7 ms·

And before that they successfully managed the transition from m68k to PPC. The processor doesn't matter.

pvg 9y ago
It does matter that the new processor is a lot more powerful and faster than the old processor. This wouldn't be the case this time.
- x0x0 9y ago
  But what -- and work with me here -- if the processor is slimmer. With rounded corners.
- zitterbewegung 9y ago
  Maybe the first few hardware revisions it won't be as performant. Its probably going to be an Armbook that will have the form factor of the Air or the Macbook but with A12 chips. The current A11s are in striking distance for performance.
  - Aaargh20318 9y ago
    The current A-series SoC’s were also designed around the power and thermal requirements of a mobile phone. In a laptop or desktop they would have a lot more wiggle room.
    - abakker 9y ago
      They could also run more than one per machine
- klodolph 9y ago
  It's not powerful/faster that sells chips, it's power and speed relative to envelope. Maybe the iMac pro continues to ship with Xeons, the iMac with Core i5 and i7 depending on configuration. But compare the Intel Core m3 to the Apple A11, and a completely different story will emerge. The A11 is already comparable to relatively recent Macbooks in terms of performance.
  - pvg 9y ago
    The point is, if we're going to bring up what an 'easy' time Apple has had transitioning from one architecture to another, it's worth remembering each transition came with a big performance jump. This made the new platform desirable and emulation bearable. If they are considering a transition again, 'bearable emulation' is not as much of a given.
    - stock_toaster 9y ago
      While single core performance may not be higher, I could see Apple adding more cores than their current Intel offerings have, and still fall within an acceptable power envelope (thermal, battery life, etc).
    - mozumder 9y ago
      I'd expect a huge performance jump when the new ARM-based Macs come out, both in Single-core (they can ramp up the clocks and increase cache and execution units) and Multi-core (they can add more cores to fit new power budgets as well). The current A11 chips for iPhones are within 10% of Intel's top mobile chips on Geekbench, and within about 30% on their top desktop CPUs. It's entirely possible for chip architectures to see 2x-3x speeds when moving from mobile power budgets to desktop power budgets. An Intel Pentium 4410Y Kaby Lake running at 4.5-6 Watts gets about 1800 single-core on Geekbench, while an Intel Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake running at 115 Watts gets 5600 single-core on Geekbench.
      - kllrnohj 9y ago
        > The current A11 chips for iPhones are within 10% of Intel's top mobile chips on Geekbench No, they aren't. iPhone X's multithreaded geekbench score is 10k. The 15" macbook pro is 15k. That's a lot more than 10%. It's only close if you look at the lower end Intel chips, the dual core ones (which is what Apple ships in the 13" macbook pro).
        mozumder 9y ago
        Those are multi-core numbers, not the single-core numbers. What do you think is the most important for 250million desktop users? Because the vast majority of them are sitting idle waiting for interaction tasks, like on your system now.
- bhouston 9y ago
  Apple's ARM chips compare favorably to the crap that is in most laptops. Those Intel Core i3 6100U or Core i5 6200U chips? The midrange and low end will be greatly served from ARM chips. They will not compete at the high end against the Core i7s with 6 cores running at 3.8GHz (12 with HT) though.
- kpil 9y ago
  I guess that Apple would have the resources and knowledge to create an extended ARM architecture that could match x64 in the same power envelope, if they really really wanted. The market segment isn't that large though so it seems tough to get it done within the laptop budget. Still, it could benefit the other devices and streamline the hardware development, so maybe they think it's worthwhile.
