Which SoC for first consumer ARM-based Macs?

[marty1980]

I know that Apple said they’d have a special Mac-specific SoC, BUT they didn’t expand on that to say if it was a desktop variant of the A-series processors used for iPad and iPhone. Or maybe I missed that part if they did. So i guess that distorts the poll results because both “A14 variant” and “custom SoC” both meet my expectations at this point.

My assumption is they will use multiple variations of the A14 to start. It’s possible to see the MBA come with a slightly modified iPad SoC. maybe even use the same SoC, but I would imagine they want the big cores to maintain top frequencies for longer than is allowed on the iPad on all Macs. I guess it depends on what they do with future iPad SoCs and if the iPad is going to become even more capable than it already is. MBP, Mac mini and iMacs probably should all have more big cores that can handle running high frequencies for long periods of time. Extra cores for GPU side of things as well. Other internal co-processors might also get a bit of a boost. More RAM is probably a given considering how pathetic 4-6GB would be on a modern laptop/desktop.

RAM is another interesting aspect. Will they use slower, “phone” RAM or will they move up to DDR4/5?

It’ll be interesting to see how they start. I was surprised they used an version of the A12Z for the developer kit.

 

[jdb8167]

I want to get my prediction documented that I do not expect that there will be differences between the socs used in iMacs and MacBooks. That the difference will be form factor only.

I doubt the SOCs will be exactly the same chip. I won't be surprised if the CPU cores are identical between mobile and desktop. I'm guessing 8+4 high performance/high efficiency. But the number of GPU cores is relatively easy to scale. I would expect either multiple SOCs used for both mobile and desktop, differentiated by the number of GPU cores or mobile having fewer GPU cores with everything else being nearly equal.

 

[burgerrecords]

I doubt the SOCs will be exactly the same chip. I won't be surprised if the CPU cores are identical between mobile and desktop. I'm guessing 8+4 high performance/high efficiency. But the number of GPU cores is relatively easy to scale. I would expect either multiple SOCs used for both mobile and desktop, differentiated by the number of GPU cores or mobile having fewer GPU cores with everything else being nearly equal.

Of course you very well may be correct.

it seems like without a pro 3d workload, whatever is in a 15/16 inch MacBook is going to be more than sufficient for iMac.

 

[jdb8167]

Of course you very well may be correct.

To me it seems like without a pro 3d workload, whatever is in a 15/16 inch MacBook is going to be more than enough for double duty for any other user.

I doubt we will see a 15"/16" MacBook Pro this year. I was only talking about the first generation of ASi chips for this year. Lots of guessing. Also something I was thinking about after I posted that, the TSMC process is brand new and could easily have yield problems. So there might be quite a bit of binning of the same design with lower clocks and disabled CPU/GPU cores as needed.

Part of my thinking is that Apple has far less reason to do good/better/best SKUs than in the past. Intel made those distinctions necessary because of their uneven CPU pricing. For Apple, all the SOCs are going to cost approximately the same but binning may force multiple performance tiers. I'm wondering if Apple is going to go more like with the iPad marketing and not differentiate processors at all. You choose your notebook or desktop and everyone gets the same performance for that device. Also, they might do the tiers based on features and not CPUs. Low end notebooks don't get HDR or wide gamut displays for example.

Too much guessing, not enough information.

 

[Joelist]

I'm sure Apple had a real reason to say (like they did) that the Mac SOCs will be a new and different family than the A Series. It will likely have similar but not identical cores to the A Series along with co-processor and memory blocks for functionality peculiar to the Mac.

 

[Hastings101]

I sort of suspect they’re just going to handle it like the iPad and iPhone. A# > A#X etc, just a Mac version of the chip that is less thermally constrained. Call it A#M or whatever depending on what model it’s going in. It would make things more streamlined for them and allow for yearly product updates across the board. Plus Apple wouldn’t have to come up with anything Mac-unique this way, saving some cash.

No more 3 years between hardware updates either.

 

[cmaier]

Since apple already told us the answer to this in the sessions at WWDC, this poll seems fairly anti-climactic.