Realistic expectation of 1 gen 14" MBP

[Danny82]

Base on rumors, first launch Apple silicon Mac are the imac 24" and MBP 14".. just curious what are everyone expectation of it before u think it is worth joining in the 1 gen of the transition which will definitely have many software compatibility issue till apple iron it out like say in the next 3 years.. so how much raw performance does it need to win u over to join 1 gen teething period.. so higher expectation could be needed for us to take the risk to join 1 gen right

Since I'm only interested in the MBP 14", would like to see what everyone think.. this should be a more serious/ realistic expectation discussion but feel free to add dream also. Also feel free to be more technical which I could not.. I will just put my expectation in general term..

Realistic expectation:

1) Mini Led 60hz
2) cpu 8p core 4e core (rumored) ideally able to match desktop class i7-9700k
3) gpu matches desktop class RTX 2060 super
4) face ID and better webcam ideally iphone front camera standard
5) pcie4
6) faster memory but not yet HBM2e
7) thunder bolt 3 and usb c
8) base model start with 16gb ram and 512gb storage
9) remove touch bar..... ?
10) price dont increase by giving us all these

Dream expectation:

1) mini led 120hz
2) cpu 8p core 4e core (rumored) beat all last gen desktop class from Intel and amd
3) gpu matches desktop class RTX 2070 super
4) same as above #4
5) pcie 5.0 rumored apple may use it
6) HBM2e, wonder if apple saving from intel chip to apple silicon chip will be able to give us 16gb of this
7) usb 4
8) same as above #8
9) remove touch bar.... ?
10) after giving us all these price still able to reduce $50.. ?

Of course all that said.. I'm so wanting to join 1gen after it is launch for 1mth when all youtuber have share their review.. thats why want to see what u all deem as worth the risk

 

[johngwheeler]

I think your expectations may be a little high. I would expect maybe 20-30% better performance than existing MBP13s, but much better battery life.

PCIe4 - quite possibly. 256GB NVMe SSD on the entry level still.

GPU - I would be impressed if it was close to RX 580 or GTX 1060 laptop. RTX 2060 Super performance is highly unlikely in my opinion - Apple just needs to be conclusively better than the best Intel iGPU and match low-mid level dGPUs found on other premium laptops.

Probably fast LPDDR4X memory. I think it's a bit soon to see DDR5. I expect we will still see 8GB on the entry level. Conceivably the RAM will be integrated into the SoC itself and use a proprietary standard.

Thunderbolt 3 is uncertain because of Intel licencing (you can imagine that Intel may not want to play with Apple any more). We might see USB-4 with support for Thunderbolt protocols.

I expect a modest price *increase*.

In short, the ARM MBP13 just needs to comfortably exceed what the Intel MBP13 can do in the important categories, but I'm not expecting it to surpass the current MBP16s because that would immediately kill the market for those machines, which Apple won't do until they are ready to transition it to ARM.

 

[Brian Y]

I think you're shooting for the stars for a first gen product there.

Personally, I imagine we'll see something with performance somewhere between the MacBook Air/13" MBP as a first product (the air would be the ideal first machine to replace). In terms of graphics, I agree with @johngwheeler - I'd expect to see performance being considerably better than intel's integrated GPUs in the first instance, but i'd be surprised if we see dGPU class performance any time soon (unless they, for instance, pair an Ax CPU with a dedicated GPU).

I'd expect to see 8/16GB options, and they'll probably stick with tradition and shaft people on the SSD storage upgrades.

I assume we'll still get TB3 support (intel has made it available with a royalty free, non-exclusive license). Many people have TB3 accessories, and they'd be stupid to drop support for it.

I.e. my realistic expectations are (for a base model):

- MacBook Air style design
- CPU where between current MacBook Air/MacBook Pro
- 8GB LPDDR4X RAM base model
- 256GB SSD
- PCI-e 3/TB3
- Couple of hours longer battery life

 

[thunng8]

I think you're shooting for the stars for a first gen product there.

Personally, I imagine we'll see something with performance somewhere between the MacBook Air/13" MBP as a first product (the air would be the ideal first machine to replace). In terms of graphics, I agree with @johngwheeler - I'd expect to see performance being considerably better than intel's integrated GPUs in the first instance, but i'd be surprised if we see dGPU class performance any time soon (unless they, for instance, pair an Ax CPU with a dedicated GPU).

