Your guess: Next 16" MBP will be intel or ARM

[Yebubbleman]

Probably just incremental GPU & CPU improvements as these become available, e.g. the recent 5500M to 5600M GPU upgrade.

It will be interesting to see how Apple produces an equivalent to the current discrete AMD GPUs. Will they build a brand new GPU, or integrate their ARM SoC with an existing AMD GPU?

They hinted heavily at using their own GPUs and integrating them into the SoC. I know their own GPUs will kick the utter crap out of any form of Intel Iris - Plus, Pro or otherwise, that much was even evident from the demo in Monday's keynote. But I have no clue how they stack up to the 5500M or 5600M.

I guess the next 16" MBP will be on Intel's 10th gen, which is not much upgrade from the current 9th gen. And I think that will be it. The reason I think this, it doesn't make sense from the marketing point of view to reduce the gap between Intel MBP and the first ARM MPB. Releasing 16" MBP with 11th gen or newer would decrease the difference in benchmarks...

I think that even if Intel 16" MacBook Pros make it to 11th Gen Intel H-series CPUs, Apple's ARM CPUs will be poised to surpass what they can offer within the transition timeframe. And I don't doubt that they won't just pick an ARM CPU that merely matches a 10th Gen Core i9 H-series CPU. They'll want one that kicks the crap out of it so that they can show the same kind of "4x-5x performance improvements" that they used to boast about how much better the Core Duo MacBook Pros were than the PowerBook G4s.

 

[DanMan619]

They're going to totally **** over all the professionals that use apps (like Avid) which are JUST switching over to 64bit let alone ditching x86_64 entirely for ARM.

ARM is gonna be for casual non-pro macs (macbook, air, base mac mini and base imac) for at least 12-18 months. Raw power and maximum compatibility still needs Intel, for better or for worse.

I know people who aren't even going past 10.14.6 just because they have so many little parts of their workflow that are 32bit dependent.

This whole transition is basically the final nail in the coffin for pro mac use. Developers for expensive programs and niche ecosystems aren't gonna bother moving their entire codebase to ARM, they'll just deprecate it and tell you to move to Windows.

I think this is unrealistically pessimistic. Partially to your point. The best thing about dropping 32bit means everything that made it past the transition to 64bit (like the 2020.x versions of Avid which they re-did the code almost entirely for) would in theory be easier to port over to ARM because all the 32bit fat has been cut already. The 32 to 64 bit was arguably the messier part of the transition and that part is over with already. Apple already having gotten an early head start on working with Adobe for porting Creative Cloud i think bodes well for their intentions with other pro apps as well. Avid/entertainment industry specifically tends to really favor Mac, so i think the motivation for Avid to port will be there, but i don't think they will be in any major rush to do so considering most post production facilities are either still riding out older machines (like mid-late 2000's cheese graters or trash can Mac Pros) till they break or just got new 2019 Mac Pros anyway. So applications like Avid have plenty of time to port. Maybe i'm being unrealistically optimistic though.

 

[Ma2k5]

I'm thinking Intel. In 2018, The A12X was able to best anything that wasn't a 2018 15" MacBook Pro with a Core i9 or beefier Mac. A12Z is very similar to A12X. That's not to say that Apple likely hasn't come up with faster chips, but one would assume that if there was something dramatically faster, they'd have put that in the 2020 iPad Pros. I don't doubt that an A14 based chip is coming for the Mac, but for it to best the current 2019 16" MacBook Pro's chips will be a feat. That said, give it another year and they'll surely be there. Whereas, the A12X and A12Z should both have plenty of power to surpass the power of any CPU that has ever graced a MacBook Air or 13" MacBook Pro TODAY. I believe this is why the 13" MacBook Pro will be among the first (if not THE first) Macs to make the switch.



You're telling me that Intel doesn't have any 10th Gen H-series part that would be an upgrade over the 9th Gen H-series that is in the current 16" MacBook Pro set to come out this year? I find that a little hard to believe.

