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scouser75

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Oct 7, 2008
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I'm a coming-back-to-the-game editor and a totally out of touch techy. Will the 13" MBP be up the the task of using FCPX, Premiere and Resolve? It will of course be hooked up to a monitor to screen size isn't an issue.
 

ctjack

macrumors 65816
Mar 8, 2020
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I'm a coming-back-to-the-game editor and a totally out of touch techy. Will the 13" MBP be up the the task of using FCPX, Premiere and Resolve? It will of course be hooked up to a monitor to screen size isn't an issue.
If you need a real work to be accomplished and done, then get MBP 16 inch even the base model at $2000 Refurb store.
Premiere is bad on all devices. Resolve and FCPX are really good.
If you do it occasionally then any MBP 13 would suffice for that.
 
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higgalls

macrumors 6502
Mar 20, 2008
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I have just ordered a new 16" MacBook Pro for some Resolve work. I ended up going for the top CPU, and new 5600M Video card option with 32GB of RAM. Expensive as hell, but I want something that is powerful and will last no matter what I throw at it. I did consider the 13" but it simply isn't powerful enough for resolve from what I have been seeing, unless you get an eGPU, but then eGPU support is patchy.
 

scouser75

macrumors 68030
Oct 7, 2008
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If you need a real work to be accomplished and done, then get MBP 16 inch even the base model at $2000 Refurb store.
Premiere is bad on all devices. Resolve and FCPX are really good.
If you do it occasionally then any MBP 13 would suffice for that.
I have just ordered a new 16" MacBook Pro for some Resolve work. I ended up going for the top CPU, and new 5600M Video card option with 32GB of RAM. Expensive as hell, but I want something that is powerful and will last no matter what I throw at it. I did consider the 13" but it simply isn't powerful enough for resolve from what I have been seeing, unless you get an eGPU, but then eGPU support is patchy.
Thanks guys. The 16" is the one I had on my mind all along, but then thought of size and the fact that I'd be hooking it to a display at home anyway. But now mind back on the 16". Just gotta decide whether I can wait for the ARM models to be released. If they're not released by December I'll just buy the 2020 model.
 

benface

macrumors regular
Feb 28, 2012
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Thanks guys. The 16" is the one I had on my mind all along, but then thought of size and the fact that I'd be hooking it to a display at home anyway. But now mind back on the 16". Just gotta decide whether I can wait for the ARM models to be released. If they're not released by December I'll just buy the 2020 model.
You mean the 2019 model?
 
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Lobwedgephil

macrumors 603
Apr 7, 2012
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Thanks guys. The 16" is the one I had on my mind all along, but then thought of size and the fact that I'd be hooking it to a display at home anyway. But now mind back on the 16". Just gotta decide whether I can wait for the ARM models to be released. If they're not released by December I'll just buy the 2020 model.

There is zero chance an arm MacBook Pro is released this year.
 
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09872738

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Feb 12, 2005
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Whoops! I thought a 2020 16" MBP has already been released this year. And that another one may be released at the end of the year. Or have I got this completely wrong ?

Why do you say that? I thought a new one was planned come end of year.
Well, kinda. Rumors have it ARM Macs will be announced at WWDC. However, actual release of said Macs will happen in 2020.
All given the rumors are accurate
 
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09872738

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Feb 12, 2005
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Yep, should have a better idea Monday. Rumors says a Macbook first next year sometime, which makes sense to me, not the Pro yet.
Others state they‘d begin with Pros from the outset. I guess its all depending on what performance the Ax chips are capable of, and in what power limit
 
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scouser75

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Ma2k5

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Dec 21, 2012
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Others state they‘d begin with Pros from the outset. I guess its all depending on what performance the Ax chips are capable of, and in what power limit

Although performance is a challenge, there is a far bigger challenge which makes it unlikely for a MBP ARM to come first - and that is backward compatibility with x86 in some form or another.
 

matram

macrumors 6502a
Sep 18, 2011
781
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Sweden
Although performance is a challenge, there is a far bigger challenge which makes it unlikely for a MBP ARM to come first - and that is backward compatibility with x86 in some form or another.

