This misses and perhaps reinforces my point. If Apple wanted to lock down the Mac they didn’t need to switch away from Intel.
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What are the benefits of Apple switching to Arm Macs?
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This misses and perhaps reinforces my point. If Apple wanted to lock down the Mac they didn’t need to switch away from Intel.
Apart from the many good responses, here are some other buttressing points to consider:
- Apple has licensed the Arm instruction set architecture (ISA) from Arm.
- Such a license enables Apple to design and implement processors and supporting machinery completely independently from Arm (the company).
- Such a license also enables Apple to make its self designed systems compliant to the Arm ISA. That means that Apple can leverage all the insanely complex architectural validation already done by Arm and it's hinterland of ecosystem partners while at the same time innovating independently.
- Starting with version v8.0, the Arm ISA generally takes a 'fresh' approach and reduces the emphasis on backwards compatibility. This translates to micro-architecture implementations (in other words processor implementations) that aren't bogged down by the 'backwards-compatibility-baggage' that Intel works hard to support.
- Today the Arm ISA is acknowledged to be more RISC themed than CISC themed (It's no longer considered pure RISC anymore). That RISC theme manifests itself in the choice of instruction opcode selection, the use of large register files etc. That theme generally lends itself to simpler, more energy efficient micro-architectures. Generally speaking producing an energy efficient micro-architecture implementation is considered easier when targeting a RISC themed ISA than a CISC themed one.
- Given that Intel is CISC themed and coupled with their strong emphasis on legacy (backwards compatibility) the net result is that Arm ISA compliant micro-architecture implementations tend to be more energy efficient.
- On the flip side, a RISC themed micro-architecture is traditionally seen to have lower single-thread compute capability (think number of instructions per cycle and the maximum clock speeds the processor core runs at) as compared to CISC themed micro-architectures. The latter manage higher IPC and clock rates by baking in complex micro-coded speculative behaviours and out of order execution. The trade-off is the energy profile of the designs which is prohibitive for mobile application domains for example.
- Getting a CISC themed design to be energy efficient is seen to be a harder problem than getting a RISC themed design to be performant. This is partly down to simplicity and also down to more wriggle room in a sense. RISC themed designs are also evidently easier to fabricate using processes down to sub-ten nanometer processes. This has been Intel's achilles' heel.
- A lot of Arm ecosystem partners, Apple included, are on a warpath to produce Arm ISA compliant micro-architecture implementations that improve IPC and max clock rate. Basically, when you start with the Arm v8.x architecture and then begin the journey of implementing micro-architecture for performance, you tend to have a better starting point with more flexibility. That's the bit that the Arm ecosystem is leveraging well.
So to answer your question more specifically: The benefit of Apple choosing the Arm ISA is because it gives them that better starting point from an energy efficiency and performance PoV, plus absolute control without losing the benefit of the ISA validation.
Yes they didn’t need to. But moving to ASi reduces the cost and effort to lock down the Mac.
Let's remember that all Apple uses is the ISA, and they add their own instructions on top. So the Apple Silicon instruction set is a superset of ARMs. All the rest is Apple designed; remember they dropped Cortex starting at A6. And it was at A6 and forward where the performance of the A Series exploded and became far superior to other SOCs.
Our benefits from all this? Well, just look at the benefits T2 has already provided and that is a starting point. By using their SOC they will be able to offload things to custom designed CPU blocks that presently go through the main CPU. What do we get? Enhanced security, better battery life (hopefully) and better performance in areas. Also they can create new functionality and get it to work exactly as desired because they own the entire chain from software to hardware now.
Our benefits from all this? Well, just look at the benefits T2 has already provided and that is a starting point. By using their SOC they will be able to offload things to custom designed CPU blocks that presently go through the main CPU. What do we get? Enhanced security, better battery life (hopefully) and better performance in areas. Also they can create new functionality and get it to work exactly as desired because they own the entire chain from software to hardware now.
How is the cost and effort reduced?
Also, if they didn't need to on Intel Macs, why would they need to now?
None of this makes any sense unless you think Apple is some kind of moustache-twirling, Dick Dastardly Saturday-morning-cartoon-villain.
Apple's gone on record many, many times saying that they're not gonna lock MacOS to the App Store only. Even if they have any minor knowledge of what their users use Macs for, they'd know that locking them out is a bad idea.
To think Apple will lock the Mac to App-Store only, when it's in their best, and most profitable interest to not do exactly that, is to be disconnected from reality.
Going further than that, let's play the "Apple's Snidely-Whiplash plan to lock down their ecosystem" game. Here's something that requires less effort than designing an entire range of coprocessors:
Eliminating the Mac lineup entirely, and pushing the iPad.
