ARM MacBook Pro I don’t want an Overpriced Netbook.

[Krevnik]

With the iMacs and MacBooks this goes hand in glove. One of the problems right now is heat throttling as Apple designed for chips that Intel said would be ready...and then weren't. As a result Apple had to go with chips that had higher heat budgets then they designed for.

“Higher heat budgets than they designed for” is underselling it a bit, honestly. The i9 in the 16” is still rated for 45W TDP, but I’ve seen the CPU package of the 9980HK alone hit over 90W and hold it until forced to throttle. The 10980HK reportedly can hit 135W. Intel is using ever increasing power consumption to cover for the fact that they’ve been stuck on their 14nm process node for far too long. These 10980HK measurements honestly demonstrate that these chips are just as power hungry as their desktop counterparts under load, and getting noticeably worse with each generation. Intel’s 10th gen laptop chips now consume more power under load than AMD’s similar desktop chips (3700X with 8c/16t was measured at around 90W under AIDA stress test loads). It’s just that the 10980HK idle power is still quite good, while AMD’s idle power has generally been higher than even Intel’s desktop chips.

This trajectory is not sustainable for any laptop OEM long term. Apple just happens to have some experience building SoCs for performance in the low power regime, while other OEMs either play along with Intel or hope AMD can make a good enough laptop chip to let them switch.

 

[Yebubbleman]

well the guy accused intel of 'throwing more cores at the problem' with their cpu's as if its a cop out by intel. So directly to my point, why isnt it considered a cop out when AMD uses 24 cores for a gpu?

1. GPUs are not CPUs.

2. GPUs are grunts. Add more grunts, get more done. This is not directly comparable to CPUs in this respect as more cores isn't necessarily linked to better performance on a CPU the way it is on a GPU.

3. AMD is advancing the architecture for its CPUs and GPUs. Intel may be advancing the architecture of its GPUs (albeit way too little, way too late), but it is NOT doing so with CPUs; case in point, the only differences between 8th (and 9th and 10th) gen Intel CPUs and 7th Gen is a higher core count. The cores themselves have not changed or advanced. And 7th Gen Intel is only a minor bump from 6th Gen Intel, which is nearing its fifth birthday at this point. Compare that to Apple's advancements (hell, even to AMD's recent advancements with Ryzen).

 

[dmccloud]

1. GPUs are not CPUs.

2. GPUs are grunts. Add more grunts, get more done. This is not directly comparable to CPUs in this respect as more cores isn't necessarily linked to better performance on a CPU the way it is on a GPU.

3. AMD is advancing the architecture for its CPUs and GPUs. Intel may be advancing the architecture of its GPUs (albeit way too little, way too late), but it is NOT doing so with CPUs; case in point, the only differences between 8th (and 9th and 10th) gen Intel CPUs and 7th Gen is a higher core count. The cores themselves have not changed or advanced. And 7th Gen Intel is only a minor bump from 6th Gen Intel, which is nearing its fifth birthday at this point. Compare that to Apple's advancements (hell, even to AMD's recent advancements with Ryzen).

One thing both Apple and AMD benefit from is their relationship with TSMC. That allows both companies to move their processors to a smaller process based on TSMC's work in that area, while Intel is limited by their own inability to make those jumps. Intel is also trying to throw more cores and faster clock speeds on their CPUs to mask the real issues in their design and fabrication processes, which is why you see the Ryzen processors killing it in multi-core benchmarks. I now openly wonder just how much of an impact Apple's hiring of several key Intel engineers over the years has had on Intel's development cycle.

 

[Yebubbleman]

One thing both Apple and AMD benefit from is their relationship with TSMC. That allows both companies to move their processors to a smaller process based on TSMC's work in that area, while Intel is limited by their own inability to make those jumps. Intel is also trying to throw more cores and faster clock speeds on their CPUs to mask the real issues in their design and fabrication processes, which is why you see the Ryzen processors killing it in multi-core benchmarks. I now openly wonder just how much of an impact Apple's hiring of several key Intel engineers over the years has had on Intel's development cycle.

