The US market is irrelevant, as I mentioned before, as it's small and saturated.
Proper gains are to be made in the non-first-world portions of the Asian markets. Yes, I understand that in most countries this breaks down by rural/urban populations.
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A few bold Apple Silicon Mac Predictions
- Thread starter senttoschool
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Proper gains are to be made in the non-first-world portions of the Asian markets. Yes, I understand that in most countries this breaks down by rural/urban populations.
You forgot the keyword. I bolded and underlined it for you.
You are comparing the median GPU of future Macs to the median GPU of gaming PCs that people already have. Of course the 3-4 years between them will give you a faster GPU.
The latest rumors speak of 16-core and 32-core Apple GPUs in mid-2021. They will probably be used in most MacBook Pros and iMacs. The 32-core model should be comparable to the GPU in a $1000 to $1500 mid-2021 gaming PC, but Apple probably won't use it in Macs cheaper than $2000.
There are also rumors of 64-core and 128-core GPUs in the late 2021 or in 2022. They should be comparable to the GPUs in $2000 and $3000 mid-2021 gaming PCs. The 64-core GPU will use too much power to fit in any MacBook Pro, while the 128-core model will probably be too power-hungry for iMacs as well.
My overall prediction is that future Macs will (finally) have decent GPUs, but they will still be slower than in comparably priced gaming PCs.
Ugh, I doubt that
This I have little doubt about. Especially the first two points.
I don't think this is Apple's goal. Their strategy was always the premium market segment. They target enthusiastic customers who drive change and are willing to spend money, not regular office workers who just want their Word icon in the fixed place. Having too much market space will probably be detrimental to Apple, because they will lose their aura of "exclusivity".
If we are talking about optimised games, the current 8-core Apple GPU is comparable to $1000 gaming laptops and to $2000 premium gaming laptops (such as Razer Blade Stealth). Basically, anything that has a GTX 1650. The 32-core Apple GPU will be comparable to a RTX 2060/2070 or better.
That was typed on my way into work.
In essence, anyone even considering the market share of the US when it comes to Apple's expansion is missing the forest for the trees.
If we are talking about expected future Apple GPUs, we should compare them to expected future Nvidia GPUs. RTX 3000 series GPUs should be available in most price categories in mid-2021.
I think you're missing the point.
The point isn't about pure power. The point is: how many AAA capable computers are available for developers to develop for? How many computers have a 1050Ti/1060 or better GPU are there? These two are the most common GPUs on Steam which means AAA developers have to develop for them.
Kuo predicts that Apple will sell 35 million Macs/year (20% market share) within 3 years. That's 35 million computers capable of playing AAA games at low to high settings. According to IDC, the number of gaming laptops and gaming desktops sold in 2020 was 37.1 million. That means in 3 years, 50% of all gaming computers sold will be Macs assuming they don't overlap.
Do you think AAA game developers will ignore 50% of the available market?
And if Macs take 40% of market share in 5 years, then the number of AAA capable Macs will be 70m/year sold versus 37m for PCs. That means 65% of all AAA capable gaming computers will Macs. But the reality is probably even worse for PCs because many people who buy gaming PCs will have switched over to Macs if Macs continue to increase market share.
Thus, Macs are poised to become the #1 platform for AAA games.
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Fair enough. Then let me put it like this: a 32-core Apple GPU will be comparable or better than the mobile 3060
Nvidia 3000 Series is not as big of a jump as is commonly thought. It does bring massive performance improvements, but they are mostly achieved by making the chips themselves larger and hotter and the memory faster and hotter. In performance per watt, there is little improvement. That is ok for desktop, where extra 50 watts of power can be neglected, but doesn’t bode too well for laptops. I expect 3000 series to be a rather modest improvement over the 2000 series in the laptop space.
Most of today's AAA capable computers will soon no longer be AAA capable. Sony and Microsoft just released a new generation of consoles, and they will set the new baseline for AAA gaming.
A 32-core Apple GPU should be comparable to the Playstation 5 and the Xbox Series X, making it a baseline gaming GPU. A 16-core GPU should be slightly faster than the Xbox Series S, which means it's a low-end gaming GPU. The 7/8-core GPUs used in M1 Macs are below the new low end.
