AAPL: Bye, bye Intel... - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 07:50:33 pm
content: Looks like (predictable and rumoured a lot in the past), Apple is moving to ARM based Macs... started with Mini and MacBooks.Literally, iOS with keyboard?P.S.Not going to ask what happened to people who bought Mac Pros for 5 figures...

author: dr.diesel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 07:56:23 pm
content: Didn't i read this also brings all of the iOS/Pad apps to macOS also?If this switch can best Intel by a few hours in laptop battery life, might be enough to get people to adopt.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 08:12:13 pm
content: Yep, they are trying to push it again, and since dropping macOS X*, might be easy this time* macOS Big Sur is version 11

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 08:20:51 pm
content: Is there anything to get excited about?Is an Arm Mac going to be in the same league as an Intel powered one, as far as performance is concerned?

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 08:39:03 pm
content: So does this mean the end of dual-boot Mac/Windows machines? Wasn't there some way to get Intel-based Macs to run either Windows or some version of Linux dual-boot? Or the other way around... using a "Hackintosh" based on Intel chips yet being able to install MacOS on it?Or are we basically looking at doing everything with VM's going forward and not able to run natively on hardware anymore?To me this is a move to improve the bottom line... profitability. If battery life/performance and "thinness" improves great... but who is trying to kid who? Apple profits are the driving motivation here.I wonder what Louis Rossman will say about sourcing parts with more and more stuff being proprietary Mac-based chips. Here's another nail in the coffin.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 08:51:06 pm
content: I have the feeling they will lose even more share among the personal computing market, unless there is a severe tangible improvement (a week long battery charge, for example).From a third party software standpoint, porting applications to ARM may or may not be an easy task and there may be a chance that some will abandon ship. Catalina already pissed folks that had to say goodbye to their beloved 32-bit or unsigned SW purchased in previous years.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 08:52:54 pm
content: It used to be the case that all American cars used standard round sealed beam headlamps, available in only two different sizes. They were mass produced in insane quantities and as a result, cost almost nothing to change. Compare that with modern custom made headlamps which are are only available from the manufacturer (at least in the beginning of a new model cycle) which can cost hundreds...In the far distant future, perhaps all the PC manufacturers will use custom silicon... for all we know, the chip will be integrated into the baby at birth... Apple or Microsoft?

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 09:04:40 pm
content: so like some chromebooks ?

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 09:15:22 pm
content: Well that kills any interest I had in the platform going forward. My employer issued laptop is a Macbook, I hate the absurdly huge trackpad, terrible keyboard and the useless gimmicky touchbar but MacOS has really impressed me, it's a breath of fresh air after using Windows 10 at my previous job. I had toyed with the idea at one point of migrating to MacOS at home too but now I'm glad I didn't. I have gripes about Ubuntu and related Linux distros but at least they offer flexibility, that seems the only viable path going forward.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 09:16:49 pm
content: Quote from: SilverSolder on June 22, 2020, 08:20:51 pmI think Apple at any given price point of their Intel line up is just going to double up on cores for the Arm ones. High performance x86 cores have been fighting diminishing for decades to the point it has become ridiculous, backing off from that even a tiny bit opens up a huge design space.

