I wonder if we won’t see scalable chipsets in the future while we bridge the gap between transistors that can’t get any smaller and q-bits or whatever we have to use next. Need more processing power? Buy a stick of CPU to plug in next to your stick of RAM!
That sounds like the IBM cell chip from a few years back.
The PC market is rapidly changing, in part because Intel has slowed down. I think the larger factor is just that most people don't really need a faster computer anymore, so they keep their existing computers for a lot longer.
You conception of the world may be inverted: people keep their computers for much longer because tech advances in processor speeds have stagnated ... not because they don't need a faster computer. The simple fact is that significantly faster mainstream computers are not available ... and the only real area to see gains is in multi-processing ... and unless you need a 20000 processor computer, that's not very helpful for most people.
This is getting ridiculous. Each Intel generation delivers so little improvements. No wonder demand is lower. Apple should drop Intel on the Mac and build it own laptop and desktop version of its A chips. It would be something unique no other competitor could match.
The PC market is rapidly changing, in part because Intel has slowed down. I think the larger factor is just that most people don't really need a faster computer anymore, so they keep their existing computers for a lot longer. I used to get a new computer every year, but my current computer is four years old and still doesn't feel slow (added a SSD).
Lots of nerds complain about this, but Apple has exactly the right idea. They're slowing down their release cycles because the vast majority of people are slowing down their purchases, and the current crop of computers is fast enough. Personally, at the current speeds, Skylake (just bought a 15" MBP) is plenty fast for everything I do, and I'd rather have either lighter weight or longer battery life. I probably won't buy my next computer for four or five more years, at which point Apple will probably have something new and cool for me to buy.
The only real issue I see is the Mac Pro, which truly is behind the times in every way. I suspect Apple will be completely changing the design as the current one isn't much of a Pro computer anyway.
I don't know how credible they are but Macworld UK says a Mac Pro update is coming end of November (per their sources)
Thanks for that link, interesting some of the bits in it. Of most interest (and possibly most proof?) is the rumour they had before the MBP announcement last week that the new Mac Pro would have 10 USB-C ports. Prior to last week's announcement it wasn't a certainty that Apple would be "all in" with TB3/USB-C as their exclusive ports, so perhaps there is a new Mac Pro coming which will do away with the 6TB/4USB configuration they currently have in favour of 10 of the new all-in-one ports like in the MBP. I'd imagine the Touch Bar might be another good reason to upgrade the Mac Pro (and perhaps the iMac and/or mini range, please!<smile>) so as to expand the systems supporting this new functionality, especially for Pro users (though does any system really *need* an upgrade or can they simply sell new keyboards for older systems and get this functionality??).
This is getting ridiculous. Each Intel generation delivers so little improvements. No wonder demand is lower. Apple should drop Intel on the Mac and build it own laptop and desktop version of its A chips. It would be something unique no other competitor could match.
I have a sneaking suspicion that that is where they are heading to in a number of years. Just have to play the waiting game.
The PC market is rapidly changing, in part because Intel has slowed down. I think the larger factor is just that most people don't really need a faster computer anymore, so they keep their existing computers for a lot longer.
You conception of the world may be inverted: people keep their computers for much longer because tech advances in processor speeds have stagnated ... not because they don't need a faster computer. The simple fact is that significantly faster mainstream computers are not available ... and the only real area to see gains is in multi-processing ... and unless you need a 20000 processor computer, that's not very helpful for most people.
im not so sure you're correct -- as a non-gamer, i find my 2011 iMac w/ SSD and maxed RAM and VRAM is still adequate for my pro needs (software dev, VMs, etc). a faster desktop won't really do that much for my use case. I'm certainly not alone...normal consumers' demands would be even less than my own.
Why couldn't we see Apple use both an A series chip and Intel processors in the same machine? A series for speed and Intel for those needing to run Windows on their Mac.
The PC market is rapidly changing, in part because Intel has slowed down. I think the larger factor is just that most people don't really need a faster computer anymore, so they keep their existing computers for a lot longer.
You conception of the world may be inverted: people keep their computers for much longer because tech advances in processor speeds have stagnated ... not because they don't need a faster computer. The simple fact is that significantly faster mainstream computers are not available ... and the only real area to see gains is in multi-processing ... and unless you need a 20000 processor computer, that's not very helpful for most people.
The average home computer user doesn't hold their breath until Intel boosts the speed of their CPUs. I'm sure the vast majority of iMac and Mac mini users don't even care about the CPU speed bumps every few years. And if their new iMac is faster than their old one, most of the gains are due to flash RAM vs. HDD and bus speeds. Internet bandwidth is vastly more important than faster clock speeds now.
