this result is something that I would never expected early this year when leakers said there's gonna be new Apple Silicon-based Macs, I thought it would be MacBook Air or 13 MBP the most, but looks like they could easily make top-tier 16-inch MBP with this horsepower. Absolutely amazing!
The top tier requires more cores. This processor would be great in a Mac Book, Mac Book Air and maybe even a 13" MBP. However the types of professionals Apple caters to can always use more cores, so I can't see Apple going with this specific processor in the MBP 16" and even the 13 inch is a maybe. Video production and compression/encoding can almost always use more cores and that is exactly what pros will want in the large Mac Book Pros. If Apple has any sense at all they will put as many cores in their chips as they can while keeping under the 45 and 35 watt power profiles.
In any event this is why I can see this particular chip going into a number of laptop Macs but not the high end laptops. Embarrassing as it is, I have to admit I'm excited about the possibilities with Apple Silicon. The combination of Neural Engine, high performance cores, high density 5nm chips and far better GPU's, will really lead to a new generation of Macs. In fact it is the lack of leaks about Neural Engine that have me worried a bit because AI is the wave of the future and Apple really needs that as a default feature in Mac OS. A boost over current Neural Engine performance could make these Macs the goto for people doing machine learning. I'd like to see Apple own this niche like they have owned content creation.
The semi obvious thing that isn’t being said here is that Apple has *complete control* of the processor design and OS for the new Macs, like they have had for iOS devices... thus, besides the usual compute logic within the CPU, there are all of the other optimizations that they are building into the silicon for Big Sur to take advantage of - many of which are known / have been explained... but, what else might Apple be planning?
Looking at CPU benchmarks, of the traditional type, is likely to become a thing of the past as so much will be done outside of the traditional path through the CPU. My personal hope is that Apple is going all in on Machine Learning & AI technologies. It is interesting that there has been almost no leaks with respect to the hardware that supports ML. What is cool in my mind is that Macs will now get the same dedicated hardware for things like cameras that iOS gets. Maybe not huge but again it takes a load off the CPU cores. It looks like we are getting an expanded video Codec unit too.
So what else is Apple planning - I have no idea (can't read minds). I would not be surprised at all if they adopt the ARM / Fujitsu vector processing capabilities. That would be really impressive if they fully implemented, I'm just not sure if they could do that in a low power chip effectively. In any event I totally agree Apple doesn't care so much about the ARM cores per say, but rather access to that silicon. This years Apple Silicon might not even reveal their long term intentions.
this result is something that I would never expected early this year when leakers said there's gonna be new Apple Silicon-based Macs, I thought it would be MacBook Air or 13 MBP the most, but looks like they could easily make top-tier 16-inch MBP with this horsepower. Absolutely amazing!
The top tier requires more cores. This processor would be great in a Mac Book, Mac Book Air and maybe even a 13" MBP. However the types of professionals Apple caters to can always use more cores, so I can't see Apple going with this specific processor in the MBP 16" and even the 13 inch is a maybe. Video production and compression/encoding can almost always use more cores and that is exactly what pros will want in the large Mac Book Pros. If Apple has any sense at all they will put as many cores in their chips as they can while keeping under the 45 and 35 watt power profiles.
In any event this is why I can see this particular chip going into a number of laptop Macs but not the high end laptops. Embarrassing as it is, I have to admit I'm excited about the possibilities with Apple Silicon. The combination of Neural Engine, high performance cores, high density 5nm chips and far better GPU's, will really lead to a new generation of Macs. In fact it is the lack of leaks about Neural Engine that have me worried a bit because AI is the wave of the future and Apple really needs that as a default feature in Mac OS. A boost over current Neural Engine performance could make these Macs the goto for people doing machine learning. I'd like to see Apple own this niche like they have owned content creation.
If Apple wants to get max video encoding/decoding power in a machine as an important optimization, it makes far more sense to add specialized hardware to accelerate that, rather than adding more general purpose CPU cores: dedicated logic doesn’t need to have the overhead of Out-of-Order instruction execution and branch prediction logic the CPU would have, and this can make it faster (less distance in circuitry to travel) as well as use less power (speculative execution eats up several times as much power as strictly in-order execution).
