lexluthermiesterOh yes. Under Tim Cook's sad leadership Apple computers have steadily lost upgradeablity one little bit at a time. It's really pathetic.

ValantarThat's pretty much a universal trend across the industry though. It's true that Apple has been a champion of this for quite some time, but they're not unique by any means - they just take it a bit further than most. (It's also by no means unique to the Tim Cook era of Apple - Jobs championed the first mass market sealed-battery phone, after all.) Their well funded opposition to right to repair is much more of a problem imo. Imo part of the problem is that the paradigms of what constitutes "upgradeable" are severely out of sync with the real-world benefits of tight integration and non-modularity in certain respects (the speed and power advantages of LPDDR vs DDR, for example). If there was a functional market for replacement parts, including things like motherboards, then this would be far less of an issue (though soldered storage is particularly egregious, and largely unique to Apple). I would be quite happy with a world where most laptops were mostly non-upgradeable but you could easily swap its motherboard for one with a more powerful CPU, more RAM, etc, with the trade-in value of your existing board lowering the price of the upgrade. But of course this would need significant manufacturer support, as well as a broad network of third party workshops doing swaps and selling parts, and it would require manufacturers to stick to the same motherboard design for a long time, which most of them really don't want to.

Of course the real kicker is that Apple with their tight control, massive size, and vertical integration could implement such a system relatively easily. But they would much rather sell you an entire new device.

AquinusThere is also the bit about whether something like the M1 Ultra is even feasible without that level of integration. I agree with storage, I can't say that I'm very happy about that, particularly in laptops and desktops. I think there is a case to be made with phones though since size and efficiency tends to be of paramount concern. Look at it this way, if you take EPYC 7763, you're getting what, half of the bandwidth as the M1 Max? If Apple were to make something like memory a user replaceable part, how would you suggest that we get to 800GB/s with existing tech? You're not getting that with DDR5 as it's packaged for PCs today. Let's also talk about SD cards. A V90 card is going to get you 90 MB/s at best and that's your upper bound. Apple's interface within their phones is NVMe (albeit, probably not at the speed you're expecting from a computer.) However, that gives you a lot more potential beyond what an SD card can offer you.

So yeah, Apple could modularize their hardware more, but at what cost? SD card adoption and replaceable memory is probably not the best choice for the same reason, it would hamper performance and result in bigger devices. That doesn't sound like a win to me.

TiggerWith phones they could have base storage as NVME and extra with an SD card. I have never heard anyone complain that their extra storage via SD is slow on any phone. If they made base as say 28 with a SD slot imo that would be fine.

AquinusWith extended storage being significantly slower than internal memory would make it hard for Apple to guarantee proper behavior should an app be expecting NVMe level of performance. That sounds like a very real impediment because even the V90 card in my Canon EOS RP is by no means fast when it comes to transfers. You would really have to limit what that extended storage could be used for and that doesn't sound like a good user experience to me.

AquinusThere is also the bit about whether something like the M1 Ultra is even feasible without that level of integration. I agree with storage, I can't say that I'm very happy about that, particularly in laptops and desktops. I think there is a case to be made with phones though since size and efficiency tends to be of paramount concern. Look at it this way, if you take EPYC 7763, you're getting what, half of the bandwidth as the M1 Max? If Apple were to make something like memory a user replaceable part, how would you suggest that we get to 800GB/s with existing tech? You're not getting that with DDR5 as it's packaged for PCs today.

AquinusLet's also talk about SD cards. A V90 card is going to get you 90 MB/s at best and that's your upper bound. Apple's interface within their phones is NVMe (albeit, probably not at the speed you're expecting from a computer.) However, that gives you a lot more potential beyond what an SD card can offer you.

AquinusSo yeah, Apple could modularize their hardware more, but at what cost? SD card adoption and replaceable memory is probably not the best choice for the same reason, it would hamper performance and result in bigger devices. That doesn't sound like a win to me.

