Agreed, from an Intel Mac pricing for new and used dropping like a rock - I'd say the M1 is a gamechanger!
I can't even pay someone to take my old Intel Macs off my hands while before the M1, it fetched a premium!
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M1 as an "Industry Game Changer"
- Thread starter Yebubbleman
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I can't even pay someone to take my old Intel Macs off my hands while before the M1, it fetched a premium!
Good point. I would be interested in what is going through Qualcomm's mind at this point. They may be considering putting more resources into an enhanced implementation of ARM that is a robust SOC. Apple's implementation may be opening their eyes to bein the "new Intel" of the ARM market.
Yes. Who wants to sit next to a system that sounds like you are on the deck of an aircraft carrier? Plus critical for creative people such as music production and many more.
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Yes. And if you don’t think that there are people working furiously up in Redmond on making sure that their company can take advantage of what no one else can offer now and likely for a really long time... well you don’t understand what the M1 has brought.
Qualcomm might do that but they do most of the Arm work for PCs in conjunction with Microsoft. The Sq1 and 2 are Microsoft designed.
Indeed, another point I forgot to mention is what Nvidia’s plans for Arm are going forward. They potentially have the resources to make the vanilla Arm core designs more competitive for laptop/desktop form factors if they want to tap into the huge growth potential there. The recent X1 core release already looks like a bigger step up than has been the trend up to now...
Seems like that RISC revolution from the 90s is only just starting to take hold in the PC market.
Apple has proven that you can make desktop computers with ARM SoCs and that means other manufacturers are going to do it too.
Especially since Microsoft is porting Windows 10 to ARM, I expect to see a lot of Snapdragon (maybe even Exynos / Mediatek?) powered ultralights soon. Probably in the "Pharmacy electronics aisle" scene first
Apple has proven that you can make desktop computers with ARM SoCs and that means other manufacturers are going to do it too.
Especially since Microsoft is porting Windows 10 to ARM, I expect to see a lot of Snapdragon (maybe even Exynos / Mediatek?) powered ultralights soon. Probably in the "Pharmacy electronics aisle" scene first
My understanding is x64 is the name of the 64-bit version of x86, which is what all Intel and AMD CPUs are now.
Edit: I just looked it up and apparently that's not what it means, but rather it refers to ANY 64bit architecture. Makes no sense but whatever. Yeah I mean x86 lol
I'm well aware what Microsoft is doing with ARM. But I don't agree that they are taking it seriously yet. This is Microsoft testing the waters and playing. Dragging their heels hoping some third party OEM or app maker makes it catch fire.
Office was supposed to be ported to ARM for Windows RT something like a decade ago now, and then canned after Windows RT failed. Now they are doing it again for the Surface Pro X which has already been out for a year, when they should have been working on it 2 years ago so it was ready to go last year. Not when the MacBU folks are helping do the hard work for them now. Having 32-bit x86 and not 64-bit was a facepalm moment as well. If Microsoft was serious about this, Apple wouldn't have been able to so completely upset the apple cart with this (pun intended?).
While I have a bit more confidence that Satya isn't going to utterly faceplant like Balmer did with the mobile phone market, he's still focused on SaaS and Azure. I'll believe Microsoft is getting serious about this when my sources start talking about more projects getting funded to make the Surface Pro X more than just a redheaded stepchild of the lineup.
This. Nvidia is in a strong position to produce competitive SoC designs based on ARM architecture to offer Apple competitors something to try to compete with Apple Silicon with.
But it remains to be seen if they can catch up to Apple's lead with TSMC no 5nm (and soon less) production. The Ti 3080 uses 8nm, with Ampere moving to TSMC 7nm in 2021. Apple will be jumping to 4nm in 2022 if rumours hold.
Of course, there is a "good enough" factor for lower-end Windows laptops (already is or the market wouldn't exist) so even a 7nm SoC might provide a close enough measure of performance and noise/energy consumption, leaving the high end to Apple.
