The key to Apple’s vision for performance is clearly understood when you read between the lines of what Johny Srouji said. Of course he also spoke about power, thermals and economy. But with this modular/embedded type approach of processor design, you’re not locked into this massive and weighted down legacy CPU architecture that Intel is stuck with. And performance isn’t held hostage by power nearly as much. Apple can now truly differentiate their product line by WHAT the products are optimized for, instead of settling for off the shelf workstation CPUs that are now clearly trapped in their own post-Moore’s Law hell, equally bloated GPUs that are wasting away during 50% to 80% of the total computing time. Throw in various storage bus types like SATA II, PCIe and m.2, then for fun add in the the OS and applications that have to manage this massive hodgepodge of hardware.
Johny Srouji said:
“(It started with) a scalable architecture custom-designed for Apple products, (then) our team scaled our architecture and designed the most optimized and highest performance chip possible, and this foreshadows how well our architecture will scale into the Mac. The first thing this will do is give the Mac a whole new level of performance. Our plan is to give the Mac a much higher level of performance. Our scalable architecture includes many custom technologies that when integrated with our software Will bring even more innovation to the Mac. We are designing a family of SoC‘s specifically for the Mac product line. This will give the Mac a unique set of features and incredible performance. The Mac will take another huge leap forward.”
if Apple continues with their “pedal to the metal” approach to the Mac that they started a couple of years ago, Macs could be a generation ahead of the competition in three years. However, I noticed how much of a point they made about virtual machines and running Linux. Obvious this is to balance out loosing Windows on Boot Camp along with native x86. And then there’s Big Sur. It’s Yosemite all over again. It’s iOS on a Mac. That’s NOT the right image to present, IMO. It says, our weaker platform is more popular than our power user platform and let’s play this conservatively in case our SoCs can’t scale up to what power users are going to expect.
Stay aggressive Apple. Boost of your power, don’t try and hide your weakness. Maybe Tim needs to watch some of Jobs’ old NeXT keynotes. Those were demonstrations of power. And before someone points out that NeXT failed, well they didn’t. NeXT was a technology demonstration that succeeded as Apple a decade later.
You might be close on the CPU cost for the low end models, but I'd guess that Apple is going to need multiple configurations, with a very large die for a Mac Pro. Then there's the integration of the CPU into the SOC, and that is likely to be a comparatively large package compared even to the iPad. Apple could see some real savings once the new Mac line has been established.
That said, I agree with Rayz2016. Pricing of new models comparable to current models will be very close to the same.
Agreed that the Mac Pro will have its own chip design and won't use the laptop design.
Also, it's possible for Apple to go with an AMD-like chiplet architecture as well - a compute die and an I/O die for example. Would let them have a range of configurations in the Mac Pro, and small (cheap, high yield) CPU dies in various configurations (1x 16C, 2x 16C, 4x 16C for example).
Yes, I don't think Apple will cut pricing massively, if at all, with the transition. I believe they will actually go for shock-and-awe performance improvements - a 12 core CPU replacing 4C Intel could do that.
My guess is Apple will be done with Intel before the end of 2021, but will continue a few months longer to sell some Intel systems only because of demand.
(Analysts seemingly forget that when enumerating all of the included hardware, Apple's devices are competitively priced, especially in the Pro range.)
Waaaaa? Dude... not even close. Not even close. That’s before even taking into account Apple’s built in obsolescence by gluing everything down and having to buy gobs of external peripherals with hubs and adapters and proprietary cables.
Apple was competitive up to about 2012 - but has screamed away since.
Apple’s announcement yesterday officially makes the Mac Pro the worst investment in computer history.
(Analysts seemingly forget that when enumerating all of the included hardware, Apple's devices are competitively priced, especially in the Pro range.)
Waaaaa? Dude... not even close. Not even close. That’s before even taking into account Apple’s built in obsolescence by gluing everything down and having to buy gobs of external peripherals with hubs and adapters and proprietary cables.
Apple was competitive up to about 2012 - but has screamed away since.
Apple’s announcement yesterday officially makes the Mac Pro the worst investment in computer history.
Yes, because as soon as Apple releases a new machine, every other Mac in existence mysteriously stops working. 🙄
(Analysts seemingly forget that when enumerating all of the included hardware, Apple's devices are competitively priced, especially in the Pro range.)
Waaaaa? Dude... not even close. Not even close. That’s before even taking into account Apple’s built in obsolescence by gluing everything down and having to buy gobs of external peripherals with hubs and adapters and proprietary cables.
Apple was competitive up to about 2012 - but has screamed away since.
Apple’s announcement yesterday officially makes the Mac Pro the worst investment in computer history.
Is this a serious post??..... Waaaaaa?
