ( it is AppleTV ... if can't do "TV" why is in the name. ).
2. Apple TV service add on. ( gateway to reoccurring services revenue. )
3. Apple Fitness ( yet another revenue stream. )
4. Apple Music ( see above )
5. Apple Arcade ( see above but finally have arrived at A12X grunt differential making any material product segmentation difference).
6. HomeKit ( not a service but pragmatically equal between A12 and A12X )

In the year ( or 18 months) where the consoles Xbox and PS do a major refresh . Before refresh they can get away with making comparisons to the lower end of the aging line.

"... A12X during its presentation announcing the product: that it has twice the graphics performance of the A10X; that it has 90 percent faster multi-core performance than its predecessor; that it matches the GPU power of the Xbox One S game console with no fan ..."

Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

Apple’s Anand Shimpi, Phil Schiller talk silicon—”This is really an Xbox One S class GPU.”…

arstechnica.com

I think in 2021 that looks more like early coaching of the position of why someone should possibly accept an iPad Pro SoC running their 4.5K display iMac.


If within 12 months when Apple rotates the A14 out of the front line iPhone deployment, they could rotate this A12 AppleTV product into the position that the AppleTV HD is holding now ( at that not quite as high ) price point. I suspect the AppleTV is completely off the X variants, because the X variant is gone. Entry macs and iPad Pros are probably going to stay on the same instance going forward. Which means a stripped down mini might be a longer term option but probably not labeled a "TV" product. Jumping to even number A-series in non first tier iPhone/iPad deployment lets AppleTV bowwave off of that volume.

The TV streamer markets means keeping up with hardware decoders. The phones will probably get stuff like AV1 (and whatever else comes down the road first) so coupling to the that SoC development stream for AppleTV makes more sense.

I don't think Apple got major data indicating that gaming all by itself was going to dig Apple out of the unit sales hole the AppleTV is in. Home integration, ecosystem integration, and riding the TV services probably have more traction.

 

[oneMadRssn]

In the context of Apple’s designs active cooling seems to sustain peak performance but not increase peak performance. Given that both the 2017 & 2021 AppleTV models have active cooling hoping that feature alone will create a bigger performance jump than we see when comparing the A10X iPad Pro to the A12 iPads seems futile.

You seem to be conflating "peak performance" with general "performance." A car that can drive 70mph for 10 hours will get to it's destination faster than a car that can drive at 120mph but only for 10 minutes at a time and needing to slow down to 30mph for 20 minutes in between to cool off.

Either way, until the A12 AppleTV is released, we won't know for sure what it will be clocked at or what the exact specs of that SoC will be. As I pointed out, Apple does vary the specifics of the chips from device to device, even within the same A-label.

My point is that active cooling is a factor that should not be discounted. It adds some uncertainty about relative performance until we have benchmarks. At best, it will allow for sustained peak performance which is not otherwise possible on mobile devices.

 

[colmaclean]

For me, the sub-optimal A12 and continued small storage capacity point to Apple moving into the cloud gaming business - something that doesn’t require a top-notch CPU/GPU or masses of storage.

 

[bobcomer]

HDMI 2.1 is also a bonus.

That's why I'll be getting one. The HDR color adjustment capability sounds interesting too. I don't game on my Apple TV, so that doesn't matter to me.

 

[Donar]

That isn't how Apple works. The supply chain is integrated. If they know in advance they are going to be selling less A12x/z chips then they just order less in advance also.

And if they know in advance that they need A12X/Z for a new Apple TV they order them. But yes, not the best wording on my side.

Thee isn't gobs of excess 7nm capacity. AMD/Nvidia/Intel/etc. are soaking up anything Apple is ramping down on. So the smaller A12 gets a higher unit count of a single wafer than the A12X. it is just cheaper to make and "good enough".

I think we have the same idea here, but it was a different post.

... or maybe they just like that the „normal“ A12 is smaller / cheaper to produce than the A12X/Z and not so in demand as the M1 and A14.

That said are they really going "hard" up against Xbox and PS5 in the hard core 4K gaming market? No. stripping some ports off the Mini to hit a $300-400 price tag probably wouldn't help than the $699 one the Mini has already. ( and at some point the used Mini's will drop onto the market at lower prices).

I really should not spread out my thoughts over the whole thread...

....A M1 Apple TV probably would cost as much as a base (2020 M1) Mac mini. I think i may be too much of a cheapskate for a M1 AppleTV - but „Geeklust“ can get the better of me, so who knows.

I think it does not strategically make sense for Apple to put their newest M1 Chip on 5nm into a (niche) product like the Apple TV (and that during a chip shortage), that’s why i mentioned the A12X/Z (older 7nm process) there could be some spare capacity after the iPad Pro got the M1. Price wise i would find this more interesting too.