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 09:34:01 pm
content: Quote from: SilverSolder on June 22, 2020, 08:52:54 pmWell I hope not. The entire modern PC revolution was due in part to the fact that standards were made to allow "Average Joe" to grab parts from any one of a several dozen manufacturers and assemble them into a totally custom machine. There would be entire sites devoted to what configurations were optimized to produce the most efficient PC's with the least amount of bottlenecks.I believe that culture is what allowed PC component manufacturers to survive and thrive, and will continue to do so. At least for desktops which apart from a few major integrators like Dell, etc... were being built by your local PC shop (at least that's where I would buy my gear).Laptops are a different animal unfortunately. Although many parts are interchangeable, the design necessarily resulted in much more manufacturer-customized solutions. Imagine a laptop standard that went so far as allowed you to change not only the memory and hard drive, but also let you swap in/out screens, motherboards, graphics modules, optical drives, etc... But to accommodate all power and size (and heat dissipation) of components they would have to make the standard case way too thick (even if they had certain sizes of screens available). Just doesn't work for laptops.Now back to Mac.... these machines already have very specific hardware designs. It's not like your typical desktop PC where you can buy just about any case and PSU and shove a motherboard in there, a pile of cards, drives and cooling systems. Mac desktops are either built into the monitor, or come in some strange shapes. Apple couldn't give a hoot about interoperability because it only wants you to run MacOS on the hardware anyways. The further away from mainstream the more money they make because they will control the market on every aspect of the machine.Wikipedia says...."In the area of desktop and laptop computers, Microsoft Windows is generally above 70% in most markets and at 77% to 87.8% globally, Apple's macOS is at around 9.6% to 13%, Google's Chrome OS is up to 6% (in the US) and other Linux distributions are at around 2%"So I'm not so worried. What worries me is how PC system integrators are increasingly locking down their machines/BIOSes to thwart installing other operating systems like Linux. This is not as big an issue for desktops, but laptops these days can be more trouble to set up with Linux because of all this nuisance at boot that you can't get around.Hey if Apple wants to go to ARM then it could be a good thing for them. Remember the PowerPC days? I have an old green iMac G3 that I pulled out of the dumpster with that. Thankfully the PS/2 mouse/keyboard worked as did the USB and didn't use some proprietary connection. I was able to hook it up and even download some software on it (like MAME) from an old Mac archive site:https://www.macintoshrepository.org/I can't justify paying for Apple hardware since I can do everything I need in Linux, but for people who are deep into the Apple camp they couldn't care less what was under the hood as long as it worked, right?

author: tkamiya
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 10:09:51 pm
content: My understanding is, it's an Arm based processor that is proprietary to APPLE, isn't it? It just amazes me company like Apple can disregard existing user base and make a HUGE change like this.Use of Motorola 68K series was reasonable. That was the best there is at the time.Switch to Power PC made it different from any other PC, and made a head way into RISC system.Switch to Intel was probably a price decision and at that time, PowerPC was stalling in progress.This change to ARM, I do not understand....Making future Hackintosh impossible? Somehow, further lock users into proprietary system? I'd be curious what the software maker's reaction would be. Sure, for a while, emulation mode likely will exist but at cost of performance, and likely won't be for long.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 10:34:32 pm
content: Quote from: tkamiya on June 22, 2020, 10:09:51 pmmaybe just to make phones, tablets and laptops all a variation of the same platform and I guess gain some battery life

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 10:51:32 pm
content: Quote from: tkamiya on June 22, 2020, 10:09:51 pmLikely another cost reduction. Intel's performance is stalling as well. You can already buy decent ARM processors on which you can run PC style applications while not consuming a whole lot of power.

author: ferdieCX
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 11:24:53 pm
content: Quote from: tkamiya on June 22, 2020, 10:09:51 pmAfter being a Mac user from 1988 to 2015, the move to intel decided me to switch to an AMD linux box when my G4 MP died. Who wants an overpriced PC ?I will not switch back but, I hope somewhere in the future to be able to buy a reasonably priced ARM motherboard.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 12:07:38 am
content: It's not just Intel in the x86 space, we also have AMD cranking out some seriously powerful chips.If Apple doesn't want to use the serious chips, have they given up making serious hardware (unlike some of their machines in the past, which were awesome)?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 10:55:00 am
content: Quote from: SilverSolder on June 23, 2020, 12:07:38 amFrom what I've read Apple is going to use a very high end ARM core. Not the ones used in phones but the ones intended for computing. Secondly more and more number crunching and UI stuff has been offloaded to the GPU in general. All in all I expect the new ARM based MACs to work faster compared to the current ones.

author: andersm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 11:08:49 am
content: Quote from: SilverSolder on June 23, 2020, 12:07:38 amMaybe wait until you've actually seen the devices before passing judgement?

