I've been holding off buying the 16" MBP because I was hoping for a new version with 10th gen. Intel processors and WIFI 6 and probably a UWB chip (if it isn't already there). I think this is one of the things in the pipeline that Tim is excited about.
I am now wondering whether to wait for the Apple Silicon version. I do not need an MBP - I just want one. Hopefully, the roadmap becomes a little clearer in the next couple of months.
So how do discrete GPU's work with Apple Silicon? Do current AMD GPU's work with it?
And, what about the Mac Pro? There isn't Apple Silicon that can match the performance of a souped-up Mac Pro...
I don't think Apple will support third-party GPU's anymore. I mean, they haven't really up until now, running behind a few years. I bet the platform will be even more closed, and it's just the Apple SoC with CPU + integrated GPU. Perhaps they will support external GPU's for pro's.
Mac Pro -> wondering about that too. They haven't SHOWN anything, but I'm sure they have something. But I don't think they will release that within a few years from now as to not piss off Intel too much and get people to buy the iMac 'Pro'. The fastest supercomputer in the world runs on ARM so you'd think a Mac Pro would be possible. But probably at the same overpriced price point.
Apple’s two year transition on hardware probably starts the day they ship the first Bionic Mac.
If the last Intel Mac is replaced in late 2022 (probably the Mac Pro), then Hopefully it is another five years before Apple drops OS updates for the last Intel Macs just sold.
My memory is a little spotty. How long after the last PPC Mac was it before Snow Leopard came out?
Had a discussion with someone today who flat out refuses to accept that Apple chips based on RISC could ever match or exceed Intel Chips based on CISC for Pro users in multi core processing.
It will be interesting to see the benchmarks and what Apple comes up with.
Remember, the new os is beta. Not yet FULLY optimize. Time will tell.
And you can bet your bottom dollar the usual suspects will have “doomed” reviews out, 20 minutes after those dev kits are received.
Give it up, Intel. You can't win this time. Though the fact that they dedicated a chip solely to Apple...
I bet you there will be some people out there will try to persuade apple to License the chip to other hardware vendors. I wonder if the apple soc is capable of running windows natively?
Windows runs under the x86(64) architecture, so no. ARM is an entirely different architecture.
And there is a version of Windows 10 that runs on the ARM architecture. But as many times as I've heard people point that out - it misses the point. Even if that does run on "Apple Silicon", which we don't know for sure, people don't run Windows on Macs to run Windows per se. They do it to run Windows applications, which very rarely have ARM versions.
Yes, Windows third party support for ARM and Apple’s are two different markets. Plus I have a feeling Intel is working hard behind the scenes to ensure the failure of WIndows on ARM.
Apple’s two year transition on hardware probably starts the day they ship the first Bionic Mac.
If the last Intel Mac is replaced in late 2022 (probably the Mac Pro), then Hopefully it is another five years before Apple drops OS updates for the last Intel Macs just sold.
My memory is a little spotty. How long after the last PPC Mac was it before Snow Leopard came out?
I think it was two years.
This is just my take on it. I’m thinking support will be longer this time around simply because of the number of machines out there now compared to the PPC days. There are a lot more average people out there using Macs now that don’t understand all of this stuff, and are going to be really upset that their new iMac only lasted 2 years. Back then it was a different crowd. PPC was in a really bad place. Performance was hurting and and the switch to Intel made a noticeable difference. Actual performance now isn’t as bad as it was then. Heck how many of us are running 10 year old or older machines now?
ARM presents a better roadmap for the future if that makes sense. I think it’ll take 2 years or so before people realize how fast these new machines are and want to upgrade rather than being forced to. I just bought a 2018 Mac mini. I don’t think I’ll be getting a Gen 1 ARM machine, but I can definitely see myself with a Gen 2. I just hope pricing is more in line with those $500 dev kits!
Had a discussion with someone today who flat out refuses to accept that Apple chips based on RISC could ever match or exceed Intel Chips based on CISC for Pro users in multi core processing.
It will be interesting to see the benchmarks and what Apple comes up with.
That's a weird argument since Intel's chips are RISC. Intel twitched from fully CISC to RISC cores with a CISC front end many years ago. Their CPUs have the overhead of breaking down CISC instructions into RISC instructions. However, that overhead is basically insignificant since it all happens on the chip.
I read the Apple Silicon Mac Mini for developers does not have a Thunderbolt 3 port so what does that say about Apple and Intel?
Thunderbolt and USB are converging with Thunderbolt 4 due at the end of the year...which is the same time frame as when the first A/S Mac will be delivered. My guess is that Thunderbolt 4 isn’t ready enough for the developer machine so it’s probably kneecapped down to USB C for the time being.
Apple’s two year transition on hardware probably starts the day they ship the first Bionic Mac.