I do not believe Apple will try for x86 compatibility.

The ARM performance edge, maybe 20%, will not allow for emulation.
Todays tool chains allow for a simple recompile for developers with modern 64-bit application.
Apple is not interested in the BootCamp business and their position in the market today is much stronger so they do not need to focus on Windows switchers.
 

Ma2k5

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Dec 21, 2012
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I do not believe Apple will try for x86 compatibility.

The ARM performance edge, maybe 20%, will not allow for emulation.
Todays tool chains allow for a simple recompile for developers with modern 64-bit application.
Apple is not interested in the BootCamp business and their position in the market today is much stronger so they do not need to focus on Windows switchers.
This might be fine for say the creative industry, but will not work for the dev community.

There was an exodus to Windows due to butterfly keyboard, you can be sure a lack of x86 compatibility will be several magnitudes greater. And Apple know that and there is no way they will do something so stupid in my view. But let’s see, time will tell.
 

matram

macrumors 6502a
Sep 18, 2011
781
416
Sweden
To be clear I run a couple of VM for Windows development myself, so this would hurt me too.

But I still do not believe x86 binary compatibility is something Apple regard as important. They have a history of discarding legacy stuff and moving on. In a way I think that is a good approach.

But as you say we will see, hopefully WWDC will give us some hints.
 

09872738

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Feb 12, 2005
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Although performance is a challenge, there is a far bigger challenge which makes it unlikely for a MBP ARM to come first - and that is backward compatibility with x86 in some form or another.
I doubt that Apple cares about x86 at all. Mac apps are little more than a compile away, and Apple never really cared about Windows compatibility.
On the other hand: in case they manage to roughly double performance in laptop form factor (which seems within reach) while keeping the thing silent and battery runtime decent - this would make for some killer Pro mobile machine.
 

scouser75

macrumors 68030
Oct 7, 2008
2,896
604
I have just ordered a new 16" MacBook Pro for some Resolve work. I ended up going for the top CPU, and new 5600M Video card option with 32GB of RAM. Expensive as hell, but I want something that is powerful and will last no matter what I throw at it. I did consider the 13" but it simply isn't powerful enough for resolve from what I have been seeing, unless you get an eGPU, but then eGPU support is patchy.
I just saw how much this setup is ? My Mac Pro wasn't this much and I specced it up a lot... And bought a cinema display!

Do we have to buy the extras from Apple as buying from a 3rd party retailer no doubt will be a lot cheaper. Although no doubt again this will likely void warranty.
 

higgalls

macrumors 6502
Mar 20, 2008
284
43
I just saw how much this setup is ? My Mac Pro wasn't this much and I specced it up a lot... And bought a cinema display!

Do we have to buy the extras from Apple as buying from a 3rd party retailer no doubt will be a lot cheaper. Although no doubt again this will likely void warranty.
Yeah the price is crazy. Can't get it from a 3rd party in Australia. Apple is the only place you can get it BTO, and all the parts are soldered into the Motherboard, so no chance of upgrading memory or SSD etc, which sucks. Means you have to buy now what you think you may need in a few years time.
 
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Ma2k5

macrumors 68030
Dec 21, 2012
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I doubt that Apple cares about x86 at all. Mac apps are little more than a compile away, and Apple never really cared about Windows compatibility.
On the other hand: in case they manage to roughly double performance in laptop form factor (which seems within reach) while keeping the thing silent and battery runtime decent - this would make for some killer Pro mobile machine.

Going ARM isn’t that big of a leap as people might get the impression of. Intel CPU’s are not some archaic CISC processors, they are highly optimised hybrid CPU’s. There are some gains to be had going fully RISC but it doesn’t come with some downsides and I can assure you don’t expect silent super high battery versions of products to replace the current iteration.
It isn’t like the iPads/iPhones have all that great battery life relative to battery size. Maybe some improvement but not huge - and that’s the issue, losing compatibility for some gains (and maybe other unknown to date issues) is a high risk move.

More likely than not they want to move onto these processors because they will be more in control of the parts more than anything as they are with iPhones and iPads and no longer be reliant on Intel - rather than a pursuit of performance.
 