Certainly if the best people were poached, that could have an effect. It just blows my mind how a company like Intel could let a client like Apple slip away. Like, you're a huge company and they're a huge customer that set you up for huge financial success. When you see that your shipping estimates and road maps are starting to slip, how are you not in a huge panic?

 

[leman]

Certainly if the best people were poached, that could have an effect. It just blows my mind how a company like Intel could let a client like Apple slip away. Like, you're a huge company and they're a huge customer that set you up for huge financial success. When you see that your shipping estimates and road maps are starting to slip, how are you not in a huge panic?

Analysts estimate that Apple accounts for just around 3% of Intel’s revenue (although I think they are lowballing it). It’s loss would be painful but tolerable. Analysts also say that Apple is a pain in the butt to deal with, since they are very picky and demand high volumes of low yield chips.

 

[Maximara]

Analysts estimate that Apple accounts for just around 3% of Intel’s revenue (although I think they are lowballing it). It’s loss would be painful but tolerable. Analysts also say that Apple is a pain in the butt to deal with, since they are very picky and demand high volumes of low yield chips.

I seriously wonder if these "analysts" either don't understand the supply-demand curve, they are counting more then CPUs for those estimates, and/or 'computers are designed years in advance' (especially when it come to Apple. Tha tis the reality of dealing with them).


To quote the (admittedly flawed) adage "the customer is always right" and if Former Intel Engineer Explains Why Apple Switched to ARM is accurate then as the former Intel engineer said "The quality assurance of Skylake was more than a problem ... It was abnormally bad. We were getting way too much citing for little things inside Skylake. Basically our buddies at Apple became the number one filer of problems in the architecture. And that went really, really bad. When your customer starts finding almost as much bugs as you found yourself, you're not leading into the right place."

So is was NOT as these "analysts" claim because Apple was 'picky and demanded high volumes of low yield chips' but because Apple wanted chips that came out when Intel said they would and were not effectively a garbage fire when Apple did finally get them because Q&A either didn't do their freaking job or were insanely lazy at said job.

Basically this:

Apple: Hey Intel, we need to have a reasonable chip roadmap for the next two years.
Intel: Sure, whatever.
Apple (two years later): Hey Intel, you know those chips you had planned two years ago? Well we need them.
Intel: Ok. Uh. They're not ready
Apple: What? Ok well take x units of whatever is close.
Intel: Uh. We only have about 25% of what you need.
Apple (through clenched teeth): Ok we will go with that.
Intel (some time later): Hey, Apple you know that chip you wanted? It's out.
Apple: Well better late then never.. We'll...What the hay?! Why do I need a can of Raid with these chips?!
Intel: Can of Raid? Ot is full of bugs. Ha ha ha Apple.
Apple (angry as a wet hen): Do look like I'm laughing here?!

 

[leman]

I seriously wonder if these "analysts" either don't understand the supply-demand curve, they are counting more then CPUs for those estimates, and/or 'computers are designed years in advance' (especially when it come to Apple. Tha tis the reality of dealing with them).

My post was more about "how much money would Intel lose without Apple". Other issues are non-withstanding. Given the problems Intel had in last couple of years, the innovation Apple has achieved in the microchip design and the economical benefits of controlling he hardware ecosystem, I can fully understand Apple's decision from business standpoint.

 

[Maximara]

My post was more about "how much money would Intel lose without Apple". Other issues are non-withstanding. Given the problems Intel had in last couple of years, the innovation Apple has achieved in the microchip design and the economical benefits of controlling he hardware ecosystem, I can fully understand Apple's decision from business standpoint.

My point was that the claims of these "analysts" don't seem to make sense. How can you have a world marketshare of ~6% and yet only take up 2-4% of the chips Intel makes as people claim? Remember Intel has been in decline for a while as videos like Intel is in serious trouble. ARM is the Future (Dec 2018) and later Is Intel in trouble? Is ARM The Future? (Jul 20, 2019). If Apple's orders were steady (until this year) then since Intel's marketshare was going down then by basic statistics the percentage of Intel chips going to Apple would go up not remain level as these "analysts" claim.

