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Slightly off-topic, but does anyone have any details on how the new ARM-powered MacBooks will perform compared to the Intel-powered MacBooks? According to this[

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone have any details on how the new ARM-powered MacBooks will perform compared to the Intel-powered MacBooks? According to this[1] article, "the new ARM machines (is expected) to outperform their Intel predecessors by 50 to 100 percent". Can anyone shed some insight into how this is possible? [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/21/21298607/first-arm-mac-macbook-pro-imac-ming-chi-kuo-wwdc-2020 https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/21/21298607/first-arm-mac-ma...

ceo_tim_crook 6y ago
I'm suspicious but for the pain it's going to cause it better have some real benefits
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  Out of curiosity, what pain are you expecting? Maybe I'm spoiled because my development is mostly java, python, Go, docker, etc, all of which should have no runtime problem. In terms of IDE, It looks like vscode is ported which is great. I see two projects in my workflow: intellij and iterm2. I can live with a vanilla terminal but I'll need intellij. It looks like there's some[1] discussion around support. 1. https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/commit/db531b5 https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/commit/db531...
  - ceo_tim_crook 6y ago
    out of what you've listed docker is probably the biggest issue -- there is support for multiarch containers but migration has some pain points depending on your setup, also docker will be have to made to work on the arm build of macos assuming virtualization is supported and speedy
  - harpratap 6y ago
    How do you expect docker to run fine when it doesn't even run good on x86 OSX? There are constant performance issues (https://github.com/docker/for-mac/issues/3499 https://github.com/docker/for-mac/issues/3499) because docker-on-mac is basically a VM running Linux
    - aljarry 6y ago
      Docker is a linux tech tied to features in Linux kernel. You don't have cgroups and the like in XNU (OSX kernel) to be able to run docker natively on OSX.
      - harpratap 6y ago
        It's OSX's fault then. Windows can run containers natively now as long as the base image is windows too. No reason why OSX couldn't extend support either.
        jen20 6y ago
        I would suggest that the VAST majority of Docker usage on Windows is not “windows containers” but Linux-based containers in a VM, be it WSL or Docker for Windows. The promise of Docker is that a container image built on machine A will run on machine B. That relies on them running the same operating system in some capacity.
  - kccqzy 6y ago
    You are probably going to have a great deal of pain with Docker. If you use Docker for Mac, it basically uses Hypervisor.framework to run a slim x86_64 Linux virtual machine. Rumors suggest that Hypervisor.framework won't emulate x86_64 in the next version of macOS. We'll find out tomorrow. So you'll either set up docker-machine with a x86_64 based remote server to run your docker commands, or you'll just use ARM versions of the various docker images. I don't know where you get your images from, but many of them won't be available for ARM.
    - jychang 6y ago
      There's a surprisingly large number of ARM docker images. You can partially thank the Raspberry Pi for that.
      - 0x0 6y ago
        Is that ARM v6/v7 32bit or ARM v8 64bit? Most Raspberrys run a 32bit userland (armhf).
        darkteflon 6y ago
        Plenty of ARM64-architected images available. Lots of us using 64-bit Ubuntu.
        harpratap 6y ago
        Yeah but then you have consistency issue which Docker aimed to get rid of. You local setup won't replicate what runs on production. The enterprise infra isn't going to switch to ARM in next 1-2 years as Apple hopes to.
    - vbezhenar 6y ago
      I bet that all popular docker images will be available for ARM very soon. It's a matter of recompiling.
  - jychang 6y ago
    What are the largest benefit for iterm2? I use it but honestly I don't see much improvement over Terminal.
    - robin_reala 6y ago
      Probably tmux integration, but the speed decrease against Terminal doesn’t warrant the additional features for me at least.
      - jen20 6y ago
        A trick I recently learned is to add iTerm 2 to the “Developer Tools” section of the Security prefpane - it makes it fly. Similarly if you’ve ported your config through several versions of iTerm, ensure that GPU-accelerated rendering is on. It’s no stretch to say that iTerm 2 is a major one of the reasons I cannot stand desktop Linux (or Windows, even with the new terminal there).
    - neurostimulant 6y ago
      For me, it's the little things such as ability to undo accidental terminal tab closing with cmd+z, restoring sessions after restart so I don't need to reopen a bunch of tabs and cd manually, ability to show timestamp for each command run, etc.
  - kiwiana 6y ago
    You mention Docker which most definitely will be impacted by this change. Docker on Mac runs off a virtualized x86 Linux instance. Docker only announced ARM support last year I think, I can't imagine Docker for ARM would be as anywhere near as fully supported as it is for x86, and you certainly won't be able to build x86 images to push to x86 servers, without using some sort of emulation layer which will be horribly slow compared to current macOS x86 docker.
    - treekogreen 6y ago
      Currently running docker using WSL2 on an ARM laptop. So it's pretty much native Linux, as an anecdote I can tell you that it's just that much more stable than with my Mac or with a traditional Windows laptop. The only downsides is there's a few docker containers that you have to hunt around for to get the ARM64 version. The only way I see docker performance to be better than this or more stable is to switch to a Linux machine entirely.
      - kiwiana 6y ago
        Yes - that's what I was alluding to in my original reply, re: lack of support, lack of images. Docker running on ARM might be great, but one of the original purposes of docker was to build and run the exact same images that would run on your servers, which will no longer be the case unless those servers are ARM based as well.