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DanMan619

macrumors regular
Dec 30, 2012
213
157
Los Angeles, CA
Going ARM isn’t that big of a leap as people might get the impression of. Intel CPU’s are not some archaic CISC processors, they are highly optimised hybrid CPU’s. There are some gains to be had going fully RISC but it doesn’t come with some downsides and I can assure you don’t expect silent super high battery versions of products to replace the current iteration.
It isn’t like the iPads/iPhones have all that great battery life relative to battery size. Maybe some improvement but not huge - and that’s the issue, losing compatibility for some gains (and maybe other unknown to date issues) is a high risk move.

More likely than not they want to move onto these processors because they will be more in control of the parts more than anything as they are with iPhones and iPads and no longer be reliant on Intel - rather than a pursuit of performance.

I actually think it's both. I think Apple is doing this both to stop having to be reliant on Intel and for better performance too. Just maybe not in the way we normally think of performance. I don't think Apple is necessarily trying to blow Intel chips out of the water in ARM gen 1 (that likely won't even be possible). However, a big part of the reason Apple wants to not be reliant on Intel is because Intel chips from year to year don't have big performance increases compared to the prior years Intel chip. Apple's A series chips though, they've shown they are able to make big gains year to year compared to the previous chip. I think that's what Apple is really after.

They want to be able to say "look the 2023 A17 (whatever they end up calling it) chip in the new Macbook Pro has 35% increased performance over the 2022 A16 from last year". Whereas currently they've been stuck with Intel's never ending 14nm++++++++++ 5-10% performance bumps every year. I think a couple years from now Apple's ARM chips, if they're able to maintain doing big leaps and making their chips better and better like that, they could potentially surpass Intel sometime in the future the way AMD has started to trounce Intel now. Especially if Intel keeps struggling the way they have been. In theory, since Apple is just getting started with Mac level ARM chips, they have so much headroom to play with in terms of performance. The time when they may hit a wall and struggle for a bit like Intel is now, is theoretically very very far away.
 
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Falhófnir

macrumors 603
Aug 19, 2017
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I actually think it's both. I think Apple is doing this both to stop having to be reliant on Intel and for better performance too. Just maybe not in the way we normally think of performance. I don't think Apple is necessarily trying to blow Intel chips out of the water in ARM gen 1 (that likely won't even be possible). However, a big part of the reason Apple wants to not be reliant on Intel is because Intel chips from year to year don't have big performance increases compared to the prior years Intel chip. Apple's A series chips though, they've shown they are able to make big gains year to year compared to the previous chip. I think that's what Apple is really after.

They want to be able to say "look the 2023 A17 (whatever they end up calling it) chip in the new Macbook Pro has 35% increased performance over the 2022 A16 from last year". Whereas currently they've been stuck with Intel's never ending 14nm++++++++++ 5-10% performance bumps every year. I think a couple years from now Apple's ARM chips, if they're able to maintain doing big leaps and making their chips better and better like that, they could potentially surpass Intel sometime in the future the way AMD has started to trounce Intel now. Especially if Intel keeps struggling the way they have been. In theory, since Apple is just getting started with Mac level ARM chips, they have so much headroom to play with in terms of performance. The time when they may hit a wall and struggle for a bit like Intel is now, is theoretically very very far away.
If anything Intel are now playing catchup - it sounds like Tiger Lake might actually be decent, but can they sustain that, or will we be complaining about 10nm+++++ years from now? Watt for watt Intel's performance is miles behind Apple, and even lagging AMD currently, in absolute terms, Anandtech are of the opinion Apple's A13 core design is up there with the best AMD or Intel can muster:
Overall, in terms of performance, the A13 and the Lightning cores are extremely fast. In the mobile space, there’s really no competition as the A13 posts almost double the performance of the next best non-Apple SoC. The difference is a little bit less in the floating-point suite, but again we’re not expecting any proper competition for at least another 2-3 years, and Apple isn’t standing still either.

Last year I’ve noted that the A12 was margins off the best desktop CPU cores. This year, the A13 has essentially matched best that AMD and Intel have to offer – in SPECint2006 at least. In SPECfp2006 the A13 is still roughly 15% behind.
 