I'd expect to see 8/16GB options, and they'll probably stick with tradition and shaft people on the SSD storage upgrades.

I assume we'll still get TB3 support (intel has made it available with a royalty free, non-exclusive license). Many people have TB3 accessories, and they'd be stupid to drop support for it.

I.e. my realistic expectations are (for a base model):

- MacBook Air style design
- CPU where between current MacBook Air/MacBook Pro
- 8GB LPDDR4X RAM base model
- 256GB SSD
- PCI-e 3/TB3
- Couple of hours longer battery life

CPU in the iPad Pro from 2018 already exceeds the 2020 MacBook Air and entry 13” MacBook Pro (about on par with high end 10th gen 13” MacBook Pro). I would be highly surprised if new 13-14” Apple Silicon MacBook Pro does not exceed the current high end 13” MacBook Pro by a fairly large margin.

 

[Waragainstsleep]

Realistic expectation:

1) Mini Led 60hz
2) cpu 8p core 4e core (rumored) ideally able to match desktop class i7-9700k
3) gpu matches desktop class RTX 2060 super
4) face ID and better webcam ideally iphone front camera standard
5) pcie4
6) faster memory but not yet HBM2e
7) thunder bolt 3 and usb c
8) base model start with 16gb ram and 512gb storage
9) remove touch bar..... ?
10) price dont increase by giving us all these

1) Maybe if the 16" gets it first.
2) I expect Apple to dazzle but the 9700K is still a powerful desktop chip. You might be overstitching a tad.
3) This is completely up in the air right now. Much will depend on people optimising for new hardware. Could take a little time to reach its potential.
4) face ID yes, camera seems a no brainer but has for years so who knows?
5) Has to be a fair bet. 3.0 would be disappointing.
6) I don't think they have to use the LP variant in a notebook chassis so yes.
7) USB-C 100%, Thunderbolt 3 99%.
8) I'm amazed the current one isn't starting at 8GB but given the new GPU architecture and the DTK, I'll say 100% yes on RAM.
9) Wouldn't count on this at all. They aren't so bad actually.
10) If you get half those specs, it ain't gonna be cheaper.

Probably fast LPDDR4X memory. I think it's a bit soon to see DDR5. I expect we will still see 8GB on the entry level. Conceivably the RAM will be integrated into the SoC itself and use a proprietary standard.

Thunderbolt 3 is uncertain because of Intel licencing (you can imagine that Intel may not want to play with Apple any more). We might see USB-4 with support for Thunderbolt protocols.

TB3 licensing isn't an issue as its license free I think. Apple helped develop TB in the first place anyway, I doubt Intel could withhold it altogether.
The DTK has 16GB, I expect this to be the new bare minimum across the board. The GPU is sharing now remember...

In short, the ARM MBP13 just needs to comfortably exceed what the Intel MBP13 can do in the important categories, but I'm not expecting it to surpass the current MBP16s because that would immediately kill the market for those machines, which Apple won't do until they are ready to transition it to ARM.

Very good point. I know the rumour is for a 13" MBP first but I'm not sure I buy it. The same rumour also cites iMacs as among the first but there are leaked benchmarks for a new Intel iMac in the wild. If Apple has worked the magic I expect, the 16" has to be first so as not to be eclipsed. The 13" has also been refreshed more recently. If they do the 13" first, Apple Silicon is going to be less impressive than I hope it will be for exactly the reason you describe. I think Apple is going to want to blow people away with the first ARM Mac in the way they haven't since the iPhone came out. Their team has an air of self satisfaction that is above and beyond the usual company line, "everything is awesome" shtick so I think we will see something pretty stellar.

 

[Danny82]

Ah.. thats sad to hear I do agree that in some ways if it gets to powerful in term of performance it will conflict with current MBP 16 sales.. but well.. if we are taking the risk to join 1st gen.. the incentive is really low with sure low increase in speed and enduring the period of the transit where many software may not work or not optimised

 

[Brian Y]

CPU in the iPad Pro from 2018 already exceeds the 2020 MacBook Air and entry 13” MacBook Pro (about on par with high end 10th gen 13” MacBook Pro). I would be highly surprised if new 13-14” Apple Silicon MacBook Pro does not exceed the current high end 13” MacBook Pro by a fairly large margin.

