Apple to ditch Intel?

[camsr]

If you aren't improving single threading performance, I don't care about your product.

[Stupid American Pig]

Apple (or any PC vendor for that matter) can use whatever they want as long as performance per dollar keeps improving over old products.

[egbert]

If you aren't improving single threading performance, I don't care about your product.

The biggest bottleneck for the last decade or more has been storage - waiting for the hard-drive. SSDs have made quite a difference there.

DAW users are a particular case - they want significantly more CPU power before they bother upgrading so why would they buy a new "MacARM" if they run fewer plugins? That is clearly not everyone though. All the iThing buyers have been happy to buy something slower in a convenient untethered package. For internet and office type users a machine that runs all day on a charge and starts up in seconds could be a better bet than their x86 clunker.

Of course new heavy CPU using tasks like voice recognition are obviously coming to all form factors. These are asks that are probably suited to massive parallelism so single thread performance is probably not so critical there. Same goes for higher and higher res displays and video formats - they will drive need for faster graphics but again a task well suited to massive parallelism.

[Jace-BeOS]

Honestly, this is irrelevant to us right now. Give it a few years.

I hope that the current dead-end on CPU speed increases (happily partially fueled by the increasing demand for portable devices) means software developers start caring about optimizing code. At the application level AND the OS level.

[camsr]

There are too many multi core options today without enough single core performance to back it up. Yes, multicore does help but is not by any means the final answer in computing power.

ARM is going down this route, if at least with their most prominent products. Which is fine for a smartphone. We PC users have expectations like running 5 more plugins per mixer track, which multicore doesn't provide for. But it does give more mixer tracks.

So far Intel is doing a great job. AMD is getting dusted because they cannot improve their product, for whatever reason. They also fell into the trap of more cores.

How can Moore's law ever apply to multicore? Because it counts transistors? Who cares? That just means more heat usually. Never listen to anyone talking about Moore's law in 2012 and take them seriously, unless it is a discussion of it's demise.

So for whatever reason one downgrades to a slower CPU, at least they can make the decision that more cores equals more multitasking, and more parallelism. But it is NOT faster. A simple analogy is a gun that fires bigger bullets, but at the same rate of fire.

While ARM might have a future in the performance desktop market, there better be a good reason, or the oportunity is lost.

[egbert]

Honestly, this is irrelevant to us right now. Give it a few years.

I hope that the current dead-end on CPU speed increases (happily partially fueled by the increasing demand for portable devices) means software developers start caring about optimizing code. At the application level AND the OS level.

That is a huge issue. I read Anand's review of Surface RT and he said that just by typing fast he could get the CPU level up to 50% in Word. Switching to Notepad it would be 10-15% on the same machine. MS has helped drive the upgrade cycle with deliberately inefficient code in Office. That little party is looking ridiculous - it just means less battery life and wasted energy.

[egbert]

How can Moore's law ever apply to multicore? Because it counts transistors? Who cares? That just means more heat usually. Never listen to anyone talking about Moore's law in 2012 and take them seriously, unless it is a discussion of it's demise.

Moore's Law relates number of transistors on a chip to time. It doesn't mention computing power. Significantly faster clock speeds will require significant changes to/away from the established CMOS process. The current leakage they are getting with smaller and smaller elements with each process shrink is still a huge issue.

[Kaine]

Surely in the audio field care more about overall instructions per second rather than rated clock speed? Yeah, the clocks have stopped but each generation has seen sizable processor improvements over the last 3 or 4 generations. The current Intel map goes through to around 2020 on the current revise/refine pattern and then we're probably not going to be able to shrink it much further.

On the other hand they are expecting to see the first commerical optical processors start to appear in the wild over the next couple of years and whilst these won't be aimed at computer users for a while yet, the tech is already there to superceed the processer market as it currently stands.

[egbert]

Time to reanimate this one is seems:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple ... 38668.html

Here are the opening paras - more on the link:

Intel officials and developers have reportedly told Axios that Apple is preparing to launch Arm-based Macbooks next year. The report follows a story from Bloomberg Wednesday saying that Apple plans on combining iOS and macOS applications by 2021.

Rumors have existed for a few years that Apple would be switching its MacBook laptops to its own Arm processors. However, previously, Arm chips did not have quite the necessary performance to run more full fledged desktop applications.

This week's report from Bloomberg reiterated Macs running on Arm may arrive in 2020. Axios' report seemingly confirmed the claim, citing "developers and Intel officials."

With the release of the iPad Pro in 2015, Apple showed that its Arm chips could now handle “PC-class” applications. Since 2015, Apple’s chips have become ever more powerful, increasing their performance in much lager steps with each generation compared to Intel’s CPU generations.

Apple has traditionally preferred having more control over the core components of its devices, if it could afford it, so it makes sense that Apple would eventually want MacBooks to be powered by the same (or upgraded) chips powering iOS devices.

One of the missing ingredients in this strategy used to be that Apple was still dependent on others, such as Imagination, for its GPUs. However, two years ago, Apple also announced that it would stop licensing Imagination’s GPU technology and would soon use its own.

As the saying goes, eventually, all stories come true.

[pekbro]

I was talking to the CTO of Synaptics (Touchpads) about a year ago, he was telling me about
how apple tried to "make a deal with them". Apples terms forbid them from selling to anyone
else, this was not a takeover mind you. Thats just how apple is, performance isn't really as much
of an issue as them having hardware that is exclusive to themselves. That is their single biggest
problem with the intel situation. I've heard similar from other semiconductor guys I know.

[sleepcircle]

big oof

thank goodness most of the stuff i've bought for mac comes with licenses for windows versions

[pekbro]

Eventually, Apple will abandon Intel, count on it.

[medienhexer]

I don’t think exclusivity is the issue here.

Intel have been dragging their feet for years because they could. Then AMD finally forced them to offer more than 4 cores and 10-20% performance increase each generation.

Then intel started missing their own roadmap goals four years in a row.

Meanwhile, Apple‘s own CPUs keep improving in gigantic steps and their manufacturing partner keeps delivering on their promises. Now they‘re basically identical performance-wise to intel with less power requirements, at a fraction of the cost. Mind you, the CPUs in those expensive top of the line Macs cost 1,000$ and more.

It would be stupid not to consider alternatives. Especially given the 12 years of experience offering the development environment for both platforms.

[fmr]

Meanwhile, Apple‘s own CPUs keep improving in gigantic steps and their manufacturing partner keeps delivering on their promises. Now they‘re basically identical performance-wise to intel with less power requirements, at a fraction of the cost. Mind you, the CPUs in those expensive top of the line Macs cost 1,000$ and more.

Which CPUs are you talking about? Are you nuts? You realize there are machines in the market that outperform those "top of the line Macs" that cost little more than that price.

And where are those "Apple‘s own CPUs" that are "basically identical performance-wise to intel"? Where are the measures?

[medienhexer]

No, I’m not nuts. And I have manners. Try that sometime, it’s great.

The benchmarks are all over the internet. Do a search.