      - mgoetzke 6y ago
        What laptop ?
        treekogreen 6y ago
        Surface Pro X
    - darkteflon 6y ago
      I use ARM64 Docker on my Raspberry Pi 4s, it’s excellent and loads of images are already available.
  - ryan-allen 6y ago
    VS Code is not yet ported to ARM, there are bootleg builds but they do not work with many extensions, for example Remote SSH relies on a project that lies below the VS Code project proper, and that (apparently) is a fair bit of work to bring to ARM (though it's being worked on) [0] [0] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/6442 https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/6442
    - treekogreen 6y ago
      You are wrong. I currently use VS Code insiders daily on ARM with all my extensions working. https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_46#_windows-arm64-insiders https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_46#_windows-arm64-i...
      - ryan-allen 6y ago
        Really? That is GREAT NEWS!!! EDIT: It works great, and it has remote for ssh and wsl!!! This made my day!
      - maxbaines 6y ago
        I second this, of course VS Code needed Electron which needs Node all ready for ARM https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/25998#issuecomment-637111448 https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/25998#issuecomment-637... Also to note Edge is available on ARM. Very happy Surface Pro X user here.
        ryan-allen 6y ago
        I second Edge working fantastic on ARM! I have a Galaxy Book S.
  - tempay 6y ago
    I don't expect it to be too painful. Most common software has already been build for ARM on Linux. A lot of things have event been built for Apple's ARM chips running iOS, though the App Store restrictions have limited the usefulness of these builds. Unmaintained closed source software will stop working but most of these applications were already killed by the removal of 32-bit x86 support in Catalina. The biggest potential issue will be how people get hardware for doing the builds. Hopefully Apple will provide a good way of cross-compiling or a new machine that is suitable for datacenter deployment (ARM based mac mini?). We'll have to wait for the WWDC announcement to find out.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    What about legacy software and software provided by a vendor? Let's say I want to run Fusion 360 and Altium on my hypothetical ARM Mac. Can I do that today? Outdated information: Windows on ARM requires you to build UWP apps which is more work than just a recompile.
ed25519FUUU 6y ago
I'd be very surprised by that figure unless it's multicore benchmarks. Many macbooks are still around the 4 CPU/8 thread marks, so there's a lot of space to improve there with multiple cores.
- dannyw 6y ago
  Why would you be surprised? Apple's chip design team is the best in the entire industry, funded by a virtually infinite bankroll and with a razor focus on only developing chips for Apple's products; so microcode to drivers can be intimately optimized like a gaming console. The access to iOS and macOS means that they can profile every single app everyone runs and improve real-world performance, and they do. If you are a company that supplies anything (software or hardware) to Apple or Amazon, and you are operating on >20% gross margins, Apple and Amazon will destroy you, and destroy your margins. You have to continuously innovate and can't just relax and chill and collect your margins, like Intel has been doing for the past 5 years, milking their advantage that has evaporated. Other than the modem, I don't think there's a component on the latest iPhones that has more than 20% margins for the supplier. Apple is ruthless. So is Amazon, when it comes to fulfilment.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    Just because you have lots of money doesn't mean laws of physics suddenly are out to lunch. Apple is using the same fabrication process as everyone else in a mature industy. There simply isn't 2x improvement possible unless everyone else was staggeringly inconpetent. Imagine Apple decided to build their own car, and made their own electric motors. Would you believe claims that their motors are 2x as efficient?
- pansa2 6y ago
  Agreed. A lot of people seem to think x86 has some inherent bottleneck that switching to ARM will magically bypass. Single core performance is currently doubling every five years or so. We’re not about to see it double in the next 24 hours.
  - 6y ago
SenHeng 6y ago
Maybe we should wait for it to actually be announced? Otherwise it's just fantasy sports.
- nordsieck 6y ago
  > Maybe we should wait for it to actually be announced? This[1] claims ARM Macs will be unveiled today (Monday) at WWDC. I guess we'll see soon enough. ___ 1. https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/21/21298607/first-arm-mac-macbook-pro-imac-ming-chi-kuo-wwdc-2020 https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/21/21298607/first-arm-mac-ma...
  - SenHeng 6y ago
    That's my whole point. All the discussion up til now has been based on rumours and speculation. There's only so much we can discuss around that. Until we actually have details of Apple's implementations, there's no realistic way we can discuss > how the new ARM-powered MacBooks will perform compared to the Intel-powered MacBooks
    - brnt 6y ago
      Apple and the Kremlin share a few things, one of which is that, due to the nature of how official announcements are done, a desire if not need for outside analysts has developed, who specialize in forecasting those official announcements both on outside trends and close observation of the company and any clues they might forget to filter.
- coldtea 6y ago
  The whole fun of product roadmap speculation is it being a fantasy sport. (Fun and potentially useful, if you want to plan ahead, play the market, and other causes...)
jjcm 6y ago
With geekbench scores, the A13 is outperforming some mobile i7 processors: https://gadgetversus.com/processor/intel-core-i7-8565u-vs-apple-a13-bionic/#:~:text=Intel%20Core%20i7%2D8565U%20vs%20Apple%20A13%20Bionic,maximum%20frequency%20of%204.6GHz https://gadgetversus.com/processor/intel-core-i7-8565u-vs-ap.... With a new A14 chip combined with intel stagnation, it wouldn't be too crazy to see a 50-100% increase, especially if you looked at multi-core scores.