 

[leman]

My point was that the claims of these "analysts" don't seem to make sense. How can you have a world marketshare of ~6% and yet only take up 2-4% of the chips Intel makes as people claim? Remember Intel has been in decline for a while as videos like Intel is in serious trouble. ARM is the Future (Dec 2018) and later Is Intel in trouble? Is ARM The Future? (Jul 20, 2019). If Apple's orders were steady (until this year) then since Intel's marketshare was going down then by basic statistics the percentage of Intel chips going to Apple would go up not remain level as these "analysts" claim.

Because Intel has more revenue than consumer-level chips. I think there is no doubt that Apple is buying a lot of Intel’s consumer-level chips, especially on the higher end (probably over 50% of the total volume), but Intel makes a lot of money in the server and HPC market. Apple has zero presence there.

 

[Shivetya]

I still look at it this way, until Apple posts a list of applications that manufacturers are bring to Apple Silicon I am in the camp of the choices will be slim or at most reduced to emulation if lucky.

I want Apple to have a page dedicated to showing us who is on board with delivering software and don't point us to the App store as an example because that would reason number one to ignore any claims.

 

[Maximara]

I still look at it this way, until Apple posts a list of applications that manufacturers are bring to Apple Silicon I am in the camp of the choices will be slim or at most reduced to emulation if lucky.

I want Apple to have a page dedicated to showing us who is on board with delivering software and don't point us to the App store as an example because that would reason number one to ignore any claims.

Setting aside that you manufacture a physical product while you program/code an application, I think that is unrealistic as Apple didn't do anything like that for the 680x0 to PowerPC or PowerPC to Intel transistions so why would they do that for the Intel to AS transition? More over we have see Rosetta 2 in action and it was doing a respectable job.

As we saw with those transitions not everybody was on board day one and admittedly a few never did make the transition but other programs took their place. If this follows the PowerPC to Intel transition it will be about four years before new hardwarewise Intel will be dead on the Mac. More over with Apple's referb program there is the possibly that up to three more years could be tacked on to that.

 

[Maximara]

Key metrics for me will be:
1) Is general MacOS responsiveness at least as good as my current MBP16
2) Do Safari & Chrome web browsers work well and are my plug-ins supported?
3) Does it run MS Office smoothly?
3b) Are other common productivity apps supported, e.g. Slack, Zoom, Skype, Teams
4) Can it play back and scrub 4K UHD H.265 or H.264 video at 60fps without dropped frames?
4b) Does it natively run Davinci Resolve & at least some non-Adobe photo editing apps?
5) Will it render videos (or perform ffmpeg encodes) faster than current equivalent-model Intel Macs?
6) Will it run common development software and frameworks such as Python, Node.JS, Java, MySQL, Docker containers?
7) Will it read/write NTFS formatted disks either natively of with 3rd party tools?

That covers my main needs. I'm sure there will be a few "gotchas" where a specific app doesn't run under Rosetta, so it will require some research to see if my tools are supported, and if not, whether the vendor plans to support them on Apple Silicon.

1) Based on WWOC that seems to be a non issue.
2) Safari & Chrome both have iOS versions. As for the plug in the safest bet is iOS plug ins with Intel Mac ones a maybe. Chrome uses a totally different plug in system on iOS so they may just stop with the too different roads set up.
3) Based on WWOC Rosetta 2 will deal that until the AS version of Office comes out. Or you get smart and stop paying for the MS live service and use LibreOffice instead.
3b) Unless they do something weird with the code Rosseta 2 should keep them going until the AS versions come out (and they would be fools not to be working on them)
4) Video is one of the native features
4b No idea. Depends on how nice it they play with Rosetta 2
5) Part of the WWOC demo and IIRC that was via Rosetta 2
6) These all have ARM versions and Docker was one of the programs Apple demonstrated
7) That is dependents on the programmers of said 3rd party tools

 

[Krevnik]

2) Safari & Chrome both have iOS versions. As for the plug in the safest bet is iOS plug ins with Intel Mac ones a maybe. Chrome uses a totally different plug in system on iOS so they may just stop with the too different roads set up.

These plugins tend to be JavaScript based. Some bits can be native in Safari's case because of more OS-level integration happening lately. Depends a lot on the plugin the user cares about.

