dyonoctis

mdriftmeyer said:

blastdoor said:

ph382 said:

rob53 said:

Why stop at 32 cores. 

I don't see even 32 happening for anything but the Mac Pro. I saw forum comments recently that games don't and can't use more than six cores. How much RAM (and heat) would you need to feed 32 cores?

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15044/the-amd-ryzen-threadripper-3960x-and-3970x-review-24-and-32-cores-on-7nm

The 32 core Threadripper 3970x has a TDP of 280 watts on a 7nm process. It has four DDR4 3200 RAM channels.

Based on comparisons of the M1 to mobile Ryzen, I would expect an ASi 32 core SOC to have a TDP much lower than 280 watts. 

I bet a 32 core ASi SOC on a 5nm process could fit within the thermal envelope of an iMac Pro. 

It has 8 not 4 DDR 4 3200 ECC RAM Channels and those are limited by the OEMs. Zen supports 2TB of DDR4 RAM since Zen 2. And Threadripper is limited to 32 Cores presently because they haven't moved to the Zen 4 5nm process with RDNA 3.0/CDNA 2.0 based solutions that are on a unified memory plane.

Those 32 cores would be a 16/16 Big/Little and then combine their GPU and other co-processors and you have a much larger SoC or very small cores.

TR 3 arrives this January along with EPYC 3 Milan with 64/128 Cores. The next releases as Lisa Su has stated and their software ROCm has shown will be integrating Xilinx co-processors into the Zen 4/RDNA 3.0/CDNA 2.0 based solutions and beyond. 

Both AMD and Xilinx have Architecture licenses to ARM and have been designing and producing ARM processors for years. Xilinx itself has an arsenal of solutions in ARM.

32 Cores would only be in the Mac Pro. 8/8 cores in the iMac and 12/12 in the iMac Pro is pushing it.

In 2022 Jim Keller's CPU designs from Intel hit the market. The upcoming Zen architecture designs will be announced in January 2021 at the CES Virtual conference. AMD has already announced by 2025 its conservative Product sales of Hardware will be over $22 Billion. That's up from this year's just over $8 Billion.

Apple has zero interest in supporting anything beyond their Matrix of hardware options and people believing they want to be all solutions to all people don't understand and never have understood the mission statement of Apple.

A lot of the R&D in M1 is going into their IoT future products and Automobile products.

MacPro said:

rob53 said:

Why stop at 32 cores. The current TOP500 supercomputer is comprised of a ton of Fujitsu A64X 48 compute core CPUs based on ARM v8.2-A. Cray is also working on changing to the ARM architecture. The current implementation is only running at 2.2 GHz using a 7nm CMOS FinFET design. This is on one chip! (ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujitsu_A64FX, also https://www.fujitsu.com/downloads/SUPER/a64fx/a64fx_datasheet.pdf)

Apple is already fabricating at 5nm and there's no reason why they couldn't build something similar, although I expect it to be a larger SoC than the current M1. The Fujitsu CPU appears to be more or less a standard size package, although it's only the CPU. (ref: https://www.anandtech.com/show/15885/hpc-systems-special-offer-two-a64fx-nodes-in-a-2u-for-40k)

Apple isn't the only major computer company going ARM. It's good to see Apple finally expand to the Mac line. Those performance charts everyone's used to seeing with a simply curve are going to be amazed at how steep the jumps are once Apple really gets going. I ordered an M1 MBA simply because I've ordered ver 1 of several Apple Macs before. Crazy thing is this entry level Mac is faster than my current iMac. Talk about a steep performance curve!

Note: I keep confusing ARM with AMD so previously I might have commented about the Fugaku supercomputer being AMD-based. If I did, my mistake. 

Cray will be using Macs to design their computers soon

sflocal said:

I suspect Microsoft is going to introduce a more baked version of Windows for ARM.  The writing is on the wall.  Chips like the M1 and soon, other competitors will leave the x86 chips behind.  

I really believe that Apple started a new level of technology that doesn’t include Intel or AMD and others will follow.

 

ericthehalfbee said:

Why would Microsoft want to embarrass themselves (and their ARM devices) by allowing Windows on an M1 MacBook that will massively outperform their own devices?

sflocal said:

AppleInsider said:

 The fact that Apple's M1 hit the market before Intel could even finish its own chips supporting the new standard is eye-opening.

I believe the word you're looking for is "embarrassing".