My biggest complaint with my work-issued 2018 MBP15 is that it runs hot when I have it connected to an external monitor and using the builtin keyboard. The top surface gets hot, heating up the keyboard! I really like the butterfly keyboard a lot more than the work-issue Macally one, and my work from home setup is bit too space constrained for an external keyboard anyways.
Hopefully they can have a 25 W SoC that keeps the keyboard and top case cool while providing better performance than Intel systems. Actually, I think they can put the logic board behind the display by the hinge if it is long skinny like the iPad Pros. That'll remove the primary source of heat from the keyboard and keep it nice and cool at all times.
Behind the display? I doubt the fan and the heatsink will fit.
The new chip will most likely run hotter than the current A series since they will want it to be more powerful and don't forget the GPU! If there's a fan less version it will most likely be a 13" MBP.
I think it could be possible. MS already did it in the Surface Book. Maybe Apple could do it with the new, smaller SoC's.
Apple already does this with iPads long before Surface was released. Stop trying to insinuate MS’ prior art, it really has none.
It would have been more interesting to see a comparison between Ryzen 4000 Mobile and Apple A Processors.
Bashing Intel is no news. Apple needs to beat AMD now, not Intel and this is much less likely given how perfect the recent AMD Notebooks have been considering the relevant metrics.
Apple uses Intel processors not AMD. This article compares, not bashes current or relatively current Apple offerings to give an idea of how Apple Silicon is already doing an impressive work to keep up.
If Apple wanted to, they can take their Macs to 128bit or more. Imagine, for Mac Pros, multiple 256bit processors. Apple has now unleashed their potential. Software developers now can do apps that cover all the Apple hardware.
While you seem to be randomly throwing bit count around without having the necessary technical understanding to do so, I would like to point out that Apple will not be competing against Intel based machines but AMD based ones. So it is well in the interest of the average reader to see how Apple can keep up with AMD.
AMD are just playing the Intel game; showing TDP for base clock. When that jumps 2.5x for turbo, the 4800U won’t be drawing 15W, it’ll be cooking x64 eggs. Perhaps Apple should do the same & release the small-core TDP only.
I'm still rather puzzled as to what Apple is doing to do in terms of a GPU. Will it be part of the main SoC or will Apple introduce some discrete GPU for the iMac.
I reckon they’ll keep it integrated as much as possible as the benefits of shared memory are huge. It would be good to see what they can do with a dGPU though.
It would have been more interesting to see a comparison between Ryzen 4000 Mobile and Apple A Processors.
Bashing Intel is no news. Apple needs to beat AMD now, not Intel and this is much less likely given how perfect the recent AMD Notebooks have been considering the relevant metrics.
Apple uses Intel processors not AMD. This article compares, not bashes current or relatively current Apple offerings to give an idea of how Apple Silicon is already doing an impressive work to keep up.
If Apple wanted to, they can take their Macs to 128bit or more. Imagine, for Mac Pros, multiple 256bit processors. Apple has now unleashed their potential. Software developers now can do apps that cover all the Apple hardware.
While you seem to be randomly throwing bit count around without having the necessary technical understanding to do so, I would like to point out that Apple will not be competing against Intel based machines but AMD based ones. So it is well in the interest of the average reader to see how Apple can keep up with AMD.
It is called doubling, not random. A series was 32 bit and is now 64 bit. Double that is 128 bit and doubling that is 256 bit. Apple does have the expertise to do that. Again, Apple is no longer constrained. Apple could run multiple CPUs and they can increase the. CPU bit count and run multiple CPUs for high end computers.
Again, this article was about comparing existing and recent Macs to the recent and existing Apple Silicon. You may think and wish for an Article of AMD vs Apple Silicon, however that wasn’t the point of this article. Your are always welcome to ask for such and article, write your own article, or post in the forums a comparative analysis your or someone else has done.
For me, AMD isn’t in the picture unless I’m running Windows or Linux. My Linux machine is a 2009 iMac. My Windows Laptop is dead. I like the Apple eco system. This was a good article and comparison for me.