- dispat0r 6y ago
  50-100% seems a little high. I think Apple has picked the low hanging fruit. This kind of performance increase is only possible in multicore workloads. Single core would be more like 20-30%. But maybe they can increase clock speeds with the new 5nm node.
  - darkteflon 6y ago
    They’ll be working with a more forgiving thermal envelope than in iOS devices too, though.
- strictnein 6y ago
  > Geekbench 4 - Multi-core & single core score - iOS & Android 64-bit What does that even mean? The Intel platform is running Android?
  - lostmsu 6y ago
    I assume the tests are same regardless of platform.
    - kllrnohj 6y ago
      They aren't, though. Compare windows vs. linux geekbench scores of identical hardware, they are extremely different: Linux: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/2638097 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/2638097 Windows: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/2635048 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/2635048 Geekbench is a terrible benchmark.
dannyw 6y ago
Apple is the most valuable public company in the world. They have been making their own SoCs for the iPhone for over a decade. Their internal-consumption focus along with the bankroll of the world's most valuable corporation means that they can make the best chips. Intel's market cap is just 1/8th of Apple. Intel chips have basically stagnated for about 5 years and they abused their monopoly and market leader positioning by offering marginal improvements each year in order to protect margins, as well as fab shrink problems that insiders describe as coming from culture not dissimilar to Boeing; just with less lives at stake. In the meantime, competitor foundries have caught up, and exceed Intel's ability to ship in volume. ARM obviously is eyeing the desktop, but more critically server market so the latest ARM IP is geared towards higher performance computing, quite well I may say. State of the art fab + state of the art processor IP = state of the art processor. Not a huge surprise :)
- carlmr 6y ago
  >fab shrink problems that insiders describe as coming from culture not dissimilar to Boeing; just with less lives at stake. Since normal processors calculate a lot of important things, I'm wondering if there really are fewer lives at stake. Of course it would be more indirect, but I could imagine that there are many areas where lives are tied to PCs doing the right thing. E.g. what if a processor bug leads to security issues in hospital infrastructure.
  - egil 6y ago
    Like Meltdown and Spectre?
- jayd16 6y ago
  Why should we expect anything significantly different than a year iteration on what they already use in the iPad Pro?
  - duskwuff 6y ago
    A laptop (or desktop!) computer has a significantly higher energy budget than the iPad. The SoC Apple uses in those devices could conceivably be clocked higher and/or have more cores than the A12 parts they're currently using in the iPad Pro.
ipsum2 6y ago
The Macbooks will have a CPU that's comparable or better than the iPad Pro. The iPad Pro already beats the Macbook Pro in some well-known benchmarks, such as Geekbench. https://www.macrumors.com/2020/05/12/ipad-pro-vs-macbook-air-vs-macbook-pro/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/05/12/ipad-pro-vs-macbook-air...
- xxs 6y ago
  geekbench is a horrid benchmark.The amount of info on how they run the tests is extremely limited (mostly what lib they opted to use). The tests are very short, no power or thermally limited. I'd try and link to their methodology[0]: for instance: Integer WorkloadsLZMA CompressionLZMA (Lempel-Ziv-Markov chain algorithm) is a lossless compression algorithm. The algorithm uses a dictionary compression scheme (the dictionary size is variable and can be as large as 4GB). LZMA features a high compression ratio (higher than bzip2).The LZMA workload compresses and decompresses a 450KB HTML ebook using the LZMA compression algorithm. The workload uses the LZMA SDK for the implementation of the core LZMA algorithm. They compress just 450KB of text as a benchmark - even the dict size is greater then the input. If both fits the CPU caches - the results are supreme, if not - horrible compared to the former. Also it'd vastly depend how fast the CPU can switch to full turbo mode (for servers that doesn't matter at all) [0]: https://www.geekbench.com/doc/geekbench4-cpu-workloads.pdf https://www.geekbench.com/doc/geekbench4-cpu-workloads.pdf
  - Veedrac 6y ago
    FWIW you've linked Geekbench 4; Geekbench 5 is https://www.geekbench.com/doc/geekbench5-cpu-workloads.pdf https://www.geekbench.com/doc/geekbench5-cpu-workloads.pdf I agree these benchmarks have issues, but there's a consistent trend (eg. AnandTech's SPEC results are similar—they use active cooling to avoid the question about thermals) and the most reliable benchmarks, like compilers, aren't outliers.
    - xxs 6y ago
      True that, they did increase the book size and yet it's till below the dict size: compresses and decompresses a 2399KB HTML ebook using the LZMA compression algorithm with a dictionary size of 2048KB. Doing the test below 4MB of L3 would hurt, doing with with less than 2MB would decimate the test.
harpratap 6y ago
The article doesn't really mention outperform in what aspect. The sentence following that claim mentions "50% more efficient" which seems likely because ARM chips usually use <10W power while Intel U series chips use 15-25W
treekogreen 6y ago
I'll have to dig around and find relevant phoronix benchmarks later for you. But I think it's somewhat of a hive-mind assumption that Intel has generally higher performance all round. A majority of benchmarks show that Intel is generally better in single threaded benchmarks whereas ARM CPU's are better in multicore, multi-threaded applications with a lower TDP and leagues better efficiency. Heck the Surface Pro X that Microsoft brought out has performance on par with an Intel i5 with at least 1.5x the battery life of its Intel counterpart and without needing an internal fan whatsoever. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Apple will make the switch to ARM for all but their highest spec MacBook pro's.
