So now we start to hear demands to move to A series on the Mac. Screw Intel! Well, A-based Macs will almost certainly kill Boot Camp. How much work and expense will be required by developers to recompile their code to work on Arm architecture? Will Apple be able to come up with a Rosetta style solution so all those Intel based, 64 bit apps will run on an ARM Mac? So many unanswered questions that need answers before dumping Intel.
any move by Apple to drop Intel and use their own CPU's will be well telegraphed. I'd say that it we'd get at least 12 months if not more notice.
My experience in coding for both Intel and Arm is limited simply because I don't have to do it beyond telling the compiler/linker what arch to use.
Back in the day I'd have to spend months recoding specific functions that were written in Assembler just to squeeze the last bit of performance out of the CPU but for most of us, those days are long gone.
From a users POV, as long as our favourite apps all work in the new arch then we won't care.
In some ways I hope this happens and the likes of Adobe decide to NOT port Flash to MacOS/ARM. That [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] thing needs to die a swift death NOW!
The reason Apple not buying AMD TR CPU is package is too large for them.
Also I don't think AMD mobile CPU line up is better than Intel.
Anyway, current Apple's design moto as thin and slim won't help switch to AMD CPU any time soon.
Only hope maybe new Mac Pro. Apple might introduce AMD TR CPU if Mac Pro chase is big enough. Like old 1,1. But I highly doubt it.
Or AMD lunch smaller package with new Ryzen 3.(I wonder how can they add AM4 or AM4+ pins to smaller package or they have to move pin-less package like Intel,)
Also I wonder these problem did not mention anything about ARM architecture so Apple might push forward on replace to their own A line CPU sooner then we want.
A 10% hit to IPC is still pretty brutal when intel has been stringing us along with 5% gains in IPC per generation for a full decade now, since Nehalem.
The reason Apple not buying AMD TR CPU is package is too large for them.
Also I don't think AMD mobile CPU line up is better than Intel.
Anyway, current Apple's design moto as thin and slim won't help switch to AMD CPU any time soon.
Only hope maybe new Mac Pro. Apple might introduce AMD TR CPU if Mac Pro chase is big enough. Like old 1,1. But I highly doubt it.
Or AMD lunch smaller package with new Ryzen 3.(I wonder how can they add AM4 or AM4+ pins to smaller package or they have to move pin-less package like Intel,)
Also I wonder these problem did not mention anything about ARM architecture so Apple might push forward on replace to their own A line CPU sooner then we want.
For iMac and iMacPro - apple can go for AM4, the top 16C SKU gonna be faster then current 18C Xeon [Maybe not when AVX512 used]. Those new iMac could be thinner and Apple could make large margin vs Xeon® W-2195[Apple will get large discount since they buy both CPU/GPU].
On MacPro - there are already m.ATX TR4 boards, so what the problem? also PCIE4 NVME drives could be great selling point.
For those saying Macs can’t jump to A-series chips entirely because we’d lose Boot Camp and native Windows compatibility — Microsoft ported Windows to ARM chips ages ago. It wouldn’t be easy and there wouldn’t be much legacy (pre-8) support, but it could certainly be done because it’s already been done.
I don't know much about this, but do you mean the software would have to be re-written for ARM, not just Windows itself? If so, that isn't likely to happen any time soon. It would kind of defeat the point of Boot Camp and Windows... probably easier just to get a Mac port, then.
PS. Wonderful article, thoroughly grounded in reality, lays everything out plainly so even the “headline skimmers” and people with poor comprehension skills will “get it.” Well done!
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Those new iMac could be thinner and Apple could make large margin vs Xeon® W-2195[Apple will get large discount since they buy both CPU/GPU].
On MacPro - there are already m.ATX TR4 boards, so what the problem? also PCIE4 NVME drives could be great selling point.
Agreed.