linuxplatform

mpantone said:

My guess is that Microsoft hit the pause button after having second thoughts about bolting on a half-baked 64-bit Windows fork onto what appears to be a touchscreen netbook to compete against the next generation Apple desktop operating system and the mature iPadOS.

Microsoft does not have the luxury of screwing this one up otherwise they'll end up with another Windows Mobile debacle. They already conceded the paradigm shifting smartphone market.

It would be great for someone to come up with a competitive alternative to Apple's offerings but Microsoft can't put out something that is appears to be three years behind to the marketplace. In fact, the points that it is running 64-bit and on ARM instruction CPUs isn't all that important to Joe Consumer. It just needs to perform well.

That guess is wrong. This may come as a shock to you but Microsoft is the dominant force in PC computing. They are not in a position to where they have to respond to anything that Apple does until Apple's marketshare like triples. It would be great for someone to come up with a competitive alternative to Apple's offerings ... let me state this again. Microsoft has 90% of the market. Because of software compatibility and other issues, they have no reason to believe that ARM-based Macs are going to lead to this massive shift. Apple designing its own desktop chips is a huge deal to the Apple fandom but outside of that nobody cares, just like most people really don't care about Intel vs AMD on the Intel side.

That shouldn't be a surprise. The 2016 iPhone SE primarily attracted those who would have otherwise bought new iPhones released in previous years too. So people who might have bought the iPhone 5c or iPhone 6 bought the iPhone SE and got a better deal. Same thing here: you can get an iPhone 7 for $300-$350 or you can get what is really the iPhone 8 but with the iPhone 11 SOC for $399. Not a hard choice.

All right guys. I am officially going to eat crow. MacBooks running Apple Silicon are going to CRUSH Wintel/WinAMD machines.

https://wccftech.com/first-apple-silicon-featuring-12-cores/

The A13: 6 cores. The A14 is widely rumored to have 8. The MacBook chips won't be mobile chips like the A12/A13/A14. They are going to be desktop and server class chips with 12 cores. 

We don't know the core breakdown ... but I think that having 8 efficiency cores would be ridiculous for a device that is primarily going to be plugged in (not a smartphone or tablet that is going to rely primarily on a charged battery). I think that it will be 6 performance/6 efficiency at minimum. Possibly even - my own personal hope - 8 performance and 4 efficiency, although that configuration would not be possible in a fanless device. (You COULD use the A14 in a fanless MacBook Air however). 

OK, I was wrong. How wrong? Who knows. Ampere ARM server chips have 64-128 cores. But Apple is just getting started. Who knows how many cores their 3nm chips are going to have in 2022. 

That being said ... the last time Qualcomm - and MediaTek - went past 8 cores (5 years ago) things went badly and they haven't tried since. (Samsung hasn't even tried to surpass 8 cores.) So Lenovo, Dell and the rest are going to be stuck with Intel and AMD no matter how badly Apple is going to boatrace them.

And anyone who buys an Intel-based Mac instead of a 12 core Apple Silicon Mac is out of their mind. If they want to run with clearly inferior tech they should just go ahead and buy a Lenovo or Dell Windows machine. Sorry but facts are facts.

killroy said:

linuxplatform said:

killroy said:

Oh Intel, where is thy sting?

First of all this is very insensitive to religious people. Second, I do not understand how Intel - who worked hard to maintain a great relationship with Apple, provided outstanding driver support and never got involved in lawsuits or IP concerns with Apple as tons of other Apple suppliers do - is now regarded as "the enemy" whose demise Apple fans are rooting for. I can get the animus against Microsoft, Google, Samsung and Qualcomm. While I disagree with it I at least GET it. But Intel has done NOTHING but be as good a partner to Apple as they were capable of. Stuff like this is why so many people hate Apple fans with a passion.

Intel missed the 7nm mark and still is marketing chips with security flaws. 7nm won't hit the market till sometime in 2021. So is Apple to wait?

Huh? Don't shadowbox and tilt at windmills. Apple is absolutely correct to make their own chips (more on this in my next comment). I am saying that Apple's shifting to ARM is no reason to root for Intel's failure because Intel was one of Apple's best partners ever, if only because any beneficiary of Intel's decline would be Qualcomm (and Samsung), the former definitely a bad partner for Apple and the latter allegedly one. 

killroy said:

Oh Intel, where is thy sting?

