I keep seeing people complaining about the single core speed because “most apps only use a single core” so is there any way Apple could come up with a 4-5Ghz CPU?
You mean "comparing" not complaining?
No, I meant complaining. “They” say multi core isn’t as important as single core speed.
"They" are correct -- until you do something that benefits from multi-core (and/or run pro-level apps). Then "they" are completely wrong. It's certainly true that at present, most non-game apps rely mostly on one core, but once you start really using your computer for serious purposes (not like Office or anything, but more like Photoshop), you really benefit from multi-core. For my work, the two scores are equally important.
What about GPU performance? Is it good enough for an ARM Mac?
Here are Geekbench 5 GPU Metal compute scores for various Apple devices:
GB5 Metal GPU Compute Machine -------------- -------- ------- Apple A9 GPU 2198 iPhone 6 Apple A10 GPU 2754 iPhone 7 Apple A11 GPU 3152 iPhone 8 Intel UHD 617 3175 2018 MBA Apple A9X GPU 3713 2015 iPad Pro Intel UHD 630 3830 2018 Mac mini Apple A12 GPU 4445 iPhone XS, iPad 10.2 Intel Iris Plus 640 5088 2017 iMac 21.5 Intel Iris Plus 645 5544 2019 MBP13 (2 TB3) Intel Iris Plus 655 5867 2019 MBP13 (4 TB3) Apple A13 GPU 6154 iPhone 11 Apple A10X GPU 6412 2017 iPad Pro Apple "A14" 8259 "iPhone 12" Apple A12X GPU 9040 2018 iPad Pro Apple "A13X" est. 12000 Radeon Pro 555X 13368 2019 iMac 4K Apple "A14X" est. 16000 Radeon Pro 560X 17207 2019 iMac 4K Radeon Pro 5300M 24092 2019 MBP16 Radeon Pro Vega 20 24219 2019 iMac 4K Radeon Pro 5500M 28276 2019 MBP16 Radeon Pro 570X 29289 2019 iMac 5K Radeon Pro 575X 33997 2019 iMac 5K Radeon Pro 580X 41807 2019 iMac 5K, Mac Pro Radeon Pro Vega 48 48898 2019 iMac 5K Radeon Pro Vega 56 63449 2017 iMac Pro Radeon Pro Vega 64 66399 2017 iMac Pro Radeon Pro Vega 64X 73966 2017 iMac Pro Radeon Pro Vega II 97659 2019 Mac Pro
You should note that the 2018 iPad Pro (A12X) has a faster Metal compute score than all of Apple's Macs except for the big desktops, including the 4 TB3 port MacBook Pro 13" model. So yes, this supposed A14 can power a clamshell laptop quite well if given a 15 to 28 W power envelope. The A12X could of have done that in 2018.
Just a little conjecture math for those interested.
I took the Multicore score from the assumed A14, 4612. I made the assumption that the larger cores, 2 of them, made up about 2/3s for the Multicore score. And the four small cores together made up 1/3 of the Multicore score. So a reasonable large core score is 1524 after loosing the Multicore penalty. So an eight core desktop should have a score of around 12192. Add in PCIe 4.0 x 36 lanes.
PCIe 4.0 16 lanes to the AMD graphics card
PCIe 4.0 4 lanes to the x 2 for two NVMe ports
PCIe 4.0 4 lanes to the bridge chip for 2 x SATA Ver 3.1, 4 x USB 3.1 (Bluetooth, keyboard, trackpad/mouse, wideband communications, Wi-Fi)
PCIe 4.0 4 lanes to the 2 x Thunderbolt interfaces
for the laptop version you can leave out 8 lanes.
Four Memory slots two channel iMac, iMacBook, Mini and eight memory slots four channel Pro versions.
Pro expansion cabinet will need dual central core (or 16 large cores), 8 x PCIe 16 lane slots in addition and the eight lanes for NVMe would go to an eight port encrypted NVMe RAID. ---------- Ok so maybe I did get a little dreamy on this line, but it will cost somewhere North of $55,000.00 comfortably configured.
The upcoming lightening fast processors combined with Gb wireless speeds will be creating a great vacuum for software to rise up and fill. Currently hardware seems to be racing far ahead of software. But that's a familiar cycle and we know from experience that it won't last forever. The question is: How will software evolve to fill that void?
