Apple Silicon Thoughts That I Haven't Seen Mentioned

[bobcomer]

Wait a month - when Back to School starts, you will see multiple Lenovo laptops that will be in the 11"-13" screen range and include one year of Office 365 with 2GB RAM and 32GB eMMC storage. I worked there for over four years, so I've seen (and tried to stop) people buying those cheap pieces of crap. What's worse is that some of those models will be carried through the Christmas shopping season since some people think cheaper is better when it comes to laptops.

I doubt it.

edit: I doubt that there will be in the future, not that you didn't work at best buy and what they sold in the past! I know they did and someone should slap Microsoft upside the face for letting it happen!

 

[dmccloud]

I doubt it.

It happens every single year. Hell, I just found one in a 5 second Google search:

Lenovo Ideapad High Performance 11.6” HD PC, 1-Year Office 365 ($69.99 Value), Intel Celeron Dual-Core Processor, 2GB RAM, 32G eMMC Storage, Webcam, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HDMI, Windows 10

Lenovo Ideapad High Performance 11.6" HD PC, 1-Year Office 365 ($69.99 Value), Intel Celeron Dual-Core Processor, 2GB RAM, 32G eMMC Storage, Webcam, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HDMI, Windows 10

www.amazon.com

Maybe the manufacturers are finally ditching 2GB RAM in favor of 4GB for Windows machines, but this would be the first year where that is the case. We sold three such models (two Lenovo, one HP) last Back To School/Holiday season, all of which were "current" models. In fact, we probably received 10 of those for every gaming laptop that showed up on the trucks.

 

[Tyler O'Bannon]

I hate the term "pro" in these discussions because it is really twisted.

For most of the "pro" market current M1 is more than enough and actually a bit overkill.


This is coming from a "pro" user as in I'm using my M1 mac to do professional tasks as in what I earn my living from. In my case MS office (mostly excel), mail, browser, AutoCAD, PDFs etc.


It is the niche market that do rendering and stuff like that that aren't as well served with the M1.

I feel you on that. A lot of Professionals (Pros) can do absolutely everything they need on M1 well. And it will only get better. The Pro Moniker on iPhone bothers me even more. I mean, seriously, iPhone Pro, it doesn't have much to do with being a pro or not, it's just an iPhone with more features for more money. Period. Lol. The Plus moniker made more sense, but plus is only being used in branding for services, not hardware. Rant over lol.

 

[bobcomer]

Maybe the manufacturers are finally ditching 2GB RAM in favor of 4GB for Windows machines,

One can hope! But actually, I'd prefer 8G and 128G of SSD as the bare minimum! (No spinning disks anymore)

Anyway, I fix a lot of people's PC's and I haven't seen that level of Windows PC for a long time, so maybe they aren't selling as well and and the makers have finally figured that out.

 

[Tyler O'Bannon]

🤔 I never thought about this before, but now that you mentioned it. I think we’ve see the very last AX chip. From now on normal iPads will have A series chips and iPad Pros will have M series chips. Despite the name Pro all iPhones fall basically into the same category of display performance needs. The Pro Max might have more RAM, but the same number of CPU and GPU cores.

A-series: iPhone, iPhone Pro, iPad
M-series: iPad Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, Mac mini
MX-series: MacBook Pro, iMac Pro, Mac Pro

We shall see. I think we will see an X chip in iPhone Pro. Apple seems to be drawing a line between the low product and higher end version with Pro. I think we will see that with iMac. We won't have to say 21 inch or 27 inch, just iMac or iMac Pro. And I think low end will all be A or M, and All Pro will be X or Z, except iPad Pro, which having M already is a big differentiating factor. We shall see, but the wind seems like it could very well be blowing that direction.

 

[Tyler O'Bannon]

Honestly these days something like the MacBook Air or Pro running M1 is enough for me. The only reason I didn't get one is because it doesn't supports dual displays alongside the lack of a redesign.

If I do find the Air on a good promo I'll get it to carry it with me everywhere.

