@Hypex

Quote:

LOL. I don't think Apple moving away from Intel will be the end of x86. x86 will survive without Apple to boost it's performance in the market place.

Exactly! It's how well received the in-house Apple Arm chips will be in 'Pro' machines that will define whether it's 'the end of the Apple Mac (as a Pro machine)'!

Last edited by BigD on 24-Jun-2020 at 06:02 PM.
Last edited by BigD on 24-Jun-2020 at 06:01 PM.

_________________
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@amigang

When Apple walked away from PPC, they cited performance per watt on the G5 as the reason. The same seems to be the case here with x86->ARM. At least it’s consistent, and given that so much of their focus is battery life, it makes sense.

I happen to think it’s more of a "we don’t have control over control this, and we should." Of which performance per watt is the most credible position to take in public.

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@evilFrog

Quote:

"we don’t have control over control this, and we should."

Yeah, and as always they will worry about selling the advantages of switching CPU architecture AFTER the decision regarding vertical integration and controlling product releases has been taken!

This decision is NOT in the best interests of power / pro users or those of us that want a PC type experience on macOS. Hackintoshes HAD been gaining traction since the ridiculously priced Mac Pro was launched but that's a dead end now! No further OpenGL support means no PC games ported and no x86-64 means even if a developer can be bothered to support Metal 2 then they won't bother because of porting to ARM from x86-64! Can even Feral Interactive be bothered any more porting to a 'mobile CPU' computer with a 'mobile spec GPU'?

It's lose-lose for the standard laptop / desktop user other than if you are obsessed with battery life, playing iOS games or using Photoshop while on the tube

R.I.P. 'Pro' series Apple Macs , long live 'Frappuccino' spec hipster machines for impressing your friends at Starbucks!

Last edited by BigD on 24-Jun-2020 at 06:55 PM.

_________________
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@BigD

Quote:

BigD wrote: .. the ridiculously priced Mac Pro was launched but that's a dead end now! R.I.P. 'Pro' series Apple Macs , long live 'Frappuccino' spec hipster machines for impressing your friends at Starbucks!

yeah, there at apple they are sooo stupid! I really wonder how the became so big!
It all was exactly only thanks to the genius of steve jobs and he being so close to god.
Now apple really is going down the drain serves them well, they are just shareholder-employed satanic-inverted-robin-hoods! Steel from the poor and give to the rich!

Watch this video comparison of ridiculous overpriced 300000 Mac Pro vs Super Duper PC Pro!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_IHSRPVqwQ

Last edited by Amigo1 on 24-Jun-2020 at 08:45 PM.

@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

This can be the end of Apple, or maybe the screw up ARM like they did with PowerPC.

With a difference: PowerPC processors weren't used in billions of phone devices. Moreover, ARM is engineering architectures that others (Apple included) actually manifacture and sell. So, there won't be any chance Apple will screw up ARM and, by the way, this didn't happen with PowerPC either, since IBM continued developing it for its purposes no matter what Apple did. To simply put it: Apple can now tailor its processors with more freedom that it could when using both PPC and x64.

@TRIPOS

Quote:

For the record, Apple has been designing and producing their own CPU’s in-house for half a decade, and while they have only used them in mobile devices so far, it has been obvious for years that they have been aiming much higher with their designs, who has been vastly over-performing for such devices. It was many micro architectures ago that people were struck by the fact that their cell phone CPU’s competed on par with laptop version of Intel’s Core i7. Some micro architecture later, their chips actually competed with full-blown desktop Core i5’s. And this while being powered by a tiny phone battery, completely passively cooled, very few cores on chip and typically clocked at speeds slightly above 1GHz with burst speeds of around 2-2.5GHz. We were many who thought: “Heck, if this passively cooled little thingy can compete (and even outperform) a full desktop Core i5, imagine what it could do with proper power supply, more cores, and proper desktop heat sinks! What clock could be achieved with such power/heat efficiency characteristics? 4GHz? 5GHz?” And that was a few micro architectures ago in fact, and each new micro architecture has brought some 20%-40% improvements in performance and efficiency compared to the previous one. Every time. They have been able do make the jump away from x64 gracefully for years, had they wanted to. Now they seem to do it!

Thanks for bringing some wisdom here.

