wizard69

techconc said:

CheeseFreeze said:

This is more a modest evolution and not a ‘major increase’. Which is fine. 

I’m more interested in GPU performance and GPU features (and have that compared to AMD/Nvidia), as well as improvements to the Neural Engine side of things, because these factors will be way more telling of Apple’s advancements and strategy. 

And whether there will be a T3 chip following up the T2.

Who cares whether the CPU is just increasing in speed and efficiency, if the most useful and apparent factors are GPU and ML? 

As someone else noted already, the GPU compute scores are up about 70% in the A14.   The transistor count is up 39% which is pretty massive and it's clear this didn't go into the CPU so much.  Apple's focus seems to be exactly as you mention... with AI and machine learning.  This doesn't show up on Geekbench 5 as they don't have benchmarks to capture this.  There are industry benchmarks such as AIMark, etc. which do.  To that end, Apple doubled the performance of their Neural Engine and they now have 2nd generation matrix multiplication units used for ML.  The point being, much of the focus of the A14 has been on improving the AI/ML performance rather than traditional CPU where they already have a substantial lead.

As for a T3 chip?  No need.  The T2 chip was effectively a way to help bring Intel chips up to speed with some of the things Apple needs to do (Secure enclave, encryption, ISP, etc.).  The T2 is effectively based on the A10 technology and performance.  Apple Silicon Macs won't need a Tx chip because that's already built into their SoC.  I'm not expecting any significant new Intel based product introductions in the future. I'm guessing the last iMac update was the last hoorah for Intel on the Mac.

GeorgeBMac said:

M68000 said:

I can’t dispute these claims.  I’m no expert in cpu manufacturing.  But have to wonder...  there has to be a limit, a wall that must be reached at some point with current chip fabrication\materials. Every year we keep hearing that in just a years time the new cpu is XX percentage better than the one before it. The other thing is the phones are so good right now,  does it really matter in real life daily use?

My iPhone 7 with its 4 generations back A10 processor seems to be chugging along just fine.   To be honest, I don't see what "faster" would get me.

But then software, especially on the iPad, will keep getting more and more demanding.   So, when buying new, you might want to allow for some reserve horsepower for down the road.  It's a bit like 5G -- you're investing mostly in capacity for the future.

netrox said:

tht said:

tmay said:

tht said:

The wait is long.

I actually thought I would replace this iPad Pro 10.5 after a year, but lo and behold, still typing on it.

I'd guess by March, it will be available, and I'm certainly interested, but curious if it will be powered by an A14X

If it is "Pro" monikered, it's going to have an A14X (2x CPU, 2x GPU, 2x memory bandwidth), or a variant of a Macbook silicon. It's basically the same thing. Was hoping they would make the holidays for it, but it looks like the pandemic nuked any chance of that happening.

The most important things to me are:
1. miniLED display
2. 8 GB of RAM (would hope they offer a 16 GB option)
3. Extended display support for external displays with overlapping apps (really a software thing)
4. Continued software keyboard refinement. Would like to have 3 row keyboard
5. USB4/TB3 enabled Smart Connector and ports

The RAM is likely 8 GB or less. We now have NAND cells that are capable of transferring at blazing fast 7,000MB/s making RAM less and less important than ever. RAM was invented because of hard drives being too slow with access and slow transfer speed. If you got a storage that can transfer 7GB per second with fast access time, it gets harder to justify for more RAM that consumes more power and costs more. 

Beats said:

Xed said:

karmadave said:

Interesting that Apple would announce the A14 on the iPad Air and not their flagship iPhone. Perhaps 5nm yields as such that the iPhone was delayed? In any case, the A14 is a very impressive piece of engineering. I would expect that Apple will also use the A14 in their future Macs. In any case, the iPad Air looks like a killer upgrade!

Maybe yields of the chip are part of it, but I'd imagine that the bulk of the delays from the pandemic are coming from areas where a lot of people are working very close together to manufacture the product, which means the final assembly of the iPhone, and possibly one or more components that are less automated.

As Larry already stated, I can't see the Mac having an A14 in it. No A-series chip at all. Apple already has many categories for bespoke chips and already announced a new umbrella category, Apple Silicon.

Apple said Macs will have their own family of chips.

Eventually I see the same chip across the board from Glasses to Mac. That's at least a decade from now.

larryjw said:

karmadave said:

Interesting that Apple would announce the A14 on the iPad Air and not their flagship iPhone. Perhaps 5nm yields as such that the iPhone was delayed? In any case, the A14 is a very impressive piece of engineering. I would expect that Apple will also use the A14 in their future Macs. In any case, the iPad Air looks like a killer upgrade!

Expect to see an A14X announced -- likely for the coming iPad Pro. What about the Apple Silicon laptop? It's going to have a different name and be substantially different from either the A14 and A14X.