M1X MacBook Pro still expected to launch in October

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited October 2021
Apple is still planning to launch new MacBook Pro models equipped with the "M1X" chip and improved graphical performance, a report claims, with a launch expected in an October event.




Apple is rumored to be preparing a second special event for the fall, following after its earlier "California Streaming" presentation. While there's a lot of products on Apple's potential launch roster, a report highlights that the MacBook Pro lineup will probably get the most attention for the second showing.

In Sunday's Bloomberg "Power On" newsletter, Mark Gurman insists Apple will be launching Macs with the "M1X" chip, which is "still on tap for 2021." The first updates will be in a "new range of MacBook Pros in the next month and a higher-end Mac mini at some point," with the additional reasoning that Apple tends to use October to launch Mac updates

Gurman believes the change to the M1X will provide a more "graphics-intense and professional-focused" Apple Silicon experience than the M1. Two variations are thought to be developed by Apple, Gurman writes, with both featuring a 10-core CPU consisting of eight high-performance cores and two high-efficiency cores.

The difference in the versions will be in the GPU, as there are apparently variants with 16 graphics cores and 32 cores.

Previously, Gurman's forecast on the M1X MacBook Pro models, thought to be the 14-inch MacBook Pro and 16-inch MacBook Pro, said there will not be a Touch Bar in the model, though they will apparently have mini LED-backlit displays and MagSafe magnetic charging.

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 46
    doggonedoggone Posts: 377member
    Been waiting for a year for a new 16 inch MBP.  My wife's current model is 6 years old and has wonky speakers so you can't hear anything that is been played.  I've been telling her to wait because the new M1 MBPs are just around the corner.  Of course I'll be wanting one as well but my current version (4 years old) is still going strong.
    I also had a dream that my current AirPods (V2) broke apart when taking them out of my ear.  That must be a sign that the new version is going to be released too.
    docno42
  • Reply 2 of 46
    red oakred oak Posts: 1,087member
    16 or 32 GPU cores?   10 CPU cores? You have got to be kidding me 

    If true, these are going to obliterate anything other than “ high end” desktop workstations.  GeekBench scores will shake the PC industry 
    OutdoorAppDeveloperwilliamlondonGG1MisterKitkillroy
  • Reply 3 of 46
    red oak said:
    16 or 32 GPU cores?   10 CPU cores? You have got to be kidding me 

    If true, these are going to obliterate anything other than “ high end” desktop workstations.  GeekBench scores will shake the PC industry 
    You are exactly correct. This is a trend that has been going the past decade. Apple's mobile CPUs have been gaining performance at around 50% a year while Intel and AMD have been gaining about 5% a year. At some point the two curves would cross and cause massive disruption in the industry if the trend continued. That point happened last year with the introduction of the M1. The year before that, Apple's A series mobile CPUs started to beat common x86 laptop CPUs. This year the M1X could beat top end desktop CPUs and next year the M2 could be knocking on the door of the larger server CPUs. Currently all the hardware review sites are kind of ignoring the M1 when they review the performance of the latest Intel consumer CPUs.

    Apple still has a ways to go before being a serious threat to the gamer PC GPUs but they are catching up rapidly. With 16 cores, the M1X could be in the same ballpark as the 5700 MX GPUs found in the 2020 iMac. With 32 cores, it could beat the current crop of AMD GPUs and newly released Intel GPUs with only NVIDIA having a clear advantage but only for very high end GPUs that are not obtainable in the market. The M1X could become the fastest integrated GPU on the market offering far greater performance per watt than any other GPU on the market.