Same. It's plenty of power. When I do export a video, M1 is plenty fast. I am waiting to see what the M1X or M2X 16" MBP are like to upgrade from current 16". And that will be plenty for me for several years. And I mostly care about M1X or M2X for GPU reasons, being able to support 2 external monitors. CPU is already plenty, only GPU is a bottleneck for me, and I might get 32GB of RAM if possible for future proofing. That all adds up to more than plenty of power for me. I guess I'm not a Pro 😂

 

[Tyler O'Bannon]

I don’t understand why we think a redesigned larger iMac will be called the iMac Pro. We had 2 sizes of iMac for a decade which the larger model was popular with a wide mix of user types, not to be just for pros, but anyone wanting a larger screen and better performance. The reason the iMac Pro was end of life was that regular 27” iMac could be configured to equivalent performance, no longer needing to be around.
Reference this site

I am generally annoyed by this site not properly separating the M1 based 24” iMac and the current intel 27” iMac from its buying recommendations. We all know a 30” or 32” model is forthcoming and is due 2nd half 2021.

There is also the possibility of a mid-performance desktop without monitor with similar configurations discussed like a low cost MacPro offering.

None of the current 27” iMac users consider the capability of 24” M1 as adequate for a number of reasons especially GPU intensive software. Even my old 2015 model is significantly faster with OpenGL/Metal scores. So yes pretty much any newer iMac 27” model is that much faster utilizing discrete GPUs.

I think the wind is blowing that direction. Apple has been drawing a line between low end version of a product and high end version of a product with the Pro Moniker. Low end version is iPhone, iMac, high end version is iPhone Pro or iMac Pro. Unless we get an iMac Max and an iMac Pro that is up towards that $5k price point again. I'm mostly kidding about iMac Max..... unless it happens. You heard it here first 😂. To be clear: I don't like the sound of iMac Max haha

 

[dogslobber]

The bigger takeaway in my opinion is that with the release of the M1 Macs, Apple redefined the entire low-end PC/Mac Market. So many PC sold today are the cheap laptops from HP, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, etc. that barely have enough hardware to even run Windows, let alone install any software or do anything productive with. Those systems have massive tradeoffs such as eMMC storage at either 32 or 64GB RAM, 2-4GB RAM, lower resolution displays, and significant keyboard/trackpad flex.

I don't know if you're familiar with market segmentation or not. Essentially there is a price point for every consumer so you split the market. Those cheapo pieces of crap are for folks who are only willing to pay a small price for them so the BOM of the device has to meet the market segment. Those low end devices are all about the cheapest, slowest parts, and this is a market that Apple does not work in. Other PC manufacturers do because they're chasing every $ will volume. Take a marketing class for some background on this topic.

 

[dogslobber]

In general folks are reading a lot into these ideas of more scaled chips with a lot more cores, etc. That's just not the direction Apple is headed as chip design and production is very expensive. You bin the CPUs and you design multiple CPUs into a single system. That's how you overcome 16GB memory ceilings and single external display constraints without bankrupting yourself.

 

[Kelly Jones]

I hate the term "pro" in these discussions because it is really twisted.

For most of the "pro" market current M1 is more than enough and actually a bit overkill.


This is coming from a "pro" user as in I'm using my M1 mac to do professional tasks as in what I earn my living from. In my case MS office (mostly excel), mail, browser, AutoCAD, PDFs etc.


It is the niche market that do rendering and stuff like that that aren't as well served with the M1.

Yes! The M1 has expanded the capabilities of the low end price range (with respect to macs) to include the lower half of what is considered the "pro" market. Yes, you can spend more for improved performance in certain tasks with an Intel-based machine, but do you really need to? A single M1 system covers a lot ground.

I bought an M1 Macbook Air 8GB/512GB to temporarily replace my 2018 Macbook Pro 15" (32GB/1TB) while it was being repaired. Other than being tight on memory, the M1 was perfectly capable of running Lightroom classic, packet captures for my work, and some moderate video work. If I had bought the 16GB model of the M1, I could have also have comfortably run a virtual machine for devops work. Once my 2018 MBP 15 was repaired, I returned to using it and was struck by just how the M1 was actually better for most day to day tasks. I gave my M1 Air to my wife to replace her 2013 Macbook Air and it has been great. I'm sure I'll eventually get an M2 or M1X (whatever they decide to call it) macbook with 32GB memory when it ships.