I keep seeing people complaining about the single core speed because “most apps only use a single core” so is there any way Apple could come up with a 4-5Ghz CPU?
How much does it cost Apple to add more cores? Could they add a second CPU chip to do this? How difficult or easy will it be to add PCIe and various I/O to their ARM bus? How close is the A-series architecture to what Apple would need for an ARM Mac?
Very cool that it ranks on par with iPad Pro, but a more relevant comparison would be to the current iPhone generation A13 processor. Irregardless that single core score is incredible, and should not be understated.
The upcoming lightening fast processors combined with Gb wireless speeds will be creating a great vacuum for software to rise up and fill. Currently hardware seems to be racing far ahead of software. But that's a familiar cycle and we know from experience that it won't last forever. The question is: How will software evolve to fill that void?
In the desktop space, we can always put more power to use. Always. Mobile has yet to use even a fraction of the hardware already out there. Mobile still isn't even utilizing the hardware that was out there 3 years ago.
My iPad Pro 12.9” is now one year and five months old. When the A14 is out, in September, unless the phones are delayed due to the virus, it will be a full two generations behind the A14. Usually, the newest phone SoC is as fast as the last chip for the ipad, so it’s real,y not a big deal that this one is. But this one is two generations newer, so really, it’s not a big deal at all. It should be faster. The A13 should have equaled the A12x.
That begs the question... If the next generation iPhone is as fast as the current iPad Peo, how fast will the next generation iPad Pro be?
It'll depend on which SoC core they will use as the "base". Whether it is an A13X or an A14X will depend a lot on product timing. If it is this Spring, they could use the A13 and extend it to an A13X. They typically increase the clock rate of the CPU by 10%, add 1 or 2 CPU clusters (1 big performance core and 2 efficiency cores), double the GPU performance and double the memory bandwidth, and add more RAM.
So, if you multiple the A14 CPU single core score by 1.1x, the multicore score by 1.5x, and the GPU compute score by 2x, it would be a decent estimate for an A14X. If so, it would be about equivalent to an 8 core 45W processor in a MBP15 or MBP16 with a GPU equivalent to a Vega 13. They really need to port Xcode, FCPX and LPX to it if so.
My 2017 iPad Pro 10.5 is still really great, basically faster than the 2018 MBA in CPU and GPU. What it really needs is 8 GB of RAM, and it'll work great for another 3 to 5 years. The current 4 GB is pretty tight for having multiple apps open at the same time, so, I plan on waterfalling it to one of the kiddos, and get a 2020 iPad Pro model, assuming that it will have 8 GB of RAM.
The biggest number I'm looking for is 8 GB of RAM. Really wish Apple would offer RAM upgrade options of 8 GB, 16 GB, and maybe even 32 GB for the iPad Pro models. And, have a switch to turn the VM paging system on.
That begs the question... If the next generation iPhone is as fast as the current iPad Peo, how fast will the next generation iPad Pro be?
The biggest number I'm looking for is 8 GB of RAM. Really wish Apple would offer RAM upgrade options of 8 GB, 16 GB, and maybe even 32 GB for the iPad Pro models. And, have a switch to turn the VM paging system on.
Apple's been doing the Good/Better/Best model based on capacity since near their inception (Better/Best for the initial release of the original iPhone) but I can see a path for Apple eventually making the SoC a little different as capacity costs get lower and sizes get excessive for many people. I still don't see it happening anytime soon, but at least now I can see a potential path albeit a very slim one.
That begs the question... If the next generation iPhone is as fast as the current iPad Peo, how fast will the next generation iPad Pro be?
The biggest number I'm looking for is 8 GB of RAM. Really wish Apple would offer RAM upgrade options of 8 GB, 16 GB, and maybe even 32 GB for the iPad Pro models. And, have a switch to turn the VM paging system on.
Apple's been doing the Good/Better/Best model based on capacity since near their inception (Better/Best for the initial release of the original iPhone) but I can see a path for Apple eventually making the SoC a little different as capacity costs get lower and sizes get excessive for many people. I still don't see it happening anytime soon, but at least now I can see a potential path albeit a very slim one.