Ma2k5

macrumors 68030
Dec 21, 2012
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If anything Intel are now playing catchup - it sounds like Tiger Lake might actually be decent, but can they sustain that, or will we be complaining about 10nm+++++ years from now? Watt for watt Intel's performance is miles behind Apple, and even lagging AMD currently, in absolute terms, Anandtech are of the opinion Apple's A13 core design is up there with the best AMD or Intel can muster:

It is true benchmarks can show Intel lagging behind AMD - but one of the reasons Intel are on 14nm and AMD managed to go to 7nm (and maybe 5nm soon) is due to the complexity of Intel’s architecture - and it isn’t all needless complexity as it providers a hell of a lot of optimisations for various workflows. This is why you’ll see some of the new Zen 2 chips seem to show massively better scores on benchmarks but when it comes to real world use, you’ll see they trade blows. If Intel were seriously lagging behind, you would have seen AMD beat Intel in most real world benchmarks which they don’t.

It’s a complex area in the end and direct comparisons are, excuse the pun, comparing Apple’s and oranges.

It almost bothers me when a lot of laptop reviewers like Dave 2 D keep harping on about AMD chips without looking at the whole picture.

What is good however is competition and AMD are now providing worthwhile chips in the foray - it’ll be interesting to see how things develop going forward.
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I actually think it's both. I think Apple is doing this both to stop having to be reliant on Intel and for better performance too. Just maybe not in the way we normally think of performance. I don't think Apple is necessarily trying to blow Intel chips out of the water in ARM gen 1 (that likely won't even be possible). However, a big part of the reason Apple wants to not be reliant on Intel is because Intel chips from year to year don't have big performance increases compared to the prior years Intel chip. Apple's A series chips though, they've shown they are able to make big gains year to year compared to the previous chip. I think that's what Apple is really after.

They want to be able to say "look the 2023 A17 (whatever they end up calling it) chip in the new Macbook Pro has 35% increased performance over the 2022 A16 from last year". Whereas currently they've been stuck with Intel's never ending 14nm++++++++++ 5-10% performance bumps every year. I think a couple years from now Apple's ARM chips, if they're able to maintain doing big leaps and making their chips better and better like that, they could potentially surpass Intel sometime in the future the way AMD has started to trounce Intel now. Especially if Intel keeps struggling the way they have been. In theory, since Apple is just getting started with Mac level ARM chips, they have so much headroom to play with in terms of performance. The time when they may hit a wall and struggle for a bit like Intel is now, is theoretically very very far away.

I don’t think you are wrong.
 
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ctjack

macrumors 65816
Mar 8, 2020
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If anything Intel are now playing catchup - it sounds like Tiger Lake might actually be decent, but can they sustain that, or will we be complaining about 10nm+++++ years from now?
In my opinion, Tiger Lake would be decent in a 13 inch to just grab and hold it for 5 year period. Just like higher end 13 MBP 2018. Todays higher base $1799 MBP 13 is still not far away from 2018 model and that is why Apple drawing numbers on their website such as +65% performance, but in small letters they compare it to $1300 base model.
Watt for watt Intel's performance is miles behind Apple, and even lagging AMD currently, in absolute terms, Anandtech are of the opinion Apple's A13 core design is up there with the best AMD or Intel can muster:
I was just thinking about it and it reminds me of a rail-road/train versus truck/highway.
X86 Chips in AMD/Intel are like trucks. They are versatile, mobile and can go anywhere. They are used everyday as we can see on the streets.
On the other hand, ARM from Apple is more like a train with a pre-defined rail-roads. They do have less option in terms of ways to go, but it is more efficient. Yesterday I saw something like 150+ carriages were transported by 3 trains.
So if we think that this is 150 trucks, then it is easily better to use trains.
For consumers everything will boil down to ease of use - which one will be better in terms of comfort.
Some businesses fully operate by delivering through rail-road, while others can't live without trucks.
For everyday leisure use and suitable software - ARM on Macbooks will be better and have much better battery life.
For other complex tasks, X86 will do the job.
 
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