- tinus_hn 9y ago
  Intel is dragging 40 years of legacy along. I’m not so sure a new processor can’t be faster and less wasteful of battery power.
  - Bud 9y ago
    Indeed, we have every indication that Apple can already do both of these things. Go look at Geekbench 4 single-core scores for the current iPhone and iPad vs. the current MacBook Pro. Apple is already beating Intel on speed in a design that uses MUCH less power.
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  > This wouldn't be the case this time. I don't think we can make that assumption here. I would be very surprised if the ARM chips they put in desktops are identical to the ones they put in phones. For one, the power budget is going to be a lot larger (even for a notebook), and power is roughly equivalent to speed.
- rdsubhas 9y ago
  > Geekbench 4 scores are calibrated against a baseline score of 4000 (which is the score of an Intel Core i7-6600U) https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks > iMac (27-inch Retina Mid 2017) | Intel Core i7-7700K @ 4.2 GHz (4 cores) | 5683 https://browser.geekbench.com/ios-benchmarks https://browser.geekbench.com/ios-benchmarks > iPhone 8 | Apple A11 Bionic @ 2.4 GHz | 4217 4217 for Apple A11 @ 2.4Ghz vs 5683 for Intel Core i7-7700K @ 4.2GHz Of course, microbenchmarks don't mean much. But the margins are thin enough for users to notice already. Add in more power, more cores, more Ghz, better optimized instruction set, more vertically integrated system, and who knows.
  - throwaway2048 9y ago
    geekbench scores look impressive because they are very very short bursts to prevent power/thermal throttling on iphones, iphones are able to scale up/down preformance wise very quickly, x86 CPUs less so, so what is really being tested is how fast can a cpu jump from idle to full speed. Geekbench is not at all a reliable benchmark that tells you anything about real preformance. Its a total farce to suggest that a CPU with a power budget that is 10x to 20x larger, on a modern process, with modern archtecture is somehow just as fast or slower.
chocolatebunny 9y ago
The processor doesn't matter to Apple because they don't mind fucking over their customers and their third party developers.
- justinjlynn 9y ago
  I doubt that story has changed much.
- gaius 9y ago
  It’s true that Apple fumbled 68k —> PPC as far as MPW went but it’s also true that creating fat binaries was a total non-issue with CodeWarrior. Apple had learnt from that mistake for PPC —> x86
  - ghazak 9y ago
    The difference is that the x86 chips were so much faster than what they had for PPC, that they could still emulate it without customers feeling like they were going backwards.
- macintux 9y ago
  Apple spent a lot of effort with each transition trying to make it as smooth for customers as possible while still pushing forward with the new system. I have no doubt some customers were caused pain by the transitions, and some left the Apple world entirely, but characterizing them as being "fucked over" seems a bit over the top.
  - macintux 9y ago
    (gaius is right, however: CodeWarrior saved Apple once, but they've clearly learned a lot with successive transitions.)
- mankash666 9y ago
  How does this fuck over customers or third party devs in anyways?
mpweiher 9y ago
Yep. Just to put this into perspective: tiny NeXT shipped NeXTStep on 4 architectures. M68K, Intel, PA-RISC and SPARC. They had at least two more in the lab, M88K and PPC. Compiling for different architectures was a checkbox in ProjectBuilder (after you took care of endian issues, once). Much easier than in Xcode today. My favorite was that they apparently shipped an additional architecture by accident: the developer tools came with one of the aforementioned architectures long after it had been officially dropped.