ValantarStill, any reasonably smart OS should be able to juggle that automatically, just shunt over some photos or other low-bandwidth data to the SD card if you're running out of app space.

ValantarYeah, precisely. It just isn't doable. After all, it has a 1024-bit RAM interface, with regular DDR5 being 2x32-bit. So ... you'd need 16 channels to match Apple's LPDDR5 setup. Latency for the DDR5 would be lower, but ... it doesn't matter at that point. You'd be talking a massive server motherboard to fit all of those DIMMs, not to mention the way high layer count to ensure signal integrity. There are definitely major advantages to be found in this level of tight integration - but the drawbacks are also real.

ValantarOne cool solution would be a hybrid memory architecture, with X amount of memory on-package (could be HBMx, could be LPDDR) and a desired number of ancillary channels of "second order" RAM for when that fills up. Of course this would be pretty difficult for the OS to manage without performance inconsistencies, but it's definitely doable.

ValantarSoldered storage in a PC just isn't acceptable.

AquinusBelieve it or not, if I'm shooting jpeg + raw, my EOS RP will fill the buffer and slow down fairly quickly, even with a V90 card. Transfer speeds are pretty terrible as well. I can't imagine the experience in something like Apple's Photo app to perform well if these images are being read from really slow storage. I mean, come on, I have rotational media drives that have better sustained throughput. :p

I think what we're seeing though is that Apple doesn't have an option if they want to maintain the numbers they're currently getting from this kind of setup. It's not like there is another option and with lack of standardization, they might as well roll it themselves like they did. They certainly have the resources to do it, so all in all, I'd call it a win, at least to show what such a device can do.

I would totally be happy to see a SoC with HBM2(x?) as a first tier of memory and a second tier with more capacity at a slower speed. It's really no different than something like multiple cache levels, but that does have a complexity cost. It might be easier to just do what Apple did with a single fast pool. To me, it seems like what Apple did was a less risky solution because the cost of mispredicting when something should get bumped out of faster memory could have some huge ramifications that could just be avoided by doing what Apple already did. So from that perspective, I'm not sure if the added complexity would be worth it, although I'd still love to see something like this.

These really is no defending this. I agree. If I want to add more storage to my MBP, I either have to use a Thunderbolt 3 device (which would be plenty fast I might add, but it comes at a hell of a cost,) or USB 3.1 devices (since my 2019 model doesn't support 3.2,) and that limits me to essentially SATA3 (6G) speeds. So yes, I really wish storage could be replaced however there might even be a reason for that. Are there any NVMe drives that go up to 8TB because that's what you can get soldered into a Mac.

TheoneandonlyMrKit's rarely the case that the storage available for a system at launch utilises all the bandwidth available to it

AquinusI have not experienced that to be the case with modern Apple devices. My MBP has disk access speeds that you'd expect from a high end PCIe 3.0 NVMe drive. The newer devices act like what you would expect from a device almost saturating PCIe 4.0 NVMe cards. So from an "available bandwidth" perspective, I do think that Apple is squeezing all they can out of it already, so I wouldn't call this a valid concern. However, what is a valid concern is if the SSD fails because you'd essentially have to replace the whole damn circuit board or desolder the parts that'd be getting replaced. That's my primary gripe. My secondary gripe is that in retrospect, I should have gotten 2TB instead of 1TB and now I have to live with that decision. However with that said, something like a USB 3.1 SSD is probably more than enough to handle my photo library, so there is that too.

All in all, when you buy Apple, you're buying something that should "just work." That's part of what you're paying for by going into this ecosystem and it's not for everyone. Your typical Mac user doesn't want to screw with the hardware. Your typical enthusiast is going to hate Apple because of how locked down it is, but honestly, this is a case where you can't have your cake and eat it too if you want to control quality from top to bottom.

TiggerHow much would the jump from 1 to 2 TB have cost just out of interest?