The "pro" user, however, has got to be suffering. For them, time = money. Faster CPU = more work per day. It feels like the Mac Pro is getting thrown down the same staircase as Xserve.
Or maybe Apple could resurrect Mac Pro sales if they add Silver, Gold, Rose Gold, and Jet Black options to the Mac Pro. For that luxury high-end home computing experience. Too bad about the LG monitors though. They don't match.
The Xeon E3 v6 series uses socket 1151 so it tops out at 4 cores. Apple will not make a Mac Pro using this CPU as a 4-core entry model because then they would have to design a completely different motherboard for the models with more than 4 cores. In fact Intel always launches their consumer CPUs earlier than the enterprise CPUs, and the Xeon E5 v4 was released just in March, and v5 (Skylake-EP) is rumoured for 1H 2017 (see e.g. http://wccftech.com/intel-skylake-e-lga-3647-hexa-channel-memory/) with a new socket LGA 3647. Jumping to v6 but being limited to 4 cores makes no sense. Releasing an updated Mac Pro any time before 1H 2017 is probably not likely, since they would have to make a major redesign for the new socket in 1H 2017 anyway.
The current Mac Pro is a very unusual design choice because the space constraints limits the setup to one CPU. This would mean that the CPU model doesn't have to have support for dual CPUs. Apple uses E5-1xxx v2 series for the lower end but Intel probably figures users with high performance requirements may want to use dual-CPU machines so they limited the E5-1xxx v2 to 8 cores, forcing Apple to use the E5-2xxx v2 series for the 10 and 12-core models. The E5-1xxx v4 still has max 8 cores, while the E5-2xxx v4 goes all the way up to 22 cores. E5-2xxx v5 is rumoured to have up to 26 cores! (It will also support 6 channels of DDR4 memory, which is completely unnecessary in the Mac Pro form factor.)
It will be interesting to see what 2017 brings.
48 PCI-Express lanes per chip. just what apple needs.
16 video card or 2 video cards switched 8 for 2 PCI-E ssd X4 cards 16 for TB 3.0 4 for DMI link? 4 for dual 10-gig-e
The PC market is rapidly changing, in part because Intel has slowed down. I think the larger factor is just that most people don't really need a faster computer anymore, so they keep their existing computers for a lot longer.
You conception of the world may be inverted: people keep their computers for much longer because tech advances in processor speeds have stagnated ... not because they don't need a faster computer. The simple fact is that significantly faster mainstream computers are not available ... and the only real area to see gains is in multi-processing ... and unless you need a 20000 processor computer, that's not very helpful for most people.
The average home computer user doesn't hold their breath until Intel boosts the speed of their CPUs. I'm sure the vast majority of iMac and Mac mini users don't even care about the CPU speed bumps every few years. And if their new iMac is faster than their old one, most of the gains are due to flash RAM vs. HDD and bus speeds. Internet bandwidth is vastly more important than faster clock speeds now.
The "pro" user, however, has got to be suffering. For them, time = money. Faster CPU = more work per day. It feels like the Mac Pro is getting thrown down the same staircase as Xserve.
Or maybe Apple could resurrect Mac Pro sales if they add Silver, Gold, Rose Gold, and Jet Black options to the Mac Pro. For that luxury high-end home computing experience. Too bad about the LG monitors though. They don't match.
I would agree with @wozwoz and @sockro as well as @dws-2 rightfully complaining about Intel then add that the computer isn't the slow part for most people, their internet connection is. We spend a lot of money getting a faster computer then get on the overcrowded and slow internet superhighway and wait for everything to get to your screen. Pro users deal more with what's on their computer instead of what's on the web (yes, they use the web but use their local storage more often).
It's sad when countries other than the US have faster internet speeds but it makes sense because everything is governed by the stock market in the US so if it doesn't make the company money, they don't do it. There's nothing stopping the proliferation of truly high speed internet for a reasonable cost in the US except for greedy companies and stockholders. It's the same with the cellular market. Multiple companies are pushing streaming everything yet it doesn't matter when too many people have slow internet.
