Detnator

wizard69 said:

neilm said:

Multiple comparisons such as those in this article are why tables and graphs were invented. 

Yes but that results in two problems.   

1. The author can't feel good about himself by writing a wall of text that really doesn't mean much.
2. We don''t actually have shipping Mac ARM chips so there would be plenty of blank space in any honest comparison chart.

What baffles the mind is that Apple has clearly stated that the development Macs, with ARM chips, sent out don't represent the coming Macs.   In fact those development platforms are using an older ARM chip.   For various reasons the currently shipping A series are not likely representative of the coming Macs either.    Now I expect the Mac chips will inherit much from the A series and a Mac Book might even use an A series chip, but to address the competitive landscape they will need to implement a far more performant solution.   So I'm at a loss to see the value in this article, I doubt that the Mac processors will even be in the A series lineup.  

The value in this article is pretty simple:  It compares today's and recent years' Intel Macs with today's and recent years' A-series devices -- iPhones, iPads and the Dev Kit Mac.  Does that mean much? Perhaps if the performance of today's A-series devices was woeful, then no, it probably wouldn't mean much.  But what this article does point out quite well across the board is that yesterday's and today's A-series devices - that aren't in the slightest optimized for what Macs are supposed to be - do in fact keep up quite well with at least the low and mid range Intel Macs of similar time periods.

What that tells me is that if we make the (I think very reasonable assumption) that Apple's rate of improvement remains similar to what it has been, then tomorrow's A-series Macs - with (a) more powerful silicon than today's A-series devices and (b) silicon optimized for the purpose of tomorrow's Macs - are going to do a perfectly good job of keeping up with, if not trouncing, what they might have been if they'd stayed with Intel for Macs.  

There's concern about how much Apple's chips can keep with and/or exceed the performance of Intel's for the purpose of future Macs. This article provides pretty clearly what information we have on that topic so far, and gives us something we can work with for at least guesstimating some answers to those concerns.  From (a) the current landscape and (b) the rate of recent growth - both of which are presented pretty nicely in this article - I think it's pretty reasonable to extrapolate what Apple likely has in their labs right now and based on all that, I'm willing to guess it's pretty fricking awesome.

wizard69 said:

Fidonet127 said:

prismatics said:

Fidonet127 said:

prismatics said:

It would have been more interesting to see a comparison between Ryzen 4000 Mobile and Apple A Processors.

Bashing Intel is no news. Apple needs to beat AMD now, not Intel and this is much less likely given how perfect the recent AMD Notebooks have been considering the relevant metrics.

Apple uses Intel processors not AMD. This article compares, not bashes current or relatively current Apple offerings to give an idea of how Apple Silicon is already doing an impressive work to keep up. 

If Apple wanted to, they can take their Macs to 128bit or more. Imagine, for Mac Pros, multiple 256bit processors. Apple has now unleashed their potential.  Software developers now can do apps that cover all the Apple hardware. 

While you seem to be randomly throwing bit count around without having the necessary technical understanding to do so, I would like to point out that Apple will not be competing against Intel based machines but AMD based ones. So it is well in the interest of the average reader to see how Apple can keep up with AMD.

It is called doubling, not random. A series was 32 bit and is now 64 bit. Double that is 128 bit and doubling that is 256 bit.  Apple does have the expertise to do that. Again, Apple is no longer constrained. Apple could run multiple CPUs and they can increase the. CPU bit count and run multiple CPUs for high end computers. 

Again, this article was about comparing existing and recent Macs to the recent and existing Apple Silicon. You may think and wish for an Article of AMD vs  Apple Silicon, however that wasn’t the point of this article. Your are always welcome to ask for such and article, write your own article, or post in the forums a comparative analysis your or someone else has done. 

For me, AMD isn’t in the picture unless I’m running Windows or Linux. My Linux machine is a 2009 iMac. My Windows Laptop is dead. I like the Apple eco system. This was a good article and comparison for me. 

The other poster was calling into question your understanding of computer architecture and this post just highlights that you are missing the information to post rationally.   Almost all processor chips support register sizes wider that 64 bit via various instruction set extensions.   So a computer with 128 bit registers is nothing new they are just specialized.   In fact ARM already has the infrastructure for 2000 bit vectors but no hardware implementation yet.   As for the main ALU there is little reason to move beyond 64 bit registers in the near future.   Hardware these days doesn't even use the full 64 bit addressing range which is often limited to 42 to 48 bits.   so I don't know what you are doubling or even if you know what you are doubling but the base register size in the ALU is not going past 64 bit anytime soon.

As for what the article is comparing it clearly was i86 against Apple Silicon.   The fact is Intel has screwed up significantly and frankly hasn't been competitive with AMD in a good two years now.   So any comparison with respect to Intel Macs has to also consider where Apples hardware will be against AMD as that is what modern PC hardware is built upon.   It is like the stupidity of comparing a Mac Pro as a high performance workstation against other Intel machines ignoring the fact that everybody building a high performance workstations have gone with AMD's Thread Ripper.   In the end when Apple actually launches Apple Silicon, it is going to be benchmarked against AMD hardware.

The thing here is that if you are interested in Apple Silicon, no x86 chip is in your picture.    However if you want to know just how good those chips are you need to compare them with AMD's offerings.   Honestly this article was garbage as far as I'm concerned because Apple has already said that current A series doesn't represent what will be shipped in the coming hardware.   There are several things to consider here.    First there are changes that can be expected to increase performance out of the CPU's.   Second, it isn't about the CPUs on the die as much as it is the totality of the SOC and everything Apple can implement there.   This is very important because they can add features that have nothing to do with the CPU but over all enhance the Mac experience. 

Ok. You've had a lot to say about all this now. You obviously have some strong opinions about AMD and that's fine, but you've made some pretty wild and ridiculous comments in all that.  "[I]f you are interested in Apple Silicon, no x86 chip is in your picture..." (umm... huh??) and even "So any comparison with respect to Intel Macs has to also consider where Apples hardware will be against AMD as that is what modern PC hardware is built upon."  Umm... Just no. Not necessary in the slightest.

For one, I don't see any indication that PC manufacturers are large scale abandoning Intel and switching to AMD. The vast majority of the present and future of the PC market is still Intel. For two, you've completely missed the point. Yes you acknowledged that "the article is ... clearly ... i86 against Apple Silicon" but it's not in the slightest, and has no intention or need to be, about PCs, or what they're built on.

On the contrary, there are a lot of people, myself included, who are keenly interested in how Apple's new Macs are going to compare with the existing ones. I'm pretty sure a lot more people (in Apple's market - the target of this site) want to know that than care about AMD, or any of the other things you've ranted about there.

Sure an analysis about i86 vs ASi, and/or something about AMD, and/or other analyses will no doubt be interesting and helpful, especially for people wanting to compare tomorrow's Macs with today's and tomorrow's PCs, but none of that is what this article is even remotely trying, or needing, to be about.

Not i86 vs ASi. Today's Macs vs tomorrow's Macs. That is the point of this article. Now sure, what we know about that is pretty limited at the moment, but this article presents what we do know so far, pretty well. And at least what little we do know is some indication of what might be to come. This article about today's Macs vs tomorrow's Macs is exactly what it needs to be and what plenty of Apple users (this is AppleInsider after all) want to hear about. I for one found it very helpful.