It looks like they are finally going down the path of treating the iPad as a general purpose computer if all the rumored keyboard and pointer functionality is going to come to pass. If so, RAM upgrades are inevitable. You really can't run a lot of the complicated apps in less than 8 GB, especially at the same time. If Apple is really serious about making Photoshop productive on the iPad, they'll really need 8 GB and 16 GB RAM tiers at least. Same thing for Xcode, FCPX, any AR creation app. Heck, if they are going to allow Chrome as a default web browser, I can see Google loading the app up to be the RAM and CPU hog that its desktop version is.
I'm very much looking forward to the next gen ipad pro 12.9". My 2nd gen ipad pro 12.9 is starting to slowly give up the ghost (stage lighting left side, wifi dying, touch issues). The A14 looks like it could be a monster upgrade. If they offered a 14" or 15" that would be even better.
tht said: My 2017 iPad Pro 10.5 is still really great, basically faster than the 2018 MBA in CPU and GPU. What it really needs is 8 GB of RAM, and it'll work great for another 3 to 5 years. The current 4 GB is pretty tight for having multiple apps open at the same time, so, I plan on waterfalling it to one of the kiddos, and get a 2020 iPad Pro model, assuming that it will have 8 GB of RAM.
Due to LPDDR5's 16bit data bus Apple will have to use at least eight 8Gbit dies if they want to keep that 128bit memory interface in the next X-SoC.
Comments
You should note that the 2018 iPad Pro (A12X) has a faster Metal compute score than all of Apple's Macs except for the big desktops, including the 4 TB3 port MacBook Pro 13" model. So yes, this supposed A14 can power a clamshell laptop quite well if given a 15 to 28 W power envelope. The A12X could of have done that in 2018.
Just a little conjecture math for those interested.
I took the Multicore score from the assumed A14, 4612. I made the assumption that the larger cores, 2 of them, made up about 2/3s for the Multicore score. And the four small cores together made up 1/3 of the Multicore score. So a reasonable large core score is 1524 after loosing the Multicore penalty. So an eight core desktop should have a score of around 12192. Add in PCIe 4.0 x 36 lanes.
PCIe 4.0 16 lanes to the AMD graphics card
PCIe 4.0 4 lanes to the x 2 for two NVMe ports
PCIe 4.0 4 lanes to the bridge chip for 2 x SATA Ver 3.1, 4 x USB 3.1 (Bluetooth, keyboard, trackpad/mouse, wideband communications, Wi-Fi)
PCIe 4.0 4 lanes to the 2 x Thunderbolt interfaces
for the laptop version you can leave out 8 lanes.
Four Memory slots two channel iMac, iMacBook, Mini and eight memory slots four channel Pro versions.
Pro expansion cabinet will need dual central core (or 16 large cores), 8 x PCIe 16 lane slots in addition and the eight lanes for NVMe would go to an eight port encrypted NVMe RAID. ---------- Ok so maybe I did get a little dreamy on this line, but it will cost somewhere North of $55,000.00 comfortably configured.
So very doable across the line for this year.
Why is Apple A12X Bionic better than Apple A13 Bionic?
4 x 2.49GHz & 4 x 1.6GHzvs2 x 2.65 & 4 x 1.8GHz
10000 millionvs8500 million
Interesting....
So, if you multiple the A14 CPU single core score by 1.1x, the multicore score by 1.5x, and the GPU compute score by 2x, it would be a decent estimate for an A14X. If so, it would be about equivalent to an 8 core 45W processor in a MBP15 or MBP16 with a GPU equivalent to a Vega 13. They really need to port Xcode, FCPX and LPX to it if so.
My 2017 iPad Pro 10.5 is still really great, basically faster than the 2018 MBA in CPU and GPU. What it really needs is 8 GB of RAM, and it'll work great for another 3 to 5 years. The current 4 GB is pretty tight for having multiple apps open at the same time, so, I plan on waterfalling it to one of the kiddos, and get a 2020 iPad Pro model, assuming that it will have 8 GB of RAM.
The biggest number I'm looking for is 8 GB of RAM. Really wish Apple would offer RAM upgrade options of 8 GB, 16 GB, and maybe even 32 GB for the iPad Pro models. And, have a switch to turn the VM paging system on.
Ludicrous Speed.