I believe Apple’s special card for MacPros is designed to do exactly this, and I’ve forgotten how old it is. 5 nm process node didn’t exist when it first came out. They’ve likely got a more optimized revision. Of course, it’d also make sense for Apple to expect people to buy MacPros instead to get that hardware: it has a cost to add, and chips can’t be infinitely large.
this result is something that I would never expected early this year when leakers said there's gonna be new Apple Silicon-based Macs, I thought it would be MacBook Air or 13 MBP the most, but looks like they could easily make top-tier 16-inch MBP with this horsepower. Absolutely amazing!
The top tier requires more cores. This processor would be great in a Mac Book, Mac Book Air and maybe even a 13" MBP. However the types of professionals Apple caters to can always use more cores, so I can't see Apple going with this specific processor in the MBP 16" and even the 13 inch is a maybe. Video production and compression/encoding can almost always use more cores and that is exactly what pros will want in the large Mac Book Pros. If Apple has any sense at all they will put as many cores in their chips as they can while keeping under the 45 and 35 watt power profiles.
In any event this is why I can see this particular chip going into a number of laptop Macs but not the high end laptops. Embarrassing as it is, I have to admit I'm excited about the possibilities with Apple Silicon. The combination of Neural Engine, high performance cores, high density 5nm chips and far better GPU's, will really lead to a new generation of Macs. In fact it is the lack of leaks about Neural Engine that have me worried a bit because AI is the wave of the future and Apple really needs that as a default feature in Mac OS. A boost over current Neural Engine performance could make these Macs the goto for people doing machine learning. I'd like to see Apple own this niche like they have owned content creation.
If Apple wants to get max video encoding/decoding power in a machine as an important optimization, it makes far more sense to add specialized hardware to accelerate that, rather than adding more general purpose CPU cores: dedicated logic doesn’t need to have the overhead of Out-of-Order instruction execution and branch prediction logic the CPU would have, and this can make it faster (less distance in circuitry to travel) as well as use less power (speculative execution eats up several times as much power as strictly in-order execution).
I believe Apple’s special card for MacPros is designed to do exactly this, and I’ve forgotten how old it is. 5 nm process node didn’t exist when it first came out. They’ve likely got a more optimized revision. Of course, it’d also make sense for Apple to expect people to buy MacPros instead to get that hardware: it has a cost to add, and chips can’t be infinitely large.
While certainly possible I don’t see them building in encoder logic for every need out there. Given that the current hardware codecs will be enhanced.
This actually is a very interesting question that was brought up on another site, which amounts to “what does Apple do with all of that potential die space. I’m thinking that they will go much deeper into the world of die space for ML/AI. However putting in a full blown hardware encoder, replicating the Mac Pro option certainly is possible. The problem here is that they are then trying to hit a moving target.
Which brings us back to lots of cores. Lots of cores leaves software selection up to the user. The user doesn’t have to use Apple favored solution. While maybe not as obvious there are many other uses where cores are the right solution, developers are just one example. Beyond that on the desktop they need to compete with the AMD solutions that are kicking every bodies but. AMD currently supplies 32 threads on low end and 128 for the Thread ripper series. Those systems blow everything away for cost and performance in highly parallel workloads. Due to Apples volume demands and the need to fix the Mac Pro I can see Apple going the chiplet route mirroring AMD. Well the concept anyways, Apple could really tailor an I/O die to their specific needs putting slower changing logic there. ARM and 5nm easily allows for 12 cores on a chiplet and a huge cache.
Doing something like chiplets would allow for a 12 core 13” MBP with the larger MBP jumping to 24 cores. The low power cores could stay on the “I/O die” for an advertised 16 and 26 core option.
Lots of speculation but that is what makes Apple Silicon so interesting. There are so many directions that Apple can go with here. It just keeps the imagination boiling over with thought.
