Editorial Apple's A12X Shows Us How The ARM MacBook Is Closer Than Ever

[efikkan]

Looks like the x86 days are finally numbered...

AMD was out to lunch for a decade, and intel preferred to milk their willing customer base and pushing innovation at a snail's pace.

All the while ARM was laying down the foundation work they needed. It's not even about Apple's version of the chip. Now ARM is ready and pushing beyond their initial market.

Your lack of realism is astounding.

The irony is that AMD's own next-gen ARMv8 design K12 is MIA, and the focus has shifted to making 5 iterations of Zen, an architecture which was originally intended as an intermediate solution until K12 was to conquer to desktop and server markets. The current status of K12 is unknown, but by the time it's potentially done it's probably going to be outdated, if it's not already canceled like the rest of AMD's failed ARM ventures.

 

[Vya Domus]

everybody spoke about the clock is forgetting some x86 istructions can't be completed in one clock only.

And you are forgetting the reason for that, those instructions accomplish more within that clock cycles than what can be done on ARM.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Or maybe an ARM-compiled version of macOS, for that matter.

Bingo. That's like 90% most likely.

 

[remixedcat]

Yeah, we do. I am baffled every time I see Apple do a demo with something like Photoshop, who the hell actually does serious work on their tablet on a daily basis ? Actually, let me put it the other way around, who would afford to pay 1200$ or however expensive this iPad is and not have a high end laptop around for that ?

Tablets are indeed primarily toys, I have never seen/heard anyone use them outside playing games and watching Netflix. And if you are going to tell that well there has to be someone that uses them as such, then sure I bet there is someone out there playing Doom unironically on their TI calculator as well. That still doesn't make it any less of a joke.

tablets are also used for stuff like inventory management on a wearhouse floor or for presenting real estatey stuffs.

They were great chips, until the last run. Sort of on par with Intel (604e = Pentium Pro, G3 = PII, etc), but Intel went crazy in the megahertz wars. Maybe IBM would have figured it out if given enough time, but Apple was their main co-designer/customer and they jumped ship. I mean, IBM's Power chips are better than Xeon, so I don't see why PowerPC wouldn't have evolved as well.

The real failure of PowerPC is not many adopted it (and Apple probably helped kill it off anyways, when they destroyed Mac clones). That was it's real intent - for IBM to own the PC market again. They wanted NT, Macs, and anything else on it.

How is PPC better than Xeon?

 

[StrayKAT]

tablets are also used for stuff like inventory management on a wearhouse floor or for presenting real estatey stuffs.



How is PPC better than Xeon?

Ah.. I said Power is. PPC is dead obviously.

I'm just saying IBM has released chips regularly that remain competitive.. and they probably could have done it eventually with their consumer oriented PPCs too. They had problems competing in the gigahertz wars at first, but I don't doubt they would have been fine.. it's just that they lacked the incentive when Apple threw in the towel (edit: and Motorola left before Apple, as well).

 

[Assimilator]

Looks like the x86 days are finally numbered...

People have been saying that for the last two decades. Guess what, x86 isn't just alive and well, it's thriving (see: Zen).

 

[stimpy88]

I'm not sure what you're saying i.e. do you agree with the premise that Ax can replace x86 in MB or even MBP? We'll leave the entire desktop lineup debate to a more appropriate time where Apple has more than one die, because I don't see the same chip going in an iphone & a i9 replacement.

I think that IF Apple decide to make their own CPUs/GPUs for a high end laptop, or desktop system, then they will engineer a different chip more suitable for the power user, capable of long term high performance, not short bursts, and will probably contain more functionality. I'm sure that the A12X is designed for +-7w TDP, however it will pull much more than that if the GPU and the CPU are both taxed 100%, and would probably soon overheat under heavy desktop usage, however this is a passively cooled chip in the iDevices. I think that Apple's true performance is slower than Intel, but close with the performance of the A12X, however the A12X is not enough to better than Intel in a MacBook Pro, for instance.

I'm more convinced than ever that Apple are easily capable of making a CPU/GPU architecture capable of beating Intel right now, and probably have these running in their labs. I think that Apple are waiting until they can announce something which is several times faster than Intel, so the crowd can be wowed, and just telling people that this shiny new CPU/GPU is 30% more powerful than Intel is not enough. They will want to SHOW the difference, so that it cannot be denied. They will want to make people say wow, I want that, and another 10FPS in a game already running at 60 is not going to truly wow the buying public.

 

[Vya Domus]

I think that Apple are waiting until they can announce something which is several times faster than Intel

Dream on.

 

[Deleted member 158293]

People have been saying that for the last two decades. Guess what, x86 isn't just alive and well, it's thriving (see: Zen).