Designing their own line of processors, specifically for the Mac range, to lock down the OS, when they could've just as easily done it with Intel's processors, would be an insane, roundabout, and inefficient way to "trap" their own users. Users, that often rely on the open nature of MacOS. And let's not leave out the businesses that would throw up their hands and leave because paying 30% per sale isn't worth it to them (a controversy with iOS that we're seeing today).
There's no rational reason to lock down the Mac.
No, probably not talking about the CPU abilities of the iPad Pro. Frankly not much of the GPU either.
The 4K video plays back without stutter on the camera itself. There is no super duper CPU or GPU opitimixation there. There is fixed function logic to do the H.265 Version 2 Main 4:2:2 10 decoding. If the iPad Pro has a the same fixed function logic where we have here is two devices that happen to have here if far more so the same customization present in both devices. Not optimization, customization. the iPad Pro has a 4K video camera attached to it while the Mac Pro and MBP 16" do not. That plays a more critical factor here in this specific example than the Apples CPU+GPU design. It is the shared approach to the camera infrastructure that the iPad Pro and the Canon R5 have that plays the significant role.
And yes Aferburner is substantively relevant because its FPGA is precisely for implementing fixed function logic. Apple has it 'stuck' on just doing ProRes, but if talking about optimizations ( "enhancements to make something that works do the job better" ), that would precisely be an optimization.
Apple themselves over spun the story around Afterburner
"... Afterburner allows you to go straight from camera to timeline and work natively with 4K and even 8K files from the start. No more time-consuming transcoding, storage overhead, or errors during output. Proxy workflows, RIP. ..."
Mac Pro
Mac Pro with M2 Ultra combines our most capable Apple silicon yet with PCIe expansion for the ultimate in workstation-class performance.
www.apple.com
Yes Afterburner doesn't really do that unless you cherry pick "Native Format" to only mean ProRes + ProRes Raw.
Apple also shovels some HEVC encoding off to the T2 in Mac Pros. Again if had the T-series with the lastest camera processing subsystem installed it also would uncorked even with the main OS running on Apple cores and Apple GPU. All really need is if the fixed function logic to be present on a half way decent PCI-e connection and it will decode smoothly.
well said. Craig also said in interviews that Apple wants the macOS to stay open.
The chips Intel is making for these use cases are pathetic.
Who wants to run 4 Atom processors with a single Core processor?
There is virtually no reason for them to be nurturing that as a way going forward.
The Atom core needs to be taken behind the barn one last time.
I’ll take the Apple Silicon High Performance, High Energy Efficiency cores any day over the skunked Atom cores.
Intel has been ignoring the consumer line of products for a very long time. I’d wager they have been making most of their profits off the successes of the growth of Azure, and AWS.
ARM is coming for them in the data center too. Though we’ll see how that goes.
I have no doubt that Apple was working on Mac ARM development since the inception of the TouchBar.
The failure of Skylake probably accelerated things.
Another interesting fact. When Apple moved to Intel, it was a result of IBM seemingly losing interest in PowerPC for consumers because they were doing so well with the Power platform for servers.
Why is Apple moving from Intel to Apple Silicon? Intel has been enjoying the cash upfront purchases of AWS and Azure gearing up for new workloads.
Same story. Intel has been neglecting the consumers for years.
I do love Intel, and I still love IBM. But they don’t care about how we power our devices, when they can send pallets of chips with high markup to Amazon and Microsoft.
I agree with you on Intel, I think AMD has been making a lot of strides.
I think a combination of ARM and AMD could lead to Intel really suffering.
In the Cloud do you care if you’re running on AMD vs Intel? For Linux and Windows workloads I’d bet probably not. If your running an open source workload, do you care if you’re running AMD, Intel, or Gravitron? I’d wager you probably don’t.
I don’t know how this is going to pan out long term, but Intel will have difficulty demanding their margins in a world where for a good amount less, it’s abstracted far enough away from the consumer that they don’t really care if “Intel Inside” is a thing.
They license the instruction set. Apple can do whatever it is they want to for the architecture.
Probably dreaming on that.
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Any CPU package bill of materials (BOM) cost reduction Apple will likely shuffle either into some other component of higher BOM or just pocket it. So perhaps larger SSD capacity (at same Apple $400/TB rate) , micro-LED screens , etc.
At the higher end of the Mac product line up the volume of Macs is low enough that there my not be a drop in BOM costs for the CPU packages. A-series are cheaper in part because Apple selling 10's of millions per year of them. 27" iMac , iMac Pro , Mac Pro are probably 2 , if not 3 , orders of magnitude lower in volume. That isn't going to reduce BOM costs at all (fixed costs up and volume cost spread over much smaller number of units ).
Same thing on the iPhones when Apple drops Qualcomm later. Probably going to cost just as much.
I hear you, but there are different trade offs to consider.
Apple doesn’t buy Intel chips at retail cost. Even after backend rebates, and the like buying Intel is still going to be 2-3x more expensive at the least compared to just paying to have something fabbed.