I fit in between the pro user and the typical user. I do my fair share of transcoding and movie editing and am tired when it takes forever to do simple things. Of course my excuse is my early 2009 iMac (fully loaded at time of purchase). My iPhone 6s is faster than my iMac but my iPhone can't store 2.5TB of data while connecting to external RAIDs. I want a new iMac, Apple, so please figure out a way to get me one with the fastest CPU, GPU, RAM and SSD as possible. Thank you....
well, optimization of performance at chip level, I would stay with 14 nm... until 10 nm a bit mature - leakage current, cross talk, test validation, all done before jumped on to the wagon. However, i would love to see optimization at off chip level, bus speed, ram access, GPU integration at system level and priority setting at software level... match with impedance... especially, RF amp... a little signal enhancement in design, will save a lot in battery... packaging (2nd level, 3rd level) are more important for performance... IMHO. (however, those spec comparison guys are going to screaming bloody murder... before the system eval come out... never understand them... if you buy spec instead of real performance... silly to say anything before the actual product come out... spec? just go get driod, spec always better, but why its performance inferior in some cases? I rest my case).
The PC market is rapidly changing, in part because Intel has slowed down. I think the larger factor is just that most people don't really need a faster computer anymore, so they keep their existing computers for a lot longer.
You conception of the world may be inverted: people keep their computers for much longer because tech advances in processor speeds have stagnated ... not because they don't need a faster computer. The simple fact is that significantly faster mainstream computers are not available ... and the only real area to see gains is in multi-processing ... and unless you need a 20000 processor computer, that's not very helpful for most people.
im not so sure you're correct -- as a non-gamer, i find my 2011 iMac w/ SSD and maxed RAM and VRAM is still adequate for my pro needs (software dev, VMs, etc). a faster desktop won't really do that much for my use case. I'm certainly not alone...normal consumers' demands would be even less than my own.
I put in a SSD in my Mid-2012 MBPro (as well as maxing the ram to 16) and find it's like a brand new machine after that. Especially with the SSD. Noticed it right away! Ordered it from OWC. Best decision ever to get more life out of it. I'm a casual gamer and do more graphics editing on it (Adobe PS, ILL, IND etc.) Dabble with some video but haven't produced anything of stature to really give it a test. It'll be a few more years before I get a "new" refurb. Hopefully the HW connections will have all updated by then. God knows I don't want any extra dongles.
Why couldn't we see Apple use both an A series chip and Intel processors in the same machine? A series for speed and Intel for those needing to run Windows on their Mac.
Verry different architecture s, very different motherboards.
If I am Apple, I would skip Kaby lake processor and go straight to 10nm Cannonlake processor to be released 2H2017 for Spring-Summer 2018 Macbook pro upgrade with no compromises. Some leaked info suggests Cannonlake SoC that integrates 4/6/8 cores and Converged Coherent Fabric (CCF) which acts like a NorthBridge plus on chip voltage regulator.
Long shot but Apple is better of controlling their processor destiny for Macs like iPhone.
Aren't you the one I told yesterday that Cannonlake is not going to be available until 2018 at the earliest? And only in the 5W and 15W variants?
As for iMacs/Minis and such, I'd keep an eye on AMD's Raven Ridge platform.
My guess, 2017 holiday season will see laptops based on U and HQ cannon-lake CPUs. That puts next MBP upgrade if not 2H2018 than definitely end of 2018 like this time.
I thought you would know. There are many people wondering the same thing but from what I've seen recently, there's a question about multitasking and other things that Apple hasn't necessarily incorporated into their A-series designs. If Apple wanted to try an A-series Mac (wouldn't surprise if they already have), I'd imagine they'd start with at least four A10X CPUs (so 8 full speed CPUs and 8 half speed?) as well as the 6? GPUs in each for a total of 24 GPUs and see whether they could get them to run together. I doubt the A10X GPUs would compete with the existing Mac Pro GPUs but who knows, maybe they would.
As for Windows virtualization, I remember seeing W10 being available on ARM (maybe just a wish) so if it is or will be people won't have that excuse to bash Apple about moving to ARM.
How about future iMacs running multiple apple SOCs that can daisy chain via thunderbolt to create more and more powerful distributed processing. I think that would be very efficient and a good way to sell multiple iMacs to business Like a transputer (Atari?)
Is thunderbolt easy, difficult or impossible on current Apple SOCs?
The E5-1xxx v4 still has max 8 cores, while the E5-2xxx v4 goes all the way up to 22 cores. E5-2xxx v5 is rumoured to have up to 26 cores! (It will also support 6 channels of DDR4 memory, which is completely unnecessary in the Mac Pro form factor.)
It will be interesting to see what 2017 brings.
I think the Skylake-W (the single socket E5-v5 "Workstation") processors are much more likely to be in the next Mac Pro rather than the Skylake-EP dual-socket configurations. The Skylake-W uses a different socket (socket R) than Skylake-EP (socket P), and has 4 memory channels rather than 6.