@evilFrog

I do not think performance is the reason for changing to its own processors

Apple is profit, profit, profit and... guess profit

They seem to think it is cheaper for them to do all themselves

nothing else

@paolone

Apple leaving was the death of PPC as a desktop processor

But a hardware platform that depends only on one big customer is always in danger to fail

@OlafS25

Quote:

I do not think performance is the reason for changing to its own processors

They want control over their entire ecosystem. Of course.

But they wouldn’t replace the x86 if their own alternative wouldn’t be competitive performance wise. This is why these comments about “this is the end for Apple pro users” are so funny (and the mentioning of Raspberry In this context). Their cell phone CPU’s has been on par with x86 laptops and desktops for years now. Now they are stepping up, not down.

@TRIPOS

Quote:

Their cell phone CPU’s has been on par with x86 laptops and desktops for years now. Now they are stepping up, not down.

Friend Tripos,
it is, in fact, a step on the side!

Like a majestic crab, Apple moves onto a different lane, but not upwards, oh no.
Just look at the latest server class arm cpu from Altera, referenced by yours truly in this very thread.

When on par in terms of cores, frequency, and possibly performance with a Threadripper, TDP is the same: 250W and up. Don't buy too much into the narrative of "cell phones as fast as desktops!!!!11111 Fanless and tiny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11".

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@OlafS25

Quote:

I do not think performance is the reason for changing to its own processors Apple is profit, profit, profit and... guess profit They seem to think it is cheaper for them to do all themselves nothing else

I agree totally.

Another reason is even the possibility to expand ARM ISA with own dsp/coprocessors chips and build a largely efficient system, where hardware and software are soldered each other.
Such machine is unique, not easily replicable and tends to use 100% of hardware resources.
So maximizing efficiency, (as you said before) lowering costs and letting apple to have 100% control of timings to market and required processors power could grant apple a nice future to grow and expand.

I'm quite sure in a next tomorrow will be an ARM cpu faster than any x86, it depends only by how many money they spent in research and fab processes.
IBM with powerpc could do the same with Power10 and next generations of powerpc cpus too.
In the top10 chart of fastest supercomputers, many have Powerpc cpus inside, mixed with NVidia gpus.
Instead there's a last day news where now the fastest supercomputer of the world has ARM cpus inside.

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@OlafS25

Quote:

OlafS25 wrote: @evilFrog I do not think performance is the reason for changing to its own processors

Neither do I. It’s about control. The "performance per watt" is a nice-sounding excuse for the plebeians.

_________________
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Apple has much experience and expertise, OK. But this does not prevent them from doing mistakes. IMHO the switch to ARM is a mistake. Its indeed about control. About technologies and patents. Thats much worth but not really for the customers.

Microsoft did an attempt to unify the mobile and desktop world. They did approach the goal from two sides. 1. Making Windows 8.1 which was an absolute desaster. Everyone wanted the old GUI and feeling back. 2. Making Windows RT which failed, too.

Now if we want to get a look what we got to expect we can look at MacOS 11 Big Sur. Thats going to be the OS for the new Hardware. And indeed it seems they are going more iOS Style.

Last edited by LarsB on 25-Jun-2020 at 02:26 PM.

Let's just wait for the benchmarks shall we?

@TRIPOS

yes of course

they think they can offer something competitive themselves at lower costs

@Hypex

Quote:

I don't think Apple moving away from Intel will be the end of x86

Apple contributes 4% of Intel's total revenue so the impact is more really more in terms of optics.

The bigger question is: will Apple become a competitor?

@paolone

Back then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FlfZ9BI9lM

Just wait a few years, and apple is going to show how bad ARM is and move back to x86

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaBLopnmMhQ

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 25-Jun-2020 at 06:35 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 25-Jun-2020 at 06:21 PM.

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Quote:

paolone wrote: With a difference: PowerPC processors weren't used in billions of phone devices. Moreover, ARM is engineering architectures that others (Apple included) actually manifacture and sell. So, there won't be any chance Apple will screw up ARM and, by the way, this didn't happen with PowerPC either, since IBM continued developing it for its purposes no matter what Apple did. To simply put it: Apple can now tailor its processors with more freedom that it could when using both PPC and x64.

IBM continues to Develop POWER but I haven't heard of them doing much with PowerPC since the CELL microprocessor (up to about 2009), and that was part of an alliance (STI) with Sony and Toshiba. They create custom PPC designs for customers though.

