Just as I expected. They will be using their own in-house GPU. I'm guessing like the current M1 machines it will be price competitive with INTEL PCs on performance.
sure sounds reminiscent of a multi chip module! Makes sense for economies of scale
I wonder what the interconnect technology will be….
If they adopted CXL and PCIe 5 in the new chip would they need anything else as interconnect technology?
That would give them unified memory between all the chips and other processors that might also be connected by PCIe. If they took the current MacPro lopped off the space for IntelInside and used the back thermal chamber current used for memory for say 1 or 2 SOC's then they's still have a machine half the height with room for a couple of MPX modules and afterburner or other specialists card. Or one MPX and 3 other PCIe cards, drive raid or something else.
MPX card could be additional M2 Soc, an Apple GPU or Other GPU. AMD, nVidia and Intel all seem to options.
Edit: to add if they can get that in half height version of current case they could do a dual MacPro in the same case. It would seem odd they put so much effort in to that case when they knew full well the transition was coming.
I know it's an old well-worn wish from the Intel era but now Apple could (and I hope Apple does) make the full-on professional beast and also a mid-sized pro-sumer version. There are a ton of small businesses unable to justify the high-end Mac Pro but that have needs above the iMac and Mac mini range.
Apple absolutely needs an intro machine that is under $2000 and doesn't suck. They need that price to drive volume and to support the platform so that they can have high performance models. More so they need to go a step further and make sure the mother board is compatible for other platforms like an iMac Pro or an Xmac. Literally a multi use motherboard that again drives volume to address the issue of cost or more importantly the perception of value.
I totally agree! I feel like my customer demographic is not being catered too with their current product line. I bought Desktop Towers ever since the first blue and white G3 and stopped in 2013 when they shifted to the 'trash can' design that no longer allowed me to plug in my old SATA hard drives.
Why can't they offer something like this again? I'm sure I'm not the only one that used to regularly spend $2,500 to $3,000 on one of these every few years? And no, I'm not interested in an iMac! There has to be some middle ground between a MacMini and the current Desktop Pro. Why don't they come out with something midway and just call it a 'Mac', no 'mini', no 'Pro' just 'Mac'
60-cores total, 15 per chip. It says they will use up to 64GB HBM2 on-die memory (4 x 16GB stacks) up to 1TB/s combined with up to 4TB of lower bandwidth DDR5 memory (~300GB/s 8-channel).
It may be better for Apple to make a larger custom chip with different cores internally but it makes sense that it would be cost-effective with multiple chips and they can shut off entire chips to save power.
60-cores total, 15 per chip. It says they will use up to 64GB HBM2 on-die memory (4 x 16GB stacks) up to 1TB/s combined with up to 4TB of lower bandwidth DDR5 memory (~300GB/s 8-channel).
It may be better for Apple to make a larger custom chip with different cores internally but it makes sense that it would be cost-effective with multiple chips and they can shut off entire chips to save power.
Yup-- Intel calls the packaging/fabric tech 'tile.'
I'm wondering if TSMC has something similar. TSMC's communication about its packaging tech is hard to decipher. I read they now lump it altogether under a name like '3Dfabric' (https://www.anandtech.com/show/16051/3dfabric-the-home-for-tsmc-2-5d-and-3d-stacking-roadmap), but it's still pretty opaque. I guess that's fine -- their customers surely know what it all means (their customers are companies like Apple, not individuals like me).
I know it's an old well-worn wish from the Intel era but now Apple could (and I hope Apple does) make the full-on professional beast and also a mid-sized pro-sumer version. There are a ton of small businesses unable to justify the high-end Mac Pro but that have needs above the iMac and Mac mini range.
The new high-end Mac Mini will be a beast. Not sure your going to need expansion slots.
60-cores total, 15 per chip. It says they will use up to 64GB HBM2 on-die memory (4 x 16GB stacks) up to 1TB/s combined with up to 4TB of lower bandwidth DDR5 memory (~300GB/s 8-channel).
It may be better for Apple to make a larger custom chip with different cores internally but it makes sense that it would be cost-effective with multiple chips and they can shut off entire chips to save power.
Yup-- Intel calls the packaging/fabric tech 'tile.'
I'm wondering if TSMC has something similar. TSMC's communication about its packaging tech is hard to decipher. I read they now lump it altogether under a name like '3Dfabric' (https://www.anandtech.com/show/16051/3dfabric-the-home-for-tsmc-2-5d-and-3d-stacking-roadmap), but it's still pretty opaque. I guess that's fine -- their customers surely know what it all means (their customers are companies like Apple, not individuals like me).
Internal docs seem to point to “Applefabric” as the interconnects used in M1. Perhaps they intend to scale this?
one of my guilty pleasures is scanning FB comment threads of various tech publications (PCMag, TomsHardware) for stories about Apple Silicon and reading the comments from various sufferers of Apple Derangement Syndrome slagging off the M1. No matter what x86 configuration you want to stack it up against, it's clearly an outstanding performer, an incredible debut for AS that's shaking things up tremendously. I sincerely hope that the AS Mac Pro will take advantage of not having to pay the Intel CPU/AMD GPU tax and come in at a price that's accessible for one-man freelancer bands like myself.
The haters will have to come up with new excuses to be bitterly angry once the next iterations of the M1 come out, not dissimilar from QAnon cultists who keep coming up with new theories of how Trump will be inaugurated for another term any time now.