    Will server manufacturers be banging on Apple's door demanding chips? Is Apple thinking about making a gaming console? Where is the Mac Nano? Does Apple's management have the vision needed to take full advantage of the disruption they have created?
    edited October 2021 dope_ahminekillroysailorpaulargonaut
  • Reply 4 of 46
    Apple really needs to start building chip fabs all around the world. The situation brewing between Taiwan and China poses an existential threat to Apple and the entire tech industry. It would cost Apple a hundred billion dollars or more but the investment would pay off for decades to come.
    edited October 2021 docno42d_2seanjsailorpaulargonaut
  • Reply 5 of 46
    9secondkox29secondkox2 Posts: 2,663member
    Apple really needs to start building chip fabs all around the world. The situation brewing between Taiwan and China poses an existential threat to Apple and the entire tech industry. It would cost Apple a hundred billion dollars or more but the investment would pay off for decades to come.
    100% agreed on all points. 
    OutdoorAppDeveloperkillroyseanj
  • Reply 6 of 46
    Already being a satisfied M1 Mac Mini owner with 16 GB RAM and 1 TB storage, I am really eager to just sit back and watch the PC magazines run benchmarks on the M1X and watch their reactions. I develop apps in Xcode and take full advantage of the CPU, GPU and SSD read speeds, but in terms of looking ahead for the next upgrade, I don’t see myself upgrading for a couple of years, as long as the performance remains at a good-enough level while also retaining support for the latest macOS and Xcode versions. There are other Apple devices I need to upgrade, anyway.
    killroylongfangargonaut
  • Reply 7 of 46
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member
    My 2015 MBA is in dire need of an upgrade.  I tried the M1 MBA - and it was fantastic!  Then I made the mistake of loading some games on it - and they played fantastic too!  Well, except for Cities:Skylines - where my mod/asset addiction overpowered 16GB - it's just not enough. 

    So now I eagerly await the next round.  I'm hoping for being able to get at least 64GB of RAM - and curious as to how Apple will handle RAM in the next chips.  Will it still be closely coupled for blistering speed?  I hope so - soldered on or not.  May splurge on a large SSD this time too.  Hopefully give it some extra life - not crazy the drives are soldered on - and maybe in the larger ones they won't be? 

    Should be interesting to see.  My Apple Card is ready! 
    killroy
  • Reply 8 of 46
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,241member
    I would like to see Apple provide external disk access benchmarks when they announce the new MBP. I don't want to see the same slow write speeds on the first generation, handicapped MacBook Air. I spent over an hour discussing this with several levels of Apple Support and they couldn't find anything about this from their normal support information. OWC/MacSales has all the test information showing good external TB3 SSDs only getting 1000Mbps write speeds while getting over 2000Mbps read speeds while the internal storage gets in the 2300-2500Mbps range for both. 
    williamlondon
  • Reply 9 of 46
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,241member
    docno42 said:
    My 2015 MBA is in dire need of an upgrade.  I tried the M1 MBA - and it was fantastic!  Then I made the mistake of loading some games on it - and they played fantastic too!  Well, except for Cities:Skylines - where my mod/asset addiction overpowered 16GB - it's just not enough. 

    So now I eagerly await the next round.  I'm hoping for being able to get at least 64GB of RAM - and curious as to how Apple will handle RAM in the next chips.  Will it still be closely coupled for blistering speed?  I hope so - soldered on or not.  May splurge on a large SSD this time too.  Hopefully give it some extra life - not crazy the drives are soldered on - and maybe in the larger ones they won't be? 