pvg 9y ago

It does matter that the new processor is a lot more powerful and faster than the old processor. This wouldn't be the case this time.

x0x0 9y ago
But what -- and work with me here -- if the processor is slimmer. With rounded corners.
zitterbewegung 9y ago
Maybe the first few hardware revisions it won't be as performant. Its probably going to be an Armbook that will have the form factor of the Air or the Macbook but with A12 chips. The current A11s are in striking distance for performance.
- Aaargh20318 9y ago
  The current A-series SoC’s were also designed around the power and thermal requirements of a mobile phone. In a laptop or desktop they would have a lot more wiggle room.
  - abakker 9y ago
    They could also run more than one per machine
klodolph 9y ago
It's not powerful/faster that sells chips, it's power and speed relative to envelope. Maybe the iMac pro continues to ship with Xeons, the iMac with Core i5 and i7 depending on configuration. But compare the Intel Core m3 to the Apple A11, and a completely different story will emerge. The A11 is already comparable to relatively recent Macbooks in terms of performance.
- pvg 9y ago
  The point is, if we're going to bring up what an 'easy' time Apple has had transitioning from one architecture to another, it's worth remembering each transition came with a big performance jump. This made the new platform desirable and emulation bearable. If they are considering a transition again, 'bearable emulation' is not as much of a given.
  - stock_toaster 9y ago
    While single core performance may not be higher, I could see Apple adding more cores than their current Intel offerings have, and still fall within an acceptable power envelope (thermal, battery life, etc).
  - mozumder 9y ago
    I'd expect a huge performance jump when the new ARM-based Macs come out, both in Single-core (they can ramp up the clocks and increase cache and execution units) and Multi-core (they can add more cores to fit new power budgets as well). The current A11 chips for iPhones are within 10% of Intel's top mobile chips on Geekbench, and within about 30% on their top desktop CPUs. It's entirely possible for chip architectures to see 2x-3x speeds when moving from mobile power budgets to desktop power budgets. An Intel Pentium 4410Y Kaby Lake running at 4.5-6 Watts gets about 1800 single-core on Geekbench, while an Intel Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake running at 115 Watts gets 5600 single-core on Geekbench.
    - kllrnohj 9y ago
      > The current A11 chips for iPhones are within 10% of Intel's top mobile chips on Geekbench No, they aren't. iPhone X's multithreaded geekbench score is 10k. The 15" macbook pro is 15k. That's a lot more than 10%. It's only close if you look at the lower end Intel chips, the dual core ones (which is what Apple ships in the 13" macbook pro).
      - mozumder 9y ago
        Those are multi-core numbers, not the single-core numbers. What do you think is the most important for 250million desktop users? Because the vast majority of them are sitting idle waiting for interaction tasks, like on your system now.
bhouston 9y ago
Apple's ARM chips compare favorably to the crap that is in most laptops. Those Intel Core i3 6100U or Core i5 6200U chips? The midrange and low end will be greatly served from ARM chips. They will not compete at the high end against the Core i7s with 6 cores running at 3.8GHz (12 with HT) though.
kpil 9y ago
I guess that Apple would have the resources and knowledge to create an extended ARM architecture that could match x64 in the same power envelope, if they really really wanted. The market segment isn't that large though so it seems tough to get it done within the laptop budget. Still, it could benefit the other devices and streamline the hardware development, so maybe they think it's worthwhile.
tinus_hn 9y ago
Intel is dragging 40 years of legacy along. I’m not so sure a new processor can’t be faster and less wasteful of battery power.
- Bud 9y ago
  Indeed, we have every indication that Apple can already do both of these things. Go look at Geekbench 4 single-core scores for the current iPhone and iPad vs. the current MacBook Pro. Apple is already beating Intel on speed in a design that uses MUCH less power.
Turing_Machine 9y ago
> This wouldn't be the case this time. I don't think we can make that assumption here. I would be very surprised if the ARM chips they put in desktops are identical to the ones they put in phones. For one, the power budget is going to be a lot larger (even for a notebook), and power is roughly equivalent to speed.
rdsubhas 9y ago
> Geekbench 4 scores are calibrated against a baseline score of 4000 (which is the score of an Intel Core i7-6600U) https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks > iMac (27-inch Retina Mid 2017) | Intel Core i7-7700K @ 4.2 GHz (4 cores) | 5683 https://browser.geekbench.com/ios-benchmarks https://browser.geekbench.com/ios-benchmarks > iPhone 8 | Apple A11 Bionic @ 2.4 GHz | 4217 4217 for Apple A11 @ 2.4Ghz vs 5683 for Intel Core i7-7700K @ 4.2GHz Of course, microbenchmarks don't mean much. But the margins are thin enough for users to notice already. Add in more power, more cores, more Ghz, better optimized instruction set, more vertically integrated system, and who knows.
- throwaway2048 9y ago
  geekbench scores look impressive because they are very very short bursts to prevent power/thermal throttling on iphones, iphones are able to scale up/down preformance wise very quickly, x86 CPUs less so, so what is really being tested is how fast can a cpu jump from idle to full speed. Geekbench is not at all a reliable benchmark that tells you anything about real preformance. Its a total farce to suggest that a CPU with a power budget that is 10x to 20x larger, on a modern process, with modern archtecture is somehow just as fast or slower.

chocolatebunny 9y ago

The processor doesn't matter to Apple because they don't mind fucking over their customers and their third party developers.

justinjlynn 9y ago
I doubt that story has changed much.
gaius 9y ago
It’s true that Apple fumbled 68k —> PPC as far as MPW went but it’s also true that creating fat binaries was a total non-issue with CodeWarrior. Apple had learnt from that mistake for PPC —> x86
- ghazak 9y ago
  The difference is that the x86 chips were so much faster than what they had for PPC, that they could still emulate it without customers feeling like they were going backwards.
macintux 9y ago
Apple spent a lot of effort with each transition trying to make it as smooth for customers as possible while still pushing forward with the new system. I have no doubt some customers were caused pain by the transitions, and some left the Apple world entirely, but characterizing them as being "fucked over" seems a bit over the top.
- macintux 9y ago
  (gaius is right, however: CodeWarrior saved Apple once, but they've clearly learned a lot with successive transitions.)
mankash666 9y ago
How does this fuck over customers or third party devs in anyways?

mpweiher 9y ago

Yep. Just to put this into perspective: tiny NeXT shipped NeXTStep on 4 architectures. M68K, Intel, PA-RISC and SPARC. They had at least two more in the lab, M88K and PPC. Compiling for different architectures was a checkbox in ProjectBuilder (after you took care of endian issues, once). Much easier than in Xcode today. My favorite was that they apparently shipped an additional architecture by accident: the developer tools came with one of the aforementioned architectures long after it had been officially dropped.