Apple did a pretty good job of sabotaging PowerPC considering they were part of the AIM alliance.

1) Apple killed off Exponential Technology and the X704 PPC CPU

The X704 could be clocked at about twice the speed of the Pentium Pro and PPC 604e even though it came up short of the design target. Apple canceled the contract and stopped Mac clone makers from obtaining the needed Mac ROMs for the CPU after stringing them along. This was when Steve Jobs came back with NEXT and Apple nearly went bankrupt itself (around 1996).

https://www.edn.com/an-exponential-life-death/

Was X704 a game changer? Like DEC Alpha chips, turning up the clock produces a lot of heat and requires slimming down the core in many ways which makes it weaker. For example, there were only 2kiB of L1 ICache and 2kiB L1 DCache because smaller caches give faster access times (604e has 32kiB L1 ICache and 32 kiB L1 DCache in comparison). It did have on die 32kiB L2 ICache and 32kiB L2 DCache and supported external L3 caches. Higher clock speeds are good for marketing and put pressure on competitors like Motorola but pushed to an extreme limited their target to desktop where Apple was the only customers, as Apple shut down Mac clones. Motorola came out with higher clocked, weaker and cheaper PPC cores like the 603 but targeted embedded as well as low end desktop uses although they aimed too low giving low end PPC a bad reputation.

2) Apple killed off Mac clones

Mac hardware nearly became commodity PowerPC hardware with open standards, although requiring Apple licensing for ROMs. Read above how Apple reversed course and killed off the competition.

3) Apple dropped PowerPC on the desktop

After sabotaging PPC on the desktop, Apple switched to x86/x86_64.

4) Apple buys P. A. Semi stopping the development of the PWRficient PowerPC architecture

Apple wasn't content in sabotaging PowerPC on the desktop so they made sure to take out one of the best PowerPC embedded core designers too. The PA6T-1682M design was the first chip from P.A. Semi but had embedded customers from introduction and was flexible enough to even be used as a low end desktop, at least A-EON thought so.

Last edited by matthey on 26-Jun-2020 at 12:11 AM.

@BigD

Agreed - Seen url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=947op8yKJRY]this[/url]?

Quote:

BigD wrote: @amigang Quote: Apple moving to arm, the end of x86 There is a fair bit of pro-Apple spin in the way you've named the thread plus the 64-bit x86 CPUs that Apple use are x86-64 technically! x86-64 was the making of the Mac because it showed the quality of the hardware (discrete GPU performance and thermal throttling aside) on a level playing field with the other manufacturers. They were generally good machines (though under powered) for a premium 'quality tax' in most instances. They also allowed you to use macOS which was a pleasant and snappy experience (especially during their optimisation phase releases e.g. Snow Leopard and El Capitan). Now we are truly entering 'gadget jewellery' territory that the iPhone / iPad already inhabit in the CE space. It has been a running joke that the MacBook Pro is no longer a 'Pro' machine and the Mac Pro until recently hadn't seen its specs updated since 2013! Now that they can spin the marketing and ruthlessly control the release schedules of their machine I expect the 'Apple Distortion Field' to be used to full effect to convince us that these are faster, more efficient and better machines than they would have been if relying on Intel CPUs. White lies, spin, massive profit margins and marketing are what Apple excel at now not quality hardware like in the iBook G4 / Powerbook through to the pre-Retina Macbook Pro days. Good luck to them but the 'Think Different', Aqua UI, iDVD developing 'Killer App' Apple of the recent past is dead. Maybe it died with Jobs and most definitely died when Jony Ive left but I think it died when OSX Tiger rolled out the door as a pretty much a feature complete modern replacement for MacOS OS9! Henceforth, Apple redirected their attention onto phones, tablets and ultimately iOS. The Mac could never be the 'apple' of Apple's eye again and so its fall from grace began. Sure, you'll still see them in Starbucks and in the latest Summer blockbuster perfectly networking with alien organic / quantum computer systems to spread a Cocoa developed virus . However, in the world of serious computing the Mac will be relegated completely to an iOS device with a keyboard. It will be the living dead and like the Amiga a relic of history and a reminder of when you had a choice in what software AND hardware you could use for serious computing. Here's to you Apple Mac and thanks for the memories

[

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@amigang
Considering I just spoent almost $1000 for a Macbook for my neice a few months ago, it pisses me off.
I am never switching to Mac myself.