More evidence that Apple plans to update Apple Silicon yearly

[bcortens]

Oh, I have nothing against a powerful chip on a tablet. But if you are going to give me a powerful chip, give me the means to USE its power!

The current iPad Pros have a desktop processor, but users are restricted to MAYBE using its full power only in drawing, 3D modeling and video editing (and even then, I've heard reports that video editing feels cramped on the iPad screen).

Contrast that with the Surface, which has a powerful chip, but is much more versatile.

Now, even if Apple doesn't want to give users full-blown MacOS, the iPad would be a much more useful machine if they allowed virtualization, software emulation and software development on it. They are supposedly selling a "Pro" device, after all.

Don't forget gaming, the GPU in the M series iPads gets used quite a bit in gaming...

I also disagree that the power in an iPad Pro doesn't get used, the criteria shouldn't be that everyone must use all of its power, because then we would have to say that Apple is failing on macOS because many people who buy the M1/M2 air will never use it to its full potential. All that is needed for the iPad Pro to justify its performance is for some good number of people to use it to its full potential.

 

[leman]

There are multiple "interesting" things here. Average latency is important. But I was just focusing on whether memory access was visibly NU or not, because if it is, then that's something you either have to deal with, or choose to ignore, at some cost (which you're presumably accepting as a tradeoff).

If the additional latency is not that great, then indeed it may not really matter enough to care when going to main memory. But wait... more than 90% of the time, you're not going to main memory, are you? You're going to L2 cache, or remote L2 cache (possibly quickly due to copied tags in your local cache), or the SLC.

In the latter two cases, even the 10ns more latency you suggested in a previous post would be quite significant, no?

Looking at latency measurements done by Anandtech, the SLC latency is already not that far from DRAM latency. Also, M1 Max SLC latency is significantly higher than base M1. So we already see an effect from a bigger network + SLC split into multiple parts. I would guess that Ultra's latency is even worse.

The 2020 Mac Mini Unleashed: Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test

www.anandtech.com

Apple's M1 Pro, M1 Max SoCs Investigated: New Performance and Efficiency Heights

www.anandtech.com

To my entirely uneducated amateur eye it kind of looks like Apple relies on large L2's to keep the amortised latency down. It would be very interesting to look at latency between different P-clusters, but it's probably not that easy to measure given that Apple doesn't give you any direct tools for thread pinning.

 

[gpat]

Although I have not found numbers for a comparison between GPUs, Luke Miani has done a general comparison between a laptop with RTX 4090 and the best MacBook Pro.

This is actually very impressive on Apple's part.
If Apple really wanted to compete with this kind of product, they could release a MBP16" with M2 Ultra, smaller battery (only for the M2 Ultra model) and more powerful cooling system in the saved space, and it would beat the crap out of the MSI in every metric, while still having much better usability as a portable system (meanwhile the MSI is mostly a luggable desktop)

 

[bcortens]

This is actually very impressive on Apple's part.
If Apple really wanted to compete with this kind of product, they could release a MBP16" with M2 Ultra, smaller battery (only for the M2 Ultra model) and more powerful cooling system in the saved space, and it would beat the crap out of the MSI in every metric, while still having much better usability as a portable system (meanwhile the MSI is mostly a luggable desktop)

Yep - despite Luke's claims that the PC stomped all over the M2Max, the PC system requires being plugged in or else it just falls away into last place... if it can only be used to its full potential while plugged in its not really a laptop/notebook ... its just (as you said) a desktop you can move without turning off.

 

[gpat]

Yep - despite Luke's claims that the PC stomped all over the M2Max, the PC system requires being plugged in or else it just falls away into last place... if it can only be used to its full potential while plugged in its not really a laptop/notebook ... its just (as you said) a desktop you can move without turning off.

I would rather build an ITX-form factor desktop with the same GPU, keep all sorts of expandability and even maybe spend less.
I could even use USB-C portable monitors like the LG 16MQ70 and have to use a single power outlet for all the system, easily fitting it in maybe a large backpack.
It's not like you're getting any job done on the MSI while on battery power anyways.