    Should be interesting to see.  My Apple Card is ready! 
    What I've read is that the M-series RAM and storage work so fast together that 8GB is the new 16GB and 16GB is the new 32GB. I don't remember seeing anyone say Apple would be releasing a 64GB laptop. As for Cities:Skylines, is this a native ARM app or is it using Rosetta? Even though Apple does the conversion it's still not the same as a native ARM app making use of all the ARM-specific GPU apis. Just checked this app and it uses Steam and I've never used Steam before so not sure if it's using the Mac or an app to run the app on a Steam server. 
  • Reply 10 of 46
    doggonedoggone Posts: 377member
    Apple really needs to start building chip fabs all around the world. The situation brewing between Taiwan and China poses an existential threat to Apple and the entire tech industry. It would cost Apple a hundred billion dollars or more but the investment would pay off for decades to come.
    TMSC is a reliable partner and I believe they are already building factories in the US.  Apple could certainly pay them to own capacity at that site and others around the world.
    Remember Apple already own the chip design.  All they need now is a spread of partners across the world to make their chips.
    killroy
  • Reply 11 of 46
    22july201322july2013 Posts: 3,564member
    Optimistic prognostication has disappointed me too many times.
  • Reply 12 of 46
    As long as the new MBPs support at least 32GB RAM (pretty much absolute minimum for me) I'm in for one. I'd rather have waited for ARMv9 variant, but I need a new laptop that can handle all my workload even with some caveats. Even the first gen ASi Macs seem very solid and an awesome upgrade rather than a side-step, I was a sceptic at first but the M1 has sold me performance-wise, just not enough RAM..
    docno42
  • Reply 13 of 46
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    red oak said:
    16 or 32 GPU cores?   10 CPU cores? You have got to be kidding me 

    If true, these are going to obliterate anything other than “ high end” desktop workstations.  GeekBench scores will shake the PC industry 
    Not really. The critics have already started downplaying the performance component. No matter what Apple achieves the broader cadre of critics will refuse to acknowledge it. For years they crowed about performance when Apple was behind. Now, suddenly, with the M1trouncing the GeekBench metrics you may have noticed that not much is being said about it in tech blogs. Now add to that the fact that other OEMs have their copy machines working overtime to duplicate the M1’s performance.
    drgarethmottramwilliamlondonargonaut
  • Reply 14 of 46
    Apple really needs to start building chip fabs all around the world. The situation brewing between Taiwan and China poses an existential threat to Apple and the entire tech industry. It would cost Apple a hundred billion dollars or more but the investment would pay off for decades to come.
    conveniently Apple has around $200bn in cash to hand, TSMC is diversifying it's manufacturing, the extreme UV lithography kit is made in the Nertherlands, India, Vietnam and Brazil have some level of iPhone/accessories production in place, though not enough to take over the top spec kit at a moment's notice. I'm not being glib, but the actions of apple and other suppliers over the last 5 years suggest that this has been a long term drift to more resilience and less efficiency focus in the supply chains. Running chip fabs is probably not of interest to apple, but I could certainly see them co-financing one 
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 15 of 46
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member
    rob53 said:
    What I've read is that the M-series RAM and storage work so fast together that 8GB is the new 16GB and 16GB is the new 32GB. I don't remember seeing anyone say Apple would be releasing a 64GB laptop. As for Cities:Skylines, is this a native ARM app or is it using Rosetta? Even though Apple does the conversion it's still not the same as a native ARM app making use of all the ARM-specific GPU apis. Just checked this app and it uses Steam and I've never used Steam before so not sure if it's using the Mac or an app to run the app on a Steam server. 
    Anyone claiming ARM is magically reducing the amount of RAM required is sadly mistaken.  RAM is RAM and nothing beats having physical RAM if your application truly demands it.  The SSD may be fast enough with virtual memory swapping to where you might not notice, but swapping to SSD will dramatically lower its lifespan and since the SSD drives are soldered to the motherboards in the M1 Macs doing anything to increase wear/reduce the drive lifespan is an even dumber idea.  If you have applications that need RAM, get the RAM!   

    C:S is not ARM native but there is a Mac native version that ran great.  Indeed you wouldn't know it wasn't ARM native from the way it performed - performance was amazing - as long as I didn't load all my asset and mod subscriptions from the Steam workshop, were the lack of RAM really killed performance.  Windows games running either via Crossover or the Windows ARM preview in Parallels also performed way better than I expected and Crossover has gotten a major update to WINE since I had my MacBook Air.  I only ran into graphics issues with a couple of games - shader issues - that I'm sure will get worked out at some point.  