author: chriva
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 11:11:04 am
content: They've realized it's impossible to fool people if they use the same processors as regular windows machines so it's back to the old trick, lying your teeth of since no factual comparison can be made. Mr Jobs pulled some blatant lies regarding powerpc back in the Pentium III era.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 11:14:40 am
content: People have tried to sell ARM laptops and desktops but it never really got of the ground. It worked on tablets and phone due to low power, which is not possible in with x86.https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/5/20948092/microsoft-surface-pro-x-review-arm-windows-10-apps-features-specs-priceApple is going to sellmillionsregardless of what cpu is in it. People just see "Apple" and will buy it, just like all the years before. Something Asus for example can't do yet because they'd have to sell it with Linux. This is two changes at once.This will create ripples in the lake and shake people around. More brand willconsiderditching x86.Some may even try.Microsoft will re-inflate the Windows RT project. They're more open anyway since a few years, eg: WSL and soon to bewinget. (although winget is a ripoff)ARM has advantages, especially with big.LITTLE, and if developers can changeISAonce, they can change ISA more often.x86 isn't holy. Multiple architectures isn't new,Synologyhas servers with arm and x86 even powerpc is still supported.

author: andersm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 12:10:40 pm
content: Quote from: chriva on June 23, 2020, 11:11:04 amWhat are you on about? People benchmark and compare machines with different architectures every day.People really do go nuts whenever Apple is mentioned, but it's not their users.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 12:53:05 pm
content: As long as Apple can stay away from anti-trust and monopoly stuff, they keep creating own iBubbleDevs will pay 30% cut and users end up install soft from their store onlyDid you see latest Big Sur screeenshots - basically flat iOS/iPadOS design in full scale, "just look stunning"

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 01:29:49 pm
content: Exactly, upcoming Xcode 12 does support macOS universal build either for x86 or arm

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 02:11:35 pm
content: Quote from: dr.diesel on June 22, 2020, 07:56:23 pmOr gain a few hours by adding a couple millimeters to the thickness of the battery which is beyond Apple's marketing capability. CPU power draw is not the primary limitation of operating time on ARM or x86.Quote from: rsjsouza on June 22, 2020, 08:51:06 pmApple has become a phone company that also happens to make personal computers so they will not notice the diminution of their PC market.Even if the CPU drew zero power, that is still only a fraction of the system power which includes memory, storage, display, back-lighting, etc. so only fractional improvements in operating time are possible.Quote from: nctnico on June 22, 2020, 10:51:32 pmYou can run "productivity" style applications but that has been the case for decades. Workstation applications would take unreasonably long on existing immediately foreseeable ARM systems. It may not always be that way but there is no indication of a workstation class computer using ARM and even if one becomes available, it is not going to have significantly better performance.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 02:33:47 pm
content: I disagree, it's not so much about workstation workloads but bad code workloads. Bad code workloads are mostly just a question of cache architecture at this point, speculative execution to push up IPC absent cache stalls is so far into diminishing return territory it's silly.So they just need to add on a big L3 cache, so trash code can run better.

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 02:44:47 pm
content: Quote from: langwadt on June 22, 2020, 10:34:32 pmThere could be some logic to convergence of all of these types of hardware into one base. Perhaps even the operating systems will merge and they will find a way to make developers use a common base code that will work across all device resolutions? I don't know why a company would want to put all their eggs in one basket, but it would give Apple more control of their supply-chain and perhaps allow them to incorporate some of their "magic" keywords into the chips like they did with iPhone, like "bionic" and "neural engine", etc.At the end of the day, average users care only about the experience. They couldn't care less what's inside. If an Apple user continues to be productive on their device, what does it matter? The question will be what kind of speed/performance will they be able to squeeze out of these devices, especially for extended periods of graphics-intensive applications, VR, gaming, rendering, video editing, etc.My understanding is that RaspBerry PI uses ARM based SoCs, as do many Chromebooks, and there are lots of all-in-one PC-boards (BeagleBoard, etc) that do the same (running variations of Linux). So many people already are using ARM devices without even knowing and nobody complains as long as it does what it is supposed to smoothly and reliably. I'm curious to see what Apple can develop out of this. It may help push the development of more powerful cheap mini-PC's as well that will run Linux.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 02:49:12 pm
content: Quote from: andersm on June 23, 2020, 11:08:49 amIf Apple is planning a workstation level ARM processor with tons of cores, they might be on to something. Why is it I get the feeling they are more interested in the exterior styling, I wonder?