 

[Joe Dohn]

Don't forget gaming, the GPU in the M series iPads gets used quite a bit in gaming...

I also disagree that the power in an iPad Pro doesn't get used, the criteria shouldn't be that everyone must use all of its power, because then we would have to say that Apple is failing on macOS because many people who buy the M1/M2 air will never use it to its full potential. All that is needed for the iPad Pro to justify its performance is for some good number of people to use it to its full potential.

There aren't many interesting games for the iPad as there are for the PC.

Regarding the power on the iPad Pro, I bought mine expecting that I'd use it for tasks other than drawing, like virtualization, or heavier office usage. Otherwise I'd either be happier with a drawing tablet paired with a handheld PC or a laptop. A smaller iPad feels much more justified if you only want to use it for content consumption.

 

[Joe Dohn]

I would rather build an ITX-form factor desktop with the same GPU, keep all sorts of expandability and even maybe spend less.
I could even use USB-C portable monitors like the LG 16MQ70 and have to use a single power outlet for all the system, easily fitting it in maybe a large backpack.
It's not like you're getting any job done on the MSI while on battery power anyways.

That could be a viable option too if you don't mind it being a bit more awkward.

The upside is that those small boxes are usually more upgradable and flexible than notebooks. And if they aren't, you can easily assembly one yourself with whatever motherboard and processor you want, similar to a desktop PC (but in a smaller scale).

 

[bcortens]

There aren't many interesting games for the iPad as there are for the PC.

Regarding the power on the iPad Pro, I bought mine expecting that I'd use it for tasks other than drawing, like virtualization, or heavier office usage. Otherwise I'd either be happier with a drawing tablet paired with a handheld PC or a laptop. A smaller iPad feels much more justified if you only want to use it for content consumption.

As I said in another thread, the main games I'm missing on iPad are things like Sins of a Solar Empire (with Sins2 coming out soon) and other strategy games like those Blizzard makes. I really really wish they would put out games like that but in the mean time I don't game nearly as much on my Mac as my iPad because I vastly prefer being able to just game anywhere with the iPad vs being tethered to a desk with a Mac... I know I could use the touch-pad for gaming but it isn't as good as a mouse (which necessitates a desk). On the iPad I've beat Civ6 a few times and since I prefer early to late game I keep starting over every time I pick it up. I also play League of legends wild rift and Divinity Original Sin 2 for co-op games.

I'm not sure why you bought an iPad if you wanted to do virtualization, it has never supported that function? I mean I guess you can hope Apple will add it in the future but I generally avoid recommedning things in hopes of future capabilities.

That could be a viable option too if you don't mind it being a bit more awkward.

The upside is that those small boxes are usually more upgradable and flexible than notebooks. And if they aren't, you can easily assembly one yourself with whatever motherboard and processor you want, similar to a desktop PC (but in a smaller scale).

If I wanted a PC I'd probably do a desktop, I don't really see the point of buying something with a battery that I am just going to wear out and never use (My 15" 2019 MBP battery is pretty much toast due to not being used as a notebook most of the time).

 

[Joe Dohn]

I'm not sure why you bought an iPad if you wanted to do virtualization, it has never supported that function? I mean I guess you can hope Apple will add it in the future but I generally avoid recommedning things in hopes of future capabilities.

I didn't buy the iPad just for virtualization. I was expecting that more pro applications would come to the iPad and I would use it like a light version of the M1 Macbook Pro, since they have more or less the same power. That scenario hasn't ever come to be, unfortunately.

But long story short: the iPad CAN do virtualization.
In fact, both the iPhone and the iPad had DosBox being sold at the store before Apple removed it.
Dosbox even ran very neatly before it was removed.

The issue here is that Apple actively BLOCKS virtualization on the iPad, from blocking virtual machine software to being sold on their stores (you have to sideload) to actively blocking the hypervisor framework on the iPad (you have to rely on an exploit to enable it). Not only that, but they made accessing the hypervisor framework harder on the iPad after iOS 15.

This is a shame, because the iPad can run ARM-based Windows beautifully when the hypervisor is enabled.