My biggest complaint with my work-issued 2018 MBP15 is that it runs hot when I have it connected to an external monitor and using the builtin keyboard. The top surface gets hot, heating up the keyboard! I really like the butterfly keyboard a lot more than the work-issue Macally one, and my work from home setup is bit too space constrained for an external keyboard anyways.
I have the same experience with temperature as you in my MBP 13" 2017. The keyboard gets hot when running some applications and doing video conference. Looking forward how the new Apple notebooks improve this issue.
Hopefully they can have a 25 W SoC that keeps the keyboard and top case cool while providing better performance than Intel systems. Actually, I think they can put the logic board behind the display by the hinge if it is long skinny like the iPad Pros. That'll remove the primary source of heat from the keyboard and keep it nice and cool at all times.
What you propose is was MS did with the Surface Book. You'll have to sacrifice some inches in the screen, with the benefit that you mentioned. I think it could be possible with the new, smaller SoC's.
I think it is possible to put in an active cooling system for a 6 mm thick device like an iPad, so 15W to 30W SoCs are possible. The display should be wedged shaped where is tapers to the thinness of Apple's current laptop displays. I'm also all in on have the front cams stick out like they do on phones. The logic board also needs to be as close to the hinge as possible so the laptop can stay balanced.
Not that I think they would do it. It's just the transition to Apple Silicon represents a big opportunity to redesign a laptop inside and outside, and I hope Apple takes it. Apple Silicon logic boards will be smaller than Intel boards by quite a bit, and with lower power, the batteries can get smaller too. This provides some opportunities for design. They can do some pretty wild things.
These low power chips enable all sorts of possibilities in both the laptops and the iPads to get a bit more performance with passive systems. For example they could simply machine the case into a more performant heat sink and mount the SoC directly to the optimized shell. The shell already impacts thermal performance but this would be a more direct usage of the shell as a traditional heat sink. The trick is to design in the fins so that they look acceptable. We might be only talking a few whats more capability for passive cooling but that could have a big impact. Other possibilities include carbon fiber heat sinks to spread the heat even faster. I don't ever see 15 to 30 watts. sustained, in an iPad though, it is just foo much no matter how good your heat sinking is. The real trick in these very compact or thin devices, like an iPad or Mac Book, is getting good sustained performance to avoid the machine crapping out from continuous use. You don't want frequency scalling to impact the feel of the machine like it did on the old Mac Books.
In any event yeah these ARM chips should make for some interesting new products from Apple. The question is will this be the first round of machines or will the real innovation come in round two. I'm actually holding off on buying an AMD laptop as I'm really interested in seeing ARM done right in the PC space. Unless Apple goes nuts with pricing or screws up Mac OS i could see getting back into the Mac laptops as secondary machines. If Mac OS gets locked down even more I can see myself rejecting based on that issue alone.
Probably a mix and match of keeping the existing form factors to debuting a new form factor. It's just going to depend on where the particular product is in the design cycle.
Yes, for an iPad, no more than 7 to 8 W. It's a handheld device and that should automatically limit it to passive cooling from the case without it being uncomfortable to touch. But on a laptop that only has about say 3 mm of height for a fan and heatsink, I think 15 W is definitely possible. Apple achieves 15 W with about 8 mm of height an one fan for the 2 port. A bigger fan, a bigger heat sink, more airflow could probably achieve double that. But Apple simply isn't going to do that or really doesn't want to so it. They want to get away from having to design around hot components in their machines. So, if they have a thin and light laptop, it is likely going to use a lower Watt SoC that outperforms Intel and AMD thin and light laptops, that use hotter components.
The decreased logic board area and decreased battery capacities does offer some interesting things though. If the board gets small enough, there may be enough room for a keyboard with 3 to 4 mm of travel. A nice clickity-clackity 4 mm travel laptop keyboard would be very very interesting. The dual display clamshell or folding display clamshell can be 6 mm thick unfolded, 12 mm closed. There are going to be a few Lakefield laptops like this, but Apple should be able to crush them in terms of performances and the number of touchscreen apps too.