3b) Unless they do something weird with the code Rosseta 2 should keep them going until the AS versions come out (and they would be fools not to be working on them)

Slack especially seems to be Electron based. So JavaScript with a wrapper around it to make it feel native. Teams I suspect is similar as well. Not sure about the other two. Ironically, it means the devs have less work to do, but also may wind up waiting for Electron itself to get ported. Go figure.

 

[dmccloud]

Certainly if the best people were poached, that could have an effect. It just blows my mind how a company like Intel could let a client like Apple slip away. Like, you're a huge company and they're a huge customer that set you up for huge financial success. When you see that your shipping estimates and road maps are starting to slip, how are you not in a huge panic?

Apple is a small fish in the Intel pond in terms of volume, especially stacked next to HP, Dell, and Lenovo. For every model of laptop Apple sells (and I'll be generous and count different stock configurations as different models, ala the MBA i3/256GB and i5/512GB), the big manufacturers are selling at least 5 different models, and that's just on the consumer side excluding the business-specific product lines. Intel is more worried about AMD poaching their market share than they are about anything pertaining to Apple, because that partnership is a relatively small drop in their bucket.

 

[Maximara]

Apple is a small fish in the Intel pond in terms of volume, especially stacked next to HP, Dell, and Lenovo. For every model of laptop Apple sells (and I'll be generous and count different stock configurations as different models, ala the MBA i3/256GB and i5/512GB), the big manufacturers are selling at least 5 different models, and that's just on the consumer side excluding the business-specific product lines. Intel is more worried about AMD poaching their market share than they are about anything pertaining to Apple, because that partnership is a relatively small drop in their bucket.

I think that is the wrong way to look at it. It is more along the lines of 'I can't believe Intel FUBARed it so badly that it got Apple to bring ARM to the desktop/laptop world.'

Think about it. One of the reasons PCs (including those make by HP, Dell, and Lenovo) have so much bloat/ad ware is because they are paying Intel so much for their chips their profit margins are razor thin. ARM changes that because, generally, they are cheaper and faster than an Intel chip of the same power. While they use different code sets. Android and iPhone/iPad all use ARMa and they effectively are the mobile market. Being able to bring about 25% of that market to the desktop is a major game changer. And if Bluestacks and Nox go to ARM then things change even more drastically.

With Nvidia buying ARM there is an incentive for them to start pushing ARM and Microsoft has been trying to make Windows for ARM take off for two years and Apple could be what makes that finally happen.

 

[aeronatis]

Absolutely! The only meaningful benchmark for any given individual is whether you can do your specific tasks more quickly or more efficiently. This includes not just the time to complete a task, but the overall experience of working with the machine. Does the battery last longer? Is the user interface smoother or the file system faster? Does it run the software you need?

At present we have very little idea of how well ASi Macs will run MacOS and specific applications. Geekbench results based on existing iPad SoCs only provide a vague idea, and as you say, they may be skewed by the tests themselves.

Key metrics for me will be:
1) Is general MacOS responsiveness at least as good as my current MBP16
2) Do Safari & Chrome web browsers work well and are my plug-ins supported?
3) Does it run MS Office smoothly?
3b) Are other common productivity apps supported, e.g. Slack, Zoom, Skype, Teams
4) Can it play back and scrub 4K UHD H.265 or H.264 video at 60fps without dropped frames?
4b) Does it natively run Davinci Resolve & at least some non-Adobe photo editing apps?
5) Will it render videos (or perform ffmpeg encodes) faster than current equivalent-model Intel Macs?
6) Will it run common development software and frameworks such as Python, Node.JS, Java, MySQL, Docker containers?
7) Will it read/write NTFS formatted disks either natively of with 3rd party tools?

That covers my main needs. I'm sure there will be a few "gotchas" where a specific app doesn't run under Rosetta, so it will require some research to see if my tools are supported, and if not, whether the vendor plans to support them on Apple Silicon.