- jeroenhd 6y ago
  I will immediately believe them when you interpreted "outperforming" as "better performance per watt". However, I can also see their chips outperforming Intel in sustained workloads. Apple has a history of crippling Intel performance by allowing the CPU to only run at full speed for a short while, quickly letting it ramp up the temperature before clocking down aggressively. Some of that is likely because of their power delivery system, some of it is because they choose to limit their cooling capacity to make their laptops make less noise or with fewer "unattractive" airholes. Either way, put the same chip in a Macbook and in a Windows laptop and the Windows laptop will run hotter but with better performance. However, with a more efficient chip, Apple could allow their CPU to run at a higher frequency than Intel for longer, benefiting sustained workloads despite the IPC and frequency being lower on paper. This is especially important for devices like the Macbook Air, where they didn't even bother to connect a heatpipe to the CPU and aggressively limit the performance of their Intel chip. I'd even consider the conspiracy theory that Apple has been limiting their mobile CPU performance for the last few years to allow for a smoother transition to ARM. If they can outperform their current lineup even slightly, they can claim to have beaten Intel and then make their cooling solution more efficient again.
  - dijit 6y ago
    Everything you said is echoed in this LTT video from yesterday[0]. It does appear to be a very poor thermal design, but you can see that most of the issues appear to be from trying to make the user not feel the heat. It feels a bit icky to leave performance on the table like that; since you paid for a CPU and are getting a marginal performance from it. But I remember Jobs giving a talk before about how "Computers are tools, and people don't care if their tools give them all it can, they care if they can get their work done with them well" That's not a defense of a shitty cooling solution, but it is a defence of why they power limit the chips. When I got my first (and only) Macbook in 2011, it had more than twice the real battery life of any machine on the market. That meant that I was _actually_ untethered. That's what I cared about at the time much more than how much CPU I was getting. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlOPPuNv4Ec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlOPPuNv4Ec
mtgx 6y ago
For one, because we had evidence of this for a few years now - that Apple's Arm chips can beat Intel's chips. It was mostly ignored because "but that's just peak performance - not sustainable in a phone/tablet envelope." Yeah, until they put the same chip, or better in a laptop envelope. Then what for Intel? This was from 2016. People being surprised by this haven't been paying attention to where this was going: https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-head-to-head-against-intels-core-m-in-arm-x86-grudge-match https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-he... Also, I said it many times before, Intel trying to be as misleading as possible with the performance of its chips, such as renaming Intel Atom chips to "Intel Celeron/Pentium" and renaming the much weaker Core-M/Y-Series (the same chips used in Macbook Air for the past few years) as "Core i5" is going to bite them hard in the ass, when Apple's chips are going to show that they can beat "Intel Core i5". But Intel kept making this worse with each generation. https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/intel-renames-core-m-core-i https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/intel-renames-core-m-core...
lucasverra 6y ago
sooo. should i NOT invest in a 2K MBP 16 in to do mostly heavy multiple web apps ?
- leadingthenet 6y ago
  That's one use-case where they absolutely shine, in my experience.
- neurostimulant 6y ago
  I'd say just buy them if you need it now. Web developers sometimes need to use docker and VMs for various development tasks and testing. Sure you can run docker in arm, but not all docker images has arm version available. Running Linux and windows vm will probably a challenge as well, at least until we know how well x86 simulator run in the new arm laptop.
leeter 6y ago
Real world? AFAIK no not yet. The issue is that traditional benchmarks don't really tell the whole story. IPC isn't directly comparable because ARM is ostensibly RISC (this is debatable I'm aware) and Intel is CISC (also debatable). So until things like Adobe Premiere or Media Encoder are ported over (if they are), or similar real world workloads like Blender, it's going to be really hard to compare. Even then things like design power matter. A 15w Intel chip is likely to outperform a 5w ARM chip just because it has more headroom thermally. It doesn't mean that either is faster (IPC per watt goes up the more you downclock for a variety of reasons). If this sounds like I'm saying it's apples (no pun intended) to oranges... that's pretty much the case. Apple is likey not going to produce an ARM chip in directly comparable fashion to an Intel chip. E.g. equal cache, memory bandwidth, TDP (using Intel calc method), PCI-e lanes etc. Mostly because it doesn't make sense to do so because Intel's chips are designed to be a component of the system while ARM chips are largely designed to be an SOC.
hajile 6y ago
They need to prove they can do a few things before I'm worried. * They need to ramp the clockspeeds -- much easier to say than do. * They need to include 256 or 512-bit SIMD operations without breaking the power budget. * They need to design a consistent and fast RAM controller (and likely need to add extra channels) * They need to integrate power-hungry USB4/thunderbolt into their system. * They need to add a dozen extra PCIe 3 or 4 lanes without ballooning the power consumption. * They need an interconnect (like QuickPath or HyperTransport/Infinity Fabric) so all these things can communicate. These are the hard issues that Intel, AMD, IBM, etc all must deal with and form a much bigger piece of the puzzle than the CPU cores themselves when dealing with high-performance systems.