I haven't really heard much about people having significant porting issues with the new silicone. Thankfully they did it little-endian so that's one of the more annoying problems to solve. If they did big-endian, it would be a deal-breaker. My prediction is the one more thing will be a touch screen on a low end but still pro laptop, which would pair nicely with IOS app installs.
Assuming that this is Geekbench 5 (4 has higher numbers) the A14X competes well with the 8 core i7 in the 2020 iMac. I get 1314/8241 on mine. If this pans out, not only will the CPU in the next MacBook have really decent performance, the desktop processors that can draw more power and dissipate more heat released next year should be truly devastating to Intel and AMD. In 2022 we should see the Apple Silicon Pro processors. If Apple does not release a Mac nano with the A14X, they will really be wasting their opportunity to disrupt the computer market.
I don't buy it. The A14 in the iPhone 12 runs at 2.99GHz and the A12X in the iPad Pro 2018 runs at 2.5GHz. Why would they underclock an A14X in a much larger enclosure like a laptop? I would hope Apple would be going for something more than just 'slightly faster' than the current i9.
Blah, just wrote a whole past the disappeared on me!
In short, I think Apple will be introducing a whole new line of chips vs. using the A series in a Mac. My reasoning is that the A series is heavily customized for mobile purposes - specifically in power usage (i.e. lower power usage) to keep heat generation down and increase battery life. Neither of these will be as much of a concern even on a MacBook that will have both active cooling and a bigger battery.
I'm not sure if the A series is flexible enough to be reconfigured with a higher TDP (thermal design power), or if maybe Apple is going to choose to go with efficiency vs. raw power at the outset.
Regardless, we will find out soon!
If you watched the keynote in June, they said they were working on 'desktop class' processors.
I don't buy it. The A14 in the iPhone 12 runs at 2.99GHz and the A12X in the iPad Pro 2018 runs at 2.5GHz. Why would they underclock an A14X in a much larger enclosure like a laptop? I would hope Apple would be going for something more than just 'slightly faster' than the current i9.
This is not slightly faster than the current i9, that is an old i9. The latest i7 laptop is over 1600 single core and around 6000 multicore. And that is a 4 core processor on 10nm.
So although Apples silicon is excellent, Intel matches it on single core and comes close on multi at a lower core count and older process. I expect the next generation AMD laptop processors to also be competitive. Where Apple will.likely be ahead is on power consumption
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In any event this is why I can see this particular chip going into a number of laptop Macs but not the high end laptops. Embarrassing as it is, I have to admit I'm excited about the possibilities with Apple Silicon. The combination of Neural Engine, high performance cores, high density 5nm chips and far better GPU's, will really lead to a new generation of Macs. In fact it is the lack of leaks about Neural Engine that have me worried a bit because AI is the wave of the future and Apple really needs that as a default feature in Mac OS. A boost over current Neural Engine performance could make these Macs the goto for people doing machine learning. I'd like to see Apple own this niche like they have owned content creation.
So what else is Apple planning - I have no idea (can't read minds). I would not be surprised at all if they adopt the ARM / Fujitsu vector processing capabilities. That would be really impressive if they fully implemented, I'm just not sure if they could do that in a low power chip effectively. In any event I totally agree Apple doesn't care so much about the ARM cores per say, but rather access to that silicon. This years Apple Silicon might not even reveal their long term intentions.
I believe Apple’s special card for MacPros is designed to do exactly this, and I’ve forgotten how old it is. 5 nm process node didn’t exist when it first came out. They’ve likely got a more optimized revision. Of course, it’d also make sense for Apple to expect people to buy MacPros instead to get that hardware: it has a cost to add, and chips can’t be infinitely large.
If Apple does not release a Mac nano with the A14X, they will really be wasting their opportunity to disrupt the computer market.
So although Apples silicon is excellent, Intel matches it on single core and comes close on multi at a lower core count and older process. I expect the next generation AMD laptop processors to also be competitive. Where Apple will.likely be ahead is on power consumption