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 02:59:21 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on June 23, 2020, 02:33:47 pmIt takes more then just large L3 cache to ameliorate corner cases which result in poor performance. For ARM, TLB, page table, and unaligned access comes to mind.Quote from: edy on June 23, 2020, 02:44:47 pmI think the killer application would have been being able to transfer running applications between machines but over the past 20 years, Apple and Microsoft have worked to limit this capability in favor of running applications in the cloud so it will never happen now. They would rather enforce the extraction of rents than improve the usability of their products.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 03:29:34 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on June 23, 2020, 03:03:36 pmNot only is x86 not dead, it is also evolving. The ARM stuff has a chance in the low end. Perhaps we just have to admit that many Apple customers are really low-end users of a high end looking product?

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 03:45:55 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on June 23, 2020, 03:03:36 pmFastest ARM cores minus Apple's ... their core does just fine in SPECint, even ignoring the one or two performance outliers.As for why other ARM developers can't compete, I think it's mostly because Apple has hoovered up talent both by acquisitions and employee poaching.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 04:53:23 pm
content: When regulators wake up to the fact that cornering most of the profits in a market is not much different from cornering the market period, they will get anti-trust law thrown at them sooner or later. If they took over the server market as well and killed AMD&Intel in the process it would come a lot sooner.It's better to leave some crumbs for the competition. Apple is so rich at the moment they can cripple any competitor through employee poaching alone long before they can become dangerous (like they did to Imagination, partly to get a sweeter deal on patent licensing). I think Apple is a more dangerous monopolist than Intel and Microsoft ever were.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 05:15:57 pm
content: Quote from: David Hess on June 23, 2020, 02:11:35 pmThat's one of my major gripes. For the most part I've been happy with the Macbook Pro I have for work, but the battery life is not spectacular by any stretch and it annoys me that they sacrificed that in addition to sacrificing keyboard quality to make it much thinner than it needs to be. It's so thin that it's uncomfortable wrap my hands around to carry, it could easily be 50% thicker and still be thin. If they were to license the OS to clone makers it could have been the dominant consumer OS by now but being locked to such a narrow choice of hardware is severely limiting.

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 05:44:03 pm
content: I just upgraded computers. I use a USB to DVI adapter for an external display. The old computer was fast enough to operate smoothly. On the new one, there is a distinct delay.A large percentage of the compute power and bandwidth on my new computer was dedicated to graphics baubles such as transparent windows, fading this and that, animationeering, and other things that I haven't been able to track down and turn off yet.Apple will be able to make an ARM-based machine work. They've made the transition several times in the past, and they also did well by porting over to Unix.There are those who get quite flustered and concerned about Apple's styling and marketing approach. A more practical issue with most Apple products is the relative rate at which support for products is dropped, rendering them incompatible or unable to be upgraded.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 05:47:07 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on June 23, 2020, 05:15:57 pmbut it also means they only have to make it work for a limited choice of hardware and unlike MS they won't get the blame for crappy performance caused by hardware they had nothing to do with

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 06:27:24 pm
content: Quote from: Tomorokoshi on June 23, 2020, 05:44:03 pmWhat did you upgrade from and to? "Graphics baubles" such as transparent windows have been around for ~15 years and shouldn't cause any measurable delays. Windows 7 has about the richest GUI of any operating system and it is smooth and snappy on my 5 year old i7 and I've run it on much less powerful hardware without issues. I never did like the animation and artificial delays that are often the default settings but that's a separate issue.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 07:00:32 pm
content: Apple's current ARM cores are highly optimized versions - they are not using ARM IP off the shelf and stuffing it in a design. The operating systems are already somewhat converged. The big powerful ARM-based CPUs are there - AWS offers ARM instances. Check out the Ampere Altra line, right now up to 80 cores with 128 coming, and at certain core counts, manage to blow away any X86 in terms of performance per watt.What even IS x86 any more? So many instructions just keep getting added. Extension this, extension that. Some tiny incremental IPC improvements with each generation, some, like Intel constantly requiring a new socket, AMD at least holding on to the same socket through a few generations. PCs are ALREADY faster than most typical users need. The outlier high performance cases will always need specialized hardware to optimize their tasks, but there's nothing preventing ARM architecture from supporting large floating point or fast integer calculation optimizations.Apple already builds phone and tablet SOCs that regularly outperform the competition. And not just by a little bit. They have a rather talented team assembled that does this design work, easily on par with what the others have. There's no reason why, freed of the ultra low power envelope of a phone and put in a larger laptop or desktop where active cooling is possible, the performance won't be there.It's mostly a given without an official word, that the real high end stuff like the Mac Pro will probably be the last to transition to an ARM system. But they blew it on that one from the beginning, simply not wanting to get into certifying the OS for a different CPU - an AMD Epyc in that thing would both double the cores AND be significantly cheaper. And this is where it all comes together - control of the hardware means a much tighter integration with the OS. Windows issues STILL are more with drivers and strange hardware than anything. That Windows can run on Apple hardware doesn't say as much about Apple's hardware as it does about Windows' flexibility. That flexibility, and requirement that Windows needs to run on any crazy combination of hardware you can think of, remains the Achilles heel of Windows. Excluding discontinued and used items - just look on a well-stocked PC hardware site and see how many combinations of CPUs, chipsets, motherboards, and video cards there are. Windows has to work on whatever electrically compatible combination of that stuff you can come up with. Mac OS doesn't have to deal with that. It's far easier to write something to work on a few dozen hardware combinations - all of which are actually somewhat similar - than it is to write something that can work on millions of combinations.