ceo_tim_crook 6y ago

I'm suspicious but for the pain it's going to cause it better have some real benefits

ed25519FUUU 6y ago
Out of curiosity, what pain are you expecting? Maybe I'm spoiled because my development is mostly java, python, Go, docker, etc, all of which should have no runtime problem. In terms of IDE, It looks like vscode is ported which is great. I see two projects in my workflow: intellij and iterm2. I can live with a vanilla terminal but I'll need intellij. It looks like there's some[1] discussion around support. 1. https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/commit/db531b5 https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/commit/db531...
- ceo_tim_crook 6y ago
  out of what you've listed docker is probably the biggest issue -- there is support for multiarch containers but migration has some pain points depending on your setup, also docker will be have to made to work on the arm build of macos assuming virtualization is supported and speedy
- harpratap 6y ago
  How do you expect docker to run fine when it doesn't even run good on x86 OSX? There are constant performance issues (https://github.com/docker/for-mac/issues/3499 https://github.com/docker/for-mac/issues/3499) because docker-on-mac is basically a VM running Linux
  - aljarry 6y ago
    Docker is a linux tech tied to features in Linux kernel. You don't have cgroups and the like in XNU (OSX kernel) to be able to run docker natively on OSX.
    - harpratap 6y ago
      It's OSX's fault then. Windows can run containers natively now as long as the base image is windows too. No reason why OSX couldn't extend support either.
      - jen20 6y ago
        I would suggest that the VAST majority of Docker usage on Windows is not “windows containers” but Linux-based containers in a VM, be it WSL or Docker for Windows. The promise of Docker is that a container image built on machine A will run on machine B. That relies on them running the same operating system in some capacity.
- kccqzy 6y ago
  You are probably going to have a great deal of pain with Docker. If you use Docker for Mac, it basically uses Hypervisor.framework to run a slim x86_64 Linux virtual machine. Rumors suggest that Hypervisor.framework won't emulate x86_64 in the next version of macOS. We'll find out tomorrow. So you'll either set up docker-machine with a x86_64 based remote server to run your docker commands, or you'll just use ARM versions of the various docker images. I don't know where you get your images from, but many of them won't be available for ARM.
  - jychang 6y ago
    There's a surprisingly large number of ARM docker images. You can partially thank the Raspberry Pi for that.
    - 0x0 6y ago
      Is that ARM v6/v7 32bit or ARM v8 64bit? Most Raspberrys run a 32bit userland (armhf).
      - darkteflon 6y ago
        Plenty of ARM64-architected images available. Lots of us using 64-bit Ubuntu.
        harpratap 6y ago
        Yeah but then you have consistency issue which Docker aimed to get rid of. You local setup won't replicate what runs on production. The enterprise infra isn't going to switch to ARM in next 1-2 years as Apple hopes to.
  - vbezhenar 6y ago
    I bet that all popular docker images will be available for ARM very soon. It's a matter of recompiling.
- jychang 6y ago
  What are the largest benefit for iterm2? I use it but honestly I don't see much improvement over Terminal.
  - robin_reala 6y ago
    Probably tmux integration, but the speed decrease against Terminal doesn’t warrant the additional features for me at least.
    - jen20 6y ago
      A trick I recently learned is to add iTerm 2 to the “Developer Tools” section of the Security prefpane - it makes it fly. Similarly if you’ve ported your config through several versions of iTerm, ensure that GPU-accelerated rendering is on. It’s no stretch to say that iTerm 2 is a major one of the reasons I cannot stand desktop Linux (or Windows, even with the new terminal there).
  - neurostimulant 6y ago
    For me, it's the little things such as ability to undo accidental terminal tab closing with cmd+z, restoring sessions after restart so I don't need to reopen a bunch of tabs and cd manually, ability to show timestamp for each command run, etc.
- kiwiana 6y ago
  You mention Docker which most definitely will be impacted by this change. Docker on Mac runs off a virtualized x86 Linux instance. Docker only announced ARM support last year I think, I can't imagine Docker for ARM would be as anywhere near as fully supported as it is for x86, and you certainly won't be able to build x86 images to push to x86 servers, without using some sort of emulation layer which will be horribly slow compared to current macOS x86 docker.
  - treekogreen 6y ago
    Currently running docker using WSL2 on an ARM laptop. So it's pretty much native Linux, as an anecdote I can tell you that it's just that much more stable than with my Mac or with a traditional Windows laptop. The only downsides is there's a few docker containers that you have to hunt around for to get the ARM64 version. The only way I see docker performance to be better than this or more stable is to switch to a Linux machine entirely.
    - kiwiana 6y ago
      Yes - that's what I was alluding to in my original reply, re: lack of support, lack of images. Docker running on ARM might be great, but one of the original purposes of docker was to build and run the exact same images that would run on your servers, which will no longer be the case unless those servers are ARM based as well.
    - mgoetzke 6y ago
      What laptop ?
      - treekogreen 6y ago
        Surface Pro X
  - darkteflon 6y ago
    I use ARM64 Docker on my Raspberry Pi 4s, it’s excellent and loads of images are already available.
- ryan-allen 6y ago
  VS Code is not yet ported to ARM, there are bootleg builds but they do not work with many extensions, for example Remote SSH relies on a project that lies below the VS Code project proper, and that (apparently) is a fair bit of work to bring to ARM (though it's being worked on) [0] [0] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/6442 https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/6442
  - treekogreen 6y ago
    You are wrong. I currently use VS Code insiders daily on ARM with all my extensions working. https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_46#_windows-arm64-insiders https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_46#_windows-arm64-i...
    - ryan-allen 6y ago
      Really? That is GREAT NEWS!!! EDIT: It works great, and it has remote for ssh and wsl!!! This made my day!
    - maxbaines 6y ago
      I second this, of course VS Code needed Electron which needs Node all ready for ARM https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/25998#issuecomment-637111448 https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/25998#issuecomment-637... Also to note Edge is available on ARM. Very happy Surface Pro X user here.
      - ryan-allen 6y ago
        I second Edge working fantastic on ARM! I have a Galaxy Book S.
- tempay 6y ago
  I don't expect it to be too painful. Most common software has already been build for ARM on Linux. A lot of things have event been built for Apple's ARM chips running iOS, though the App Store restrictions have limited the usefulness of these builds. Unmaintained closed source software will stop working but most of these applications were already killed by the removal of 32-bit x86 support in Catalina. The biggest potential issue will be how people get hardware for doing the builds. Hopefully Apple will provide a good way of cross-compiling or a new machine that is suitable for datacenter deployment (ARM based mac mini?). We'll have to wait for the WWDC announcement to find out.
- imtringued 6y ago
  What about legacy software and software provided by a vendor? Let's say I want to run Fusion 360 and Altium on my hypothetical ARM Mac. Can I do that today? Outdated information: Windows on ARM requires you to build UWP apps which is more work than just a recompile.