If the last Intel Mac is replaced in late 2022 (probably the Mac Pro), then Hopefully it is another five years before Apple drops OS updates for the last Intel Macs just sold.
My memory is a little spotty. How long after the last PPC Mac was it before Snow Leopard came out?
I think it was two years.
This is just my take on it. I’m thinking support will be longer this time around simply because of the number of machines out there now compared to the PPC days. There are a lot more average people out there using Macs now that don’t understand all of this stuff, and are going to be really upset that their new iMac only lasted 2 years. Back then it was a different crowd. PPC was in a really bad place. Performance was hurting and and the switch to Intel made a noticeable difference. Actual performance now isn’t as bad as it was then. Heck how many of us are running 10 year old or older machines now?
ARM presents a better roadmap for the future if that makes sense. I think it’ll take 2 years or so before people realize how fast these new machines are and want to upgrade rather than being forced to. I just bought a 2018 Mac mini. I don’t think I’ll be getting a Gen 1 ARM machine, but I can definitely see myself with a Gen 2. I just hope pricing is more in line with those $500 dev kits!
True. The fact that new Intel Macs are still in the pipeline say to me that for the average user, Apple doesn’t believe that a transition will greatly affect a purchase since Apple plans to make the process so seamless that they won’t even notice. It’s not that Intel machines are lacking in power...but Apple clearly thinks that they have a better 5-10 year roadmap than Intel does.
i do think that future versions of macOS 11 will have Intel support for longer than the PPC versions. I wouldn’t be surprised that if support doesn’t end for 6 years and maybe 8 for the current Mac Pro.
I read the Apple Silicon Mac Mini for developers does not have a Thunderbolt 3 port so what does that say about Apple and Intel?
Nothing. The reason the developer mini does not have Thunderbolt is because the A12Z does not support it. A Thunderbolt controller will be one thing added to the Mac SoC.
In the short and medium terms ahead, we will likely have a choice of Intel or ARM. People that need to run Bootcamp or Windows under emulation can still buy an Intel Mac.
In time, it will ultimately become a choice of better performance or Windows support. I'll be buying ARM for better performance.
The demos shown running on that A12Z were pretty impressive, I especially liked the Maya demo. The A12Z is a tweaked version of the 2-year-old silicon, so what chip will the first ARM Mac launch with? My guess is it will be an A13Z
What happens if they can release a MacPro with multiple A14Z processors in two years' time?
I've upgraded with Apple the first generation of each move; first-gen PowerPC, and first-gen Intel. Apple has always got it right. My first day bought Intel MacBook Pro lasted me over 7 years with not a single fault.
The next few years are gonna be exciting!
Intel has no-one to blame but themselves for not advancing. I wouldn't be buying Intel stock right now...
They will not use A-series SoCs for Macs. They said they created a new SoC series specifically for Macs.
Apple has a very small marketshare compared to Intel's windows and servers business. Intel will do just fine, what Apple needs is more efficient processors and not the same design philosophy with Intel which keeps pushing out CPUs that are meant for higher workloads. Intel's CPU designs doesn't match with Apple's devices.
Why use of Mac for Windows when you can buy a new PC for, what is it now, $200?
what are the specs for that $200 pc?
Because a copy of Parallels of VMWare is the best way to run Windows and the performance will exceed a $200 PC by several orders of magnitude. You can move up to $1000 or more to compete with Parallels on a MacBook Pro.
Apple has a very small marketshare compared to Intel's windows and servers business. Intel will do just fine, what Apple needs is more efficient processors and not the same design philosophy with Intel which keeps pushing out CPUs that are meant for higher workloads. Intel's CPU designs doesn't match with Apple's devices.
Quite right, and in fact the whole PC market is getting to be a smaller and smaller chunk of Intel's business. But I think it is the bigger picture here that is at least interesting: What does Apple's abandonment of Intel say about bigger trends in the whole PC market? It does seem that there is a strong possibility of a tectonic shift away from X86 processors in the PC market as a whole; Apple's shift is symptomatic rather than causative. I think what happens with the PC market will depend on whether Intel invests resources to fight back, or simply chooses to focus on more lucrative markets. In any case the ball is in Intel's court at the moment, and I don't think their continued dominance long-term is in any way guaranteed.
I wonder whether or not we’ll see Apple get back into the server business. Either way I think they’ll release a version of the Mac mini (hopefully with a silver option) that destroys Intel’s NUC line and allows early adopters to dip their toes in without ponying you for the expensive machines (like they did when they went Intel) then I suspect the MacBook line will follow, either with the Air or the Air and the Pro. Then the iMac, and then the Mac Pro and iMac Pro (assuming the iMac Pro continues to be a line.)