This is an exciting dynamic as we are talking about an industry wide shift if more companies move forward with this. I mentioned Qualcomm earlier- I should have probably referenced NVidia since they did acquire ARM. Competition is good. I do agree the rest of the industry does have to catch up a bit as Apple has been methodically positioning itself for this transition for several years.
From a technical point of view, I think Apple hit a home run with ARM, but in their own ball game. The PC-industry plays a different ball-game of vendors stuffing stuff from other vendors into standardized boxes. I'm anxious to find out if the PC industry will move and why. What is the incentive for following Apple's lead? I don't think it will be driven by corporate needs, maybe corporate greed. If HP/Lenovo finds out that owning hardware/software is the way to keep market share, they will probably try to catch up.
But can they? Microsoft has its Surface-products, but they have their heads nowadays in The Cloud, and Surface was never made from scratch but based on the Windows architecture.
So I am wondering what will drive a possible change in the computer industry. Blockbuster was still around when Netflix started streaming; the fax was still there in the Internet's beginning years. Probably it will be a prolonged revolution. One where you and I are already witnessing it personally, but the rest of the world doesn’t.
Apple computers are still a corporate nightmare for many IT-departments because it's not Windows ("our invoice to Printer Visual Basic script doesn't run on it") and is an expensive machine for average consumers. In the third quarter of 2020, Apple shipped 14.5 percent of all PC units in the US, so 85,5 percent did not buy an Apple computer. We all know that the iPhone changed the smartphone industry. The iPhone has transformed from a niche product for early adopters to a mainstream product, partly because of the tightly integrated hardware and software. That took years. Even when you love the iPhone success story, Apple has "only" a 13.5 percent market share in smartphones.
I bought the M1 as a backup for the MBP16. I now have the M1 as the main machine and the MBP16 as a backup for my specific workflow. I never thought I would do that. I feel the excitement of a new future coming for computing. Apple will lead with performance and battery life in the next years like they did many years with the iPhone. But will it change the industry?
But can they? Microsoft has its Surface-products, but they have their heads nowadays in The Cloud, and Surface was never made from scratch but based on the Windows architecture.
So I am wondering what will drive a possible change in the computer industry. Blockbuster was still around when Netflix started streaming; the fax was still there in the Internet's beginning years. Probably it will be a prolonged revolution. One where you and I are already witnessing it personally, but the rest of the world doesn’t.
Apple computers are still a corporate nightmare for many IT-departments because it's not Windows ("our invoice to Printer Visual Basic script doesn't run on it") and is an expensive machine for average consumers. In the third quarter of 2020, Apple shipped 14.5 percent of all PC units in the US, so 85,5 percent did not buy an Apple computer. We all know that the iPhone changed the smartphone industry. The iPhone has transformed from a niche product for early adopters to a mainstream product, partly because of the tightly integrated hardware and software. That took years. Even when you love the iPhone success story, Apple has "only" a 13.5 percent market share in smartphones.
I bought the M1 as a backup for the MBP16. I now have the M1 as the main machine and the MBP16 as a backup for my specific workflow. I never thought I would do that. I feel the excitement of a new future coming for computing. Apple will lead with performance and battery life in the next years like they did many years with the iPhone. But will it change the industry?
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For mobile computing, you are correct.
If the question is: Which brand posts the highest single thread performance?
The answer is that Zen3 and the M1 are tied. If one were to unlock the M1, it would win. The M1 is only available in a locked configuration though.
The Nvidia people have been signaling that they are more interested in server processors than desktop. They want to do for servers what Apple is doing for desktop and laptops. I am sure that the higher margin has a lot to do with that.
But someone moving forward on arm for server is highly needed.
Yes, because it is an official wake up call to the industry that intel has either been sandbagging for years (maybe the case from say 2011-2014) and/or lost their leadership/ability to execute in the past 5 years.
As business apps are becoming more cloud centric/cross-platform and less "Windows on intel" dependent, you can expect hardware vendors to go where the battery life/performance advantages are for those apps that are on-device. Windows+Office is not the "big stick" for intel support that it used to be. 365 runs (well!) in a browser and your traditional Access+SQL business apps (that tied people specifically to PCs and not phones/tablets/non-intel+windows PCs) are moving to stuff like PowerBI in the cloud.