ed25519FUUU 6y ago

I'd be very surprised by that figure unless it's multicore benchmarks. Many macbooks are still around the 4 CPU/8 thread marks, so there's a lot of space to improve there with multiple cores.

dannyw 6y ago
Why would you be surprised? Apple's chip design team is the best in the entire industry, funded by a virtually infinite bankroll and with a razor focus on only developing chips for Apple's products; so microcode to drivers can be intimately optimized like a gaming console. The access to iOS and macOS means that they can profile every single app everyone runs and improve real-world performance, and they do. If you are a company that supplies anything (software or hardware) to Apple or Amazon, and you are operating on >20% gross margins, Apple and Amazon will destroy you, and destroy your margins. You have to continuously innovate and can't just relax and chill and collect your margins, like Intel has been doing for the past 5 years, milking their advantage that has evaporated. Other than the modem, I don't think there's a component on the latest iPhones that has more than 20% margins for the supplier. Apple is ruthless. So is Amazon, when it comes to fulfilment.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Just because you have lots of money doesn't mean laws of physics suddenly are out to lunch. Apple is using the same fabrication process as everyone else in a mature industy. There simply isn't 2x improvement possible unless everyone else was staggeringly inconpetent. Imagine Apple decided to build their own car, and made their own electric motors. Would you believe claims that their motors are 2x as efficient?
pansa2 6y ago
Agreed. A lot of people seem to think x86 has some inherent bottleneck that switching to ARM will magically bypass. Single core performance is currently doubling every five years or so. We’re not about to see it double in the next 24 hours.
- 6y ago

SenHeng 6y ago

Maybe we should wait for it to actually be announced? Otherwise it's just fantasy sports.

nordsieck 6y ago
> Maybe we should wait for it to actually be announced? This[1] claims ARM Macs will be unveiled today (Monday) at WWDC. I guess we'll see soon enough. ___ 1. https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/21/21298607/first-arm-mac-macbook-pro-imac-ming-chi-kuo-wwdc-2020 https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/21/21298607/first-arm-mac-ma...
- SenHeng 6y ago
  That's my whole point. All the discussion up til now has been based on rumours and speculation. There's only so much we can discuss around that. Until we actually have details of Apple's implementations, there's no realistic way we can discuss > how the new ARM-powered MacBooks will perform compared to the Intel-powered MacBooks
  - brnt 6y ago
    Apple and the Kremlin share a few things, one of which is that, due to the nature of how official announcements are done, a desire if not need for outside analysts has developed, who specialize in forecasting those official announcements both on outside trends and close observation of the company and any clues they might forget to filter.
coldtea 6y ago
The whole fun of product roadmap speculation is it being a fantasy sport. (Fun and potentially useful, if you want to plan ahead, play the market, and other causes...)

jjcm 6y ago

With geekbench scores, the A13 is outperforming some mobile i7 processors: https://gadgetversus.com/processor/intel-core-i7-8565u-vs-apple-a13-bionic/#:~:text=Intel%20Core%20i7%2D8565U%20vs%20Apple%20A13%20Bionic,maximum%20frequency%20of%204.6GHz https://gadgetversus.com/processor/intel-core-i7-8565u-vs-ap.... With a new A14 chip combined with intel stagnation, it wouldn't be too crazy to see a 50-100% increase, especially if you looked at multi-core scores.