Yes x86 is indeed thriving, however ARM is expanding their market faster. Any change might still be a decade+ away, but that is still the trend.

 

[R0H1T]

Yes x86 is indeed thriving, however ARM is expanding their market faster. Any change might still be a decade+ away, but that is still the trend.

ARM based devices already have more $ revenues & profits than x86 counterparts. Obviously this isn't Apples to apples comparison, but there's no denying that ARM market is only going to grow in size with a possible breakout if ARM servers gain traction. The "PC" isn't dying but x86 is slowing becoming IBM of old.

edit - still waiting for those fake Apple results

 

[Gasaraki]

What makes the A12X so special, is that it only uses 4 high performance cores, and 7 GPU cores.

Imagine this chip with 8 high performance cores, and a 16 core GPU with doubled caches throughout, as well as a slight bump in clock speed to match Intels single core performance. Your still looking at a sub 20w chip, with vastly superior performance to anything reasonable from Intel. A MacBook could have graphics much more powerful than an XBox One X, and a CPU nearly 4 times faster at multicore performance, as well as significantly superior single core performance.

The A13X will signal Intel's death knell on the portable Mac platform next year. It will get to the point where Apple will have to apologize for just how much faster an iPad is than their top of the range MacBook Pro! I really expect see an Apple CPU powered MacBook on the market within 2 years. It's already at the point where they just simply cannot ignore Intels complete incompetence at CPU design and manufacturing for much longer.

Intel, we PC enthusiasts told you that a 2 - 5% IPC increase was not going to cut it everytime you release a "new" generation of chips, you were warned, many years ago... And you replied F**k you, we will put the prices up anyway, and you will buy it... Intel, you're the one that's going to "buy it" soon.

So this magical A13X will singlehandedly take down Intel, AMD, nVidia, XBOX One X, PS4 Pro, all other ARM manufacturers, etc. OK... Keep dreaming.

 

[bug]

As I have read elsewhere, if anything it looks like Apple is trying to kill macbooks in favor of tablets. macbooks/osx are (relatively) open, ipad/ios are tightly controlled. You do the math.

 

[efikkan]

As I have read elsewhere, if anything it looks like Apple is trying to kill macbooks in favor of tablets. macbooks/osx are (relatively) open, ipad/ios are tightly controlled. You do the math.

A core part of Apple's return to success in to 2000s was the switch from old MacOS to MacOS X based on their new "Darwin" kernel, a hybrid of BSD Unix and the MACH microkernel. This new kernel enabled Apple to put an end to their terrible stability and virus problems from the 90s. The kernel itself was open sourced, and along with this Apple embraced a lot of other open source code and standards. Apple manifested themselves as a pricey but solid choice for professionals, with their Mac Pro and Macbook Pro lines offering stability, durability and performance.

Over the years Apple have become more and more a "fashion choice", while locking down their ecosystem, reducing quality and stagnating performance. 10-15 years ago Macbook Pros used to be the primary choice for laptops among developers, but recent models have become overpriced junk, and for any developer not using Xcode Linux have become the logical choice. Content creators seem to move more and more to Windows. Their once mighty Mac Pro line have been completely neglected, and the "trashcan" Mac Pro and more recent iMac Pro is failing at nearly every aspect that matters to professional users.

It should be clear to anyone that their long term plan is to completely abandon the pro segment and focus on high-volume cheaply made consumer electronics, but sold at a premium based solely on their brand name. As as you say, their focus on iOS and moving away from Intel chips is all about getting complete control over the hardware as a step to control the complete ecosystem. Their push to move Macbooks to custom ARM designs have been known for years, and while Apple's ARM implementation is among the best, this far they have invested billions into these designs without any economical benefits so far. But all of this is for the long term goal of a completely locked down platform with their own unique features and benefits.

 

[StrayKAT]

A core part of Apple's return to success in to 2000s was the switch from old MacOS to MacOS X based on their new "Darwin" kernel, a hybrid of BSD Unix and the MACH microkernel. This new kernel enabled Apple to put an end to their terrible stability and virus problems from the 90s. The kernel itself was open sourced, and along with this Apple embraced a lot of other open source code and standards. Apple manifested themselves as a pricey but solid choice for professionals, with their Mac Pro and Macbook Pro lines offering stability, durability and performance.

Over the years Apple have become more and more a "fashion choice", while locking down their ecosystem, reducing quality and stagnating performance. 10-15 years ago Macbook Pros used to be the primary choice for laptops among developers, but recent models have become overpriced junk, and for any developer not using Xcode Linux have become the logical choice. Content creators seem to move more and more to Windows. Their once mighty Mac Pro line have been completely neglected, and the "trashcan" Mac Pro and more recent iMac Pro is failing at nearly every aspect that matters to professional users.