It may do, but there's a couple of other things at play:

1. We don't know how well Big Sur is actually optimised for Arm (yet).
2. I'm talking MacBook Air replacement here, not Pro. I'd imagine that, because they're selling this on being power sipping, the ideal first release would be a MacBook Air replacement. They probably wont want to cannibilise MBP sales (and I guess "pro" machines will be the last to be migrated, since many non-apple pro apps may take longer to be converted properly). Also, Apple has a history of putting lower performing components in place to sell "upgrades" or refreshed models later on (e.g. clock speed bump in a mid-year refresh, for example).

I highly doubt they'll show their best cards at launch.

In terms of CPU, but the geekbench scores for the A12Z in the Mac Mini are reportedly down quite considerably from the same chip in the iPad Pro. We don't know yet how much of that difference down to rosetta, downclocking/sandbagging or simply Mac OS not being optimized properly for arm yet.

 

[leman]

What I expect in a new 13"-14" MacBook Pro (it this is what Apple is going to release)

- A CPU that outperforms any of the current 13" MBP
- An integrated GPU on par with the GTX 1650/5300M
- LPDDR4X or (optimistically) LPDDR5 RAM (later is already shipping, the question is about volume)
- Thunderbolt (3 or even USB 4) is a given
- no FaceID, same old webcam
- possibly miniLED backlight, but I would not bet on it
- definitively TouchBar
- 3x3 Wifi-6

 

[playtech1]

CPU - Big question here - will Apple go with some kind of iPad+ CPU, or will they go for something more purpose built for laptops? I suspect (fear?) that they will beef up an iPad CPU rather than do a fully custom Mac CPU.

I think Apple will target Rosetta performance as equivalent to current Intel models and native performance circa 40% quicker (probably for tasks that use the A series' specialist 'engines' for image processing and video encoding or decoding). I was fairly surprised to see how many transistors Apple CPUs have - 10bn for the A12x vs circa 2bn for typical Intel chips.

GPU - I want this to be as good as a 1650Ti for Metal apps, but expect it will be more like an MX250.

Ports - It's got to be USB4. I just can't see Intel certifying an ARM Apple laptop for Thunderbolt no matter what the licensing terms are. I also can't see Apple buying Thunderbolt controllers from Intel either. And USB4 sounds like an upgrade even if it's basically the same as today's TB3 ports.

Screen - I will wish for 120Hz 'ProMotion' and will no doubt be disappointed. Narrower bezels will be the selling point here.

RAM - Even though the dev kit has 16GB it is possible Apple will go with 8GB at the low end, as dev kits can have more RAM than the target machine. That said, 16GB LPDDR4 seems an obvious entry point that looks good on comparison tables against prior models. I think a new RAM type is it's took risky to go with something new when you are changing so much else.

SSD - 512GB as the base size would be the rabbit out of the hat here. I could see this as again it looks good in comparison tables.

Apple will be desperate for people who may be sceptical about ARM to buy into the new architecture, so I would hope for a few giveaways like increased RAM and SSD.

To make a big splash I can see this being a MBP 13 replacement. It seems like the sweet spot in that Apple can beat its current offering, but without having to compete against Intel's very best chips in the MBP 16. It also will look good next to the fairly weak Intel MBA, which can then soon be killed off for a cut-down ARM chip. Although starting out by replacing the old 12 inch MacBook or the MacBook Air looks easier, it also risks making ARM look like a cheaper lower-performing option, when Apple want to be touting it for high performance professionals.

Unless Apple really screws it up, I will definitely be getting one!

 

[Waragainstsleep]

It may do, but there's a couple of other things at play:

1. We don't know how well Big Sur is actually optimised for Arm (yet).

What makes you think its not going to be fully optimised? They didn't say it but you can bet Apple has had MacOS running on ARM CPUs for years.

2. I'm talking MacBook Air replacement here, not Pro. I'd imagine that, because they're selling this on being power sipping, the ideal first release would be a MacBook Air replacement. They probably wont want to cannibilise MBP sales (and I guess "pro" machines will be the last to be migrated, since many non-apple pro apps may take longer to be converted properly). Also, Apple has a history of putting lower performing components in place to sell "upgrades" or refreshed models later on (e.g. clock speed bump in a mid-year refresh, for example).

