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Speculation on Intel Macs?

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Nov 2, 2020
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Looking at the Apple site there are lots of options to build MacBook and Mini Intel based...which makes me believe Apple might have stocked up these chips...

Do you see anyone buying these more expensive and less performing Intel based Macs? I would hope they go really really down in price, but even at much lower prices I still don’t see me buying one...

Thoughts?
 
Brazooka said:
Looking at the Apple site there are lots of options to build MacBook and Mini Intel based...which makes me believe Apple might have stocked up these chips...

Do you see anyone buying these more expensive and less performing Intel based Macs? I would hope they go really really down in price, but even at much lower prices I still don’t see me buying one...

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Apple isn't going to drop the price, and there are some instances where the current M1 Macs, which, in spite of being quite fast, are low end models, and as such may not meet the needs of some buyers.
 
chrfr said:
Apple isn't going to drop the price, and there are some instances where the current M1 Macs, which, in spite of being quite fast, are low end models, and as such may not meet the needs of some buyers.
Click to expand...

How is “low end” being quantified now since performance is clearly higher?

Better CPU, better memory, better display, better....how can we quantify or qualify M1 as low end compared to the Intels? If anything Intel now is the low end performers....

The new chip has changed the game....maybe Apple will not change prices, but they are clearly dropping the trade in they offer on Intel based...wonder what they will do with the Intel chips in stock...maybe sell them to Dell
 
Businesses may keep buying Intel Macs for a short while. For two reasons: one known common hardware. 2: Catalina: they may not have yet certified Big Sur. I am joining a new company in January. All Mac based. They just sent me a brand-new laptop for my start date. It’s an Intel MBP 13” rather than M1. Because they want Catalina
 
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robbieduncan said:
Businesses may keep buying Intel Macs for a short while. For two reasons: one known common hardware. 2: Catalina: they may not have yet certified Big Sur. I am joining a new company in January. All Mac based. They just sent me a brand-new laptop for my start date. It’s an Intel MBP 13” rather than M1. Because they want Catalina
Click to expand...

Excellent use case. Thanks!
 
Brazooka said:
How is “low end” being quantified now since performance is clearly higher?
Click to expand...
Ports, configurable memory size, display size.

MBPs have been divided into two tiers since well before M1 -- two-port 13.3" screen models with up to 16GB RAM vs four-port 13.3 & 16" screen models with up to 32GB RAM.

Although the Mini's weren't previously split, that appears to be the case since there's now a fewer-port M1 model and a more-port Intel model.

Presumably the remaining Intel models will be replaced with Apple Silicon versions sometime this year, and presumably with some sort of M1X or other name for a higher-spec AS chip in some manner.
 
Brazooka said:
Excellent use case. Thanks!
Click to expand...
It’s worth noting that apart from the Intel CPU and Catalina this machine could have been M1: it’s a 16Gb RAM/512Gb SSD machine. They sent me an Apple AV adaptor to allow a single port be used for power in, HDMI out and a USB port so a 2 port machine would have been fine. Basically it’s about corporate standards moving more slowly that the consumer market
 
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Well, there is precedence. Way back during the software transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X, Apple did sell PowerMac G4 MDD dirt cheap, long after introducing the PowerMac G5 which couldn't boot Mac OS 9.

I got mine that way, a €3k computer for closer to €1k. To date, it is my favourite computer of all. It lasted a long time and is absolutely gorgeous.
 
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robbieduncan said:
Businesses may keep buying Intel Macs for a short while. For two reasons: one known common hardware. 2: Catalina: they may not have yet certified Big Sur. I am joining a new company in January. All Mac based. They just sent me a brand-new laptop for my start date. It’s an Intel MBP 13” rather than M1. Because they want Catalina
Click to expand...

so much this. my company still isn't ready for the 64-bit transition from Catalina to Mojave, much less an entire new chipset.
 
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David Hassholehoff said:
Well, there is precedence. Way back during the software transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X, Apple did sell PowerMac G4 MDD dirt cheap, long after introducing the PowerMac G5 which couldn't boot Mac OS 9.