I know it's an old well-worn wish from the Intel era but now Apple could (and I hope Apple does) make the full-on professional beast and also a mid-sized pro-sumer version. There are a ton of small businesses unable to justify the high-end Mac Pro but that have needs above the iMac and Mac mini range.
The new high-end Mac Mini will be a beast. Not sure your going to need expansion slots.
Yeah, you're quite possibly right. Last year at WWDC and again with the intro of the M1, Apple made it super clear that they think there's a huge advantage to not only having the GPU integrated with the CPU, but to having the entire software ecosystem built on the assumption that you don't have to treat the GPU as this distant thing, but rather as closely connected to the CPU. I think that means that discrete GPUs on the Mac might be totally dead. The partial (but not really) exception might be in the Mac Pro, where maybe some users will still want some kind of specialized accelerator card (like Afterburner). Maybe one of those cards will be something akin to a GPU, but I bet you can't plug a display into it.
Anyway... if we're not adding GPUs, then there's very limited need for PCI slots.
I still wish they'd allow RAM upgrades, and allowing internal SSD upgrades would also be nice. But I'm starting to feel like those things aren't critical. Thunderbolt makes a lot of external upgrades feasible (not RAM, obviously, but lots of other stuff).
Anyway... if we're not adding GPUs, then there's very limited need for PCI slots.
I still wish they'd allow RAM upgrades, and allowing internal SSD upgrades would also be nice. But I'm starting to feel like those things aren't critical. Thunderbolt makes a lot of external upgrades feasible (not RAM, obviously, but lots of other stuff).
And PCI chassis are a thing, so the relatively small fraction of users who need actual slots can get them that way without messing up Apple’s elegant designs... and chassis can be moved between machines, be left behind when you go mobile, etc. There are lots of advantages.
Even RAM upgrades might be doable that way if the OS starts treating external memory more like a compressed backing store rather than the conventional address space... ie page sized accesses rather than cache lines. And persistent memory can fit into that model too. Such external RAM, of course, would have serious problems if connection to it were lost, but if the OS were smart it could keep only specific processes’ memory there and suspend it while disconnected. The SoC is a new era and could well change how a lot of things work.
There are huge advantages to having the GPU so tightly integrated with the CPUs, and with the scale of integration possible at 5nm and below, Apple will have lots of options. The tile-on-substrate integration schemes will allow lots of flexibility in design, as well as scaling up to rather large chips where the cost warrants it. Exciting times ahead.
Comments
10x2=20
10x4=40
sure sounds reminiscent of a multi chip module! Makes sense for economies of scale
Well, they could go with more of an oval shape, but that won't help much in regards to Sea Bear attacks.
That would give them unified memory between all the chips and other processors that might also be connected by PCIe.
If they took the current MacPro lopped off the space for IntelInside and used the back thermal chamber current used for memory for say 1 or 2 SOC's then they's still have a machine half the height with room for a couple of MPX modules and afterburner or other specialists card. Or one MPX and 3 other PCIe cards, drive raid or something else.
MPX card could be additional M2 Soc, an Apple GPU or Other GPU. AMD, nVidia and Intel all seem to options.
Edit: to add if they can get that in half height version of current case they could do a dual MacPro in the same case.
It would seem odd they put so much effort in to that case when they knew full well the transition was coming.
I totally agree! I feel like my customer demographic is not being catered too with their current product line. I bought Desktop Towers ever since the first blue and white G3 and stopped in 2013 when they shifted to the 'trash can' design that no longer allowed me to plug in my old SATA hard drives.
Why can't they offer something like this again? I'm sure I'm not the only one that used to regularly spend $2,500 to $3,000 on one of these every few years? And no, I'm not interested in an iMac! There has to be some middle ground between a MacMini and the current Desktop Pro. Why don't they come out with something midway and just call it a 'Mac', no 'mini', no 'Pro' just 'Mac'
https://wccftech.com/intel-next-gen-sapphire-rapids-xeon-cpu-die-shot-unveils-mcm-design-up-to-80-cores-4-chiplets/
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/321658-sapphire-rapids-cpu-leak-up-to-56-cores-64gb-of-onboard-hbm2
60-cores total, 15 per chip. It says they will use up to 64GB HBM2 on-die memory (4 x 16GB stacks) up to 1TB/s combined with up to 4TB of lower bandwidth DDR5 memory (~300GB/s 8-channel).
It may be better for Apple to make a larger custom chip with different cores internally but it makes sense that it would be cost-effective with multiple chips and they can shut off entire chips to save power.
I'm wondering if TSMC has something similar. TSMC's communication about its packaging tech is hard to decipher. I read they now lump it altogether under a name like '3Dfabric' (https://www.anandtech.com/show/16051/3dfabric-the-home-for-tsmc-2-5d-and-3d-stacking-roadmap), but it's still pretty opaque. I guess that's fine -- their customers surely know what it all means (their customers are companies like Apple, not individuals like me).
Internal docs seem to point to “Applefabric” as the interconnects used in M1. Perhaps they intend to scale this?
The haters will have to come up with new excuses to be bitterly angry once the next iterations of the M1 come out, not dissimilar from QAnon cultists who keep coming up with new theories of how Trump will be inaugurated for another term any time now.
Anyway... if we're not adding GPUs, then there's very limited need for PCI slots.
I still wish they'd allow RAM upgrades, and allowing internal SSD upgrades would also be nice. But I'm starting to feel like those things aren't critical. Thunderbolt makes a lot of external upgrades feasible (not RAM, obviously, but lots of other stuff).