    Of course there are no details from Apple on the next round of hardware - what a shock.  But if they are going to replace all of their Intel models they are going to need Apple Silicon Macs that are at least equal to what they have shipping on Intel, and that means at least 64GB of RAM on the highest end laptops.  Once again there is no substitute for actual RAM if you have applications that truly demand it and I would be shocked if the highest end Apple Silicon MacBook Pro's couldn't go to at least 64GB.
    muthuk_vanalingamnadrielwilliamlondon
  • Reply 16 of 46
    22july201322july2013 Posts: 3,564member
    docno42 said:
    rob53 said:
    What I've read is that the M-series RAM and storage work so fast together that 8GB is the new 16GB and 16GB is the new 32GB. I don't remember seeing anyone say Apple would be releasing a 64GB laptop. As for Cities:Skylines, is this a native ARM app or is it using Rosetta? Even though Apple does the conversion it's still not the same as a native ARM app making use of all the ARM-specific GPU apis. Just checked this app and it uses Steam and I've never used Steam before so not sure if it's using the Mac or an app to run the app on a Steam server. 
    Anyone claiming ARM is magically reducing the amount of RAM required is sadly mistaken.  RAM is RAM and nothing beats having physical RAM if your application truly demands it.  The SSD may be fast enough with virtual memory swapping to where you might not notice, but swapping to SSD will dramatically lower its lifespan and since the SSD drives are soldered to the motherboards in the M1 Macs doing anything to increase wear/reduce the drive lifespan is an even dumber idea.  If you have applications that need RAM, get the RAM!   

    C:S is not ARM native but there is a Mac native version that ran great.  Indeed you wouldn't know it wasn't ARM native from the way it performed - performance was amazing - as long as I didn't load all my asset and mod subscriptions from the Steam workshop, were the lack of RAM really killed performance.  Windows games running either via Crossover or the Windows ARM preview in Parallels also performed way better than I expected and Crossover has gotten a major update to WINE since I had my MacBook Air.  I only ran into graphics issues with a couple of games - shader issues - that I'm sure will get worked out at some point.  

    Of course there are no details from Apple on the next round of hardware - what a shock.  But if they are going to replace all of their Intel models they are going to need Apple Silicon Macs that are at least equal to what they have shipping on Intel, and that means at least 64GB of RAM on the highest end laptops.  Once again there is no substitute for actual RAM if you have applications that truly demand it and I would be shocked if the highest end Apple Silicon MacBook Pro's couldn't go to at least 64GB.
    Fair points. But which is more important - the amount of RAM or the speed of the RAM? Is the on-board RAM on the M1 chip faster than the off-board RAM on other computers? I presume that Unified Memory Architecture gives you faster RAM. And if RAM is faster, it may reduce the demand on the amount of RAM needed, since apps will finish faster.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space–time_tradeoff <--
  • Reply 17 of 46
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member
    22july2013 said:
    And if RAM is faster, it may reduce the demand on the amount of RAM needed, since apps will finish faster.


    For some loads, maybe.  But not for applications that need RAM to hold data - like Cities:Skylines with my mod and more importantly, asset subscriptions.  

    Video editing, large photo editing, compiling large applications - there are lots of situations where there simply isn't a substitute for raw capacity.  Speed isn't going to replace the basic need for desk space to spread your stuff out to work on (one way to think of RAM).  Shuffling stuff on and off the desk faster is interesting, but not having to shuffle stuff in the first place is faster still :smile: 
    muthuk_vanalingamwilliamlondon
  • Reply 18 of 46
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,241member
    docno42 said:
    22july2013 said:
    And if RAM is faster, it may reduce the demand on the amount of RAM needed, since apps will finish faster.


    For some loads, maybe.  But not for applications that need RAM to hold data - like Cities:Skylines with my mod and more importantly, asset subscriptions.  