 

[Realityck]

Yes! The M1 has expanded the capabilities of the low end price range (with respect to macs) to include the lower half of what is considered the "pro" market. Yes, you can spend more for improved performance in certain tasks with an Intel-based machine, but do you really need to? A single M1 system covers a lot ground.

I bought an M1 Macbook Air 8GB/512GB to temporarily replace my 2018 Macbook Pro 15" (32GB/1TB) while it was being repaired. Other than being tight on memory, the M1 was perfectly capable of running Lightroom classic, packet captures for my work, and some moderate video work. If I had bought the 16GB model of the M1, I could have also have comfortably run a virtual machine for devops work. Once my 2018 MBP 15 was repaired, I returned to using it and was struck by just how the M1 was actually better for most day to day tasks. I gave my M1 Air to my wife to replace her 2013 Macbook Air and it has been great. I'm sure I'll eventually get an M2 or M1X (whatever they decide to call it) macbook with 32GB memory when it ships.

Perhaps people are failing to recognize that much more powerful low end SoC is not expanding, but the overall eventual SoC’s with Apple GPU die incorporated in the same package will move the performance with all computers much higher. Isn’t that the point to all this. If you think one solution is plenty fast now for everyone, I think you’ll be kicking yourself later.

 

[cocoua]

My biggest issue is the Pro market is very GPU heavy. ML, Metal, OpenCL, Video Rendering, Color Grading, 3D rendering, ML/AI all require the latest and greatest in GPUs and will always want more power.

The latest MacPro with Vega Pro Duo level GPUs was the first MacPro to compete on the higher end in quite a while.

I have a brand new M1 MacBook Pro and I love it, I’m about to buy some M1 iMacs as well. The cpu and wattage and overall MacOS experience is phenomenal, but for GPU intensive tasks I still have to use my eGPUs on Intel for rendering. I did some tests and it’s 1/5 to 1/3 my Vega Frontier in and eGPU. My 20min GPU render is now over an hour.

Apple needs to figure out a way to compete in high end cutting edge graphics aiming for 3090ti++ level or it can’t really create a Modern Pro workstation.

iMacs, MacBook Pros, MacMini will be more than adequate, but high Pro level workstations will need high end graphics.

Apple might have something to compete, like Metal specific render pucks or tb3 render modules, who knows, but there is nothing projected at the moment.

That's true, and Macs overall have been lacking decent GPU all over their gamma, marketing in PC market has focus always on CPU and this is what Apple took advantage in order to sell "new but old" devices, you can still see that on the "Pro" macbook 13"…

kind of this is applied to other upgradables as disk space or RAM… iPad Air 2 was selling with 16GB of disk space were 4GB were just the original iOS (getting larger with each "forced by Apps and Apple guidelines" upgrades)…

iPhone Pro is never going to have the X chip, as new SOCs are a strong selling point every year and it has no sense from the power consume POV.

Apple and the "optimized OS for RAM" claim is OK for some scenarios, but if an effects project takes 12 GB in windows, takes 12GB in Mac, no matter how many miracles the Apple dev team did. SO, Macs has been ALWAYS devices sold with one or few Achilles heel in order to save and gain more money. Period. Said this, I've been faithful to Apple as the other 2 options are a very problematic and they take a lot of attention in the design process, which I love. Their products are the sexiest digital devices ever.

Also a project that takes 50 GB of disk space on Windows takes 50 GB on Mac, so the crap soldered SSD capacity they sell is just… …

TLC and MLC devices are consumer grade products. Despite the lower durability of TLC flash, it is absolutely sufficient for use as a bootable disk which infrequently changes. A consumer may achieve better longevity and therefore better value for money from a larger TLC device than a smaller MLC due to how the memory would deteriorate over a greater number of cells.

So, is far better having a 2TB TLC than a 256 MLC.

