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.
Hmmmm. An Apple CPU with an Apple GPU sounds like it could easily be more powerful than an Intel version of those things.
Does this portend the type of Mac that could feature such a combination?
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?
Most of the code that runs to make most apps work is Apple library and system service code, which I'm going to presume is already relatively well multi-threaded. If you are actually trying to do heavy computation on an iPhone, then spend the time to figure out how to use threads.
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.
Well, UI implementations seem to be making use of all that CPU power, though I'm guessing that slow-downs are really more related to programmer laziness than fundamental algorithmic complexity. Though from what I can tell, Apple has actually been improving the UI code efficiency in the last few release cycles.
What about GPU performance? Is it good enough for an ARM Mac?
They won't be using the phone SoC in a Mac. They might use an iPad Pro SoC in a Mac. If this follows the typical pattern of AX processors in iPad Pros relative to A processors in iPhones, you can multiply the single core score by 1.1x, the multi-core score by 1.5x, and the GPU compute score by 2x.
That is more than good enough for Macs, with the necessary modifications. It needs to support 16 GB to 128 GB RAM, 4 to 8 TB of storage, and have 24 lanes of PCIe 3 or 16 lanes of PCIe 4. The CPU performance is more than good enough for all Apple laptops and desktops. Look at the single core score. That's i9-9900K territory in a phone. Give it 4 to 16 CPU cores, it can be used in the entire Mac desktop lineup, except for the Mac Pro, in which case, there needs to be a 32 core model and 1 TB memory support. The higher end laptops and desktops will use discrete GPUs, hence the need for PCIe, just like it is today.
If the single core score is true, that is the single core performance of Intel and AMD top end desktop processors in a phone. If it is true.
I think what people need to remember is that these figures could come from a number of Apple test fixtures/platforms. The performance numbers are likely true, rumors in the industry are that TSMC 5nm node is very good. However that doesn't mean Apple will clock this chip at the listed clock rate in a phone, if they did though it would be a shocking increase in performance if you look at past progress.
As for the Macs I suspect that if the Mac book comes back it will use either the cell phone or the iPad processor. Beyond that I would expect Apple to ship custom chips ( a new series really ) for the rest of the machines. The main reason here is that they need an entirely different class of performance. If Apple does not implement SMT they will need a base line of 8 cores and more likely 16 by the time the machines ship. The problem is AMD is already shipping really good 8 core 16 thread APU chips and if Apple can't out perform them we have issues. Machines here are the Mac Book Airs and the Mac Book Pros, but in some cases it could also mean the iMacs and the Mac Mini. In the end though I really think that they will need an even more powerful variant for desktops and even the Mac Pro.
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?
First off the idea that "most apps" only use a single core is absolute baloney!!!! I can't state this enough, even games these days are multi threaded. Frankly I'm not sue why this thought train doesn't die in face of all the evidence out there. By the way yes you can find an app or two that never uses threads or processes but that is no longer the norm and hasn't been for a very long time.
Second this has been described as a cell phone processor, the Apple Silicon going into the Macs likely isn't this chip at all. We have no idea what the chips going into the macs will be. I'm almost certain though that they will be faster than a cell phone processor. Beyond that don't get wrapped up in GHz!!!! Seriously it is all about what can get done per second and the clock is only one factor there. It should be noted that this report/rumor doesn't even address the performance of units on the SoC like Neural Engine which becomes more and more important day by day.
As for your question about cores, the actual cost to Apple is an interesting question. In part int comes down to die area used by each CPU core. It is a bit more complex because adding cores needs to be balanced against what you give up function wise for that die space in trade for the cores. In other words for a given price point the die can only be so big on a given process. At some point if you want more CPU cores you give up space used for other functionality. Adding alternative bus architectures is pretty easy really and it has already been done by other manufactures.
Well it depends upon the Mac, the A series might do for a Mac Book Pro or even a Mac Book Air but beyond that I'm certain Apple will have designed chips that better meet the needs of the users. No matter how you look at it the base A series chips are not good enough to make a competitive MBP.