Apple have proven that intel can be not just slightly beaten, but utterly crushed in performance per watt with a custom design. Before apple did this, nobody else was willing to bet the big dollars required on a "maybe it will be competitive with intel?" in designing their own higher end ARM based cores. Apple also has the software advantage as they've spent decades building and encouraging use of their frameworks (this is why they were anti-CUDA for a decade for example already) for doing high end workloads - which means they can get good speed on existing non-native software by calling into those native frameworks from non-native apps (that were using those frameworks but the app itself is compiled for x86).
Expect other vendors to build their own ARM based processors for this segment (high end in the low power segment and later, desktop) in the near future. Apple has proven it can be done, and is worth the effort. They've shown just how far behind the state of the art that intel/x86 truly is.
Re: comparison to Zen3. The M1 has a bunch of dedicated silicon to things like AI and machine learning that existing "single threaded benchmarks" do not utilise. So the comparison between the two is sorta like comparing Zen to the M1 with half the M1's dedicated accelerators (for things like ML) unused/turned off.
Sure those parts can't be used for everything, but existing benchmarks don't paint the full picture unfortunately. The single-threaded benchmarks we have simply don't test those things.
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Why does it have to be surface pro x? Why can’t they leverage Apple Silicon?
They are making a bid developer push to get code moved to arm. No where near as ways Apple but they are doing it. My sources tell me that there are lots of developers with new arm projects.
One note I would offer to everyone. Do not get hung up on the fact that Apple has moved to Arm and that is why it’s great. There is a reason why they don’t even mention that it’s arm. It is Apple silicon. Because that is what it is. No one else in the industry has the capability to build something that can compete with the M series. Please remember that the M 1 is the low end, low power processor. And yet it gives every mainstream processor but 2 a run for it’s money. Think about what is coming. Apple has completely changed the game.
I'd say that's a premature call and that we will find out. Much as I like Apple, "Apple Silicon" isn't some magical pixie dust that only apple can manufacture. Yes it is proprietary Apple tech in there, but the things they are doing are not some incomparable tech that others can't also produce, given the motivation.
No one else in the industry has attempted to build a high end ARM part yet (well, not since the RiscPC in the mid-late 90s) because they either aren't in the laptop/computer market or haven't wanted to be the one to take the risk on it.
Apple, with their massive bank balance was in the position to do so. M1 is only the start of what I suspect will end up being a flood of competitive ARM based machines from various vendors including Nvidia (think, ARM based core with onboard Nvidia GPU/AI/ML tech).
You think Nvidia, who now own arm can't do it? Please.... if M1 succeeds, and it will - Nvidia for sure will offer something competitive with or faster than whatever Apple put out for other hardware OEMs. Amazon are already using high performance ARM (for their own servers), just not for the market apple is in.
People may not know but the original ARM processors from the 80s were much more powerful than x86 of the day. The only reason they failed was due to inadequate marketing and x86 commodity hardware due to the decision by IBM to use the 8088 in the PC (and thus everybody wanting a DOS compatible machine).
People may actually be surprised when it is Nvidia, not Apple who conquer the PC market. Apple will still maintain a significant share, but Windows on ARM based Nvidia SOC is likely where the bulk of the market will probably end up eventually.
Nvidia probably bought ARM in order to ensure that even if AMD try what Apple is trying, they're now paying Nvidia a license anyway
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Why would it be on Apple Silicon? Microsoft isn't going to want to tie themselves to Apple's ARM designs to move things forward.
Part of the issue is that the Win10 business model is focused on OEM revenue. Not direct licensing. They could, but I maybe give it 50/50 that Microsoft would offer a direct Win10 ARM license just because Apple is now on ARM. And that's assuming Microsoft isn't turned off by the use of iBoot.
If they do go for it, I half expect it'll either be through some sort of bundle deal with Parallels, or as a VirtualPC revival.