Low end iPad right now has a 3 years old generation chip (iPhone XS), so very optimistic the 1-2 years old chip in the future low end iPad…


Sorry but I think the whole OP is full of flaws…

As I said in other thread , my main concern is about single core performance in future Apple silicon, as size is reaching its lowest top, and it could mean this is the only perfect time for Apple to amaze the world with the change (similar to their transition to PowerPC) as it would slow down in next years (talking here single core )

 

[MrGunny94]

Same. It's plenty of power. When I do export a video, M1 is plenty fast. I am waiting to see what the M1X or M2X 16" MBP are like to upgrade from current 16". And that will be plenty for me for several years. And I mostly care about M1X or M2X for GPU reasons, being able to support 2 external monitors. CPU is already plenty, only GPU is a bottleneck for me, and I might get 32GB of RAM if possible for future proofing. That all adds up to more than plenty of power for me. I guess I'm not a Pro 😂

Honestly if it isn't for HANA Studio (which won't be any longer supported in the future) I don't have anything else that eats all my RAM. For code edit I use Visual Code and Sublime (One Note for notes)

I'm curious to try out the Air base model tbh

 

[nquinn]

Just wanted to share some thoughts about Apple Silicon that I haven't really seen:

Apple Silicon for Mac (M series):

It would be very Apple for the M1 to be the only 1st Generation Apple Silicon. They clearly designed the low end of the spectrum (but brought the baseline power for "low end" way up). It's a chip for colorful portables and desktops at the lower end. Take away the fan and you've got an ultra portable machine. Add a fan and you've got a low end MacBook Pro and a Low End Desktop, both with a huge leap in power. But I could see the M1 being the only 1st Gen Apple Silicon for Mac.

Round 2 pushes up to the Pros.

This Fall, M2 comes in the same timeframe as A15. Redesigned MacBook or MacBook Air that is colorful like iMac 4.5K.

M2 has 3 variants. M2 for all machines running M1. M2X for 14" and 16" MacBook Pro that are now redesigned around Apple Silicon (like 4.5K iMac was). And M2Z for the larger iMac (presumably now called the iMac Pro so we don't have to say 4K and 5K or 4.5K and 5.5K, but just iMac and iMac Pro), (I won't speculate about hardware beyond this: 27" minimum, 32" maximum, 30" likely, 5.5K? who knows).

Mac Pro will just be it's own thing, just Apple Silicon with crazy specs, no fancy name? Makes sense in my brain.

When 14" and 16" drop, they will be in the fall right after M2 generation, and get M2X. And next iMac at some point after that with M2Z. All before June-September of 2022 within the promised 2 year transition window.

While this would be nice, the fact that we've seen M1X style benchmarks leak with just higher multicore scores but the same single core as M1 means I think we're most likely just to see a large boring M1 variant with 8+2 cores. It honestly really won't matter much for me but a +20% single threaded bump would be nice to get since by the fall the M1 will be approaching 1 year old, and the 16" macbook will be 2 years old.

 

[jdb8167]

While this would be nice, the fact that we've seen M1X style benchmarks leak with just higher multicore scores but the same single core as M1 means I think we're most likely just to see a large boring M1 variant with 8+2 cores. It honestly really won't matter much for me but a +20% single threaded bump would be nice to get since by the fall the M1 will be approaching 1 year old, and the 16" macbook will be 2 years old.

Where have you seen such leaks? I've seen nothing credible. Just a few click-bait sites that basically guess based on the latest rumors.

 

[Realityck]

While this would be nice, the fact that we've seen M1X style benchmarks leak with just higher multicore scores but the same single core as M1 means I think we're most likely just to see a large boring M1 variant with 8+2 cores. It honestly really won't matter much for me but a +20% single threaded bump would be nice to get since by the fall the M1 will be approaching 1 year old, and the 16" macbook will be 2 years old.

CPU monkey lists a M1X and a M2. Both are the same details. Shows it's in MBP 14", MBP 16" and Mini Pro. Really nothing to chew on as factual.

example https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu-apple_m2-1971

 

[KPOM]

It happens every single year. Hell, I just found one in a 5 second Google search:

Lenovo Ideapad High Performance 11.6” HD PC, 1-Year Office 365 ($69.99 Value), Intel Celeron Dual-Core Processor, 2GB RAM, 32G eMMC Storage, Webcam, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HDMI, Windows 10

Lenovo Ideapad High Performance 11.6" HD PC, 1-Year Office 365 ($69.99 Value), Intel Celeron Dual-Core Processor, 2GB RAM, 32G eMMC Storage, Webcam, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HDMI, Windows 10

www.amazon.com

Maybe the manufacturers are finally ditching 2GB RAM in favor of 4GB for Windows machines, but this would be the first year where that is the case. We sold three such models (two Lenovo, one HP) last Back To School/Holiday season, all of which were "current" models. In fact, we probably received 10 of those for every gaming laptop that showed up on the trucks.