Let me kindly put my comments for each item as far as I know:

1) That seems to be a non-issue even with the A12Z they used for demo during WWDC 2020. A14 based new processor will be more powerful and macOS Big Sur will have native support for the chip.
2) Safari will for sure. They did confirm that the current macOS Big Sur, along with all native apps, is ready from day one. Chrome will most probably work through Rosetta 2, which could result in slightly less performance, but hard to tell how much less.
3) MS Office and Adobe Creative Cloud apps were confirmed during WWDC 2020 to be the first 3rd party apps to support Apple Silicon from day one. They did avoid stating the exact individual apps of Adobe though.
4) Given that playing 4K 10-bit HEVC video playback is a non-issue even for the likes of the current iPad Air/Mini, the new chips will only perform better.
4b) Blackmagic is yet to announce a compatibility roadmap of DaVinci Resolve so the best bet is we are gonna go with Rosetta 2 for now.
5) I have recently tested a video project on Final Cut Pro with colour correction, LUTs and some effects (DCI 4K HEVC video). That 10 min video render + export took around 35 min on 13" Base Model MacBook Pro, 7 min 50 sec on 16" MacBook Pro (9880H + Radeon Pro 5500m). The exact same video, same LUTs, similar color correction & effects took only 4 min 52 sec on iPad Pro 2018 (A12X). Also the timeline smoothness was miles ahead of that of the 16" MacBook Pro. So, while the new A14 based Mac chip may not have the raw power of AMD graphics cards, it sure will work more efficiently for video editing, rendering, etc. They also confirmed day-one compatibility of Final Cut Pro, Motion and Compressor.
6) They confirmed day-one compatibility of Xcode; however, anything else should work through Rosetta 2 until confirmed otherwise.
7) Read? Maybe. Write? I doubt it as the current Intel Macs cannot write on NTFS natively. Writing through 3rd party apps should be possible as long as the subject app has a Apple Silicon version. Until then, they should still work through Rosetta 2.

 

[Maximara]

2) Safari will for sure. They did confirm that the current macOS Big Sur, along with all native apps, is ready from day one. Chrome will most probably work through Rosetta 2, which could result in slightly less performance, but hard to tell how much less.

With regards to Chrome, as I pointed out before there is already a iPad/iPhone version of Chrome so it all a question of which has the larger feature set that people actually use: Mac Chrome or iOS Chrome.

 

[aeronatis]

With regards to Chrome, as I pointed out before there is already a iPad/iPhone version of Chrome so it all a question of which has the larger feature set that people actually use: Mac Chrome or iOS Chrome.

Yes, but that app is basically a Chrome skin applied to the Safari webkit. Thus, it is, by no means, a reference to whether Chrome (the one based on the Chromium engine) will have native support for Macs with Apple Silicon or not.

The same goes for Edge as well. There is an iOS version but the future compatibility of the Chromium based Edge is still unknown.

Wishful thinking, I hope this opens the door for more desktop apps coming to iPad like Final Cut, Logic, browser apps etc.

 

[Krevnik]

Wishful thinking, I hope this opens the door for more desktop apps coming to iPad like Final Cut, Logic, browser apps etc.

ARM vs Intel is generally not going to be where engineering effort is spent porting to iPad. It’s AppKit vs UIKit. That can be considerable work, that takes a fair bit of time. Especially if you aren’t able or willing to dedicate a team of engineers to make it happen. And adapting the UI for the iPad requires a bit more of a rethink than simply porting it to get a good result, which adds effort.

I find that the older a project is, and the larger the company that maintains it, the more risk averse they tend to be. The more risk averse, the less likely they will spend the effort required for a port like this unless they feel like their business is threatened. I suspect Adobe is bringing a version of Photoshop to the iPad because competitors are already on the iPad.

And in the case of browsers, Apple has to loosen their restriction on requiring the use of WebKit for the iOS landscape to change much.

 

[Maximara]

I find that the older a project is, and the larger the company that maintains it, the more risk averse they tend to be. The more risk averse, the less likely they will spend the effort required for a port like this unless they feel like their business is threatened. I suspect Adobe is bringing a version of Photoshop to the iPad because competitors are already on the iPad.

I think that boils down to a mixture of sunk cost fallacy and complacency. Heck, Intel fell into this trap until AMD gave them a wake up call as 35.1% of the x86 computer world went to a company that at best been sitting at 15% of the market with a decade.

The painful truth is in the computing world you have to adapt, become niche, or die. As you noted potential competitors was a factor in Adobe bringing Photoshop of the iPad. As for the Mac there are already competitors: free GIMP and if you want to support nearly every graphic format that ever was something there is shareware GraphicConverter.