I've watched them fart around half-heartedly with ARM for a very long time now, and this is their second go at a "big push". They aren't being aggressive about getting OEMs to adopt ARM, they pretty much threw the ARM Win32 SDK over the wall after realizing UWP and the like are going to have limited support by 3rd party devs, and they themselves have one consumer device that runs it.
This smells a lot like Windows Phone's problems getting developer support. They understand they need developers, but they don't really seem to understand what makes a good carrot or stick to get developers to do what you want. They need OEMs, but they can't really use the stick with them. They make good engineering tools, but their frameworks are a hodge podge of ideas and experiments. Abandoned, but eternally supported.
I mostly bring up the Surface Pro X because it's about the only Windows 10 ARM device you can reliably get your hands on right now. Which is part of the problem. And in terms of impact/speed, Apple's approach is ridiculously more effective.
Apple announced the ARM switch at WWDC. We already have Office and Photoshop betas available to use on the M1. Most of the smaller software I use has already gotten ARM builds pushed out into an official release of that software before I even get my M1 Mini. I really wouldn't be surprised if Apple completes the transition, and we're mostly just talking about the handful of straggler developers, while Microsoft is still "making a big push".
The problem with that is that Apple Silicon is not arm alone. It's arm +. The + is the unbelievable number of accelerators built around the chip. Two problems for those who want to copy- One Apple has this thing patent protected to the hilt and two, Apples' year over year performance gains mean that you'll never keep up.I'd say that's a premature call and that we will find out. Much as I like Apple, "Apple Silicon" isn't some magical pixie dust that only apple can manufacture. Yes it is proprietary Apple tech in there, but the things they are doing are not some incomparable tech that others can't also produce, given the motivation.
No one else in the industry has attempted to build a high end ARM part yet (well, not since the RiscPC in the mid-late 90s) because they either aren't in the laptop/computer market or haven't wanted to be the one to take the risk on it.
Apple, with their massive bank balance was in the position to do so. M1 is only the start of what I suspect will end up being a flood of competitive ARM based machines from various vendors including Nvidia (think, ARM based core with onboard Nvidia GPU/AI/ML tech).
You think Nvidia, who now own arm can't do it? Please.... if M1 succeeds, and it will - Nvidia for sure will offer something competitive with or faster than whatever Apple put out for other hardware OEMs. Amazon are already using high performance ARM (for their own servers), just not for the market apple is in.
People may not know but the original ARM processors from the 80s were much more powerful than x86 of the day. The only reason they failed was due to inadequate marketing and x86 commodity hardware due to the decision by IBM to use the 8088 in the PC (and thus everybody wanting a DOS compatible machine).
People may actually be surprised when it is Nvidia, not Apple who conquer the PC market. Apple will still maintain a significant share, but Windows on ARM based Nvidia SOC is likely where the bulk of the market will probably end up eventually.
Nvidia probably bought ARM in order to ensure that even if AMD try what Apple is trying, they're now paying Nvidia a license anyway
Nvidia looks to be interested in the server market. Much higher margins and if used for VDI, you can sell GPU's (very expensive ones) too.
Two other companies with the resources to attempt to replicate what Apple has done are Microsoft and Google. Google doesn’t really have the motivation, since ChromeBooks aren’t so much about catering to power users as they are about getting cheap devices out to a mass audience. Microsoft potentially has the motivation, since they are pushing Window on ARM. However, they aren’t as vertically integrated, and Surface to date has been more of a “hobby”/attempt at making reference designs.
Office and Windows are cash cows rather than growth markets, but arguably so is the Mac for Apple. So I wouldn’t discount Microsoft making a push here.
If Microsoft is serious about the workplace, and they need to defend their turf, they have to jump into ARM for both laptops (each year more common) and desktops (like chromebox).
This means developing ARM native software and coding tools to fully exploit this platform that has a lower cost (no Intel premium), and higher performance/efficiency.
But they may as well botch it and go the way of the Do-Do, like Digital, Silicon Graphics, and other tech legends.
This means developing ARM native software and coding tools to fully exploit this platform that has a lower cost (no Intel premium), and higher performance/efficiency.
But they may as well botch it and go the way of the Do-Do, like Digital, Silicon Graphics, and other tech legends.