Its going to be interesting to see for sure. I think they will aim for amazing performance as they need to convince people this transition makes the Mac the platform to go to with Intel floundering. AMD arguably should be kicking the crap out of Intel but they aren't. Their high end CPUs are spanking Intel on price and performance but the industry that buys them has massive loyalty and trust for Intel so they aren't defecting like they should be. Intel still holds the crown for games too in conjunction with Nvidia. AMD doesn't have the brand power Intel does and everyone has seen these two cycling past each other and back before. AMD has been fighting on two fronts and coming second ever since it bought ATI. Apple has resources, brand power, loyalty and trust that dwarf Intel at least in the consumer space. They could make a big dent if they want to.

If they just release big iPads with built in keyboards, that's not going to excite anyone, no matter how long the battery life is. Any new MacBook Air type is going to be very similar to an iPad no matter what so it won't generate that buzz I suspect they want and want badly. Its got to be something higher end. A Pro laptop makes sense but then is the GPU up to it? Its really tricky to predict where they'll go here.

I highly doubt they'll show their best cards at launch.

Best is only best until the next one.

In terms of CPU, but the geekbench scores for the A12Z in the Mac Mini are reportedly down quite considerably from the same chip in the iPad Pro. We don't know yet how much of that difference down to rosetta, downclocking/sandbagging or simply Mac OS not being optimized properly for arm yet.

Educated estimates are ~20% or so down.

CPU - Big question here - will Apple go with some kind of iPad+ CPU, or will they go for something more purpose built for laptops? I suspect (fear?) that they will beef up an iPad CPU rather than do a fully custom Mac CPU.

I don't think so. Maybe in the old 12" MacBook enclosure or a similarly skinny MacBook Air, but not the Pro. Theres no real need.

I think Apple will target Rosetta performance as equivalent to current Intel models and native performance circa 40% quicker (probably for tasks that use the A series' specialist 'engines' for image processing and video encoding or decoding). I was fairly surprised to see how many transistors Apple CPUs have - 10bn for the A12x vs circa 2bn for typical Intel chips.

It has to be able to match the Intel predecessor's performance at a minimum.

Ports - It's got to be USB4. I just can't see Intel certifying an ARM Apple laptop for Thunderbolt no matter what the licensing terms are. I also can't see Apple buying Thunderbolt controllers from Intel either. And USB4 sounds like an upgrade even if it's basically the same as today's TB3 ports.

The license is free because Intel wants it to catch on. Likely because they want the controller business. They can't refuse Apple if they want to, it would be anti-competitive. Besides, peripheral makers will follow Apple to a very real extent. This will help make it popular. Its a pity for Intel that no-one needs to dump huge amounts of data to or from iPhones any more.

RAM - Even though the dev kit has 16GB it is possible Apple will go with 8GB at the low end, as dev kits can have more RAM than the target machine. That said, 16GB LPDDR4 seems an obvious entry point that looks good on comparison tables against prior models. I think a new RAM type is it's took risky to go with something new when you are changing so much else.

I'm surprised no-one has leaked the info yet but I'd love to know what RAM is in the DTK. Everyone is assuming its LPDDR4, but I don't see much reason why Apple would need to use the LP variants. They likely cost more and perform less well with a quarter of the channel bandwidth.

SSD - 512GB as the base size would be the rabbit out of the hat here. I could see this as again it looks good in comparison tables.

I think there are still a lot of users who don't need it. Everything is in the cloud now with the possible exception of photos.If your photo library is 100GB, that's an assload of photos and you still have more than enough room for your OS and a bunch of Office documents. 512GB is a handy spec diffrentiator for the next model up or an upgrade option.

Apple will be desperate for people who may be sceptical about ARM to buy into the new architecture, so I would hope for a few giveaways like increased RAM and SSD.

This is why they have to go balls out on performance.

To make a big splash I can see this being a MBP 13 replacement. It seems like the sweet spot in that Apple can beat its current offering, but without having to compete against Intel's very best chips in the MBP 16. It also will look good next to the fairly weak Intel MBA, which can then soon be killed off for a cut-down ARM chip. Although starting out by replacing the old 12 inch MacBook or the MacBook Air looks easier, it also risks making ARM look like a cheaper lower-performing option, when Apple want to be touting it for high performance professionals.

Unless Apple really screws it up, I will definitely be getting one!

