tenthousandthings

Well put. Quality bloviation, thank you.

While it would still need to be accompanied by the commitments and efforts you mention, there is a way to answer the question posed by Ternus. He’s right that there’s no optimal way to integrate AMD’s current PCIe GPU architecture, for example. Plus, I don’t think he only means unified memory. It’s also about TBDR (tile-based deferred rendering) and Apple’s approach to GPU architecture.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/metal/tailor_your_apps_for_apple_gpus_and_tile-based_deferred_rendering

Nonetheless, it could still be done, by creating PCIe components that use this approach. Imagination Technologies is one company that could do this, not to mention Apple itself. PCIe 5 and Thunderbolt 5 make this practical.

I think Apple has gotten itself into marketing trouble. Those marketing handlers who appear with the Apple engineers when they do interviews should be spending less time worrying about what John Ternus or Anand Shimpi might say and more time developing effective marketing that accurately reflects what those engineers are doing.

The root problem is that M1 and M2 could easily be called A14X and A15X, but they are marketed as being something more than what they are (I'm not suggesting that what they are is problematic in any way, just they they are being marketed as something they are not). It’s an inaccurate portrayal of what Apple is doing. It matters because it disguises the actual transformation from A-series to M-series, which is the jump from the A/M to the M Pro/Max/Ultra.

This problem leads to confusion. The M3 will launch in October as the start of the next generation of Macs, and of course it is, but it’s also not. That transformation won’t actually happen until the M3 Pro/Max is launched. 

The real question is will Apple produce a high-end version of this Mac Pro? Right now, the only available version is entry-level, with silicon that overlaps with the high-end Mac Studio. There is no high-end Mac Pro.

The silicon would have to go beyond the Ultra. Beyond the beyond (ultra means "beyond"). Apple has said enough to make it clear that they did design such a tier, but it's not clear what that was. All that is known is that it was aborted and its code name might have been Jade 4C-Die.

But there are some things that we can surmise:

#1 is that killing Jade 4C-Die wasn't a financial decision, it was about performance. It didn't give them what they were looking for at the high-end Mac Pro starting price of $14K (i.e., double the entry-level price, like the Mac Studio). My assumption is that the reality of the fundamental limits in M1/M2 graphics performance meant its time had not come.

#2 is that Unified Memory is here to stay. Whatever Jade 4C-Die was, and whatever it will become, it will be built around the principle of Unified Memory.

#3 is that we should take the commitment to PCI Express at face value. PCIe 5 (and Thunderbolt 5) is a big step forward, and the PCIe 6 specification is also now complete. Those designs are sitting on engineering drawing boards right now. An M3 Ultra Mac Pro with PCIe 5 will be a big step beyond the M2 edition. But that would still be the entry-level Mac Pro. We'll just have to wait and see if and when they go beyond that. It really depends on what they do with the M3 Pro/Max graphics. 

Marvin said:

AppleInsider said:

The M3 Pro's base configuration is anticipated to have 12 CPU cores, again split evenly between performance and efficiency cores, and an 18-core GPU. The top configuration will use add two more performance cores, bringing the total to 14, as well as a 20-core GPU.

The M3 Max will start with a base configuration of 16 CPU cores, using 12 performance and four efficiency cores, and a 32-core GPU. On the high end, the M3 Max will have the same 16-core CPU but a 40-core GPU.

I'd expect the 12-core M3 Pro to be 8 performance-cores, it would be unusual to have 6 efficiency cores on Pro and 4 on Max. Plus M2 Pro 10-core already has 6 performance cores, 4 efficiency. Moving to 6p/6e only increases the efficiency cores. 8p/4e would increase CPU performance at least 50%.

The GPU core counts look like a small increase so I'd say they will increase transistor count per core:

https://wccftech.com/apple-a10-fusion-cores-bigger-than-competition/

"One reason why Apple is adamant is designing larger cores is because having more transistors per core helps when performance and efficiency per-watt metric is calculated. While this might not be a good approach when conserving space, clock efficiency greatly increases thanks to these decisions."

They might also have a strategy similar to Intel's tick-tock. 2nm won't be ready until late 2025/2026 so they have to make 3nm last for 2023/2024/2025. I doubt they would throw everything in with the first 3nm revision then have a small refresh in 2025. It's best to split it so that each refresh has a worthwhile improvement (~50% increase each time) so that M4 (2025) is 2x M2 performance.

EPL rights are split into two components: the domestic UK rights and the global rights (not including the domestic rights). The global rights are not uniform. That's what Cue is talking about. Apple could bid to take over the US rights in five years or whatever when NBC's contract is up, but that wouldn't get them assorted European rights, and those elsewhere around the world.

Cue is saying that Apple wants global rights (as opposed to UK rights). If they can't get that, they are out. It would require the EPL be willing to coordinate global rights, so a larger deal could be negotiated all at once. So the Nordic Entertainment (nine countries) deal, for example, would have to somehow be synchronized with US deal, and so on.

In other words, it will never happen. Right now, the global overseas rights total are £5.05 billion. Apple would have to increase that significantly to unify just the North American and European rights, let alone the rest of the world.