All the movie studios need to read your post after making millions on their return. You should be their financial advisor. They need to sell their Mac Pros and replace them with Windows machines that will crash and erase their data.
How much more? Without a $ figure just useless speculation.
Doesn't matter. It's ONE component. If Apple saves the consumer $200 then most likely Apple will make it up by increasing other features like screen tech, security and keyboards etc. This conversation is useless.
Apple will most likely save more money which will allow them to add more for the same price. They did something similar with iPhone/iPad.
So, as predicted, these new machines will cost customers more, too. No surprise.
Kuo didn’t say that. He said it would cost Apple more. If you assume Apple passes this cost to the customer immediately, prices may go up. Although, it is a reasonable assumption.
This headline is a bit misleading. Of course, new models and new tooling cost more than reusing similar designs. That’s the very nature of any new design. Obviously, the added costs of the transition are taken into account by Apple.
I dont see anything non-obvious or materially relevant in this article. Just comments about what is normal.
Also, the costs of Intel processors are reduced due to their very high volume -- covering almost every personal computer these days.
Macs are only a small part of that market. And, even iPhones are a small part of the smart phone market. So, it is reasonable that the cost per unit of an Apple Chip will be higher than that of an equivalent Intel chip.
If the price of Intel’s CPUs is “reduced”, I’d hate to see what they would charge otherwise!
Sorry, but economy of scale counts....
I haven't seen any numbers, but I suspect it would not be out of line to say there are (and will be) 10 Intel processors sold from every Apple processor....
The same holds true for Windows versus MacOS: the fixed costs of developing, maintaining and supporting MacOS are spread over far fewer units -- which makes the unit cost far higher -- which we see in the selling price of Macs.
And then there’s Big Sur. It’s Yosemite all over again. It’s iOS on a Mac. That’s NOT the right image to present, IMO. It says, our weaker platform is more popular than our power user platform and let’s play this conservatively in case our SoCs can’t scale up to what power users are going to expect.
^ unadulterated bullshit. Nothing they said indicates any of this.
(Analysts seemingly forget that when enumerating all of the included hardware, Apple's devices are competitively priced, especially in the Pro range.)
That’s before even taking into account Apple’s built in obsolescence by gluing everything down and having to buy gobs of external peripherals with hubs and adapters and proprietary cables.
More bullshit. Nobody needs "gobs of external peripherals" unless they already did. This is nonsense.
Comments
“(It started with) a scalable architecture custom-designed for Apple products, (then) our team scaled our architecture and designed the most optimized and highest performance chip possible, and this foreshadows how well our architecture will scale into the Mac. The first thing this will do is give the Mac a whole new level of performance. Our plan is to give the Mac a much higher level of performance. Our scalable architecture includes many custom technologies that when integrated with our software Will bring even more innovation to the Mac. We are designing a family of SoC‘s specifically for the Mac product line. This will give the Mac a unique set of features and incredible performance. The Mac will take another huge leap forward.”
if Apple continues with their “pedal to the metal” approach to the Mac that they started a couple of years ago, Macs could be a generation ahead of the competition in three years. However, I noticed how much of a point they made about virtual machines and running Linux. Obvious this is to balance out loosing Windows on Boot Camp along with native x86. And then there’s Big Sur. It’s Yosemite all over again. It’s iOS on a Mac. That’s NOT the right image to present, IMO. It says, our weaker platform is more popular than our power user platform and let’s play this conservatively in case our SoCs can’t scale up to what power users are going to expect.
Also, it's possible for Apple to go with an AMD-like chiplet architecture as well - a compute die and an I/O die for example. Would let them have a range of configurations in the Mac Pro, and small (cheap, high yield) CPU dies in various configurations (1x 16C, 2x 16C, 4x 16C for example).
Yes, I don't think Apple will cut pricing massively, if at all, with the transition. I believe they will actually go for shock-and-awe performance improvements - a 12 core CPU replacing 4C Intel could do that.
My guess is Apple will be done with Intel before the end of 2021, but will continue a few months longer to sell some Intel systems only because of demand.
Dude... not even close. Not even close. That’s before even taking into account Apple’s built in obsolescence by gluing everything down and having to buy gobs of external peripherals with hubs and adapters and proprietary cables.
/Pet Peeve
All the movie studios need to read your post after making millions on their return. You should be their financial advisor. They need to sell their Mac Pros and replace them with Windows machines that will crash and erase their data.
Doesn't matter. It's ONE component. If Apple saves the consumer $200 then most likely Apple will make it up by increasing other features like screen tech, security and keyboards etc. This conversation is useless.
Apple will most likely save more money which will allow them to add more for the same price. They did something similar with iPhone/iPad.
More bullshit. Nobody needs "gobs of external peripherals" unless they already did. This is nonsense.