Apple to replace Intel and move to ARM - *** Confirmed as "Apple Silicon" ***

UberTiger

UberTiger

UberTiger

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It's been a long time coming. But the rumour mill is hotting up and there's speculation we may get a real announcement this month. Potentially with the relaunch of the super lightweight Macbook using the new processors

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...to-announce-move-to-its-own-mac-chips-at-wwdc

What do you guys think?


* Mod edit * - This thread is to be used for all things relating to the move from x86 to Arm chips
- Thanks, Armageus
 
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Yes please.

It's the right time. The software support for is pretty much already there thanks to the Ipad pro, and the last few iterations of intel processors in these machines have been a joke in terms of thermal management.
 
just a thought.

arm for a entry level macbook air and price drop to £599/699 for a budget model why spend £3-400 on a cheap laptop when for only an extra £200 you too could have a mac huge new user base who then aspire to the next model up when they upgrade

switch to AMD for the higher spec macbook pros

and a new entry level macpro using AMD desktop chips and a new high end using threadrippers

if you currently want cores your only option is a £12500 starting point for a 28 core xeon. 3990x option would be nice not everyone would welcome a switch to Amd but personally i prefer their current offerings as an all round package than what intel have on the table at the moment.

or they might just go mad offer a dual epyc 64 core option with a 30k starting price just because Apple
 
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ChrisD. said:
Odd post to make since no one has seen any Apple ARM based benchmarks, reviews or any detail whatsoever.
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Its not really that odd, Renoir is a big step up over Intels offerings in the mobile space and look pretty perfect for a Macbook Pro. Apples ARM chips may be even better but the shift away from x86 will be a pain for developers, especially if they only move their laptops to ARM but keep the Mac Pros x86

Now AMD have a decent laptop CPU it would be pretty easy to have 7nm x86 AMD CPUs across the board from mobile to HEDT.
 
Sadly I don't see AMD CPUs in any Apple hardware in the foreseeable as much as I'd like it to happen. But it'll be very interesting to see how the ARM switch goes.
 
ChrisD. said:
Sadly I don't see AMD CPUs in any Apple hardware in the foreseeable as much as I'd like it to happen. But it'll be very interesting to see how the ARM switch goes.
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Was just reading its rumoured theyll move all their range to ARM. Be interesting to see what a HEDT ARM CPU is capable of.
 
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ARM CPUs look great because they have much smaller instruction sets, some software just doesn’t run as efficiently or just doesn’t work at all and will need to be completely re-written from scratch not just recompiled for ARM.

Running X86 apps on ARM in emulation is horrible, just look at the Surface Pro X.

It worked when Apple switched to X86 because most 3rd party desktop class software was already available on X86 on Windows and Linux but there is currently nothing meaningful available for ARM.

I just can’t see them moving the whole Mac line to ARM any time soon. Will they release a product akin to the Surface Pro X? Possibly but most reviews says avoid it because of the software. Apple can’t afford to launch a product like that and why would they when the iPad is available.
 
Apple are after more control, so they'll do exactly as they did with Intel, go all in and force developers' hands as the user base is too great for developers (the big guys) like Adobe, Microsoft, Avid, to tell them where to go.

Problem i see is where software packages leverage specific Intel instruction sets that aren't available, and with nothing comparable, on the Arm processors resulting in performance issues. Adobe had similar problems during the PowerPC to Intel switch - took many years, mostly due to Intel, before performance became comparable.
And Apple will implement 'Rosetta v2' emulation to try and help mask the issue for a few MacOS majors.

Although i do wonder what will happen to gaming on MacOS considering it's only just started to gain traction (last few years) with ports etc.

Minstadave said:
I'd rather see a move to AMD.
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I agree as it would have given them the performance, heat and power saving but then we're back to Apple wanting control so it'll never happen unfortunately.

b0rn2sk8 said:
I just can’t see them moving the whole Mac line to ARM any time soon.
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I think they will start with base spec Air's and i wouldn't be surprised if they release one this or next year. Although due to performance issues, i think it'll be a while before we see a high spec or 'pro' Apple Mac/Macbook/iMac/Mini etc.
 
I really doubt Arm will ever come close to providing the real heavy grunt that x64 now provides, might be fine for lighter duty laptops but AMD is the way they should be going right now.
 
sideways14a said:
I really doubt Arm will ever come close to providing the real heavy grunt that x64 now provides...
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I think given time Apple will be able produce something that is comparable, or certainly not far off, with what Intel are punting (at the time) and they'll be able to fab it at 5nm* to boot. But it'll still end up being a goliath of a processor and then there's the question of how much time they'll need to add the needed instruction sets/features and for developers to optimise products to offer that comparable/better performance.
If it takes too long then (pro/business) users will jump ship. But then again, maybe Apple having been working with the big players for the last few years and they'll come out swinging.

We all just hope it doesn't become Apple's version of ChromeOS ;)

* Same as AMD (with it be TSMC).
 
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