If I wanted a PC I'd probably do a desktop, I don't really see the point of buying something with a battery that I am just going to wear out and never use (My 15" 2019 MBP battery is pretty much toast due to not being used as a notebook most of the time).

But those compact boxes ARE desktops, just on a smaller scale.
They don't come with a battery, because you are expected to run it plugged to a socket, like you would with a bigger desktop.

Of course, nothing stops you from buying an external battery.

 

[bobmans]

That's possible. However, the trend is a lot less clear if you count transistors instead of mm^2. Maybe it's not a trend at all. (I haven't looked back to see.)

Also, and more significantly, we're coming off a major snafu where the first N3 design was held up for an entire year. It's certain that they've done further work on the design since then. So the forthcoming A17 will likely be a notably bigger advance than you'd normally see in one year - much closer to two year's worth of development.

Definitely, transistor count goes up YoY and it will keep going up. They're just not going all-out when they go to a next-gen node. Usually they shrink the die on the first year while still increasing transistor count due to the next-gen node and then increase the die size back to the original size in the following years to add more transistors without having to rely on a new node. Shrinking the first year on a new node gives them both the benefit of lower cost (more chips/wafer) and the benefit of having more headroom in the next year by being able to increase the die-size.

This way they're able to keep the cost/chip relatively constant even though wafer price goes up when moving on to the next-gen node.
If moving from 5nm to 3nm means wafer cost is increasing by 25% and going from $16k -> $20k, but you can at the same time shrink the chip die from 100mm to 80mm while still increasing performance, then you're able to offset the wafer cost increase. Then the next year when wafer cost goes down, you can start increasing the die size again.

I'm also really curious about what A17 will bring to the table. If it's true that the original A16 was basically cancelled and replaced by a slightly modified A15, then we might really be looking at a very big leap this year.

 

[bcortens]

I didn't buy the iPad just for virtualization. I was expecting that more pro applications would come to the iPad and I would use it like a light version of the M1 Macbook Pro, since they have more or less the same power. That scenario hasn't ever come to be, unfortunately.

But long story short: the iPad CAN do virtualization.
In fact, both the iPhone and the iPad had DosBox being sold at the store before Apple removed it.
Dosbox even ran very neatly before it was removed.

The issue here is that Apple actively BLOCKS virtualization on the iPad, from blocking virtual machine software to being sold on their stores (you have to sideload) to actively blocking the hypervisor framework on the iPad (you have to rely on an exploit to enable it). Not only that, but they made accessing the hypervisor framework harder on the iPad after iOS 15.

This is a shame, because the iPad can run ARM-based Windows beautifully when the hypervisor is enabled.

Oh I completely agree here, I think Apple locking down the iPad (and iPhone) in the way they have is going to get them hit with a big regulation hammer soon and they are going to have no one to blame but themselves. I really hope the regulation hammer leads to a flourishing of iPad apps.

But those compact boxes ARE desktops, just on a smaller scale.
They don't come with a battery, because you are expected to run it plugged to a socket, like you would with a bigger desktop.

Of course, nothing stops you from buying an external battery.

Wasn't disagreeing with the idea of an mITX box. I was trying to say I wouldn't buy a gaming laptop since things like the MSI Raider are kind of pointless on battery power and I don't like the idea of having a battery that is just going to go bad and potentially need to be removed if it starts to swell. If I had more inclination I would probably build a Fractal Node 202. I kind of wish AMD would release the new 7040 series mobile parts in a NUC style design as they have 12 RDNA3 cores which would be sufficient for the kind of PC games I care about.

 

[gpat]

Wasn't disagreeing with the idea of an mITX box. I was trying to say I wouldn't buy a gaming laptop since things like the MSI Raider are kind of pointless on battery power and I don't like the idea of having a battery that is just going to go bad and potentially need to be removed if it starts to swell. If I had more inclination I would probably build a Fractal Node 202. I kind of wish AMD would release the new 7040 series mobile parts in a NUC style design as they have 12 RDNA3 cores which would be sufficient for the kind of PC games I care about.

