Apple might have exclusive on Intel's 28W 'Ice Lake' processors

AppleInsider

Intel appears to have made its speediest 10th-generation Ice Lake mobile processors exclusive to Apple's MacBook lineup.

Credit: Intel

Although there have been widespread rumors that Apple will switch to a first-party, ARM-based chip for its MacBook lineup, it looks like Apple's relationship with Intel isn't suffering in the short term.

As was first spotted by NotebookCheck, Intel's Core i7-1068G7 has been removed from the company's ARK database.

The chipmaker seems to have replaced that chip with the Core i7-1068NG7 SKU, the 10nm, 28-watt processor found in the new 13-inch MacBook Pro, as well as a new Core i5-1038NG67 chip.

Per NotebookCheck and Geekbench results, the "N" designation in the moniker is reserved for Apple-exclusive chips. In other words, Intel now appears to be marking certain 28W Ice Lake processors as chips unique to Apple notebooks.

apple ][

Exclusives are good, especially when Apple is the one who has them!

mknelson

Weird, seems like some HTML or CSS gone bad.

The second (incomplete?) line shows up different incomplete here in the comments vs. the main view:

"Although there have been widespread rumors that Apple will switch to a for its MacBook lineup, it looks like Apple's relationship with Intel isn't suffering in the short term."

"Although there have been widespread rumors that Apple will switch to a 

As was first spotted by NotebookCheck, Intel's Core i7-1068G7 has been removed from the company's ARK database."

* I tried to email the author, but the email link opened a blank email and no address.

FLMusic

mknelson said:

Weird, seems like some HTML or CSS gone bad.

The second (incomplete?) line shows up different incomplete here in the comments vs. the main view:

"Although there have been widespread rumors that Apple will switch to a for its MacBook lineup, it looks like Apple's relationship with Intel isn't suffering in the short term."

"Although there have been widespread rumors that Apple will switch to a 

As was first spotted by NotebookCheck, Intel's Core i7-1068G7 has been removed from the company's ARK database."

Yeah, I was a tad confused..

Beats

mknelson said:

Weird, seems like some HTML or CSS gone bad.

The second (incomplete?) line shows up different incomplete here in the comments vs. the main view:

"Although there have been widespread rumors that Apple will switch to a for its MacBook lineup, it looks like Apple's relationship with Intel isn't suffering in the short term."

"Although there have been widespread rumors that Apple will switch to a 

As was first spotted by NotebookCheck, Intel's Core i7-1068G7 has been removed from the company's ARK database."

* I tried to email the author, but the email link opened a blank email and no address.

I thought the author forgot to finish spelling "arm".

bmada

There's an unterminated tag on link. Manually fixing gives us:

Although there have been widespread rumors that Apple will switch to a first-party, ARM-based chip for its MacBook lineup, it looks like Apples relationship with Intel isnt suffering in the short term.

kpom

Apple has been the main user of the 28W chips for a while now. They are mostly spec-bumped versions of the more common “15W” chips (which can really go up to 25W). 

Fatman

Intel owes Apple, they’ve been holding them back. And Apple gets blamed for their missteps ... inability to meet latest fab shrink tech, supply shortages, missed deadlines, chip errors, chip security vulnerabilities. Plus high prices on top of it all. Does anyone need to ask why Apple needs control over their CPUs?

harry wild

Apple flex it muscle and got it!  Now to update the bezel less mini led screen and wi-fi and set to buy!

jdb8167

Where are all those posters saying that Apple is "years" behind the industry with the MacBook Pro. Sure, they just bought out Intel's entire stock of the new 28 W 10th gen CPUs but they are hopelessly behind.

KITA

jdb8167 said:

Where are all those posters saying that Apple is "years" behind the industry with the MacBook Pro. Sure, they just bought out Intel's entire stock of the new 28 W 10th gen CPUs but they are hopelessly behind.

Years is typically an exaggeration, but Apple is behind.

Fall 2019, is when Ice Lake came to market. Razer launched a 3 lbs 13" laptop with a 25 W i7-1065G7, they also had another laptop with the 15 W i7-1065G7 and a GTX 1650 Max-Q 4 GB. Here we are in May and Razer already refreshed that laptop with the 25 W i7-1065G7 and a GTX 1650 Ti Max-Q 4 GB.

So while Apple is waiting 6+ months to get the 28 W variant (iGPU only) of a 25 W CPU, other OEMs already launched their devices with that same CPU and an actual dGPU in a 13" laptop half a year ago.

Meanwhile, laptops with AMD's Ryzen 4000 U series are coming to market now and are significantly more powerful than Intel's Ice Lake. They're offering performance competitive with Intel's 45 W H series chips.

To top it off, other OEMs are already testing Intel's upcoming Tiger Lake-U with Xe graphics for laptops coming to market in roughly 5 months. 

debusoh

Ready to buy a 16” MacBook Pro to replace my woefully outdated 2010 MacBook Pro.

Hoping Apple roles out a CPU spec bump soon!

jdb8167

KITA said:

jdb8167 said:

Where are all those posters saying that Apple is "years" behind the industry with the MacBook Pro. Sure, they just bought out Intel's entire stock of the new 28 W 10th gen CPUs but they are hopelessly behind.

Years is typically an exaggeration, but Apple is behind.

Fall 2019, is when Ice Lake came to market. Razer launched a 3 lbs 13" laptop with a 25 W i7-1065G7, they also had another laptop with the 15 W i7-1065G7 and a GTX 1650 Max-Q 4 GB. Here we are in May and Razer already refreshed that laptop with the 25 W i7-1065G7 and a GTX 1650 Ti Max-Q 4 GB.

So while Apple is waiting 6+ months to get the 28 W variant (iGPU only) of a 25 W CPU, other OEMs already launched their devices with that same CPU and an actual dGPU in a 13" laptop half a year ago.

Meanwhile, laptops with AMD's Ryzen 4000 U series are coming to market now and are significantly more powerful than Intel's Ice Lake. They're offering performance competitive with Intel's 45 W H series chips.

To top it off, other OEMs are already testing Intel's upcoming Tiger Lake-U with Xe graphics for laptops coming to market in roughly 5 months. 

I don’t know when the 13” Razer launched but the only one in stock is the $2000 16 GB/512 GB version. The only thing better in the specs is that it has a discrete GPU. Important if you are a gamer but not very interesting to me. 

The MacBook Pro for the same price has 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports instead of one. It can be upgraded to 32 GB of RAM instead of just 16GB. Also up to 4 TB SSD instead of limited to 512 GB. The CPU difference might also be pretty significant. The base clock and boost is much higher on the i7-1068G7. 

Apple may have been behind last Fall but they aren’t any longer. For my money they are now in the lead. YMMV. 

We’ll see if Intel can deliver on Tiger Lake. 

kpom

Apple generally ships MacBooks with new Intel chips a few months after other manufacturers. This isn’t anything new. They are one of the largest volume shippers of computers over $1000, and Intel hasn’t been able to guarantee sufficient volumes of the processors Apple uses at the time they announce a new generation. Razer, etc. ship in much smaller volumes, and even companies like HP and Dell ship large quantities of PCs with older or lower-end processors (mostly bulk sales), so while they usually announce flagships running the new generation earlier than Apple, the actual volumes of those flagships they ship is often lower.

That said, this is one reason why Apple is likely going to switch to its own chips.