Hopefully, one of their big priorities is to have none of their Apple silicon laptops be uncomfortable to the touch. No more than 85 °F or something like that. They'd rather use a 10 W SoC than a 20 W SoC in a MBP13, or a 25 W SoC than a 50 W SoC in a MPB16, if they can help it.
I can imagine all sorts of possibilities for low power but performant SoC. One idea that I really would love to see Apple do is to make a keyboard with a built in Mac! Considering how good keyboards are designed they should be able to do this either passively cooled or actively cooled without blowing out the size of the keyboard. Connect the keyboard to a monitor supporting USB power delivery and you have a complete computing solution. For some people the monitor would need to support additional I/O for others WiFi in the keyboard would be enough. The nice thing is this could be delivered as the new low cost Mac solution while the Mini gets reconfigured into a machine that more people would actually buy.
As for the laptops I'm with you at least partially, but honestly if the MBP don't get hot they are not getting max performance out of the platform and most users of these machines need all the performance they can get. A passively cooled Mac Book and even the Mac Book Airs though are not performance machines and as such should run cooler. I'd rather see real steeps in capability going from each class of machine - Mac Book = limited connectivity / performance; Mac Book Airs = more connectivity and 2X the performance; Mac Book Pros = max connectivity and at least 4x the performance. Frankly connectivity might mean bringing back some old features depending upon the class of machine. SD slots is a huge one and frankly it wouldn't hurt to see Ethernet on the Pros. Performance would come from clock rate increases in part but mostly by more cores. Cores are especially important for MBP users so when I say at least 4X I mean 4 times the number of cores in the Mac Book. I think this is very possible at 5 nm using some of the techniques common on the AMD side of the industry.
It would have been more interesting to see a comparison between Ryzen 4000 Mobile and Apple A Processors.
Bashing Intel is no news. Apple needs to beat AMD now, not Intel and this is much less likely given how perfect the recent AMD Notebooks have been considering the relevant metrics.
Apple uses Intel processors not AMD. This article compares, not bashes current or relatively current Apple offerings to give an idea of how Apple Silicon is already doing an impressive work to keep up.
If Apple wanted to, they can take their Macs to 128bit or more. Imagine, for Mac Pros, multiple 256bit processors. Apple has now unleashed their potential. Software developers now can do apps that cover all the Apple hardware.
While you seem to be randomly throwing bit count around without having the necessary technical understanding to do so, I would like to point out that Apple will not be competing against Intel based machines but AMD based ones. So it is well in the interest of the average reader to see how Apple can keep up with AMD.
AMD are just playing the Intel game; showing TDP for base clock. When that jumps 2.5x for turbo, the 4800U won’t be drawing 15W, it’ll be cooking x64 eggs. Perhaps Apple should do the same & release the small-core TDP only.
Obviously you haven't read any recent reviews. Beyond that AMD and Intel calculate their TDP numbers differently. In any event the AMD laptops are demonstrating an amazing ability to keep cool while under load. They might not do as well as intel at idle but for people that actually use their laptops AMD has proven to be far less demandign power wise while giving better performance on a number of work loads. Effectively you don't know what is actually going on with modern processors.
It would have been more interesting to see a comparison between Ryzen 4000 Mobile and Apple A Processors.
Bashing Intel is no news. Apple needs to beat AMD now, not Intel and this is much less likely given how perfect the recent AMD Notebooks have been considering the relevant metrics.
Apple uses Intel processors not AMD. This article compares, not bashes current or relatively current Apple offerings to give an idea of how Apple Silicon is already doing an impressive work to keep up.
If Apple wanted to, they can take their Macs to 128bit or more. Imagine, for Mac Pros, multiple 256bit processors. Apple has now unleashed their potential. Software developers now can do apps that cover all the Apple hardware.
