tenthousandthings
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Apple updates Mac mini with M2 and M2 Pro chip options
I haven't read your "contrarian" comment history, and I follow most of what you're saying here, but you're off the mark at the end. Jumping straight to 3nm for M2 Ultra isn't likely, no matter what you call it. 3nm N3 FinFlex is an innovative, next-generation design library, different from 5nm N5/N5P/N4/N4P/N4X FinFET. M2 Ultra, however, could go beyond N4 and instead employ N4P or even N4X, which would be far from "lame." N4X (TSMC fifth-generation 5nm) is especially intriguing (the X stands for "extreme").thadec said:
Dude, what is up with you? I am not even an Apple guy - as you can probably tell from my comment history, my job is to be a contrarian when applicable - but why would you even expect an annual upgrade cycle from a company that makes the chips, OS and computers themselves?keithw said:Not to be ungrateful, but where are the Mac Studio updates with the M2 Pro, Max and Ultra options?
You get annual updates with Dell and HP workstations because they only have to make the PC.
They get the chips from Intel and AMD which are refreshed annually.
They get the OS from Microsoft (and for workstations the various entities that provide the Linux distros).
They only have to take those parts and use them to build "new" computers that rarely meaningfully change from year to year ... they just need to swap out last year's Intel/AMD CPU with this year's and keep everything else the same. I still remember the freakout that Intel caused when they stated that 12th gen and higher wasn't going to be backwards compatible with most older motherboards (even if you could get it to work it wouldn't be supported or covered by warranty).
That the PC manufacturers get everything else supplied to them that they only have to use to make - or more accurately have Foxconn and other white box types make for them - the PCs practically eliminates the R&D and manufacturing costs that Apple has to cover by themselves. That means that it makes no financial sense for Apple to refresh their Macs every year like they do their smartphones.
Another thing that makes refreshing smartphones each year sensible? That Apple sells hundreds of millions of them each year. Note that Apple TV, which sells in far lower volumes, gets refreshed much less frequently. Same deal with Macs. Apple sells 30 million Macs in a great year, 25 million in a good year, 20 million in a normal one. That means that the market for any annually refreshed device but the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro - their biggest sellers, and even that is only the entry level MBA and the 13" and 14" MBP - won't be big enough to sustain it profitably. This is not like PCs, which outsells Macs by a factor of 10, meaning that there will always be a decent number of people looking for a new HP or Acer in any given year.
The Mac Studio is a $2000 device that only makes sense for video and photo editors and musicians. For literally everyone else it is a terrible product because you can either get similar performance for way less than $2000 or a lot more performance for that $2000. Yes, that AMD Threadripper or Intel Core i9 workstation will be a lot bigger, noisier and draw a lot more power but it will do everything that doesn't need the prores codecs - again everything but photo, video and music stuff - faster and cheaper. To expect Apple to upgrade it any more often than every 2 years makes no sense. At least if it gets upgraded in 2023 then it will be a major upgrade from a 5nm M1 Ultra to a 3nm M3 Ultra. Merely going from a 5nm M1 to a 4nm M2 is lame. It only made sense to do it for the Mac Mini, MacBook Air and 13" MacBook Pro because they were still on the original 2020 M1, not the improved M1 that came out in 2021.
If I had to bet, though, I'd guess they will keep it on TSMC second-generation 5nm (5NP), like the M2 and M2 Pro/Max. I'll also guess that the relationship between the M2 Max and the M2 Ultra will be different from the relationship between the M1 Max and the M1 Ultra. The M2 Ultra won't just be two M2 Max together like it was for the M1 Ultra. It will be a true workstation design.
As for a near-term refresh of the Mac Studio, you're not accounting for the fact this is a transition period. You are right that Apple won't keep to an annual refresh cycle for any Mac, and two years or so is probably about right (the original rumor was 18 months), and really it's more just that they will refresh when they are ready to, and not on a set schedule. But that same logic also means Apple can, if they want, refresh the Mac Studio just a year after launching it, to close the book on M2 and complete the transition. They can do whatever they want.