Looking through Geekbench, the scores are equivalent to an Intel i7 8th generation 4core system with the ‘A14’ still having higher single core scores in most cases. Very impressive. Most laptops use an i5 4core - so this processor could easily power a laptop. Where it falls off is in multicore scores vs Intel’s 6, 8 core processors. There is certainly no reason why Apple wouldn’t add more cores to a chip designed for an ARM-based Mac computer or higher end laptop, the same way they juice the A series for larger display (but also larger battery capacity) iPads.
The current generations of MacBook Air are dual-core CPUs. So, a Intel i-7 quad-core equivalent for a MacBook Air would be AWESOME. Unless you are doing some heavy computational tasks, you don't need anything beyond quad-core i7 power. 95% of people would never need six-core or eight-core laptops.
Sorry but that is absolute garbage. What a person needs varies a lot depending upon what they are doing at the moment. In any event quad core CPU's are simply antiques at this point in time. Even something as wide spread as gaming requires thoughtful consideration as to hardware choices. The reality is this: the consoles will come out latter this year with 8 core processors, within in a year that means the bleeding edge games will require machines with 8 core processors. Professional apps are a entirely different story so I will not go there. Beyond that consider the horrors of modern day web browsers which can use all the RAM and processor capability in today 2 and 4 core machines.
By the way I'm not making an excuse for Google browser just that it sucks.
In any event no rational person would go out today and buy a machine with fewer than 8 cores in the CPU complex.
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.
I still think that Apple will have a high performance variant and likely tag it with something other than the "A" series label. The thing is this if you have that huge power advantage over the iPad and iPhones why not make use of it? In this regard I see Apple adding more cores to what ever ships in the A series. These will likely be CPU cores and GPU cores. CPU cores likely cost Apple as little as one watt per core with respect to the power envelope. The GPU is likely more demanding, but another compute unit could be added there.
Of course Apple could increase the clock rate in the GPU and get a boost that way. I can actually see them hitting the 5300M and 5500M territories. In any event the power usage might be slightly higher than what Apple desires but I could really see them wanting to market performance equal to the 5500M. At 5nm it might not be a huge problem but you would then need to keep that processor feed and this is where we could see some interesting innovation from Apple. One possibility is package integrated RAM, either HBM or some other technology optimized for on die integration.
Can you imagine the uproar when people realize that RAM isn't soldered in anymore but is now built into the SoC package. It is little things like this that can give Apple a huge performance boost over shipping X86 hardware. Frankly the sooner the better as I expect the x86 world to adopt this approach for some APU's as it can give those chips a huge performance boost. Of course DDR5 is arriving later this year also so that is now in the mix.
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.
This sounds pretty good but SATA makes no sense on a new generation of hardware! SATA is about as useful as IDE or SCSI ports these days.
Now some of this other stuff I totally agree with but really don't see Apple giving a hoot as to what we think. For example two M.2 / NVMe ports is a grand idea but I'd be shocked if Apple went that route. Honestly taking the users needs into account is not the Apple way. Knowing Apple they will be even more anti user and will have the NVMe controller embedded in the SoC just like the do on the iPhone. We could end up with machines that have zero M.2 slots.
Do these processors support virtual memory? Seems like another prerequisite for Mac use that isn't part of iPhone/
Apples processor have had Memory Management units from day one. IOS had not had demand paged memory for user apps but that could change in the future. Right now an user app gets all the RAM leftover from the system and the system process.
This is why back in the day we would scream for more RAM because there wasn't much left over for Apps. When Apple finally increased RAM apps instantly had more that double the amount of RAM space to work with. If you didn't own Apple hardware in the early days there where plenty of crashes and lost data trying to use Apples Safari. If not lost data, constant reloads slowed things up significantly. Lets not get into the struggle third party apps had.
In any event I wander, the ARM processors are perfectly fine for running Mac OS. The hardware is already there to properly run Mac OS.
Do these processors support virtual memory? Seems like another prerequisite for Mac use that isn't part of iPhone/
Apples processor have had Memory Management units from day one. IOS had not had demand paged memory for user apps but that could change in the future. Right now an user app gets all the RAM leftover from the system and the system process.
This is why back in the day we would scream for more RAM because there wasn't much left over for Apps. When Apple finally increased RAM apps instantly had more that double the amount of RAM space to work with. If you didn't own Apple hardware in the early days there where plenty of crashes and lost data trying to use Apples Safari. If not lost data, constant reloads slowed things up significantly. Lets not get into the struggle third party apps had.