This kind of system is close to my ideas for my next PC purchase, but I'm still getting an ITX plus AMD Zen4 APU whenever they decide to market it, instead of a non expandable system like the NUC concept.
Would be a nice complement to my 16" M1 Pro.

Anyway tried to make a build to rival that MSI just for laughs, would take it anyday over that laptop, and the RTX 4090 mobile is roughly equal to a 4080 desktop so this would have loads of power to spare... also a lot of cuttable corners to make it cheaper.

 

[salamanderjuice]

I'm sure there will be loads of mini-PCs with Ryzen 7040 series chips. There's already loads with 5000 and 6000 series chips from companies like Minisforum and Beelink.

For games like RTS and Sins of a Solar Empire I think you'd be better off picking up a Steam Deck rather than praying for iPad ports.

 

[Joe Dohn]

Oh I completely agree here, I think Apple locking down the iPad (and iPhone) in the way they have is going to get them hit with a big regulation hammer soon and they are going to have no one to blame but themselves. I really hope the regulation hammer leads to a flourishing of iPad apps.

This is something that only hurts Apple in the long run. Instead of locking users in the ecosystem, Next time I'll just grab something that gives me freedom to run virtual machines / emulators.

I also really want to recommend the Apple Pencil for drawing – it behaves wonderfully. But after I found out that you can't mix and match them (e.g, you can't use a first-generation Apple pencil with a newer iPad), this sort of behavior started to irk me out. There is NOTHING that stops Apple from adding first-generation Apple pencil drivers in the later iPad models (and vice-versa).

The lack of support for other stylii / protocols is a big no-no either. Apple controls what drivers gets approved, which means they can block drivers from the competing stylii to work on their iPads.

They don't even need to support a dozen different drivers: If they worked with the generic Windows Ink protocol (which is something even Linux can do), many stylii would be available out of the box.

 

[bcortens]

I'm sure there will be loads of mini-PCs with Ryzen 7040 series chips. There's already loads with 5000 and 6000 series chips from companies like Minisforum and Beelink.

For games like RTS and Sins of a Solar Empire I think you'd be better off picking up a Steam Deck rather than praying for iPad ports.

Steam deck suffers the same input problems however, I just played a quick 5 minute game of StarCraft 2 Using JumpDesktop on my iPad and most of the issues I have are with the direct touch control scheme. I don’t think SC2 and Sins have good controller support which would make the steam deck work well but I might be wrong on that.

 

[salamanderjuice]

Steam deck suffers the same input problems however, I just played a quick 5 minute game of StarCraft 2 Using JumpDesktop on my iPad and most of the issues I have are with the direct touch control scheme. I don’t think SC2 and Sins have good controller support which would make the steam deck work well but I might be wrong on that.

You don't need to use the touch screen. That would be awful. The Steam Deck has two haptic touchpads for mousing around. They feel a lot more like trackballs than a typical laptop trackpad because of how Valve setup the haptics and how you use them with your thumbs. You can also remap every single button to something on the keyboard/mouse if a game doesn't support controllers and a whole lot more of control customizations on top of that (for example you can make one of the touchpads breakout into a number pad) even for non-Steam games.

 

[aeronatis]

No real life task will put a full load on every part of the SoC. The CPU, the GPU, ML, media encoders and whats not.

The charger should be bigger cos you still want to recharge the battery while putting a (not) full load on the SoC and you might even have some power draining devices connected via USB/thunderbolt.

I wasn't talking about real life tasks. I was talking about intentionally putting the chip at the highest possible load. As a computer reviewer, that is what I do every week when comparing devices. 👍🏼

 

[AlixSPQR]

If they'll update M SoC's annually, then the chance of getting 16 GB in the base models will increase, I hope. 🤞🏻

 

[257Loner]

Except you know, those aren't game consoles but phones that the majority of users will never crack open a game let alone one that needs hardware more advanced than a PS2.

In 2021 there was over 300 million PCs shipped. By your logic it's actually MS who is the largest console maker.