Good post by the way, and thanks for taking the time for your insightful reply.
Two questions (and i hope i did not “butcher“ your reply too much....)

The AppleTV 4K got the A10X toward the first half of the A10X lifecycle.... not the very extreme tail end.

The A12X is not older than the A12 so i do not understand your reasoning here. The Apple TV 4K now gets the „old“ A12 towards the tail end instead of the „newer“ A12X (and ends up (for me) in a lackluster sidegrade). => But yeah chips per wafer / availability / cost could be an issue here.

Neither are they going to go "toe to toe" with XBox and PS5.
...
That said are they really going "hard" up against Xbox and PS5 in the hard core 4K gaming market? No. stripping some ports off the Mini to hit a $300-400 price tag probably wouldn't help than the $699 one the Mini has already. ( and at some point the used Mini's will drop onto the market at lower prices).

Putting an A12X in the Apple TV would not be going „to to toe“ with XBox and PS5, or was this a reference to the M1?

Cheers.

 

[ACG12]

What a joke of an update for the ATV. At minimum, this thing should’ve gotten the A13 processor.

 

[2010mini]

What a joke of an update for the ATV. At minimum, this thing should’ve gotten the A13 processor.

why? Why would a device mainly used for streaming and sells in low numbers need such a processor?

I understand most people here get hung up on specs. They rate devices by form over function. The current ATV 4K is long in the tooth, but still performs as designed. So... besides sounding nice.... why would this need an A13?

 

[Juicy Box]

why? Why would a device mainly used for streaming and sells in low numbers need such a processor?

If it was just for streaming, I would totally understand, even the A8 would be overkill, but with Apple Arcade and other games on the tvOS App Store, A8, A10X, and A12 could be improved upon.

I understand most people here get hung up on specs.

I cannot speak for others, and I may not be the norm, but I get storage related messages all the time, so keeping the same max storage limit that the ATV has had for 6 years is more than people getting "hung up on specs".

 

[ACG12]

why? Why would a device mainly used for streaming and sells in low numbers need such a processor?

I understand most people here get hung up on specs. They rate devices by form over function. The current ATV 4K is long in the tooth, but still performs as designed. So... besides sounding nice.... why would this need an A13?

.

why? Why would a device mainly used for streaming and sells in low numbers need such a processor?

I understand most people here get hung up on specs. They rate devices by form over function. The current ATV 4K is long in the tooth, but still performs as designed. So... besides sounding nice.... why would this need an A13?

Because in 5 months the A12 is about to be 3 processors old.

Also, Apple doesn’t upgrade this device very often. Which was very nice that they gave it the A10x the same year the iPP released with it.

 

[perezr10]

If within 12 months when Apple rotates the A14 out of the front line iPhone deployment, they could rotate this A12 AppleTV product into the position that the AppleTV HD is holding now ( at that not quite as high ) price point. I suspect the AppleTV is completely off the X variants, because the X variant is gone. Entry macs and iPad Pros are probably going to stay on the same instance going forward. Which means a stripped down mini might be a longer term option but probably not labeled a "TV" product. Jumping to even number A-series in non first tier iPhone/iPad deployment lets AppleTV bowwave off of that volume.

That’s an interesting point. Maybe this is the future “low end Apple TV” just like the 24” iMac is the low-end iMac.

I’m absolutely flabbergasted that The new chip has weaker graphics. The A10X isn’t too far from the A13. But the A12 is way better than the A8.

 

[mactinkerlover]

I’m guessing they are over clocking these chips to perform better than in iPhones. Time will tell. I doubt they would release a updated version that’s slower than the previous.

Nope. Remember 2014 when they crippled the Mac Mini and made it dual core instead of quad core? They're doing something similar here unfortunately. We'll need to just wait and see. Someone needs to make a benchmark for tvOS.

 

[perezr10]

Nope. Remember 2014 when they crippled the Mac Mini and made it dual core instead of quad core? They're doing something similar here unfortunately. We'll need to just wait and see. Someone needs to make a benchmark for tvOS.

Oh, I was just thinking of this exact example! The old Mac Mini with more cores was actually more powerful in many ways than the new. It was a cost-cost savings move. This is a parallel situation. The old A10X with all those cores is actually a better gaming machine than the new one.

 

[Bodhitree]

Perhaps it also has something to do with a move to standardise around the A12. It was something that they told developers around the time that the Apple Silicon devkits shipped, that they should count on the A12 being the minimum. But I agree, for a serious gaming device it would have been better to go with a more powerful SoC.