While you seem to be randomly throwing bit count around without having the necessary technical understanding to do so, I would like to point out that Apple will not be competing against Intel based machines but AMD based ones. So it is well in the interest of the average reader to see how Apple can keep up with AMD.
AMD are just playing the Intel game; showing TDP for base clock. When that jumps 2.5x for turbo, the 4800U won’t be drawing 15W, it’ll be cooking x64 eggs. Perhaps Apple should do the same & release the small-core TDP only.
Obviously you haven't read any recent reviews. Beyond that AMD and Intel calculate their TDP numbers differently. In any event the AMD laptops are demonstrating an amazing ability to keep cool while under load. They might not do as well as intel at idle but for people that actually use their laptops AMD has proven to be far less demandign power wise while giving better performance on a number of work loads. Effectively you don't know what is actually going on with modern processors.
Golden Cove is just around the corner nor does stacking core would always be the winning solution. We'll see, if anyone still interested.
I should also mention that AMD only made it with their current 4th-gen, they don't even have the advantage when the 16" is launched.
It would have been more interesting to see a comparison between Ryzen 4000 Mobile and Apple A Processors.
Bashing Intel is no news. Apple needs to beat AMD now, not Intel and this is much less likely given how perfect the recent AMD Notebooks have been considering the relevant metrics.
Apple uses Intel processors not AMD. This article compares, not bashes current or relatively current Apple offerings to give an idea of how Apple Silicon is already doing an impressive work to keep up.
If Apple wanted to, they can take their Macs to 128bit or more. Imagine, for Mac Pros, multiple 256bit processors. Apple has now unleashed their potential. Software developers now can do apps that cover all the Apple hardware.
While you seem to be randomly throwing bit count around without having the necessary technical understanding to do so, I would like to point out that Apple will not be competing against Intel based machines but AMD based ones. So it is well in the interest of the average reader to see how Apple can keep up with AMD.
It is called doubling, not random. A series was 32 bit and is now 64 bit. Double that is 128 bit and doubling that is 256 bit. Apple does have the expertise to do that. Again, Apple is no longer constrained. Apple could run multiple CPUs and they can increase the. CPU bit count and run multiple CPUs for high end computers.
Again, this article was about comparing existing and recent Macs to the recent and existing Apple Silicon. You may think and wish for an Article of AMD vs Apple Silicon, however that wasn’t the point of this article. Your are always welcome to ask for such and article, write your own article, or post in the forums a comparative analysis your or someone else has done.
For me, AMD isn’t in the picture unless I’m running Windows or Linux. My Linux machine is a 2009 iMac. My Windows Laptop is dead. I like the Apple eco system. This was a good article and comparison for me.
The other poster was calling into question your understanding of computer architecture and this post just highlights that you are missing the information to post rationally. Almost all processor chips support register sizes wider that 64 bit via various instruction set extensions. So a computer with 128 bit registers is nothing new they are just specialized. In fact ARM already has the infrastructure for 2000 bit vectors but no hardware implementation yet. As for the main ALU there is little reason to move beyond 64 bit registers in the near future. Hardware these days doesn't even use the full 64 bit addressing range which is often limited to 42 to 48 bits. so I don't know what you are doubling or even if you know what you are doubling but the base register size in the ALU is not going past 64 bit anytime soon.
As for what the article is comparing it clearly was i86 against Apple Silicon. The fact is Intel has screwed up significantly and frankly hasn't been competitive with AMD in a good two years now. So any comparison with respect to Intel Macs has to also consider where Apples hardware will be against AMD as that is what modern PC hardware is built upon. It is like the stupidity of comparing a Mac Pro as a high performance workstation against other Intel machines ignoring the fact that everybody building a high performance workstations have gone with AMD's Thread Ripper. In the end when Apple actually launches Apple Silicon, it is going to be benchmarked against AMD hardware.