TheoneandonlyMrKThat's where I draw the line though with Apple, no replaceable storage options and I won't buy, it's rarely the case that the storage available for a system at launch utilises all the bandwidth available to it, plus the memory card issue is beyond ridiculous, it's 2022.

lexluthermiesterAnd no replaceable batteries... Not that such is exclusive to Apple, but they did popularize it.

trparkysmaller, more energy-dense, and other such overall improvements.

AquinusBelieve it or not, if I'm shooting jpeg + raw, my EOS RP will fill the buffer and slow down fairly quickly, even with a V90 card. Transfer speeds are pretty terrible as well. I can't imagine the experience in something like Apple's Photo app to perform well if these images are being read from really slow storage. I mean, come on, I have rotational media drives that have better sustained throughput. :p

AquinusI think what we're seeing though is that Apple doesn't have an option if they want to maintain the numbers they're currently getting from this kind of setup. It's not like there is another option and with lack of standardization, they might as well roll it themselves like they did. They certainly have the resources to do it, so all in all, I'd call it a win, at least to show what such a device can do.

AquinusI would totally be happy to see a SoC with HBM2(x?) as a first tier of memory and a second tier with more capacity at a slower speed. It's really no different than something like multiple cache levels, but that does have a complexity cost. It might be easier to just do what Apple did with a single fast pool. To me, it seems like what Apple did was a less risky solution because the cost of mispredicting when something should get bumped out of faster memory could have some huge ramifications that could just be avoided by doing what Apple already did. So from that perspective, I'm not sure if the added complexity would be worth it, although I'd still love to see something like this.

AquinusThere really is no defending this. I agree. If I want to add more storage to my MBP, I either have to use a Thunderbolt 3 device (which would be plenty fast I might add, but it comes at a hell of a cost,) or USB 3.1 devices (since my 2019 model doesn't support 3.2,) and that limits me to essentially SATA3 (6G) speeds. So yes, I really wish storage could be replaced however there might even be a reason for that. Are there any NVMe drives that go up to 8TB because that's what you can get soldered into a Mac.

lexluthermiesterDon't care. I'd rather have a slightly larger phone that isn't made instantly useless by a dead/dying battery. It's so very wasteful and not green.

ValantarThat's true, though again Apple is hardly the worst of the bunch here - at least their phones are reasonably easily disassembled and they consistently use stretch-release adhesive for their batteries, making swaps possible for someone with a few basic tools and a modicum of patience and hand-eye coordination.

lexluthermiesterDon't care. I'd rather have a slightly larger phone that isn't made instantly useless by a dead/dying battery. It's so very wasteful and not green.

trparkyAnd if we go by the latest iFixIt teardown video of some new Samsung phone, they don't even give you the benefit of pull tabs to get the battery out. You damn near have to chisel it out while risking a literal fire. So, Apple isn't the worst here.

I'm talking about in notebook PCs, non-removable batteries make for more dense, smaller batteries.

trparkyAnd if we go by the latest iFixIt teardown video of some new Samsung phone, they don't even give you the benefit of pull tabs to get the battery out. You damn near have to chisel it out while risking a literal fire. So, Apple isn't the worst here.

trparkyI'm talking about in notebook PCs, non-removable batteries make for more dense, smaller batteries.

ValantarThat's actually debatable. In phones there are few alternatives to adhesive, but in a laptop you can relatively easily fit a basic frame with screw holes to your battery without sacrificing any meaningful amount of density. As the size of the device increases, the benefits of adhesive shrink, as the relative size of X number of screws shrinks compared to the battery. There are quite a few thin-and-light laptops out there with really densely packed batteries that still have them held in with screws.

trparkyNo, I'm referring to how notebook batteries were once fully separate components that you could flip a lever and remove it vs what they are today.

trparkyI'm talking about in notebook PCs, non-removable batteries make for more dense, smaller batteries.