One thing no-one is predicting is any big change in the product matrix. Apple can make its SoCs to suit whatever it wants now, they don't have to stick to the current model line up at all. Plus a change in lineup allows them to sidestep comparisons to the previous models so maybe this is how they solve the problem of which ARM Mac comes first?

 

[playtech1]

The license is free because Intel wants it to catch on. Likely because they want the controller business. They can't refuse Apple if they want to, it would be anti-competitive. Besides, peripheral makers will follow Apple to a very real extent. This will help make it popular. Its a pity for Intel that no-one needs to dump huge amounts of data to or from iPhones any more.

I'm still betting on USB4 here over TB3 - timeline for USB4 being seen in the wild fits neatly with Apple's release timing and sidesteps the complications of a continued Intel connection.

I'm surprised no-one has leaked the info yet but I'd love to know what RAM is in the DTK. Everyone is assuming its LPDDR4, but I don't see much reason why Apple would need to use the LP variants. They likely cost more and perform less well with a quarter of the channel bandwidth.

I think the lower power usage is pretty important, but also would a change from what the iPad uses (LPDDR4) require a rework of the memory controller in the CPU? I don't know enough on that, but if so it's another pointer in favour of LPDDR4.

One thing no-one is predicting is any big change in the product matrix. Apple can make its SoCs to suit whatever it wants now, they don't have to stick to the current model line up at all. Plus a change in lineup allows them to sidestep
comparisons to the previous models so maybe this is how they solve the problem of which ARM Mac comes first?

Good point - they might re-jig the lineup a bit. Although equally I don't see Apple killing both the MBA and MBP 13 on day one when the ARM Mac arrives, yet if they keep both around it seems like a recipe for confusion. So for this first step I think it will be as a replacement for one or the other.

As I say, my money is on replacing the MBP 13 to impress people and to give space for a slower/cheaper ARM offering a little later to replace the MBA/MB. Debuting with the slower/cheaper model only makes sense to me if they simply can't produce a powerful enough CPU to do otherwise.

 

[leman]

As I say, my money is on replacing the MBP 13 to impress people and to give space for a slower/cheaper ARM offering a little later to replace the MBA/MB. Debuting with the slower/cheaper model only makes sense to me if they simply can't produce a powerful enough CPU to do otherwise.

Exactly, if the first ARM machine they release is not convincing enough performance wise, this entire thing has a good change to backfire in a bad way. Apple doesn't want a Surface Pro X disaster on their hands.
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I think the lower power usage is pretty important, but also would a change from what the iPad uses (LPDDR4) require a rework of the memory controller in the CPU? I don't know enough on that, but if so it's another pointer in favour of LPDDR4.

It does seem to support DDR4 just fine if we look at the DTK (as pointed out by Waragainstsleep, I might have been too hasty in claiming this). But LPDDR is more power efficient and also faster. Actually, I'd like to see quad-channel LPDDR5 which should give it about 100GB/s memory bandwidth (not far off GDDR5, which puts it in a lower-mid-range GPU territory).

 

[Waragainstsleep]

I think the lower power usage is pretty important, but also would a change from what the iPad uses (LPDDR4) require a rework of the memory controller in the CPU? I don't know enough on that, but if so it's another pointer in favour of LPDDR4.

It does seem to support DDR4 just fine if we look at the DTK. But LPDDR is more power efficient and also faster. Actually, I'd like to see quad-channel LPDDR5 which should give it about 100GB/s memory bandwidth (not far off GDDR5, which puts it in a lower-mid-range GPU territory).

Do we know the DTK uses LP? I haven't seen confirmation of that.
LPDDR4 is slower than regular DDR4 and has a quarter the bandwidth. Its also more expensive. Power savings will be enough from the CPU/GPU alone, I'll take the high performance RAM please.

 

[jdb8167]

Do we know the DTK uses LP? I haven't seen confirmation of that.
LPDDR4 is slower than regular DDR4 and has a quarter the bandwidth. Its also more expensive. Power savings will be enough from the CPU/GPU alone, I'll take the high performance RAM please.

Another big benefit from LPDDR4 is that standby power is much lower. Not important for a Mac mini but a MacBook or MacBook Pro it is a pretty big win. I'm pretty sure that is why Apple prefers LPDDR4 on their smaller notebooks.