The thing here is that if you are interested in Apple Silicon, no x86 chip is in your picture. However if you want to know just how good those chips are you need to compare them with AMD's offerings. Honestly this article was garbage as far as I'm concerned because Apple has already said that current A series doesn't represent what will be shipped in the coming hardware. There are several things to consider here. First there are changes that can be expected to increase performance out of the CPU's. Second, it isn't about the CPUs on the die as much as it is the totality of the SOC and everything Apple can implement there. This is very important because they can add features that have nothing to do with the CPU but over all enhance the Mac experience.
It would have been more interesting to see a comparison between Ryzen 4000 Mobile and Apple A Processors.
Bashing Intel is no news. Apple needs to beat AMD now, not Intel and this is much less likely given how perfect the recent AMD Notebooks have been considering the relevant metrics.
Apple uses Intel processors not AMD. This article compares, not bashes current or relatively current Apple offerings to give an idea of how Apple Silicon is already doing an impressive work to keep up.
If Apple wanted to, they can take their Macs to 128bit or more. Imagine, for Mac Pros, multiple 256bit processors. Apple has now unleashed their potential. Software developers now can do apps that cover all the Apple hardware.
While you seem to be randomly throwing bit count around without having the necessary technical understanding to do so, I would like to point out that Apple will not be competing against Intel based machines but AMD based ones. So it is well in the interest of the average reader to see how Apple can keep up with AMD.
It is called doubling, not random. A series was 32 bit and is now 64 bit. Double that is 128 bit and doubling that is 256 bit. Apple does have the expertise to do that. Again, Apple is no longer constrained. Apple could run multiple CPUs and they can increase the. CPU bit count and run multiple CPUs for high end computers.
Again, this article was about comparing existing and recent Macs to the recent and existing Apple Silicon. You may think and wish for an Article of AMD vs Apple Silicon, however that wasn’t the point of this article. Your are always welcome to ask for such and article, write your own article, or post in the forums a comparative analysis your or someone else has done.
For me, AMD isn’t in the picture unless I’m running Windows or Linux. My Linux machine is a 2009 iMac. My Windows Laptop is dead. I like the Apple eco system. This was a good article and comparison for me.
The other poster was calling into question your understanding of computer architecture and this post just highlights that you are missing the information to post rationally. Almost all processor chips support register sizes wider that 64 bit via various instruction set extensions. So a computer with 128 bit registers is nothing new they are just specialized. In fact ARM already has the infrastructure for 2000 bit vectors but no hardware implementation yet. As for the main ALU there is little reason to move beyond 64 bit registers in the near future. Hardware these days doesn't even use the full 64 bit addressing range which is often limited to 42 to 48 bits. so I don't know what you are doubling or even if you know what you are doubling but the base register size in the ALU is not going past 64 bit anytime soon.
As for what the article is comparing it clearly was i86 against Apple Silicon. The fact is Intel has screwed up significantly and frankly hasn't been competitive with AMD in a good two years now. So any comparison with respect to Intel Macs has to also consider where Apples hardware will be against AMD as that is what modern PC hardware is built upon. It is like the stupidity of comparing a Mac Pro as a high performance workstation against other Intel machines ignoring the fact that everybody building a high performance workstations have gone with AMD's Thread Ripper. In the end when Apple actually launches Apple Silicon, it is going to be benchmarked against AMD hardware.
The thing here is that if you are interested in Apple Silicon, no x86 chip is in your picture. However if you want to know just how good those chips are you need to compare them with AMD's offerings. Honestly this article was garbage as far as I'm concerned because Apple has already said that current A series doesn't represent what will be shipped in the coming hardware. There are several things to consider here. First there are changes that can be expected to increase performance out of the CPU's. Second, it isn't about the CPUs on the die as much as it is the totality of the SOC and everything Apple can implement there. This is very important because they can add features that have nothing to do with the CPU but over all enhance the Mac experience.
I'll say it again, those who need the Mac Pro wouldn't give a nickel about Threadripper. That ridiculous comparison is only good for AMD fanboys.
Multiple comparisons such as those in this article are why tables and graphs were invented.
Yes but that results in two problems.