    Video editing, large photo editing, compiling large applications - there are lots of situations where there simply isn't a substitute for raw capacity.  Speed isn't going to replace the basic need for desk space to spread your stuff out to work on (one way to think of RAM).  Shuffling stuff on and off the desk faster is interesting, but not having to shuffle stuff in the first place is faster still :smile: 
    I suggest you start watching youtube videos from Max Tech and Rene Richie, among others before making up your mind. They benchmark all sorts of apps on new vs old Macs so after watching you can make up your mind. As far as the amount of storage (desk?) space, I'd say many videographers are already using external RAID storage, even SSD RAID, for most of their work anyway. I've seen youtube people using network storage to handle their loads. Instantaneous speed isn't always better than a properly constructed system. 

    If you noticed my comment about the original M1 MBA's (maybe the MBP and mini as well) slower external storage write speeds, this can be a problem for all workflows. Hopefully Apple will address this on the newer Macs with enough fast and wide PCI buses using the fastest Thunderbolt/USB4 interface designs. There are external single NVMe blades capable of running at 2800Mbps (faster than the M1 internal storage) but these speeds have been benchmarked on specialized PCs, not Macs. It doesn't matter how fast your external storage is if the USB4 ports can't deliver data fast enough. I added a TB3 external SSD to a family member's iMac who bought the base version with the snail-pace 5400 rpm HDD. This increased her R/W speed by nearly 10x. 

    One last thing. We all need to remember that the initial M1 Macs were designed to be Apple's new entry level Macs, even though they blew everything Apple was selling in single CPU speed. This becomes the new bottom line with the only way to go is UP⬆🔝

    williamlondonargonaut
  • Reply 19 of 46
    Apple really needs to start building chip fabs all around the world. The situation brewing between Taiwan and China poses an existential threat to Apple and the entire tech industry. It would cost Apple a hundred billion dollars or more but the investment would pay off for decades to come.
    Not true. If Chian reunite Taiwan, it will be swift. Everything will return to normal shortly. And Apple wasted billions of dollars on other nations that are incapable. 
  • Reply 20 of 46
    rob53 said:
    docno42 said:
    My 2015 MBA is in dire need of an upgrade.  I tried the M1 MBA - and it was fantastic!  Then I made the mistake of loading some games on it - and they played fantastic too!  Well, except for Cities:Skylines - where my mod/asset addiction overpowered 16GB - it's just not enough. 

    So now I eagerly await the next round.  I'm hoping for being able to get at least 64GB of RAM - and curious as to how Apple will handle RAM in the next chips.  Will it still be closely coupled for blistering speed?  I hope so - soldered on or not.  May splurge on a large SSD this time too.  Hopefully give it some extra life - not crazy the drives are soldered on - and maybe in the larger ones they won't be? 

    Should be interesting to see.  My Apple Card is ready! 
    What I've read is that the M-series RAM and storage work so fast together that 8GB is the new 16GB and 16GB is the new 32GB. I don't remember seeing anyone say Apple would be releasing a 64GB laptop. As for Cities:Skylines, is this a native ARM app or is it using Rosetta? Even though Apple does the conversion it's still not the same as a native ARM app making use of all the ARM-specific GPU apis. Just checked this app and it uses Steam and I've never used Steam before so not sure if it's using the Mac or an app to run the app on a Steam server. 
    Dunno about that ... certainly Apple Silicon has a more economical graphics workflow, but as for the rest processing it's pretty much the same - most apps are just recompiled for universal from the Intel source code. So no, there's no magic which doubles your RAM.

    If you're video editing from what I understand there are some optimizations that developers can do to speed up processing to keep things out in the GPU and render intermediate results to tile memory, but outside of the use of unified memory for both CPU and GPU everything is pretty much as it was before.

    I think a lot of the talk about double the RAM effectiveness just has to do with the amazingly good implementation of virtual memory under macOS.
    docno42fastasleep
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