 

[psingh01]

I don’t think there is going to be a 14” MBP at all. Some people just assumed there would be one because because the 15” was replaced by a 16”. I don’t think there has been any indication from the usual sources of a product being planned. Just wishful thinking by forumers.

 

[leman]

Do we know the DTK uses LP? I haven't seen confirmation of that.
LPDDR4 is slower than regular DDR4 and has a quarter the bandwidth. Its also more expensive. Power savings will be enough from the CPU/GPU alone, I'll take the high performance RAM please.

DTK uses DDR4 (as pointed out by Waragainstsleep, I might have been too hasty in claiming this)

Quad channel LPDDR4-4266 (what modern laptops use) offers around 70 GB/s max bandwidth. LPDDR5 is about 100 GB/s. DDR4-3200 with dual channels is around 52 GB/s. I have these figures from official JEDEC slides, so I see no reason to distrust them.

Current LPDDR has shorter bus, but more memory channels and higher signaling rate, that’s why it ends up faster than DDR. The trade offs is lack of user upgradeability and halved capacity.

P.S. if you don’t believe me, you can check out the geekbench memory bandwidth results for 16” (dual channel DDR4) vs new 13” (quad channel LPDDR4). Geekbench is crappy but I didn’t find anything else online

MacBookPro16,1 - Geekbench

Benchmark results for a MacBookPro16,1 with an Intel Core i9-9880H processor.

browser.geekbench.com

MacBookPro16,2 - Geekbench

Benchmark results for a MacBookPro16,2 with an Intel Core i7-1068NG7 processor.

browser.geekbench.com

P.P.S. I had another look around and while the information on the topic is presented in a very confusing manner, it appears that are are multiple ways to connect the memory controller to LPDDR4. The highest-performance configuration is using four independent memory channels each of which can do 32bits of data per memory clock (to be more precise, its 4 channels x 2 chip channels x 16bit). This configuration ends up with the same theoretical 128bit transfer per cycle as the usual dual-channel DDR4 RAM. Since LPDDR4-4266 can do 4266 megatransfers per second and it is 16 bytes per transfer (128bit in total) we end up with with 4266*16 = 68256 MB/s.

 

[Waragainstsleep]

DTK uses DDR4.

Can I ask how you know that?

 

[leman]

Can I ask how you know that?

I must apologize. I was confident that Apple's technical documentation said DDR4. But they just say 16GB RAM. So I was wrong on this one (I will edit my previous posts immediately).

But I am still very confident about my claims regarding LPDDR4 performance

 

[Waragainstsleep]

Yes, the benchmarks hold up your claims very well. I thought the LPDDR4 was sacrificing something overall for lower power but it seems its an all round upgrade over DDR4 in real terms. Perhaps there is DDR4 that clocks at 5GHz but Apple hasn't bothered with bleeding edge memory overclocking ever as far as I recall so its not worth worrying about.
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I gather the Apple GPUs are happy with much lower memory bandwidth than AMD or Nvidia so maybe they have no need for HBM2 either.

 

[leman]

Yes, the benchmarks hold up your claims very well. I thought the LPDDR4 was sacrificing something overall for lower power but it seems its an all round upgrade over DDR4 in real terms. Perhaps there is DDR4 that clocks at 5GHz but Apple hasn't bothered with bleeding edge memory overclocking ever as far as I recall so its not worth worrying about.

It does sacrifice things! It's memory channels are half the size of regular DDR, it can only support half the total RAM capacity, and it cannot be modular. At the same time, LPDDR4 has a higher transfer rate. The end performance depends on how one configures these things. Some higher-end laptops recently started using the quad-channel configuration, which again sacrifices the engineering complexity (and therefore cost) in order to bring the LPDDR4 memory bus to the same level as the one of DDR4. And in this scenario the higher transfer rate of LPDDR4 allows it to shine. If we took a dual channel configuration of LPDDR4 instead, it would end up slower than DDR4 because of effectively halved transfer bus.

Also, if I read the JEDEC slides correctly, LPDDR4 does not necessarily consume less power than DDR4 under active use. But LPDDR4 has a much wider range of power savings options. All in all, LPDDR appears to be a more sophisticated class of devices than regular DDR, and it's this sophistication which is responsible for lower average energy consumption.

