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What would you like to see in M1X/M2...
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I suspect the M2 will allow for more than 16GB RAM. So we should see 32 and maybe 64 RAM.
That said reviews have been saying that video editing with the M1 and 16 RAM seems to work perfectly well.
It wouldn’t surprise me to see the redesigned MacBook Air with the M1 and the redesigned MacBook Pro and new bigger iMac with the M2.
That said reviews have been saying that video editing with the M1 and 16 RAM seems to work perfectly well.
It wouldn’t surprise me to see the redesigned MacBook Air with the M1 and the redesigned MacBook Pro and new bigger iMac with the M2.
More ports, seriously. At least let me plugin 2 external monitors plus the internal one.
1. More cores so that it can compete with high end Intel and AMD CPU's in heavily multi-threaded workflows.
2. More robust PCI Express (and Thunderbolt) support; allowing for more ports, more displays, external GPU's, etc.
3. Discrete graphics
2. More robust PCI Express (and Thunderbolt) support; allowing for more ports, more displays, external GPU's, etc.
3. Discrete graphics
If we are talking about the chips that are going in the higher-end Macs (Whatever they are called), here is what I expect to see:
At least 64gb of ram, maybe 128gb max. 4 Thunderbolt connections. 3 external displays. Up to 16 cores CPU and GPU.
I personally don't care if the graphics are integrated or discrete, as long as the processing power is good - who cares.
My reasoning for all of this is that these chips are going in high-end models. Those models already offer a lot of these specs (minus the core counts) so I dont see a reason why Apple would limit this. If you look at the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro that was updated with M1, those Macs were limited to 16gb of ram before M1 so it wasn't anything new. People who complained about 16gb on M1 didn't realize this was the case before. Mac mini being an exception (but I believe the M1 Mac mini actually is a new "low-end" tier, and there will be a higher-end mini coming later).
Also to be clear, this next tier of chip I believe will go in the High-end iMac, MacBook Pro's, Mac mini. The chip going in the Mac Pro will be its own tier thats even more powerful than this chip.
At least 64gb of ram, maybe 128gb max. 4 Thunderbolt connections. 3 external displays. Up to 16 cores CPU and GPU.
I personally don't care if the graphics are integrated or discrete, as long as the processing power is good - who cares.
My reasoning for all of this is that these chips are going in high-end models. Those models already offer a lot of these specs (minus the core counts) so I dont see a reason why Apple would limit this. If you look at the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro that was updated with M1, those Macs were limited to 16gb of ram before M1 so it wasn't anything new. People who complained about 16gb on M1 didn't realize this was the case before. Mac mini being an exception (but I believe the M1 Mac mini actually is a new "low-end" tier, and there will be a higher-end mini coming later).
Also to be clear, this next tier of chip I believe will go in the High-end iMac, MacBook Pro's, Mac mini. The chip going in the Mac Pro will be its own tier thats even more powerful than this chip.
My hopes for the next generation of Apple Silicon computers:
1. Improved USB/TB/Bluetooth connection speed and reliability
2. 32 GB RAM
3. Higher multi-core performance (6-8 firestorm cores)
1. Improved USB/TB/Bluetooth connection speed and reliability
2. 32 GB RAM
3. Higher multi-core performance (6-8 firestorm cores)
Support for high-memory configurations. AMD thinks that 64 GB is a good limit for laptops, 128 GB for desktops, 512 GB for high-end desktops, and 2 TB for workstations. I would like to see something similar in Macs, because I prefer macOS over Linux.
Enough I/O bandwidth. 4 USB-C ports is nice, but I would also like to see a few USB-A ports, an HDMI port, 10 Gb Ethernet, and an NVMe slot for a second SSD in addition to them.
Enough I/O bandwidth. 4 USB-C ports is nice, but I would also like to see a few USB-A ports, an HDMI port, 10 Gb Ethernet, and an NVMe slot for a second SSD in addition to them.
I still think the next chip will be called either M1X or more likely just M1 (with a few different core count options).
After all, the 7 gpu core MBA is still an M1 even with a different gpu core count.
The next generation chip (same generation as an A15 in an iPhone 13) will be the M2.
I’m looking for more RAM as our current newer iMac is loaded with 64gb and even my 8 year old mbp has 16gb.
But most important to me is core count. I hope for double the cpu and gpu, and ideally more than that.
After all, the 7 gpu core MBA is still an M1 even with a different gpu core count.
The next generation chip (same generation as an A15 in an iPhone 13) will be the M2.
I’m looking for more RAM as our current newer iMac is loaded with 64gb and even my 8 year old mbp has 16gb.
But most important to me is core count. I hope for double the cpu and gpu, and ideally more than that.
Things slowly start pointing to the prosumer hardware being built on top of the next-gen architecture. I was expecting a bigger M1 couple of months ago, but if prosumer models come out in autumn, it would make sense to build them on the M2 platform (or whatever it will be called).
The M1 is just a tablet processor aka the A14X, so the M1X / M2X is hopefully a real laptop processor. It could be interesting to see what Apple can do with more TDP available.