First of all this is very insensitive to religious people. Second, I do not understand how Intel - who worked hard to maintain a great relationship with Apple, provided outstanding driver support and never got involved in lawsuits or IP concerns with Apple as tons of other Apple suppliers do - is now regarded as "the enemy" whose demise Apple fans are rooting for. I can get the animus against Microsoft, Google, Samsung and Qualcomm. While I disagree with it I at least GET it. But Intel has done NOTHING but be as good a partner to Apple as they were capable of. Stuff like this is why so many people hate Apple fans with a passion.

After all, suppose Windows does switch to ARM causing Intel to fall flat on its face. Who benefits? Qualcomm. (You folks weren't thinking that Apple is going to sell its ARM chips to the likes of Dell or Lenovo to make Windows PCs to compete with Apple ones and do so at generally lower prices did you?) Did anyone think of that? Qualcomm will become the primary manufacturer of both mobile devices that have 85% market share against AND and servers/PCs that have 93% market share against macOS. And Qualcomm - unlike Intel - HAS gotten into plenty of conflicts with Apple over IP and lawsuits over the years. Since Qualcomm buys chips in much bigger volume than Apple ever will - again see market share - what on earth will happen if Qualcomm decides to buy up as much of TSMC's capacity as possible in order to delay their #1 competitor's pipeline? (This isn't theory ... Qualcomm HAS done this very thing before AND MORE THAN ONCE.)

Third, Samsung entered 3nm risk testing this year and will produce the world's first 3nm chips next year. It will be their own Exynos chips, likely the ones used in the international version of the Galaxy Note 30. It will not be ready in time for the Galaxy S30, as their new 5nm chip will be used instead, as well as in international versions of the Galaxy Note 20. So Samsung is going to beat Apple getting to 3 nm by 1 year.

Qualcomm will introduce their own 5nm chips with integrated 5G modems next year, the 875, a few months after Apple launches their own 5nm A14. Rumor has it that they are going to charge $100 more than the 865 and people are not pleased. While previously Qualcomm's chips were made by TSMC, their 5nm chips will be made by Samsung. Who knows when Qualcomm will reach 3nm as - unlike Samsung - they likely don't have a design ready yet.

Finally Intel states that they will reach 3nm by 2025. AMD will reach 3nm - using TSMC's foundries - around 2023. However, Intel's transistor design is denser, so a 3nm AMD chip is roughly equivalent to a 5nm Intel chip, a 5 nm AMD chip equal to a 7nm Intel chip and so forth. Thanks to the work of Bill Keller, who got Intel past their road block, Intel will release their first 7nm chip later this year, and that is when all the people who are crowing "AMD has surpassed Intel!" will basically be silenced. And yes, Intel's 7nm chips will add performance and efficiency to their already considered "best available" desktop, workstation and server i7, i9 and Xeon chips. So, Intel is going to be releasing new chip generations on a smaller process every 2 years just like Apple and everyone else. 

Bottom line: Intel isn't going anywhere. Even if Apple Silicon beats them - which I still sincerely doubt but I will concede that point to those who feel otherwise - the performance and efficiency improvements are going to make the gap between Macs and Windows machines more than close enough for Lenovo, Dell, HP, Acer and Asus to continue to use them rather than try to find a better performing ARM replacement than Qualcomm (which currently does not exist and there are none on the horizon) and in the process of being stuck with Qualcomm chips that already are no better than half as powerful as Apple Silicon but will have to run most applications in emulation. 

Now what WILL happen is a shift from Intel to ARM for CHROMEBOOKS. The only reason why it happened yet is Oracle's copyright lawsuit against Google. That FINALLY ends in October. Shortly after Google will certify ChromeOS Linux for Qualcomm and Exynos - and likely take it out of beta also - which means we will see Exynos-based Chromebooks from Samsung and a raft of Qualcomm-based Chromebooks from Lenovo, HP, Acer, Asus and possibly even one from LG (who doesn't make many Chromebooks) though likely not Dell (who is an x86-64 loyalist and also doesn't make many Chromebooks) in 2021. But even there, the only reason why this will happen is because ChromeOS on ARM performs similarly to ChromeOS on Intel and there are no app compatibility issues (if anything Android apps run better on the ARM-based Chromebooks than the x86-64 ones, and most of the main Linux applications were ported to ARM ages ago, which is why Apple is encouraging Windows bootcamp and virtualization users to switch to Linux instead for Apple Silicon). But because ChromeOS is more of a tablet OS akin to iPadOS than a desktop/workstation/server OS akin to macOS, Windows and Ubuntu, the Chromebooks will only cost Intel sales of devices in the Celeron, i3 and i5 range. It won't affect Intel's i7, i9 or Xeon business at all.