 

[Krevnik]

I think that boils down to a mixture of sunk cost fallacy and complacency.

I can’t speak to Adobe’s issues, but I have worked on large projects, and generally the risk aversion comes from customer support. Evolving means breaking workflows and muscle memory. Breaking workflows folks depend on tends to make for customers that are angry and vocal about it. And if those customers include a lot of business contracts, that’s a lot of money that can walk out the door.

I’m not entirely sure that’s a bad thing though. There’s benefits from having technical advances come from outside a hegemony like Adobe. Just not for Adobe.

As for the Mac there are already competitors: free GIMP and if you want to support nearly every graphic format that ever was something there is shareware GraphicConverter.

If GraphicConverter can replace Photoshop for your uses, great. But it isn’t a Photoshop replacement in the least. I say this as someone who has used GC for somewhere around 25 years now. They have overlap, but they are different products. I’d say Affinity Photo is a better comparison, or in a pinch Pixelmator Pro (I need to see how that one has changed in the last couple years). But Photoshop is a sort of “does everything” toolkit for rasterized image work, so there’s a lot of functionality I barely touch, while other users might spend 90% of their time using. One reason Photoshop is the 800lb gorilla in the first place.

But I’d comment that GC these days has become a more iffy value proposition because of competitors charging similar pricing with more robust feature sets that more directly challenge the sort of things I used to do in Photoshop. That said, it’s really hard to beat GC as a batch processor, which has been it’s strength back into the 90s.

 

[ChrisA]

Will a first Gen ARM based MacBook Pro Surpasss and Outperform the previous Intel based Version ? I’m gonna say No.

The critical question is "Faster for what?"

I'm sure the new Apple Silicone will make some operations much faster and others much slower. But really what do 99% of Mac users do? They type email and watch Youtube. A 5 minute Youtube video will still take 5 minutes to play. and that email will still take just as long to read.

If you are running 3D CAD software the ARM Mac will likely slow to a crawl because it is having to emulate an Intel CPU but if running Photoshop, Adobe has re-written its software to take advantage of the new hardware.

So 99% of users will not notice the change as they don't push their computers. For the 1% who do, I expect wildly different results. Overall it will be a win for Apple even if they do lose 0.5% of their customers.

 

[leman]

If you are running 3D CAD software the ARM Mac will likely slow to a crawl because it is having to emulate an Intel CPU but if running Photoshop, Adobe has re-written its software to take advantage of the new hardware.

What is so special about CAD software that it would involve x86 emulation?

P.S. I doubt that Adobe has rewritten anything. They will just build their regular software for ARM, maybe fixing a bug or two on the way.

 

[smoking monkey]

The critical question is "Faster for what?"

So 99% of users will not notice the change as they don't push their computers. For the 1% who do, I expect wildly different results. Overall it will be a win for Apple even if they do lose 0.5% of their customers.

Actually I think they will notice the change. Especially if they are using lap top computers. Long battery. Quieter. Less heat expended. Faster Apple apps. These are all changes that the majority of people will feel.

For the vast majority of folks, they are going to get a better computing experience.

But, as you say, for niche or certain software, it might be a bumpy ride up front... or forever. Who knows.

I guess it's up to software makers to decide if it's in their best interests to update their software to take advantage of Apple's Arm chips. It would really all depend on how profitable they see that as and if they have a big enough user base on Apple for that to be feasible.

 

[Joelist]

I see the fiction continues....

Apple has already demoed full Office (and no - LibreOffice is trash by comparison) running natively on Apple Silicon (not ARM - Apple's home designed SOCs only use the ARM ISA; they are NOT Cortex). They likewise demoed Creative Suite - which means all CS products are already ready. They also demoed Autodesk Maya to show how fast Rosetta 2 is (and it is fast).

Also, the latest market shares have Apple much higher than 6% of the market. It is more like 17% market share for MacOS worldwide and 27% in the US:

Desktop Operating System Market Share United States Of America | Statcounter Global Stats

This graph shows the market share of desktop operating systems in United States Of America based on over 5 billion monthly page views.

gs.statcounter.com