The author can't feel good about himself by writing a wall of text that really doesn't mean much.
We don''t actually have shipping Mac ARM chips so there would be plenty of blank space in any honest comparison chart.
What baffles the mind is that Apple has clearly stated that the development Macs, with ARM chips, sent out don't represent the coming Macs. In fact those development platforms are using an older ARM chip. For various reasons the currently shipping A series are not likely representative of the coming Macs either. Now I expect the Mac chips will inherit much from the A series and a Mac Book might even use an A series chip, but to address the competitive landscape they will need to implement a far more performant solution. So I'm at a loss to see the value in this article, I doubt that the Mac processors will even be in the A series lineup.
Why do I say this, simple performance still matters!
(nonsense)
I agree, but that's only one of many aspects. Other besides enthusaists (aka HEDT users) Nobody is driven purely by performance alone.
Let's cope with reality a bit, how many corporate fat cats will just sitting around with their $75,000 machine and just run Cinebench all day? Or do they really want to risk a Hackintosh just because Threadripper have 2x more cores? What about proprietary solutions like Afterburner? Or above all else, Is Intel really going to abandon a platform only released for a year?
This forum loves to brag about how every single performance matters, but everything had to be stop at and consider other aspects.
There is so much potential with Apple Silicon. Since the A12 is already on par with i7, the imagination goes wild if one considers Apple probably have been developing Mac specific processors for several years. More power in a smaller footprint means plenty of headroom to increase power in high end units and increase portability in low end units.
It would have been more interesting to see a comparison between Ryzen 4000 Mobile and Apple A Processors.
Bashing Intel is no news. Apple needs to beat AMD now, not Intel and this is much less likely given how perfect the recent AMD Notebooks have been considering the relevant metrics.
Apple uses Intel processors not AMD. This article compares, not bashes current or relatively current Apple offerings to give an idea of how Apple Silicon is already doing an impressive work to keep up.
If Apple wanted to, they can take their Macs to 128bit or more. Imagine, for Mac Pros, multiple 256bit processors. Apple has now unleashed their potential. Software developers now can do apps that cover all the Apple hardware.
Apple SHOULD have been using AMD processors for a few years now. The exclusivity deal with Intel ended years ago, and in the last few years AMD gained the upper hand in processor speed. It might have even let us avoid this Apple silicon fiasco.
And what benefit would there be for 128 bit processors? That's a "but these go to 11" bit of idiocy. How many petabytes of RAM do you think we'll need to be able to address in the next few decades? 64 bit processors are going to continue to be the standard for a very long time. There's just no reason to go to 128 bits, and lots of reasons not to do it. And 256 bit processors? Maybe 50-100 years from now that would make sense. Maybe.
It would have been more interesting to see a comparison between Ryzen 4000 Mobile and Apple A Processors.
Bashing Intel is no news. Apple needs to beat AMD now, not Intel and this is much less likely given how perfect the recent AMD Notebooks have been considering the relevant metrics.
Apple uses Intel processors not AMD. This article compares, not bashes current or relatively current Apple offerings to give an idea of how Apple Silicon is already doing an impressive work to keep up.
If Apple wanted to, they can take their Macs to 128bit or more. Imagine, for Mac Pros, multiple 256bit processors. Apple has now unleashed their potential. Software developers now can do apps that cover all the Apple hardware.
Apple SHOULD have been using AMD processors for a few years now. The exclusivity deal with Intel ended years ago, and in the last few years AMD gained the upper hand in processor speed. It might have even let us avoid this Apple silicon fiasco.
And what benefit would there be for 128 bit processors? That's a "but these go to 11" bit of idiocy. How many petabytes of RAM do you think we'll need to be able to address in the next few decades? 64 bit processors are going to continue to be the standard for a very long time. There's just no reason to go to 128 bits, and lots of reasons not to do it. And 256 bit processors? Maybe 50-100 years from now that would make sense. Maybe.
It would have been more interesting to see a comparison between Ryzen 4000 Mobile and Apple A Processors.
