danwells

Testing an AMD WX 9100 eGPU with the 15-inch i9 MacBook Pro

danwells

August 2018

This card is essentially the Radeon Vega 64 that shows up in the higher-end iMac Pro (there may be modest differences in clock speed, etc.). The iMac Pro version has 16 GB of RAM, just … (more)

iPhone 15 USB-C will fix some problems, but create issues for most

danwells

September 2023

The good news is that almost any USB-C cable should charge an iPhone. I don't know if pure data (no power at all) cables are even USB standard legal. Every cable I've ever seen will carry … (more)

QNAP's new NASbook has both Thunderbolt 4 and network connectivity

danwells

December 2023

One important caveat on products like this (I found this out the hard way on an earlier generation) is that any cloud backup solution that will back up a RAID, but not a NAS (Backblaze is … (more)

Apple's iPhone drops to second place in declining smartphone market

danwells

April 2023

The headline is misleading, looking at the graph... Since 2020, we've seen the same pattern each year. Samsung outsells Apple three quarters every year, then Apple takes a big lead in … (more)

Latest 'Scary Fast' leaks double down on M3 iMac and MacBook Pro launches

danwells

October 2023

At first, I thought "this makes no sense" - two high end laptops that almost end up in the mobile workstation market and a consumer desktop that sells a fraction of what the consumer … (more)

Apple & other tech giants appeal Maryland's digital advertising tax

danwells

November 2023

A digital ad tax is about the best tax I've ever heard of.

1.) Taxes reduce consumption of whatever they're applied to (this is why cigarette taxes are high - they're equal parts anti-… (more)

Apple's FileMaker, Inc brings back the old Claris name

danwells

August 2019

Moof! I'm wondering if this has to do with Apple spinning out in house software to avoid anti-trust issues? Many of the potential (and some actual?) lawsuits around the App Store have to … (more)

Apple is planning to use artificial intelligence to optimize App Store ads

danwells

March 2024

Apple is historically better than most about letting you turn off some of the targeting. Hopefully this can also be turned off. Of course the problem is that gambling companies (or other … (more)

Polaris. AMD. Getting 'back in the ring?'

danwells

May 2016

At least some part of the problem is Apple consistently taking every improvement as "thinner and lighter, without losing too much performance", rather than sometimes keeping size and … (more)weight similar with a major performance increase. How many people would like a Skylake/Retina MBA better than the MacBook? Yes, they kept the MBA around, but using old chips and the only non Retina display in the Mac line.

I'm afraid this is where they're going with GPUs - sacrificing performance for battery life (even, astonishingly, on the iMac, which doesn't run on batteries :-) ). There are certainly lower-end machines that don't need discrete GPUs, but I think Apple needs four total discrete GPU machines (three of which exist), and two of them need to take gaming into account (one argument people are making is "Apple uses AMD for compute, which is great for photo and video editing, but not so much for games"). External graphics are a real option if Apple supports them well especially with increasing Thunderbolt speeds.

1.) Mac Pro - expensive, generally not purchased for gaming - GPUs need to be selected for very high performance in creative pro applications. As long as it's kept updated, the choice of workstation GPUs is fine... The biggest problem with the "trashcan" Mac Pro is that it's too elegant! An internal HD capacity of 0 in a machine like that? It should have a couple of 3.5" bays (as well as the SSD).

2.)iMac - 27" needs a discrete GPU (it's a 5k screen!!!) 21" should probably have the option (there's a very good reason to make a no discrete GPU model, as a reasonably priced home/student desktop). These ARE gamer-friendly machines, so nVidia options probably make a lot of sense. Why not use desktop GPUs for better price/performance - who cares about shaving a bit of weight off a desktop? A thicker machine could provide the cooling without being much louder... Do laptop parts actually offer better power/performance, or are they just drawing less power for less performance? I can see not offering the multi-hundred watt super-performance gaming GPUs for a mixture of environmental and cooling concerns, but it should have a lot of GPU options, not all of which are laptop parts. Could an external GPU theoretically drive the INTERNAL display? If so, what would it take to make that work? A Thunderbolt 3 port would connect the GPU (almost certain to exist on the next model) - could it feed the display signal back in on the same port? If not, what would it need for a second attachment?

3.) MacBook Pro - one discrete model (15" only) is fine, laptop GPU is (of course) fine. In my opinion, this is mostly a creative pro machine, not a gaming machine. Maybe it wants one higher-end GPU option, but what I primarily care about is that it doesn't LOSE its discrete GPU option. Thunderbolt 3 opens the possibility of external GPUs with excellent performance, and the question of the internal display is somewhat less important - the internal isn't the incredible screen the 5K iMac has, and I'd imagine either a serious gamer or a creative pro would want an external display when they went to the trouble of plugging in external graphics. One really interesting accessory Apple could make for the MacBook Pros is a 5K Thunderbolt Display with its own GPU? Is there any reason the GPU couldn't be in the display with a fast Thunderbolt connection?

4.) Midline desktop Mac. Apple NEEDS to make a screen less Mac in between the Mini and the Pro, especially with the Mini moving down the line. It could be a quad core Mini with either internal discrete graphics or enough Thunderbolt ports (on multiple buses - you don't want a GPU contending with storage) to make external graphics a good option. I'd like to see a "Mac Midi" with space for a PCI-e card and a couple of drives, but it'll never pass muster with Jony Ive. Barring a Mac Midi, a quad core Mini with plenty of Thunderbolt would serve much the same purpose - some enterprising company might even make a housing that holds a GPU and some drives and matches the Mini.

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Inside Sierra: How Apple Watch 'Auto Unlock' will let you jump straight into macOS

danwells

June 2016

I hope that, by the time Sierra is released, this will be extended to the iPhone as well, rather than used as a ploy to sell the Apple Watch. It would be perfectly easy to do the same … (more)

danwells

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Testing an AMD WX 9100 eGPU with the 15-inch i9 MacBook Pro

iPhone 15 USB-C will fix some problems, but create issues for most

QNAP's new NASbook has both Thunderbolt 4 and network connectivity

Apple's iPhone drops to second place in declining smartphone market

Latest 'Scary Fast' leaks double down on M3 iMac and MacBook Pro launches

Apple & other tech giants appeal Maryland's digital advertising tax

Apple's FileMaker, Inc brings back the old Claris name

Apple is planning to use artificial intelligence to optimize App Store ads

Polaris. AMD. Getting 'back in the ring?'

Inside Sierra: How Apple Watch 'Auto Unlock' will let you jump straight into macOS