I suppose you could buy one of those machines, use the Office 365 license on another “real” computer, and find some other purpose for the notebook that doesn’t require much computing power or storage.

 

[Homy]

While this would be nice, the fact that we've seen M1X style benchmarks leak with just higher multicore scores but the same single core as M1 means I think we're most likely just to see a large boring M1 variant with 8+2 cores. It honestly really won't matter much for me but a +20% single threaded bump would be nice to get since by the fall the M1 will be approaching 1 year old, and the 16" macbook will be 2 years old.

Cpumonkey also says that an iGPU from 2013 running at 0.6 GHz performs twice (10 GFLOPS) as much as M2 (5 GFLOPS). 😄

 

[Maconplasma]

I feel you on that. A lot of Professionals (Pros) can do absolutely everything they need on M1 well. And it will only get better. The Pro Moniker on iPhone bothers me even more. I mean, seriously, iPhone Pro, it doesn't have much to do with being a pro or not, it's just an iPhone with more features for more money. Period. Lol. The Plus moniker made more sense, but plus is only being used in branding for services, not hardware. Rant over lol.

The way Apple uses the word PRO makes a ton more sense than the way members here use the word PRO. Separating product lines makes sense to use the word PRO for the upper scale line. Members here act like a "Pro" is some superhuman above all others who requires a computer made of the highest end hardware that's more powerful than a stack of MAC trucks. The comedy is when called out to explain what a Pro is these same people go hide and won't reply because they can't describe what a Pro is.

The truth is the word Pro around here is being used for no good reason other than to bash Apple saying they need to make products for "PROS". A professional is a person who makes money from the work they do, period. A simple M1 MacBook Air can be used by a "professional" to run their business. There are way too many professionals to quantify what type of computer they need. From CAD and graphic designers to video and photo editors to lab technicians to book writers to bookkeepers. Even professionals who use computers simply for their POS systems or even CPA's who use computers to run tax software. That's why I get sick of how people throw the word Pro around here as if it applies to one big person.

 

[MacCheetah3]

I think the GPU could easily scale to compete with a 3090, but Apple is going to have to decide if it makes sense for them to create a High End MacPro with State of art GPU performance, or come to the realization that the market is just too small.

A medium article stated the M1 iPad basically destroyed the tablet market by setting the bar super high.. nothing from Samsung, or Google, or Microsoft can even compete with the M1 iPad... When this happens I feel like it is even less of an incentive for Apple to keep making high end Pro Equipment, the market is just so much smaller than the consumer/prosumer market..

Apple has already left the ProMarket and come back a few times, they only create a new MacPro when video editors and CG artists who love macOS complain, the 2019 MacPro for example is probably just for show, I doubt they make much money off of that workstation or that Pro end demographic.

With all its faults Apple, they still make the best computer hardware/software combo on the planet, if my M1 MacBook Pro had high end graphics capabilities, it would just solidify their greatness.

Good points. The iPad Pro performance has certainly turned heads — even with iPadOS still maturing.

I do think a Mac Pro does require RTX 30 series equivalent or better options available. The very promising fact is Apple is tackling half of the requirement, ML/AI, already with the Neural Engine. My guess is Apple will need to create a package with 12 to 16 core CPU, a minimum of 96GB high-speed unified ECC RAM and a GPU that equals or exceeds an RTX 3080 for the next Mac Pro to grab any notable amount of interest.

 

[jjjoseph]

Good points. The iPad Pro performance has certainly turned heads — even with iPadOS still maturing.