But people don't spend a whol' lotta time gaming on their PCs. People are on their smartphones playing games wherever they go, so that's the bigger gaming market. Also, this statistic shows that mobile computers are more numerous than desktops: https://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet

 

[sam_dean]

But people don't spend a whol' lotta time gaming on their PCs. People are on their smartphones playing games wherever they go, so that's the bigger gaming market. Also, this statistic shows that mobile computers are more numerous than desktops: https://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet

Annual worldwide shipping numbers per device and per platform

Smartphones

Android (all price points)

- 2021: 1.124 billion units
- 2022: 0.979 billion units

Vs

iPhone ($429-1599)

- 2021: 235.8 million units
- 2022: 226.4 million units

Personal Computers

Windows (all price points)

- 2021: 322.2 million units
- 2022: 263.7 million units

Vs

Mac ($999 & up for laptops + $599 & up for desktops)

- 2021: 27.9 million units
- 2022: 28.6 million units

Tablets

Android/Windows (all price points)

- 2021: 110.5 million units
- 2022: 101 million units

vs

iPad ($449-2399)

- 2021: 57.8 million units
- 2022: 61.8 million units

Below are the total units shipped of Macs, iPads & iPhones

- 2021: 321.5 million units
- 2022: 316.8 million units

 

[257Loner]

Annual worldwide shipping numbers per device and per platform

Smartphones

Android (all price points)

- 2021: 1.124 billion units
- 2022: 0.979 billion units

Vs

iPhone ($429-1599)

- 2021: 235.8 million units
- 2022: 226.4 million units

Personal Computers

Windows (all price points)

- 2021: 322.2 million units
- 2022: 263.7 million units

Thank you for those stats. Wow, the iPhone almost equals the entire PC industry? Smartphones are the most personal and popular computer of them all, and that's why they'll be the gaming industry's home going forward.

 

[sam_dean]

Thank you for those stats. Wow, the iPhone almost equals the entire PC industry? Smartphones are the most personal and popular computer of them all, and that's why they'll be the gaming industry's home going forward.

To make it more illustrative

PCs using Intel & AMD chips (all price points)

- 2021: 322.2 million units
- 2022: 263.7 million units

Vs

Macs, iPads & iPhones using Apple M & A chips ($429 & up)

- 2021: 321.5 million units
- 2022: 316.8 million units

Apple started on the 5nm process node in Nov 2020. The above numbers are for >80% 5nm devices.

PCs are mix of >80% 14nm, 10nm & 7nm devices.

When Apple is able to align all Apple SoC into generational alignment within <12 months after each iPhone release then Apple can leverage economies of scale further while all other companies would be a process node or a year behind them.

It counter intuitive, unless you understand how levels of integration work.


There is an emotional component to our thinking. ;-)


When Apple released the M1 (5nm) in November 2020, they were a few process nodes ahead (10nm & 7nm) of Intel (14nm from 2014-2020). The shrinking in area is quadratic.


What we are witnessing is the same thing that happened when the microprocessor took over the mainframe/supercomputers.


The perception was the system that took a whole room and had lots of blinking lights had to be the more powerful. However, what was happening was that the microprocessor guys were integrating the same functionality that took lots of separate boards on a mainframe down to a few chips.

There were some very specific use cases where the mainframe had the edge, but for the 99% of the rest of the applications, we were ending up with system on our desktops that were faster than a computer who took a whole room. Heck, you can now buy a GPU for a $1k that is more powerful than the fastest supercomputer from 2000, which cost millions of dollars, took an entire floor in a datacenter, and used almost 1 megawatt.


The microprocessor vendors also had access to larger economies of scale, which meant they could spend more money in development of their designs/tech so they were able to overlap the old large system vendors who had slower development cycles and smaller revenues.

The same thing is now happening with SoCs. They are having larger levels of integration, so they can fit a whole PC into a single chip. Which means that things run faster, with less power, and less cost. And since they are leveraging the mobile/embedded markets that are larger and are growing faster than the traditional PC/datacenter stuff.

The SoC vendors are the ones with access to the larger economies of scale. So they are developing things faster.