In any event I wander, the ARM processors are perfectly fine for running Mac OS. The hardware is already there to properly run Mac OS.
larrya's question is a bit off-kilter. All of Apple's operating systems today, which are all Darwin based, has virtual memory. Virtually all applications have to use it, as each of them have their own virtual address space, and the kernel will give them real memory as required. This true down to the Watch.
What iOS and iPadOS have turned off is the backing store or the paging to disk. When memory is low, they just kill apps instead. For Big Sur, they just need to leave the page file on, which I think will be just one line of code, and apps will be paged to page files in storage instead of killed. The DTK likely has it turned on. They can just turn it on that simply for iPadOS and iOS too.
Comments
Does this portend the type of Mac that could feature such a combination?
Well? Does it?
As for the Macs I suspect that if the Mac book comes back it will use either the cell phone or the iPad processor. Beyond that I would expect Apple to ship custom chips ( a new series really ) for the rest of the machines. The main reason here is that they need an entirely different class of performance. If Apple does not implement SMT they will need a base line of 8 cores and more likely 16 by the time the machines ship. The problem is AMD is already shipping really good 8 core 16 thread APU chips and if Apple can't out perform them we have issues. Machines here are the Mac Book Airs and the Mac Book Pros, but in some cases it could also mean the iMacs and the Mac Mini. In the end though I really think that they will need an even more powerful variant for desktops and even the Mac Pro.
Second this has been described as a cell phone processor, the Apple Silicon going into the Macs likely isn't this chip at all. We have no idea what the chips going into the macs will be. I'm almost certain though that they will be faster than a cell phone processor. Beyond that don't get wrapped up in GHz!!!! Seriously it is all about what can get done per second and the clock is only one factor there. It should be noted that this report/rumor doesn't even address the performance of units on the SoC like Neural Engine which becomes more and more important day by day.
As for your question about cores, the actual cost to Apple is an interesting question. In part int comes down to die area used by each CPU core. It is a bit more complex because adding cores needs to be balanced against what you give up function wise for that die space in trade for the cores. In other words for a given price point the die can only be so big on a given process. At some point if you want more CPU cores you give up space used for other functionality. Adding alternative bus architectures is pretty easy really and it has already been done by other manufactures.
Well it depends upon the Mac, the A series might do for a Mac Book Pro or even a Mac Book Air but beyond that I'm certain Apple will have designed chips that better meet the needs of the users. No matter how you look at it the base A series chips are not good enough to make a competitive MBP.
By the way I'm not making an excuse for Google browser just that it sucks.
In any event no rational person would go out today and buy a machine with fewer than 8 cores in the CPU complex.
Of course Apple could increase the clock rate in the GPU and get a boost that way. I can actually see them hitting the 5300M and 5500M territories. In any event the power usage might be slightly higher than what Apple desires but I could really see them wanting to market performance equal to the 5500M. At 5nm it might not be a huge problem but you would then need to keep that processor feed and this is where we could see some interesting innovation from Apple. One possibility is package integrated RAM, either HBM or some other technology optimized for on die integration.
Can you imagine the uproar when people realize that RAM isn't soldered in anymore but is now built into the SoC package. It is little things like this that can give Apple a huge performance boost over shipping X86 hardware. Frankly the sooner the better as I expect the x86 world to adopt this approach for some APU's as it can give those chips a huge performance boost. Of course DDR5 is arriving later this year also so that is now in the mix.
Now some of this other stuff I totally agree with but really don't see Apple giving a hoot as to what we think. For example two M.2 / NVMe ports is a grand idea but I'd be shocked if Apple went that route. Honestly taking the users needs into account is not the Apple way. Knowing Apple they will be even more anti user and will have the NVMe controller embedded in the SoC just like the do on the iPhone. We could end up with machines that have zero M.2 slots.
What iOS and iPadOS have turned off is the backing store or the paging to disk. When memory is low, they just kill apps instead. For Big Sur, they just need to leave the page file on, which I think will be just one line of code, and apps will be paged to page files in storage instead of killed. The DTK likely has it turned on. They can just turn it on that simply for iPadOS and iOS too.