 

[burgerrecords]

The promise from wwdc regarding Apple silicon for Mac is desktop like performance and beyond (but not orders of magnitude so) with notebook (and lower) like power draw. ( There’s no 200 W Tdp cpu implied )

if you only use popular software Anyway, and also use iOS apps this is a “free lunch.“. With the largest benefit the possibility of ditching the desktop machine altogether for even most demanding users (Here’s hoping Apple starts selling non pro desktop displays again)

the biggest loss comes for existing dedicated desktop users who rely on x86 today - but that’s not necessarily a substantial loss because I expect those machines will be viable for longer than PowerPC we’re viable (again the switch to Apple silicon is primarily being sold as largely power draw related) and Apple can certainly afford to support x86 for a long time just as Linux and Windows are being supported in parallel.

 

[MyopicPaideia]

The promise from wwdc regarding Apple silicon for Mac is desktop like performance and beyond (but not orders of magnitude so) with notebook (and lower) like power draw. ( There’s no 200 W Tdp cpu implied )

if you only use popular software Anyway, and also use iOS apps this is a “free lunch.“. With the largest benefit the possibility of ditching the desktop machine altogether for even most demanding users (Here’s hoping Apple starts selling non pro desktop displays again)

the biggest loss comes for existing dedicated desktop users who rely on x86 today - but that’s not necessarily a substantial loss because I expect those machines will be viable for longer than PowerPC we’re viable (again the switch to Apple silicon is primarily being sold as largely power draw related) and Apple can certainly afford to support x86 for a long time just as Linux and Windows are being supported in parallel.

So... if I am interpreting your post in between the lines (that appears to be the only place to find an on topic idea anywhere in there) - in essence your saying a realistic 1st gen Apple Silicon MBP 14” will have equivalent performance to a current Intel 27” iMac on one of the mid-range dGPU options??

 

[dburkhanaev]

I think your expectations may be a little high. I would expect maybe 20-30% better performance than existing MBP13s, but much better battery life.

PCIe4 - quite possibly. 256GB NVMe SSD on the entry level still.

GPU - I would be impressed if it was close to RX 580 or GTX 1060 laptop. RTX 2060 Super performance is highly unlikely in my opinion - Apple just needs to be conclusively better than the best Intel iGPU and match low-mid level dGPUs found on other premium laptops.

Probably fast LPDDR4X memory. I think it's a bit soon to see DDR5. I expect we will still see 8GB on the entry level. Conceivably the RAM will be integrated into the SoC itself and use a proprietary standard.

Thunderbolt 3 is uncertain because of Intel licencing (you can imagine that Intel may not want to play with Apple any more). We might see USB-4 with support for Thunderbolt protocols.

I expect a modest price *increase*.

In short, the ARM MBP13 just needs to comfortably exceed what the Intel MBP13 can do in the important categories, but I'm not expecting it to surpass the current MBP16s because that would immediately kill the market for those machines, which Apple won't do until they are ready to transition it to ARM.

My understanding is that video and system will have shared ram. So do you still think 8gb will be the starting point for a pro level machine? Or maybe I’m misunderstanding how shared memory works. I don’t know all of the technical parts of that to be honest so it’s a genuine question.

 

[leman]

My understanding is that video and system will have shared ram. So do you still think 8gb will be the starting point for a pro level machine? Or maybe I’m misunderstanding how shared memory works. I don’t know all of the technical parts of that to be honest so it’s a genuine question.

Well, the current 13" does start at 8GB. We can hope that Apple will upgrade to 16GB by default.

 

[MyopicPaideia]

I think the DTK having 16GB is an indication that this might be the starting point going forward for the Apple Silicon Macs. Then again, you’ve got the kind of performance you are getting from the iPad Pro on 4-6GB so maybe it will be something odd, like 10-12GB?

The bigger difference here is that I don’t think they will get away with not talking about these kinds of specs when introducing the products at keynotes like they do with the iPhone and iPads. They are going to have to talk about RAM and storage as well as the SoC so I just don’t think 8GB will be on the cards. It’s so 2010’s. Maybe that alone will ensure a 16GB base level?

The more you think about it, the more you question your reasoning and assumed motives! That being said, I think:

• Form Factor
  • Laptop
• SoC
  • 12 core CPU (8 big 4 little)
  • 12 core GPU (Almost 100% higher performance than A12Z in iPad Pro)
• Memory
  • 16GB LPDDR5
• Storage
  • 256GB SSD