Bashing Intel is no news. Apple needs to beat AMD now, not Intel and this is much less likely given how perfect the recent AMD Notebooks have been considering the relevant metrics.
Apple uses Intel processors not AMD. This article compares, not bashes current or relatively current Apple offerings to give an idea of how Apple Silicon is already doing an impressive work to keep up.
If Apple wanted to, they can take their Macs to 128bit or more. Imagine, for Mac Pros, multiple 256bit processors. Apple has now unleashed their potential. Software developers now can do apps that cover all the Apple hardware.
While you seem to be randomly throwing bit count around without having the necessary technical understanding to do so, I would like to point out that Apple will not be competing against Intel based machines but AMD based ones. So it is well in the interest of the average reader to see how Apple can keep up with AMD.
It is called doubling, not random. A series was 32 bit and is now 64 bit. Double that is 128 bit and doubling that is 256 bit. Apple does have the expertise to do that. Again, Apple is no longer constrained. Apple could run multiple CPUs and they can increase the. CPU bit count and run multiple CPUs for high end computers.
Again, this article was about comparing existing and recent Macs to the recent and existing Apple Silicon. You may think and wish for an Article of AMD vs Apple Silicon, however that wasn’t the point of this article. Your are always welcome to ask for such and article, write your own article, or post in the forums a comparative analysis your or someone else has done.
For me, AMD isn’t in the picture unless I’m running Windows or Linux. My Linux machine is a 2009 iMac. My Windows Laptop is dead. I like the Apple eco system. This was a good article and comparison for me.
The other poster was calling into question your understanding of computer architecture and this post just highlights that you are missing the information to post rationally. Almost all processor chips support register sizes wider that 64 bit via various instruction set extensions. So a computer with 128 bit registers is nothing new they are just specialized. In fact ARM already has the infrastructure for 2000 bit vectors but no hardware implementation yet. As for the main ALU there is little reason to move beyond 64 bit registers in the near future. Hardware these days doesn't even use the full 64 bit addressing range which is often limited to 42 to 48 bits. so I don't know what you are doubling or even if you know what you are doubling but the base register size in the ALU is not going past 64 bit anytime soon.
As for what the article is comparing it clearly was i86 against Apple Silicon. The fact is Intel has screwed up significantly and frankly hasn't been competitive with AMD in a good two years now. So any comparison with respect to Intel Macs has to also consider where Apples hardware will be against AMD as that is what modern PC hardware is built upon. It is like the stupidity of comparing a Mac Pro as a high performance workstation against other Intel machines ignoring the fact that everybody building a high performance workstations have gone with AMD's Thread Ripper. In the end when Apple actually launches Apple Silicon, it is going to be benchmarked against AMD hardware.
The thing here is that if you are interested in Apple Silicon, no x86 chip is in your picture. However if you want to know just how good those chips are you need to compare them with AMD's offerings. Honestly this article was garbage as far as I'm concerned because Apple has already said that current A series doesn't represent what will be shipped in the coming hardware. There are several things to consider here. First there are changes that can be expected to increase performance out of the CPU's. Second, it isn't about the CPUs on the die as much as it is the totality of the SOC and everything Apple can implement there. This is very important because they can add features that have nothing to do with the CPU but over all enhance the Mac experience.
Ok. You've had a lot to say about all this now. You obviously have some strong opinions about AMD and that's fine, but you've made some pretty wild and ridiculous comments in all that. "[I]f you are interested in Apple Silicon, no x86 chip is in your picture..." (umm... huh??) and even "So any comparison with respect to Intel Macs has to also consider where Apples hardware will be against AMD as that is what modern PC hardware is built upon." Umm... Just no. Not necessary in the slightest.
For one, I don't see any indication that PC manufacturers are large scale abandoning Intel and switching to AMD. The vast majority of the present and future of the PC market is still Intel. For two, you've completely missed the point. Yes you acknowledged that "the article is ... clearly ... i86 against Apple Silicon" but it's not in the slightest, and has no intention or need to be, about PCs, or what they're built on.