dispat0r 6y ago
50-100% seems a little high. I think Apple has picked the low hanging fruit. This kind of performance increase is only possible in multicore workloads. Single core would be more like 20-30%. But maybe they can increase clock speeds with the new 5nm node.
- darkteflon 6y ago
  They’ll be working with a more forgiving thermal envelope than in iOS devices too, though.
strictnein 6y ago
> Geekbench 4 - Multi-core & single core score - iOS & Android 64-bit What does that even mean? The Intel platform is running Android?
- lostmsu 6y ago
  I assume the tests are same regardless of platform.
  - kllrnohj 6y ago
    They aren't, though. Compare windows vs. linux geekbench scores of identical hardware, they are extremely different: Linux: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/2638097 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/2638097 Windows: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/2635048 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/2635048 Geekbench is a terrible benchmark.

dannyw 6y ago

Apple is the most valuable public company in the world. They have been making their own SoCs for the iPhone for over a decade. Their internal-consumption focus along with the bankroll of the world's most valuable corporation means that they can make the best chips. Intel's market cap is just 1/8th of Apple. Intel chips have basically stagnated for about 5 years and they abused their monopoly and market leader positioning by offering marginal improvements each year in order to protect margins, as well as fab shrink problems that insiders describe as coming from culture not dissimilar to Boeing; just with less lives at stake. In the meantime, competitor foundries have caught up, and exceed Intel's ability to ship in volume. ARM obviously is eyeing the desktop, but more critically server market so the latest ARM IP is geared towards higher performance computing, quite well I may say. State of the art fab + state of the art processor IP = state of the art processor. Not a huge surprise :)

carlmr 6y ago
>fab shrink problems that insiders describe as coming from culture not dissimilar to Boeing; just with less lives at stake. Since normal processors calculate a lot of important things, I'm wondering if there really are fewer lives at stake. Of course it would be more indirect, but I could imagine that there are many areas where lives are tied to PCs doing the right thing. E.g. what if a processor bug leads to security issues in hospital infrastructure.
- egil 6y ago
  Like Meltdown and Spectre?
jayd16 6y ago
Why should we expect anything significantly different than a year iteration on what they already use in the iPad Pro?
- duskwuff 6y ago
  A laptop (or desktop!) computer has a significantly higher energy budget than the iPad. The SoC Apple uses in those devices could conceivably be clocked higher and/or have more cores than the A12 parts they're currently using in the iPad Pro.

ipsum2 6y ago

The Macbooks will have a CPU that's comparable or better than the iPad Pro. The iPad Pro already beats the Macbook Pro in some well-known benchmarks, such as Geekbench. https://www.macrumors.com/2020/05/12/ipad-pro-vs-macbook-air-vs-macbook-pro/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/05/12/ipad-pro-vs-macbook-air...

xxs 6y ago
geekbench is a horrid benchmark.The amount of info on how they run the tests is extremely limited (mostly what lib they opted to use). The tests are very short, no power or thermally limited. I'd try and link to their methodology[0]: for instance: Integer WorkloadsLZMA CompressionLZMA (Lempel-Ziv-Markov chain algorithm) is a lossless compression algorithm. The algorithm uses a dictionary compression scheme (the dictionary size is variable and can be as large as 4GB). LZMA features a high compression ratio (higher than bzip2).The LZMA workload compresses and decompresses a 450KB HTML ebook using the LZMA compression algorithm. The workload uses the LZMA SDK for the implementation of the core LZMA algorithm. They compress just 450KB of text as a benchmark - even the dict size is greater then the input. If both fits the CPU caches - the results are supreme, if not - horrible compared to the former. Also it'd vastly depend how fast the CPU can switch to full turbo mode (for servers that doesn't matter at all) [0]: https://www.geekbench.com/doc/geekbench4-cpu-workloads.pdf https://www.geekbench.com/doc/geekbench4-cpu-workloads.pdf
- Veedrac 6y ago
  FWIW you've linked Geekbench 4; Geekbench 5 is https://www.geekbench.com/doc/geekbench5-cpu-workloads.pdf https://www.geekbench.com/doc/geekbench5-cpu-workloads.pdf I agree these benchmarks have issues, but there's a consistent trend (eg. AnandTech's SPEC results are similar—they use active cooling to avoid the question about thermals) and the most reliable benchmarks, like compilers, aren't outliers.
  - xxs 6y ago
    True that, they did increase the book size and yet it's till below the dict size: compresses and decompresses a 2399KB HTML ebook using the LZMA compression algorithm with a dictionary size of 2048KB. Doing the test below 4MB of L3 would hurt, doing with with less than 2MB would decimate the test.

harpratap 6y ago

The article doesn't really mention outperform in what aspect. The sentence following that claim mentions "50% more efficient" which seems likely because ARM chips usually use <10W power while Intel U series chips use 15-25W

treekogreen 6y ago

I'll have to dig around and find relevant phoronix benchmarks later for you. But I think it's somewhat of a hive-mind assumption that Intel has generally higher performance all round. A majority of benchmarks show that Intel is generally better in single threaded benchmarks whereas ARM CPU's are better in multicore, multi-threaded applications with a lower TDP and leagues better efficiency. Heck the Surface Pro X that Microsoft brought out has performance on par with an Intel i5 with at least 1.5x the battery life of its Intel counterpart and without needing an internal fan whatsoever. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Apple will make the switch to ARM for all but their highest spec MacBook pro's.