I got mine that way, a €3k computer for closer to €1k. To date, it is my favourite computer of all. It lasted a long time and is absolutely gorgeous.
Click to expand...

Along with corporate adoption I speculate this will be the road ahead for the Intel models...
 
I suspect at some point in future there will be a flood of Intel Macs appearing in the returb stores that are actually brand-new if Apple are not able to manage the supply inventory to zero as they phase out Intel. They will not sell them at a discount on the main store
 
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David Hassholehoff said:
They did when I bought my PowerMac G4 MDD.
Click to expand...
Different times. And a much smaller company. I’m not sure the refurbished section of the store even existed back then. Modern Apple has used the refurb store to shift quantity of superseded product in the past so I predict this will be what they do in the future
 
Brazooka said:
How is “low end” being quantified now since performance is clearly higher?
Click to expand...
GPU/RAM/expansion are all limited in the current M1 models being offered compared to what's available in the higher end Intel models. Not every portable Mac user wants a 13" screen, either.
 
robbieduncan said:
Businesses may keep buying Intel Macs for a short while. For two reasons: one known common hardware. 2: Catalina: they may not have yet certified Big Sur. I am joining a new company in January. All Mac based. They just sent me a brand-new laptop for my start date. It’s an Intel MBP 13” rather than M1. Because they want Catalina
Click to expand...
Same here - my organization bought over 700 2020 MBP 13" i7 w/ 16GB & Catalina OSX, 700+ iPad Pro, 700+ Apple TV 4K, and a bunch of protective cases & Apple Pencils...

We are not ready for Big Sur as our MDM deployment is not yet vetted with the apps that our users are running.

Also, some users are dual booting with Windows 10 Enterprise so the M1 is a no go.

We will probably allow M1 Macs next year when we have properly vetted the apps, OS, and determine if Windows users need to migrate to MacOS only. Plus the device activations using MDM must comply with our organization's cloud filtering & content scanning WAN.

BTW we did get the entire deal for a real good price thru our business Apple rep.
 
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There are still quite a number of development tools and frameworks that aren't yet available on Big Sure and/or M1. Likewise, there are a number of drivers for external peripherals that haven't yet migrated to DriverKit and won't run under Big Sur.

M1 has impressive performance given its TDP envelope, but there are still tasks and apps perform better on Intel with dedicated graphics, or specific hardware, like the AfterBurner card for the MP.
 
robbieduncan said:
Different times. And a much smaller company. I’m not sure the refurbished section of the store even existed back then. Modern Apple has used the refurb store to shift quantity of superseded product in the past so I predict this will be what they do in the future
Click to expand...
There is no such section of the store in my country even now.
 
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I don’t think people who want to get the 32gb+ ram will be buying an Intel Mac today anymore...I believe they probably already have a beefed up system to run their work load, makes no sense IMO to invest 3k on a machine that is being replaced in the very near future...most likely they will hold their system for another year or so...

Definitely corporate will still buy, but personal use I think we will see some deep dive in prices... I am hoping for that, maybe get a beefed up Intel Mini very cheap....
 
Brazooka said:
How is “low end” being quantified now since performance is clearly higher?

Better CPU, better memory, better display, better....how can we quantify or qualify M1 as low end compared to the Intels? If anything Intel now is the low end performers....

The new chip has changed the game....maybe Apple will not change prices, but they are clearly dropping the trade in they offer on Intel based...wonder what they will do with the Intel chips in stock...maybe sell them to Dell
Click to expand...
Single CPU core performance is higher which can make a lot of applications run faster but there are plenty of desktop Intel Macs with better multi-core performance. GPU performance is lower than Desktop Intel Machines with discrete AMD Vega or Navi GPUs, sometimes significantly. TB3 I/O is apparently faster on Intel Macs.

I do question the value of an Intel MacBook given the thermal limitations of a laptop but some use cases require an Intel CPU (Windows, Docker, Linux VMs). Yes you can run ARM Linux and ARM Windows on an M1 Mac but this stuff is definitely not production ready yet and the cloud mostly runs on Intel Linux not ARM Linux (this is beginning to change of course).

I don't understand your "better display" point, what does the CPU architecture have to do with the display. The M1 Mini doesn't even have a display.
 
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