Apple could also chase down strategies similar to what Intel does to make fabbing more profitable. What’s to stop them from building a 60 core processor intended for the Mac Pro, that can be binned to meet the needs for a iMac Pro? Silicon for an iMac can be binned to support the Mac Mini, and possibly MacBook Pro. A high yield binned part for an iPad Pro could be binned for entry level Mac Mini or MacBook line.
Theres plenty of ways to slice this, and granted we may not see all of this on day 1, or year 1. But I imagine we’ll see sprinkling of those year 2 and 3.
Technically speaking, if all Apple did was marginal changes to form factor, made marginal improvements to heat and thermal performance, at 1/3 or 1/2 the cost, thats a win.
Trust me, we’re on the same page. I made the case for probably 5 years to friends that Apple should just buy AMD. Then use AMD to build custom SOCs for Apple that meet their individual needs.
Obviously, that opportunity has gotten away from all of us.
Yes they did. No way to lock down a machine when your CPU supplier sells chips full of differential cryptoanalytic attack vectors.
Wow thanks for all of that. It’s not very often I see something this thorough.
Question for you, and I don’t know the answer to this.
Intel right around the Core line of products started basically taking in CISC instructions, and creating Micro-Ops that to my understanding were more RISC in nature. Is that being taken into consideration with what you wrote?
I’d imagine that as a result of entropy “Intel will be Intel” that probably fell by the wayside as they continued to reinvest in their platform, and bad habits took over.
I remember reading a deep dive on Itanium (fondly known as Itanic by their competitors) and found the VLIW to be interesting, but almost recursive to Intels desire to always try to keep things as complex as possible.
I hear you, and largely agree with you.
But this is also a world in which people were able to get Windows 10 running on a Raspberry Pi.
Does Apple going to ARM sharply reduce the chances of Hackintosh? Of course!
But haven’t spent a couple years dabbling as a hobby in Hackintoshes, I’ll say that not enough can be said about someone’s willingness to do something that they are told they can’t do.
I will not partake, as before I met my wife, there was a lot of caring and feeding to keep a Hackintosh stable for long periods of time. Maybe it’s changed.
Jail breaking does not involve an attack vector on the CPU.
And attack vectors that Intel can’t/won’t fix are a very different thing than attack vectors that Apple can fix by itself.
So my point seems relevant, and your point seems less so.
One benefit I like - the end of INTEL and Windows.. Think Different and giving PPC in addition to its cousin the think different PART II.
Just keep the timeline in mind.
Apple went to an Architecture License specifically to design their own SOCs including the core microarchitectures. Meanwhile, they went on a poaching spree that especially targeted Intel and to a lesser extrent AMD and Qualcomm.
Then starting at A6 they ditched the Cortex design and at the same time their performance and efficiency started making massive leaps until we today have the A Series being far and away the cream of the crop in mobile SOCs. And their microarchitecture (what we know of it - it is not especially easy to reverse engineer) is unique - really the only thing it sort of resembles is Intel's Core 2 microarchitecture.
One has to think they were thinking about going this route back when A6 debuted. Also that they brought Adobe and Microsoft in on their plans at least a couple of years ago, which is why Office and Creative Suite are already fully ready to run natively on Apple Silicon. Give them credit, even with providing Rosetta 2 they made sure for this transition that the major tools from third parties are already running natively.
Apple went to an Architecture License specifically to design their own SOCs including the core microarchitectures. Meanwhile, they went on a poaching spree that especially targeted Intel and to a lesser extrent AMD and Qualcomm.
Then starting at A6 they ditched the Cortex design and at the same time their performance and efficiency started making massive leaps until we today have the A Series being far and away the cream of the crop in mobile SOCs. And their microarchitecture (what we know of it - it is not especially easy to reverse engineer) is unique - really the only thing it sort of resembles is Intel's Core 2 microarchitecture.
One has to think they were thinking about going this route back when A6 debuted. Also that they brought Adobe and Microsoft in on their plans at least a couple of years ago, which is why Office and Creative Suite are already fully ready to run natively on Apple Silicon. Give them credit, even with providing Rosetta 2 they made sure for this transition that the major tools from third parties are already running natively.
Just like Apple, AMD uses TSMC to produce their processors rather than manufacturing them in house. Additionally, making such a purchase while deep in bed with Intel would have likely led to issues between the two companies.
i'm not certain what you are saying? That apple's processor cores have additional instructions? what's your source for this?
Apple licenses the base instruction set from ARM, nothing more. The terms of the licensing agreement allow them to develop their own processors utilizing the ISA, as well as to build upon that code base. That is another reason why Apple's A-series development has outpaced Cortex advances over the last several years.
Yes, Apple CPUs have custom ISA extensions. An extension we know about is AMX. Some discussion here: https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=187087&curpostid=187087
Appel might have additional instructions beyond that, but that would probably be known from looking at Apple's patches to LLVM.