I wonder whether or not we’ll see Apple get back into the server business. Either way I think they’ll release a version of the Mac mini (hopefully with a silver option) that destroys Intel’s NUC line and allows early adopters to dip their toes in without ponying you for the expensive machines (like they did when they went Intel) then I suspect the MacBook line will follow, either with the Air or the Air and the Pro. Then the iMac, and then the Mac Pro and iMac Pro (assuming the iMac Pro continues to be a line.)
You know what is stupid about the Intel NUCs? People are spend $500+ to dress up an Intel NUC just to play videos and use as Media player. You can simply buy all those Android media devices that cost less than $100 that runs ARM and does perfect decoding and uses less than 20watts. As for using NUCs as a light duty PC, you can use Android devices against to do light browsing. That is why Apple moving their devices to ARM makes a lot of sense since majority of their customers are using Macs for web and email. Not for heavy processing, the Macbook Pro and iMac Pro market is very low volume compared to Dell, HP, and Lenovo. Which is why Tim Cook is so reluctant to develop more Macs when iPhones, Watch, iPads sells by the boatload vs Intel based offerings.
On surface, Tim cook said, excited about in pipeline Intel based MACs; will support Intel for next few years but also said first MACs will be released by the end of year and fully transition away from Intel in 2 years.
If I am a customer and planning to buy MACs towards the end of the year than why buy any Intel MAC's if the same product is available with ARM based ? Future of MAC is ARM based so customers will mentally geared and than purchase wise behind ARM MACs.
Presumably they're not going to be launching both Intel and ARM-variants of the same Mac at the same time. My guess is, for example, the iMac refresh that was expected today is Intel-based using higher-powered chips and maybe even a Pro Xeon-based variant if there's anything to upgrade to in that realm, and we'll see that sometime this year. Sometime later this year we'll also see the first ARM Mac which would be something else, like maybe a lower-end MacBook or a mini or both, at which point they'd no longer be selling the Intel variants of those Macs. Then over the next two years we'll see ARM variants of MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac Pro etc as they build out their higher end SoC systems. OR, maybe it'll be more random than that — but either way, when the ARM variant of a form factor is released, I'd expect them to stop producing the Intel variant.
Either way it's going to be years of macOS and software support on Intel Macs, and ARM Macs will start with far fewer native 3rd party apps but those will increase with time. So if you need an iMac this year, buy the one that comes out next and you'll have a solid machine for years. If you need a MacBook and they release a new ARM-based one when you need it, consider getting that one assuming it runs everything you need it to, and you're set for the future. Seems pretty clear.
Good points. Though Apple don't want to keep confusing customers between Intel or ARM based Apple machines. Apple announced moving away from Intel means they will drive hard to move to ARM fast as possible and we don't know how close Apple producing Apple silicon for not only lower end Macbook but for Macbook Air/Pro,Mini,iMac(possibly iMac/Mac Pro). Now a days, with migration tools and army of developers everywhere, moving Apps to native ARM MACs is easier,faster than in past.
On surface, Tim cook said, excited about in pipeline Intel based MACs; will support Intel for next few years but also said first MACs will be released by the end of year and fully transition away from Intel in 2 years.
If I am a customer and planning to buy MACs towards the end of the year than why buy any Intel MAC's if the same product is available with ARM based ? Future of MAC is ARM based so customers will mentally geared and than purchase wise behind ARM MACs.
Presumably they're not going to be launching both Intel and ARM-variants of the same Mac at the same time. My guess is, for example, the iMac refresh that was expected today is Intel-based using higher-powered chips and maybe even a Pro Xeon-based variant if there's anything to upgrade to in that realm, and we'll see that sometime this year. Sometime later this year we'll also see the first ARM Mac which would be something else, like maybe a lower-end MacBook or a mini or both, at which point they'd no longer be selling the Intel variants of those Macs. Then over the next two years we'll see ARM variants of MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac Pro etc as they build out their higher end SoC systems. OR, maybe it'll be more random than that — but either way, when the ARM variant of a form factor is released, I'd expect them to stop producing the Intel variant.
Either way it's going to be years of macOS and software support on Intel Macs, and ARM Macs will start with far fewer native 3rd party apps but those will increase with time. So if you need an iMac this year, buy the one that comes out next and you'll have a solid machine for years. If you need a MacBook and they release a new ARM-based one when you need it, consider getting that one assuming it runs everything you need it to, and you're set for the future. Seems pretty clear.
Good points. Though Apple don't want to keep confusing customers between Intel or ARM based Apple machines. Apple announced moving away from Intel means they will drive hard to move to ARM fast as possible and we don't know how close Apple producing Apple silicon for not only lower end Macbook but for Macbook Air/Pro,Mini,iMac(possibly iMac/Mac Pro). Now a days, with migration tools and army of developers everywhere, moving Apps to native ARM MACs is easier,faster than in past.