It should be clear to anyone that their long term plan is to completely abandon the pro segment and focus on high-volume cheaply made consumer electronics, but sold at a premium based solely on their brand name. As as you say, their focus on iOS and moving away from Intel chips is all about getting complete control over the hardware as a step to control the complete ecosystem. Their push to move Macbooks to custom ARM designs have been known for years, and while Apple's ARM implementation is among the best, this far they have invested billions into these designs without any economical benefits so far. But all of this is for the long term goal of a completely locked down platform with their own unique features and benefits.

Wait.. wait.. They had practically zero virus problems in the 90s. Simply because they weren't targeted/popular. And it was actually very stable. The problem was it was inefficient and ancient. You had to literally allocate memory manually to each app. lol (ala DOS, but in GUI form).

 

[bug]

A core part of Apple's return to success in to 2000s was the switch from old MacOS to MacOS X based on their new "Darwin" kernel, a hybrid of BSD Unix and the MACH microkernel. This new kernel enabled Apple to put an end to their terrible stability and virus problems from the 90s. The kernel itself was open sourced, and along with this Apple embraced a lot of other open source code and standards. Apple manifested themselves as a pricey but solid choice for professionals, with their Mac Pro and Macbook Pro lines offering stability, durability and performance.

Over the years Apple have become more and more a "fashion choice", while locking down their ecosystem, reducing quality and stagnating performance. 10-15 years ago Macbook Pros used to be the primary choice for laptops among developers, but recent models have become overpriced junk, and for any developer not using Xcode Linux have become the logical choice. Content creators seem to move more and more to Windows. Their once mighty Mac Pro line have been completely neglected, and the "trashcan" Mac Pro and more recent iMac Pro is failing at nearly every aspect that matters to professional users.

It should be clear to anyone that their long term plan is to completely abandon the pro segment and focus on high-volume cheaply made consumer electronics, but sold at a premium based solely on their brand name. As as you say, their focus on iOS and moving away from Intel chips is all about getting complete control over the hardware as a step to control the complete ecosystem. Their push to move Macbooks to custom ARM designs have been known for years, and while Apple's ARM implementation is among the best, this far they have invested billions into these designs without any economical benefits so far. But all of this is for the long term goal of a completely locked down platform with their own unique features and benefits.

That's pretty much it. Everyone loves to be open when they're the underdog
Also, what you're saying is technically true. But Apple's return to success was iTunes. That's where they started getting a cut out of everything.

 

[MrEUser]

"Yeah, we do. I am baffled every time I see Apple do a demo with something like Photoshop, who the hell actually does serious work on their tablet on a daily basis ? Actually, let me put it the other way around, who would afford to pay 1200$ or however expensive this iPad is and not have a high end laptop around for that ? "

Let me make sure I understand the question you are asking. You want to know why someone would choose to use programs that are as powerful as what's running on a laptop, on a tablet that weighs 25% of what a laptop weighs, uses 10% of the electricity a laptop uses (I can compute all day on a tablet, laptops die in 4 hours), and costs 50% of the price of a laptop (comparing a 10.5" iPad Pro to a MBP).

Is that REALLY what you're asking? I mean I only replaced my laptop with a tablet 3 or 4 years ago. I only do everything my job requires (Information Security) and put together training videos (edit 4K video and quality audio) on my iPad Pro.

What is it you think I'm missing while I get a quality job done in a timely manner, cheaper, and without being tethered to power every 4 hours?

 

[trparky]

You want to know why someone would choose to use programs that are as powerful as what's running on a laptop, on a tablet that weighs 25% of what a laptop weighs

I'll give you that, I can agree on that one.

uses 10% of the electricity a laptop uses (I can compute all day on a tablet, laptops die in 4 hours)

I don't know if you've looked on the market recently but there's a lot of notebook computers that have fantastic battery life, some with as much as eight to ten hours. Granted they're not the most powerful computing beasts but you have to give up something to get long lasting battery life.

costs 50% of the price of a laptop (comparing a 10.5" iPad Pro to a MBP).

That's only because Apple fleeces their customers. You can often get a similarly (compared to an Apple notebook) equipped notebook from the PC side of the camp for half the cost.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

A core part of Apple's return to success in to 2000s was the switch from old MacOS to MacOS X based on their new "Darwin" kernel, a hybrid of BSD Unix and the MACH microkernel.

Apple rebounded because of the iPod and accelerated growth with the iPhone and iPad through today. If you haven't noticed, Apple's market valuation is intrinsically linked to its iPhone sales performance. The only people buying Mac OS X products these days are member of the cult of Apple.