There are three Macs still waiting for the M2, and all of them are Apple Silicon-era form factors: the iMac, the Mac Studio, and the Mac Pro. [FWIW, I consider the 2019 Mac Pro to be an Apple Silicon design, launched less than a year before the announcement -- the kludge was putting Xeon-W into it, not the other way around -- the Mac Pro has been sitting, waiting for Apple Silicon to grow into it.] I'll guess the iMac will arrive soon (along with iPad Air), probably March, but the Mac Pro and Mac Studio will wait until WWDC.
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Apple produced an event video for M2 Mac mini & MacBook Pro
Tim Millet states that the M2 Pro is “second-generation 5nm” which is N5P, same as M2. As for M2 Max, he described it as an M2 Pro with additional graphics. So it must be N5P as well.
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M2 Mac mini vs M1 Mac mini - compared
There’s no M2 Max Mac mini, but the fact the iMac didn’t appear today is exciting. As in M2 Max iMac. I think it will still be one size fits all, but at the highest end it will line up with the entry-level M2 Max Mac Studio.
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Apple updates Mac mini with M2 and M2 Pro chip options
Correct, M2 Pro is N5P — Tim Millet stated in the presentation that it is “second-generation 5nm” which is N5P, same as M2. In his M2 Max presentation, he described it as the M2 Pro CPU with additional graphics. So it is N5P as well.blastdoor said:I'm super curious to learn what process is used to fab the M2 Pro. I'll be shocked if it's 3nm. Might be 4nm. Probably 5P (same as M2).
I think it’s still possible the Ultra could go to N4 (“third-generation 5nm”) or even beyond that (not N3, though, that’s a different design library). They’ve already changed the relationship between Pro and Max, so it’s not far-fetched to guess the M2 Ultra might not just be two Max joined together like it was in the M1 series. Indeed, the way he described it suggests it won’t be. -
AMD proved that Apple skipping 4nm chips isn't a big deal
I realize the forums are a tiny aspect of Apple Insider, and it's a giant pain in the ass to moderate them, but this article/editorial contains two factual errors that have already been addressed repeatedly in the comments on earlier articles that made the same mistake—if the author had read those comments, he could have made a stronger argument here.
First and foremost, the A16 is 4nm. Apple stated that outright. It is the N4 process. The linked The Information article AI covered on December 23 may have some elements of truth in it. After all, chipmaking is hard, or everyone would be doing it. Especially high-end graphics. The quote from Ian Cutress therein says all that needs to be said. But it's Apple Insider who makes the leap there to say that the A16 stayed on 5nm and didn't go to 4nm because of these challenges. That is just wrong, wrong, wrong. The A16 did go to 4nm (N4). Apple touted this in its presentation. I find this insistence otherwise, in multiple articles by two different members of the AI staff (Wesley twice and now Malcolm), to be just inexplicable.
The second error is more of a detail, but it's an important one if you're going to be editorializing about Apple and chipmaking. TSMC's so-called "4nm" is the third generation of its 5nm (N5) FinFET platform. It's not a "die shrink," to reference Malcolm's 2019 article where he laid out some of the factors driving Apple's A-series chip production. It uses the same design library. N4 is a second "Tock" not a "Tick," to use the same terms Malcolm used in 2019. That's why Apple could easily revert to the A15 graphics designs for A16 (while staying with N4 for A16, instead of N5P used for the A15), as rumored/leaked in the aforementioned The Information article.
TSMC provides a definitive English-language source of information about how these “process technologies” relate to one another: https://www.tsmc.com/english/dedicatedFoundry/technology/logicThe N5 FinFET platform is comprised of N5, N5P, N4, N4P, and N4X processes. The next platform is N3, and it is more "flexible." The first two generations of it are N3 and N3E. See: https://n3.tsmc.com/english/dedicatedFoundry/technology/N3.htm
N2 (due in 2025) was recently announced, but it's not clear how it is related to N3—I'll guess that means the relationship between N3 and N2 is similar to the relationship between N5 and N4, that is, N2 will use the N3 FinFlex design library.