People like to talk how the iPad Pro got the M1, it is actually the other away around. The Mac Mini, MBA and MBP got the A14X from the iPad Pro.
People like to talk how the iPad Pro got the M1, it is actually the other away around. The Mac Mini, MBA and MBP got the A14X from the iPad Pro.
Curious what is pointing to this?
My skepticism is that an M2X (higher-end chip) would be created after the M2, which would be created after A15. So they’d likely announce those chips first. Also the 16” MBP hasn’t been updated in a long time. Rumors pointed to WWDC but possible chip shortages created delays, but that would likely mean an M1X (whatever it’s called) instead of a second gen chip.
Apple doesn’t need to create the M2X after the A15. Just take the A15 and slap on more cores and done. That can be done at the same time as the A15 release.
You could be right, but Apple, Intel, and AMD don’t typically do that AFAIK. Typically they work their way up the ladder. It’s why the A12X came after A12. A10X after the A10. M1 after A14. And Intel does laptop mobile before desktop.
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Well, simply, the fact that more than six months have passed after M1 announcement and no other variant has turned up. And besides, prosumer hardware would benefit from faster clocks and new features (like aforementioned SVE), so the more time passes, the less likely it is that it will be based on Firestorm cores.
Apple wants their chips to be the best and they have something to prove. M1 is excellent entry-level, but the prosumer version has to be better in every regard, including single-threaded performance. I doubt that Firestorm can be clocked higher than it's current 3.2Ghz limit. Hence a new core that supports higher performance (either via wider backend or higher clocks).
I think the prosumer platform will look rather differently. First of all, I don't think it will be delivered as an SoC, but rather as a system on a package, with CPU/GPU being on different chips. Second, as I wrote before, prosumer hardware will likely have some new features that current Firestorm-based M1 lacks. And finally, just because Apple historically went from a smaller chip to a larger one, does not mean that they need to continue doing so. M1 is a direct application of Apple's mobile tech, as it's basically an A14X (it uses the same packaging technology as the A12Z for example) with more I/O. While you can continue doing the same thing for prosumer chips, you will run into issues with yields and configurability (a one-size-fits-all M1 works fine, but will the same strategy work for pro-level machines?). I believe that future Apple Silicon models will be more diversified and also differ more from their mobile variants. That is, it would make more sense for Apple to develop multiple systems in parallel, using the same architectural base, rather then continuing the line of A14->M1->M1X (whatever).
More performance is always better. But the current M1 is already one of the fastest single threaded CPU's on the market. In fact, it's at the very top of several benchmarks. Beating out Ryzen 7/9 and Core i7/i9 CPU's.
Agreed. But I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't. At least not for another year or two.
While I'd always love faster (duh), if I were putting a bet down I'd bet on a prosumer chip that has roughly the same CPU cores, and just a lot more of them. With significantly improved graphics; perhaps on par with mid-ranged desktop GPU's.
That's always the tricky tradeoff; but one where the M1 has the potential to absolutely destroy x86. The Xeon and Epyc CPU's used in heavily multi-threaded workstations and servers are actually slower (single core) than their desktop counterparts. But they have a ton of cores and threads. M1 is so efficient that it could have full-speed cores and TONS of them, without having to tradeoff like the AMD/Intel offerings.
The information revealed by Bloomberg today puts your whole post in the past.
- The next generation chip for the MacBook Pro is a 10 core chip with 8 performance cores and 2 efficiency cores. This means an entirely newly designed chip where 2 efficiency cores are now the same or better performance as 4 efficiency cores in the M1. Plus 8 performance cores, putting this thing easily in the 14k multicore range, or better if the performance cores get as much of a boost as the efficiency cores.
- The graphics options are said to be 16 and 32 core graphics. The memory options are said to go up to 64 GB. And if this is still unified memory, 32 core graphics with access to 64 GB of RAM will blow past your "mid-range desktop GPU's".
That sounds like… exactly what I was saying?
Similar performance on the high end cores, but a lot more of them. Rather than (necessarily) much faster individual cores.
I'm not really sure how a 16/32 core GPU that shares its memory with the system is going to "blow past" something like a mid-ranged nVidia card with 1,500 cores and memory that is about 4x as fast as the memory in the M1 (14,000 MT/s vs. 4,000MT/s for the M1's low power RAM). (nVidias high-end GPU's have over 10,000 cores) For the M1 and on-board graphics, the biggest bottleneck is absolutely going to be the "unified memory architecture", which is great marketing but it's just "shared memory", which is much slower than the GDDR6 in a modern GPU. That's a BIG bottleneck for just about every GPU application.
The M1's GPU is very impressive compared to other onboard GPU's and is competitive with the kind of dedicated laptop GPU's that Apple had been using in the past. No doubt, the next version will be faster than those. But those never came close to what was available on the Desktop. If the next version of the M1 GPU is twice as fast as the current one, then it's still slower than a current-generation mid-raged Desktop GPU.
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