On topic: looking at the specs of the A12X compared to the i7 and knowing that A12X (being RISC) needs at least two clocks for virtually every operation (load-store), I think it's safe to say that Geekbench is not a credible reference point to base any comparison between the two.

For giggles, I checked if I could install Geekbench 4 via BlueStacks and to my surprise, it says it is not compatible, yet, so many other apps are. Primate Labs went out of their way to forbid installing it through an emulator. Gee I wonder why.

 

[Aquinus]

The only people buying Mac OS X products these days are member of the cult of Apple.

The business I currently work for buys Apple laptops for employees typically. The company before the one I'm at now also did that. I think you would be surprised.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Members of the cult of Apple.

What the cult of Apple misses out on was on prominent display when Mac changed from PowerPC to x86. Prior to the change, they were boasting how fast their computers were then after the change, they were boasting how fast Intel is compared to IBM without acknowledging how Apple mislead them for decades on relativistic performance.

That's the thing about a cult: they can see no fault. They'll keep buying Apple products simply because of the brand.

 

[Aquinus]

What the cult of Apple misses out on was on prominent display when Mac changed from PowerPC to x86. Prior to the change, they were boasting how fast their computers were then after the change, they were boasting how fast Intel is compared to IBM without acknowledging how Apple mislead them for decades on relativistic performance.

I think you're forgetting about how hot the G5 chips ran, forget when you had two of them. Those chips definitely didn't sip power. I think the switch to x86 was a good move at the time just as I think moving to ARM might be a good move as well. Personally, I think how much power the G5 chips used was the real problem, not so much the performance. Try putting a G5 in a laptop.

With that said, I personally wouldn't buy an OS X device. I'm just saying that there are businesses that do it for whatever reason they ascribe. Mind you, the two companies I mentioned are EdTech companies and these businesses get discounts on Apple products (...and being an employee, so do I, but that's still not enough to convince me to buy one.) They looked into getting Dells with the business warranty and everything that they get with Apple and you would be surprised at how the cost isn't a whole lot different. The bare hardware alone is definitely cheaper, but Dell's business warranty plans make it practically as expensive as a Mac... because a business buying a lot of hardware without a good warranty is just asking for trouble.

So, while I agree (partially,) with your point, I don't completely agree that its a matter of being part of the cult. I definitely agree that's the case for individuals, but not always for businesses.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Why does Apple sell their products to education facilities at near cost? School (moldable minds) is the best opportunity to recruit new members into the cult. When they leave school and have to buy a computer themselves, the first thing they think of is Apple because that's what they were surrounded with. That barely-a-profit business computer is now making large profits on sales from people that left school and are buying their own machines. Apple has deployed this sales tactic since at least the 90s.

Apple may actually be losing that now because kids are getting laptops in grade school now and I don't think they're Apple. Might be partly why Mac OS X's market share is falling.


You're right that non-Apple is the opposite: they hammer the businesses (especially servers) while giving individuals a discount. They don't have a cult to get conversions off of and the direct competition (Lenovo, HP, Dell, Acer, etc.) is fierce.

 

[Aquinus]

Why does Apple sell their products to education facilities at near cost? School (moldable minds) is the best opportunity to recruit new members into the cult. When they leave school and have to buy a computer themselves, the first thing they think of is Apple because that's what they were surrounded with. That barely-a-profit business computer is now making large profits on sales from people that left school and are buying their own machines. Apple has deployed this sales tactic since at least the 90s.

So, the first company I worked for was a school so that's almost a valid assessment minus the fact that those laptops were for staff and instructors, not for students. Where I am now is just EdTech, as in we produce educational software. We're not a school, yet we get a discount. They're not changing any minds of students, but they still offer the same discount. My point is that from a cost perspective, there isn't really any incentive to go either way.

You're right that non-Apple is the opposite: they hammer the businesses (especially servers) while giving individuals a discount. They don't have a cult to get conversions off of and the direct competition (Lenovo, HP, Dell, Acer, etc.) is fierce.

Businesses typically care about cost. In fact, I was having a discussion about this the other day with a co-worker and where I work now might go whole hog with Apple because believe it or not, it's the cheapest option. You don't need to be part of the cult to see the numbers. The earlier company though, the CEO definitely likes Apple products so the cult is strong there, so I'll give you that.

With that said, the dynamics for all of these companies are very different when you're looking at buying or leasing say, 50 laptops as opposed to a single one for personal use. It's literally not comparable.

Honestly, I would rather have a Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition laptop with Ubuntu than the Macbook Pro I have now, but unfortunately it's not my decision.