The PC market is rapidly changing, in part because Intel has slowed down. I think the larger factor is just that most people don't really need a faster computer anymore, so they keep their existing computers for a lot longer.
You conception of the world may be inverted: people keep their computers for much longer because tech advances in processor speeds have stagnated ... not because they don't need a faster computer. The simple fact is that significantly faster mainstream computers are not available ... and the only real area to see gains is in multi-processing ... and unless you need a 20000 processor computer, that's not very helpful for most people.
True. The problem is there is a glut of processor power and programmers are getting lazy because of it or worse bored so they are re-engineer the core app as interesting computer science experiments on the grounds they can push it to the customer half baked and barely workable due to the FLOPglut. Net effect is we've seen some nichePro software, that ran very well on older hardware even below spec hardware, upgrade and become unworkable on last years recommended hardware spec. Driving hardware upgrades to to be able to use the bug fixes and non-marketing improving in the software.
Intel slowing down? I kind of miss the days when AMD Athlon gave them a run for their money. Intel's original 64-bit processor roadmap before the Athlon 64 was centered around the Itanium CPU. Intel originally didn't think anyone would need a 64-bit desktop CPUs until the 2010s. Athon 64 made that happen much sooner.
Intel is becoming an anchor for Apple. I know Apple producing an ARM-based iMac most likely will not happen, but it would be a way for Apple to begin unraveling the binding that Intel has on Apple's innovation.
Give us a break. Your ilk said the same thing about the IBM/Motorola Power PC and the 6502 before that (why oh why did Woz choose that CPU? Answer: It was cheap). Somebody is always a boat anchor for Apple and if Apple would just follow your advice all would be well. I think I’ll put my faith in Apple engineers who actually know what’s going on in the CPU world.
Well I know processor folks at both Intel and Apple and indeed Intel is an anchor for them... the OP said nothing about "all would be well", but for sure the Apple processor folks have a lot more runway to build a better platform.
Guess saying "I think I'll put my faith..." is a good way for anyone without a clue to start a sentence
Comments
You conception of the world may be inverted: people keep their computers for much longer because tech advances in processor speeds have stagnated ... not because they don't need a faster computer. The simple fact is that significantly faster mainstream computers are not available ... and the only real area to see gains is in multi-processing ... and unless you need a 20000 processor computer, that's not very helpful for most people.
I'm sure the vast majority of iMac and Mac mini users don't even care about the CPU speed bumps every few years.
And if their new iMac is faster than their old one, most of the gains are due to flash RAM vs. HDD and bus speeds.
Internet bandwidth is vastly more important than faster clock speeds now.
The "pro" user, however, has got to be suffering. For them, time = money. Faster CPU = more work per day.
It feels like the Mac Pro is getting thrown down the same staircase as Xserve.
Or maybe Apple could resurrect Mac Pro sales if they add Silver, Gold, Rose Gold, and Jet Black options to the Mac Pro.
For that luxury high-end home computing experience.
Too bad about the LG monitors though. They don't match.
48 PCI-Express lanes per chip. just what apple needs.
16 video card or 2 video cards switched
8 for 2 PCI-E ssd X4 cards
16 for TB 3.0
4 for DMI link?
4 for dual 10-gig-e
It's sad when countries other than the US have faster internet speeds but it makes sense because everything is governed by the stock market in the US so if it doesn't make the company money, they don't do it. There's nothing stopping the proliferation of truly high speed internet for a reasonable cost in the US except for greedy companies and stockholders. It's the same with the cellular market. Multiple companies are pushing streaming everything yet it doesn't matter when too many people have slow internet.
I fit in between the pro user and the typical user. I do my fair share of transcoding and movie editing and am tired when it takes forever to do simple things. Of course my excuse is my early 2009 iMac (fully loaded at time of purchase). My iPhone 6s is faster than my iMac but my iPhone can't store 2.5TB of data while connecting to external RAIDs. I want a new iMac, Apple, so please figure out a way to get me one with the fastest CPU, GPU, RAM and SSD as possible. Thank you....
s, very different motherboards.
The problem is there is a glut of processor power and programmers are getting lazy because of it or worse bored so they are re-engineer the core app as interesting computer science experiments on the grounds they can push it to the customer half baked and barely workable due to the FLOPglut. Net effect is we've seen some nichePro software, that ran very well on older hardware even below spec hardware, upgrade and become unworkable on last years recommended hardware spec. Driving hardware upgrades to to be able to use the bug fixes and non-marketing improving in the software.
Guess saying "I think I'll put my faith..." is a good way for anyone without a clue to start a sentence