No, this is wrong. The base won't be PS5/XSX power. XSX has a 12TFlops GPU which is equivalent to a 2080Super. You really think AAA developers will target a $699 (2020 pricing) GPU as the baseline? And next-gen consoles have a Zen2 8core CPU. 59% of all Steam gamers still have a 4-core or 2-core CPU.
Cyberpunk, the biggest AAA game this year, has a minimum GPU requirement of a GTX 780. This GPU was released 7 years ago. Its CPU requirement is a i5-3570K, released 8 years ago. And the game still doesn't even require an SSD.
AAA developers will target what is the most common CPU/GPUs in the Steam hardware survey.
Yes, PS5/XSX will accelerate PC gamers to upgrade. But this is a still very slow process.
In order for AAA developers to make money, they have to make their games available to the widest range of players as possible.
Even M1 Macs should be able to play AAA games for the next 4-5 years at low settings.
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They will target a $499 gaming console.
This is just business as usual in PC gaming. When the current-generation consoles are old, even a cheap gaming PC can deliver a superior experience. Then the new consoles are released, and you either need an expensive upgrade in a year or two, switch to a console, or abandon AAA gaming.
And the GTX 780, which is a low-end GPU for Cyberpunk 2077, is faster than the M1 GPU.
They won't target a $499 gaming console.
Hell, even Microsoft doesn't agree with you because they made the Xbox Series S which only has a 4Tflops GPU. Series S is expected to last 6-8 years since that's how long each console generation lasts.
GTX 780 scored 16786 in Geekbench OpenCL. M1 scored 18301.
So no, GTX 780 is not faster than the M1.
In addition, the M1 CPU is more than 2x faster than Cyberpunk's minimum CPU requirement.
Lots of spec-racing ITT.
Apple doesn't care about specs.
Not understanding people discussing the M1 GPU performance metrics compared to a newly released game.
Apple couldn't care less about the non-iOS gaming market.
Apple doesn't care about specs.
Not understanding people discussing the M1 GPU performance metrics compared to a newly released game.
Apple couldn't care less about the non-iOS gaming market.
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Obligatory caution in the interest of intellectual hygiene: When comparing gaming revenue numbers, be very careful to note exactly what is counted (and for that matter, how). Typically "gaming revenue" in console space includes hardware (the consoles themselves, extra controllers and so on) and the numbers for PC can be even more foggy, with everything sold with a gamer label (gfx cards, chairs, mats, beverages) included. The numbers compiled and presented are typically done so with an underlying agenda.
My recommendation: look at software revenue.
My recommendation: look at software revenue.
You're wrong. The AAA gaming market is huge and it's the reason why a lot of people still stay on Windows.
Up until now, Apple had no way to convince AAA game developers to come to the Mac because the minimum Macbook that could play games was the $2000 Macbook Pro 16" with its 5300m.
It wasn't that Apple didn't care about non-iOS gaming. It was just not possible for them to.
You clearly haven't been paying any attention. I suggest you read my last couple of posts.
The number of Macs capable of playing AAA games will equal to the number of PCs that are capable of playing AAA games within 3 years, if you believe in Min Chi Kuo's predicted Mac shipments.
Give this a read: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/a-few-bold-apple-silicon-mac-predictions.2274172/post-29368965
"OpenCL" is the problem here. The speed difference between OpenCL and CUDA/DirectX on Nvidia GPUs is even higher than the difference between OpenCL and Metal on Macs. It's at least partially deliberate. If the customer could get comparable performance with OpenCL and CUDA, they could buy their next GPU from someone else.
There's simply no way to compare performance between M1 and the GTX 780 in an apples to apples comparison.
If you have a better metric, please let us know.
And please don't use tflops numbers since tflops differ in performance between architectures.
I have read it.
I find the information contained within irrelevant to the long-term goals of Apple, which do not involve gaming.
Again, this is simply spec-racing and has no foundation in reality.
Consoles only represent a portion of gaming market. PC is still very popular for gaming. And you can't just develop your game assuming baseline hardware that only 10% of PC gamers own. Current generation of consoles represent high-end gaming (4K, 60/120fps, high quality settings) but games will target mid-range as well. And while I doubt that Macs will be a high-end gaming machines, every Apple Silicon Mac has the potential of being a mid-range one — which cannot be claimed for a regular PC laptop.