On the contrary, there are a lot of people, myself included, who are keenly interested in how Apple's new Macs are going to compare with the existing ones. I'm pretty sure a lot more people (in Apple's market - the target of this site) want to know that than care about AMD, or any of the other things you've ranted about there.
Sure an analysis about i86 vs ASi, and/or something about AMD, and/or other analyses will no doubt be interesting and helpful, especially for people wanting to compare tomorrow's Macs with today's and tomorrow's PCs, but none of that is what this article is even remotely trying, or needing, to be about.
Not i86 vs ASi. Today's Macs vs tomorrow's Macs. That is the point of this article. Now sure, what we know about that is pretty limited at the moment, but this article presents what we do know so far, pretty well. And at least what little we do know is some indication of what might be to come. This article about today's Macs vs tomorrow's Macs is exactly what it needs to be and what plenty of Apple users (this is AppleInsider after all) want to hear about. I for one found it very helpful.
Comments
Perhaps Apple should do the same & release the small-core TDP only.
Obviously you haven't read any recent reviews. Beyond that AMD and Intel calculate their TDP numbers differently. In any event the AMD laptops are demonstrating an amazing ability to keep cool while under load. They might not do as well as intel at idle but for people that actually use their laptops AMD has proven to be far less demandign power wise while giving better performance on a number of work loads. Effectively you don't know what is actually going on with modern processors.
I should also mention that AMD only made it with their current 4th-gen, they don't even have the advantage when the 16" is launched.
Let's cope with reality a bit, how many corporate fat cats will just sitting around with their $75,000 machine and just run Cinebench all day? Or do they really want to risk a Hackintosh just because Threadripper have 2x more cores? What about proprietary solutions like Afterburner? Or above all else, Is Intel really going to abandon a platform only released for a year?
This forum loves to brag about how every single performance matters, but everything had to be stop at and consider other aspects.
https://www.titancomputers.com/Titan-X650-Quad-CPUs-Intel-Xeon-E7-4800-8800-p/x650.htm
THIS WILL SURE RUNNING LOOPS AROUND THREADRIPPER, OR EVEN APPLE SILICON FOR THAT MATTER!
HOORAY APPLE DOOMD!
Ok. You've had a lot to say about all this now. You obviously have some strong opinions about AMD and that's fine, but you've made some pretty wild and ridiculous comments in all that. "[I]f you are interested in Apple Silicon, no x86 chip is in your picture..." (umm... huh??) and even "So any comparison with respect to Intel Macs has to also consider where Apples hardware will be against AMD as that is what modern PC hardware is built upon." Umm... Just no. Not necessary in the slightest.
For one, I don't see any indication that PC manufacturers are large scale abandoning Intel and switching to AMD. The vast majority of the present and future of the PC market is still Intel. For two, you've completely missed the point. Yes you acknowledged that "the article is ... clearly ... i86 against Apple Silicon" but it's not in the slightest, and has no intention or need to be, about PCs, or what they're built on.
On the contrary, there are a lot of people, myself included, who are keenly interested in how Apple's new Macs are going to compare with the existing ones. I'm pretty sure a lot more people (in Apple's market - the target of this site) want to know that than care about AMD, or any of the other things you've ranted about there.
Sure an analysis about i86 vs ASi, and/or something about AMD, and/or other analyses will no doubt be interesting and helpful, especially for people wanting to compare tomorrow's Macs with today's and tomorrow's PCs, but none of that is what this article is even remotely trying, or needing, to be about.
Not i86 vs ASi. Today's Macs vs tomorrow's Macs. That is the point of this article. Now sure, what we know about that is pretty limited at the moment, but this article presents what we do know so far, pretty well. And at least what little we do know is some indication of what might be to come. This article about today's Macs vs tomorrow's Macs is exactly what it needs to be and what plenty of Apple users (this is AppleInsider after all) want to hear about. I for one found it very helpful.