I do think a Mac Pro does require RTX 30 series equivalent or better options available. The very promising fact is Apple is tackling half of the requirement, ML/AI, already with the Neural Engine. My guess is Apple will need to create a package with 12 to 16 core CPU, a minimum of 96GB high-speed unified ECC RAM and a GPU that equals or exceeds an RTX 3080 for the next Mac Pro to grab any notable amount of interest.

Honestly if Apple had something released end of 2021 that has GPU performance on par with middle of the road pro that is out today, say a 3070, it would still be pretty Pro with M1X/M2.

With 3070 level they could even offer a dual GPU upgrade option!! Say ONE for OS/UI and one for Processing, AI/ML/METAL/OpenCL, that would be a giant leap forward.

16 core M1, 96GB ECC RAM, Single or DUAL 3070 level GPU, and maybe 6 or so USBC/USB4/TB4.. That would be a pretty bad ass work station, and super attainable technology wise for Apple... it could have a small form factor, connect it to an Apple Pro Display, lowish power draw.. I would buy one.

 

[bobcomer]

While this would be nice, the fact that we've seen M1X style benchmarks leak with just higher multicore scores but the same single core as M1 means I think we're most likely just to see a large boring M1 variant with 8+2 cores. It honestly really won't matter much for me but a +20% single threaded bump would be nice to get since by the fall the M1 will be approaching 1 year old, and the 16" macbook will be 2 years old.

More performance cores is what I need if it also supports more RAM. I'd definitely trade in my M1 MBA. But I'll get something with a fan(s).

 

[Aggedor]

Interesting thread.

I agree that high-end GPUs are the key to high-end pro Macs. Given the performance of the AS (in iOS devices as well as Macs), I'm pretty sure they will have developed a very high-end GPU-like system that can give the required performance.

But, given AS is all system-on-a-chip, I also suspect it'll all be integrated GPU cores, etc... unless they create an AS GPU card themselves. Integrated means you would never be able to upgrade it, like you can with a regular graphics card. Apple have produced card-like modules before (the Afterburner card, for example).

I've actually just noticed that we are coming up to 1 year from the announcement of the shift to AS, supposedly as a 2-year transition. And so far we have... the M1, in four basically identical configurations (I think the iMac M1 is exactly the same as the other M1 machines?).

Apple transitioned from PPC to Intel ahead of schedule, but unless we get some serious announcements soon, I don't see the entire Mac lineup as AS before June 2022.

 

[4sallypat]

The way Apple uses the word PRO makes a ton more sense than the way members here use the word PRO. Separating product lines makes sense to use the word PRO for the upper scale line. Members here act like a "Pro" is some superhuman above all others who requires a computer made of the highest end hardware that's more powerful than a stack of MAC trucks. The comedy is when called out to explain what a Pro is these same people go hide and won't reply because they can't describe what a Pro is.

The truth is the word Pro around here is being used for no good reason other than to bash Apple saying they need to make products for "PROS". A professional is a person who makes money from the work they do, period. A simple M1 MacBook Air can be used by a "professional" to run their business. There are way too many professionals to quantify what type of computer they need. From CAD and graphic designers to video and photo editors to lab technicians to book writers to bookkeepers. Even professionals who use computers simply for their POS systems or even CPA's who use computers to run tax software. That's why I get sick of how people throw the word Pro around here as if it applies to one big person.

AGREED!

I have noticed certain Mac users are absolutely vain and complain about a Mac missing the PRO moniker or those that absolutely demand the apple logo on the chin or complain of bezel colors, etc...

If I need a graphics intense platform for gaming, 8K video or a business intense 3D modeling I would get a workstation.

My flight simulator gaming platform to only run Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is a custom built, very expensive graphics card Windows 10 machine.

Otherwise in my daily use - all the M1 Mac devices I use are absolutely hands down the best Mac since 2006.

 

[nquinn]

Cpumonkey also says that an iGPU from 2013 running at 0.6 GHz performs twice (10 GFLOPS) as much as M2 (5 GFLOPS). 😄

I hope that leak is wrong for sure! It's not one of the better ones - sometimes we'll see multiple geekbench leaks closer to release that are more reliable.

Would absolutely love to see a more M2 style chip in the upcoming macbook. Bonus points if we get wi-fi 6e.