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 07:03:56 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on June 23, 2020, 06:27:24 pmWindows 7 Pro SP1 Core i5 vPro to Windows 10 Pro V1909 Core i7 vPro 9th Gen (According to the intel stickers on the machines). 16 GB each.Yes, two separate issues: artificial delays due to animations, and bus/bandwidth delays due to something on the USB side of things. Part of the point being that when transparent windows first came out, it made for noticeable delays with the typical hardware at the time.In this case, switching the window between "Normal" and "Maximized" takes around 1/3 second. Scrolling with the mouse wheel also has noticeable delays. Honestly, it's like using Windows 3.1 on an 80286. I expect there is something up in the USB drivers but I can't track it down.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 07:06:27 pm
content: Sounds like a possible graphics driver issue? Those operations should be instantaneous.

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 07:14:02 pm
content: Quote from: SilverSolder on June 23, 2020, 07:06:27 pmWhile the drivers apparently up to date, that doesn't mean they are working properly anyway. For another task I ordered up a different USB to video adapter, so when that arrives I will try it instead.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 07:27:33 pm
content: Quote from: Tomorokoshi on June 23, 2020, 07:14:02 pmUSB to video? - that is probably the explanation right there... Isn't there a way to get video from a higher bandwidth bus on that machine?

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 07:36:11 pm
content: Quote from: SilverSolder on June 23, 2020, 07:27:33 pmThat's the thing: the USB to video adapter worked just fine on the old computer.Besides, the other 2 external screens are already using up the available direct ports in the external dock. They both are nice and fast.

author: andersm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 11:26:36 pm
content: Quote from: SilverSolder on June 23, 2020, 02:49:12 pmBecause you're emotionally invested in disliking Apple?Anyway, the first product launches can't be that far off. Since the announcements, the Osborne effect must be full force, and even with Apple's cash pile I can't imagine they want the situation to continue for too long.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 11:42:20 pm
content: Quote from: andersm on June 23, 2020, 11:26:36 pmI'm not a fanboy, but not a hater either. It is fair to say, is it not, that Apple is the Bang & Olufsen of the computer industry - looks great, is expensive, but doesn't necessarily perform better (with some exceptions through the years).

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2020, 01:54:12 am
content: I'm neither one either. I like a lot of things about Apple computers (and phones), I also absolutely loathe a lot of things about them. I very much dislike a lot of things about Android as well, and I feel Windows has regressed into a steaming turd. There are only two viable mobile platforms and they're both terrible, and three mainstream PC platforms, two that it's really fair to call mainstream on the desktop and both have serious shortcomings that I consider deal breakers.

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2020, 02:12:49 am
content: I switched out the StarTech USB to DVI adapter with a cheap Monoprice 21607 USB-C to DVI/HDMI/VGA adapter. It only works on one of the three USB-C ports. It turns out it is a "passive adapter". Anyway, while it works in this case it doesn't work at all on another computer. Next time I'll track down an updated version of the StarTech.