What about this guy: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/processors/core/i9-processors/i9-10980hk.html

Sounds like that dude is ready to jump right into a 16" MacBook Pro



Again, what about this guy: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/processors/core/i9-processors/i9-10980hk.html

Not saying it's revolutionarily faster than the 9th Gen that's in it today, but it's a bump that's there that can be employed today! Would certainly be a nicer note to end the reign of Intel based 15" and 16" MacBook Pros on.



That would certainly be the smart way for them to do it. And it wouldn't be dissimilar to how they did the switch TO Intel; they announced the Core Duo iMacs saying that they were faster than the G5s and that they were the fastest Macs ever, such that when the Mac Pros came out six months later, it was as though the gloves were really coming off.

Looking back on the history of 13" Intel-based Mac laptops, we really got cheated in terms of graphics. That brief break where we had NVIDIA shared-memory integrated graphics processors was okay, but the Intel graphics have always sucked and been way subpar compared to any Mac with a discrete GPU. At least in the days of the 12" PowerBook G4, we still had SOME discrete graphics in tow.

If the 13" MacBook Pro on ARM's graphics are what Apple implies they might be, then I'll be glad to see good graphics return to that form factor. I'm ambivalent on the move from Intel, but certainly not at all on the move away from Intel integrated graphics.



Likely not going to happen that soon, buddy. The 13" ARM MacBook Pro is certainly possible though.



That order makes sense.

I'm still not totally convinced that they won't merge the Air and the 13" Pro into a single powerful 13" Mac laptop on ARM. The only reason why there even is an Air is that there's only so much that you can shrink the thermal envelope of an Intel U-series processor before it starts to melt. If you have power that exceeds that of ANY Intel U-series processor that will work inside an enclosure designed for an Intel Y-series processor (such as the chassis of the 2020 Air), then the only thing you need to do to complete the merge of those two laptops is to add a Touch Bar (which may or may not even be a desired element at that point) and two additional USB-C/Thunderbolt3 ports.

Why have multiple 13" Mac laptops when you can have one that is literally the best of both worlds?

But yeah, 16" MacBook Pro is definitely last on that list, regardless.

Considering the form factor of the 16”, how much extra performance can it really gain from that chip - the chip itself is already not a big improvement as it is and now imagine trying to harness that improvement in this thermally limited case.

I think Apple laptops (and some other premium thin and light windows laptops) are screaming for a die shrink to get that perf per watt higher and a more suitable thermal profile for these cases. The cooling in these machines are just not up to scratch to even maximise the potential of the i7 chips let alone i9.

 

[fokmik]

ARM will be for casual macs first and pro macs will be the last to get it. The 16" will be intel for at least a couple years.

Since the rumors point that first arm mac will be the 13” mbp and not macbook air or mac mini...i guess we don’t know..if apple will still offer amd dgpu then even the big imac or 16” mbp will get arm as soon as possible
This year the smaller mbp and imac, next year the bigger imac and 16 mbp

 

[PharmlyDoc]

I guess the next 16" MBP will be on Intel's 10th gen, which is not much upgrade from the current 9th gen. And I think that will be it. The reason I think this, it doesn't make sense from the marketing point of view to reduce the gap between Intel MBP and the first ARM MPB. Releasing 16" MBP with 11th gen or newer would decrease the difference in benchmarks...

So you're saying that an upcoming ACER laptop will have a better intel processor than an Intel-based MacBook Pro 16 inch? https://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/CentralPoint.png

 

[Falhófnir]

They're going to totally **** over all the professionals that use apps (like Avid) which are JUST switching over to 64bit let alone ditching x86_64 entirely for ARM.

ARM is gonna be for casual non-pro macs (macbook, air, base mac mini and base imac) for at least 12-18 months. Raw power and maximum compatibility still needs Intel, for better or for worse.

I know people who aren't even going past 10.14.6 just because they have so many little parts of their workflow that are 32bit dependent.

This whole transition is basically the final nail in the coffin for pro mac use. Developers for expensive programs and niche ecosystems aren't gonna bother moving their entire codebase to ARM, they'll just deprecate it and tell you to move to Windows.

I think this is a bit disproportionately hysterical, there's going to be a few snags and a bit of effort and sacrifice for sure, but you can already tell it's going to be more than worth it on the other side.