jeroenhd 6y ago
I will immediately believe them when you interpreted "outperforming" as "better performance per watt". However, I can also see their chips outperforming Intel in sustained workloads. Apple has a history of crippling Intel performance by allowing the CPU to only run at full speed for a short while, quickly letting it ramp up the temperature before clocking down aggressively. Some of that is likely because of their power delivery system, some of it is because they choose to limit their cooling capacity to make their laptops make less noise or with fewer "unattractive" airholes. Either way, put the same chip in a Macbook and in a Windows laptop and the Windows laptop will run hotter but with better performance. However, with a more efficient chip, Apple could allow their CPU to run at a higher frequency than Intel for longer, benefiting sustained workloads despite the IPC and frequency being lower on paper. This is especially important for devices like the Macbook Air, where they didn't even bother to connect a heatpipe to the CPU and aggressively limit the performance of their Intel chip. I'd even consider the conspiracy theory that Apple has been limiting their mobile CPU performance for the last few years to allow for a smoother transition to ARM. If they can outperform their current lineup even slightly, they can claim to have beaten Intel and then make their cooling solution more efficient again.
- dijit 6y ago
  Everything you said is echoed in this LTT video from yesterday[0]. It does appear to be a very poor thermal design, but you can see that most of the issues appear to be from trying to make the user not feel the heat. It feels a bit icky to leave performance on the table like that; since you paid for a CPU and are getting a marginal performance from it. But I remember Jobs giving a talk before about how "Computers are tools, and people don't care if their tools give them all it can, they care if they can get their work done with them well" That's not a defense of a shitty cooling solution, but it is a defence of why they power limit the chips. When I got my first (and only) Macbook in 2011, it had more than twice the real battery life of any machine on the market. That meant that I was _actually_ untethered. That's what I cared about at the time much more than how much CPU I was getting. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlOPPuNv4Ec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlOPPuNv4Ec

mtgx 6y ago

For one, because we had evidence of this for a few years now - that Apple's Arm chips can beat Intel's chips. It was mostly ignored because "but that's just peak performance - not sustainable in a phone/tablet envelope." Yeah, until they put the same chip, or better in a laptop envelope. Then what for Intel? This was from 2016. People being surprised by this haven't been paying attention to where this was going: https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-head-to-head-against-intels-core-m-in-arm-x86-grudge-match https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-he... Also, I said it many times before, Intel trying to be as misleading as possible with the performance of its chips, such as renaming Intel Atom chips to "Intel Celeron/Pentium" and renaming the much weaker Core-M/Y-Series (the same chips used in Macbook Air for the past few years) as "Core i5" is going to bite them hard in the ass, when Apple's chips are going to show that they can beat "Intel Core i5". But Intel kept making this worse with each generation. https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/intel-renames-core-m-core-i https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/intel-renames-core-m-core...

lucasverra 6y ago

sooo. should i NOT invest in a 2K MBP 16 in to do mostly heavy multiple web apps ?

leadingthenet 6y ago
That's one use-case where they absolutely shine, in my experience.
neurostimulant 6y ago
I'd say just buy them if you need it now. Web developers sometimes need to use docker and VMs for various development tasks and testing. Sure you can run docker in arm, but not all docker images has arm version available. Running Linux and windows vm will probably a challenge as well, at least until we know how well x86 simulator run in the new arm laptop.

leeter 6y ago

Real world? AFAIK no not yet. The issue is that traditional benchmarks don't really tell the whole story. IPC isn't directly comparable because ARM is ostensibly RISC (this is debatable I'm aware) and Intel is CISC (also debatable). So until things like Adobe Premiere or Media Encoder are ported over (if they are), or similar real world workloads like Blender, it's going to be really hard to compare. Even then things like design power matter. A 15w Intel chip is likely to outperform a 5w ARM chip just because it has more headroom thermally. It doesn't mean that either is faster (IPC per watt goes up the more you downclock for a variety of reasons). If this sounds like I'm saying it's apples (no pun intended) to oranges... that's pretty much the case. Apple is likey not going to produce an ARM chip in directly comparable fashion to an Intel chip. E.g. equal cache, memory bandwidth, TDP (using Intel calc method), PCI-e lanes etc. Mostly because it doesn't make sense to do so because Intel's chips are designed to be a component of the system while ARM chips are largely designed to be an SOC.

hajile 6y ago

They need to prove they can do a few things before I'm worried. * They need to ramp the clockspeeds -- much easier to say than do. * They need to include 256 or 512-bit SIMD operations without breaking the power budget. * They need to design a consistent and fast RAM controller (and likely need to add extra channels) * They need to integrate power-hungry USB4/thunderbolt into their system. * They need to add a dozen extra PCIe 3 or 4 lanes without ballooning the power consumption. * They need an interconnect (like QuickPath or HyperTransport/Infinity Fabric) so all these things can communicate. These are the hard issues that Intel, AMD, IBM, etc all must deal with and form a much bigger piece of the puzzle than the CPU cores themselves when dealing with high-performance systems.