I think we're going to find out in short order. Last time they beat their switch goal by 6 months, so I'm kinda expecting to see the majority of the lineup between this fall and fall of next year.
I do not believe that Apple will release a Mac that has an inferior CPU. They know better than that and it's a no brainier that it will make them look really bad if they did so. I trust that they know that they are doing and when they release the Macs with Apple Silicon, they will show the benchmarks compared to the equivalent Intel CPUs.
Also, just look at what they have done with their processors on iPhones and iPads: They have added security features to the processor itself, such as Touch ID (I think Face ID too), so that it's all on one chip. They will do the same with the Arm processors for Macs. The possibilities are endless. Now that they bought the 5g Intel modem division, future processors will include built-in 5g, which also means that future Macs could have 5g built into them.
Just imagine if everything is on one chip. It will not only be a space saver, but will also be more energy efficient, will make production much simpler and quicker and improve speed too.
I really think we have to trust they know what they're doing here.
So how do discrete GPU's work with Apple Silicon? Do current AMD GPU's work with it?
And, what about the Mac Pro? There isn't Apple Silicon that can match the performance of a souped-up Mac Pro...
Not yet there isn't, at least that we know of. Who knows what's in Apple's labs. But I'll bet donuts to dollars that they've got prototypes in the labs that are already keeping up with, if not smoking, Xeons.
All reports suggest Apple is making their own GPUs and they're better than AMD's and Nvidia's. Whether they are on-chip or discreet is probably immaterial. Either way they'll be good.
There's no way Apple hasn't got all this already figured out long before they made the announcement.
Comments
I am now wondering whether to wait for the Apple Silicon version. I do not need an MBP - I just want one. Hopefully, the roadmap becomes a little clearer in the next couple of months.
Mac Pro -> wondering about that too. They haven't SHOWN anything, but I'm sure they have something. But I don't think they will release that within a few years from now as to not piss off Intel too much and get people to buy the iMac 'Pro'. The fastest supercomputer in the world runs on ARM so you'd think a Mac Pro would be possible. But probably at the same overpriced price point.
If the last Intel Mac is replaced in late 2022 (probably the Mac Pro), then Hopefully it is another five years before Apple drops OS updates for the last Intel Macs just sold.
My memory is a little spotty. How long after the last PPC Mac was it before Snow Leopard came out?
I think it was two years.
Yes, Windows third party support for ARM and Apple’s are two different markets. Plus I have a feeling Intel is working hard behind the scenes to ensure the failure of WIndows on ARM.
Convenience. Who wants to travel with two laptops? Who wants two or more machines taking up desktop or rack space?
ARM presents a better roadmap for the future if that makes sense. I think it’ll take 2 years or so before people realize how fast these new machines are and want to upgrade rather than being forced to. I just bought a 2018 Mac mini. I don’t think I’ll be getting a Gen 1 ARM machine, but I can definitely see myself with a Gen 2. I just hope pricing is more in line with those $500 dev kits!
That's a weird argument since Intel's chips are RISC. Intel twitched from fully CISC to RISC cores with a CISC front end many years ago. Their CPUs have the overhead of breaking down CISC instructions into RISC instructions. However, that overhead is basically insignificant since it all happens on the chip.
True. The fact that new Intel Macs are still in the pipeline say to me that for the average user, Apple doesn’t believe that a transition will greatly affect a purchase since Apple plans to make the process so seamless that they won’t even notice. It’s not that Intel machines are lacking in power...but Apple clearly thinks that they have a better 5-10 year roadmap than Intel does.
i do think that future versions of macOS 11 will have Intel support for longer than the PPC versions. I wouldn’t be surprised that if support doesn’t end for 6 years and maybe 8 for the current Mac Pro.
Nothing. The reason the developer mini does not have Thunderbolt is because the A12Z does not support it. A Thunderbolt controller will be one thing added to the Mac SoC.
They will not use A-series SoCs for Macs. They said they created a new SoC series specifically for Macs.
Also, just look at what they have done with their processors on iPhones and iPads: They have added security features to the processor itself, such as Touch ID (I think Face ID too), so that it's all on one chip. They will do the same with the Arm processors for Macs. The possibilities are endless. Now that they bought the 5g Intel modem division, future processors will include built-in 5g, which also means that future Macs could have 5g built into them.
Just imagine if everything is on one chip. It will not only be a space saver, but will also be more energy efficient, will make production much simpler and quicker and improve speed too.
I really think we have to trust they know what they're doing here.
All reports suggest Apple is making their own GPUs and they're better than AMD's and Nvidia's. Whether they are on-chip or discreet is probably immaterial. Either way they'll be good.
There's no way Apple hasn't got all this already figured out long before they made the announcement.