Apple devices out shipped all Intel/AMD PCs combined. Apple only caters to the top ~20% of any market they enter. Apple leveraged iPhone & iPad SoC R&D to create >90% of Apple Silicon. <10% R&D for whatever Mac-specific requirements are paid for Mac revenue.

Which is why you end up with a mobile chip trading blows with a whole PC.

So you will see mobile SoCs getting more and more powerful at a faster rate than desktop microprocessors. And once they pass the inflection point, the desktop processor starts to actually lag in performance and can't catch up.

This has happened several times Mainframes -> Minicomputers -> Microcomputers -> SoCs... and it's usually correlated with jumps in levels of integration.

BTW, you still have old guys who come from the mainframe era still in denial of how a PC could possibly be faster ;-)

Do not be surprised that workstation desktop users who insist on PCIe expansion slots will eventually be like them.

Hope this makes sense.

Global Smartphone Chipset Market Share (Q2 2021 – Q3 2022)

​

Brands​	Q2 2021​	Q3 2021​	Q4 2021​	Q1 2022​	Q2 2022​	Q3 2022​
Mediatek​	42%​	40%​	35%​	36%​	38%​	35%​
Qualcomm​	26%​	27%​	29%​	33%​	29%​	31%​
Apple​	14%​	15%​	20%​	14%​	13%​	16%​
UNISOC​	9%​	10%​	11%​	11%​	11%​	10%​
Samsung​	5%​	5%​	4%​	5%​	8%​	7%​
HiSilicon (Huawei)​	3%​	2%​	1%​	1%​	0%​	0%​

Table above provides insight of the market share of each SoC parts vendor vs Apple system vendor.

Remember my mentioning Apple catering to the top ~20% of any market they enter? See where they are from Q2 2021 to Q3 2022... ~20%.

Smartphones

Android (all price points)

- 2021: 1.124 billion units
- 2022: 0.979 billion units

Vs

iPhone ($429-1599)

- 2021: 235.8 million units
- 2022: 226.4 million units

~20% again... in the smartphone market.

 

[Joe Dohn]

I'm not sure I agree 100% with that reasoning.
Yes, cell phones are at a point nowadays they CAN be used as desktops if manufacturers make that process easy.
However, bigger computers have the advantage of having a larger area (which means more transistors), which also allows for better cooling.

That is the reason mainframes STILL exist today, although for less applications than before.

So, bigger computers will always have a space advantage over small ones. The question is instead, will this matter? If cell phones get so powerful using them as full-blown desktops only takes a fraction of their power 90% of the time, then it probably won't matter.

 

[mectojic]

So, bigger computers will always have a space advantage over small ones. The question is instead, will this matter? If cell phones get so powerful using them as full-blown desktops only takes a fraction of their power 90% of the time, then it probably won't matter.

We'll probably be there in 5-6 years from now. iPhones by then will probably have the computing power of M1/M2. However, at the moment the AAA gaming industry still only pushes the newest and latest graphics power, which always requires cutting-edge desktop graphics, meaning that phones will always remain a few years behind, at least in that space.
In every other space, the iPhone can probably emulate any desktop game up to about 2016 now. The only limitation is the ability to actually emulate, and transform the iPhone into a desktop replacement. USB-C will partly help with connecting external devices (gaming keyboard, mouse, monitor), but iOS isn't helping the situation.

 

[Joe Dohn]

We'll probably be there in 5-6 years from now. iPhones by then will probably have the computing power of M1/M2. However, at the moment the AAA gaming industry still only pushes the newest and latest graphics power, which always requires cutting-edge desktop graphics, meaning that phones will always remain a few years behind, at least in that space.
In every other space, the iPhone can probably emulate any desktop game up to about 2016 now. The only limitation is the ability to actually emulate, and transform the iPhone into a desktop replacement. USB-C will partly help with connecting external devices (gaming keyboard, mouse, monitor), but iOS isn't helping the situation.

Using full-blown ARM Windows is already a reality with some Android phones (e.g, Samsung). Sure, it's tricky to install and very advanced games don't run well. But as I mentioned in other threads, you can definitely use it for more simple document or photo editing. If you only want to run very basic 3D games or some light 2D games, you might be able to pull it off too.