4 ms·

While this news is about "a rumor according to sources familiar with the matter" it's obvious that Apple will be doing this at some point. Whether it's the M2 o

by mikece 6y ago

While this news is about "a rumor according to sources familiar with the matter" it's obvious that Apple will be doing this at some point. Whether it's the M2 or if there will be a new letter designator (X-series silicon for eXtreme performance? Apple X1?) I am very interested to see what the performance numbers will be for an ARM-powered workstation rocking 16 to 32 high power cores. Aside from the Ampere eMAG, is a 16+ core ARM-powered workstation even a thing yet? (I don't count Amazon's Gravaton chips in this discussion because I cannot own a machine on my desktop powered by one).

mciancia 6y ago
There is something available for building workstations. Not sure what about performance though. https://www.solid-run.com/arm-servers-networking-platforms/honeycomb-workstation/ https://www.solid-run.com/arm-servers-networking-platforms/h...
hajile 6y ago
M2 seems very unlikely to me because that will create product misinformation easily. Imagine the following M1 -- 4 A14 cores M2 -- 8 A14 cores M3 -- 4 A15 cores That "third generation" sounds better, but is actually inferior to the second generation. X1 or M1x seem much more likely. It's the same reason why they made an A12x instead of calling it A13. They probably need 3 designs, but economies of scale begin to be a problem. A14 and M1 are now selling in the millions, so they get a huge benefit. More importantly, they are in devices that get replaced a bit more frequently. M1x (8-16 cores) will be in bigger iMac and laptops. They don't sell nearly as many of these. In addition, yields on the larger chip will be lower. Finally, people with these devices tend to keep their machines longer than phones, tablets, or cheaper laptops. The 16-64-core chips are a major potential headache. If they go chiplet, then no big problem (actually, the M1x as two M1 chiplets seems like a desirable direction to head). If it is monolithic, the very limited sales and production will drive prices much higher. A logical way to offset this would be bigger orders with the excess being sold to Amazon (or others) to replace their mini cloud, but that's not been mentioned publicly.
- mikece 6y ago
  I always assumed the "M" in the M1 designation meant "mobile" and that higher-powered (in terms of processing, electricity, and heat dissipation) would be coming later and have a different letter designator. Either that or we'll get Air/Pro suffixes to the chip numbers (eg: M1 Pro, M2 Air...)
  - mcintyre1994 6y ago
    M for mobile could make sense given they've just put an M1 in an iPad Pro. I assumed it was Mac before that and we'd get an M1X or something for higher end models but that seems wrong now.
    - mft_ 6y ago
      ...but they also just put it in the iMac...
      - wffurr 6y ago
        The iMac has long used laptop grade parts.
      - mcintyre1994 6y ago
        The variant of it that uses laptop parts, but fair point. Mobile does seem a stretch for iMac. Let's just call it Apple's unique naming convention :)
  - danaris 6y ago
    ...I always thought it was for "Mac". Though the fact that they've just labeled the chip in the latest iPad Pro as such does add a bit of confusion to that.
- Eric_WVGG 6y ago
  Another possibility is that they skip M1x altogether; if the Pro machines are coming in the autumn and not for WWDC, then the frame will be closer to the iPhones and it would make sense for them to use that later tech. M1 (winter 2020) — 4x A14 cores M2x (autumn 2021) — 8x A15 cores M2 (winter/spring 2022) — 4x A15 cores etc. There’s really no reason for the naming and timing of Pro machines to lag behind consumer machines just because of arcane numbering. And there’s precedent, Intel Core Duo Macs were released before Intel Core “Solo” Macs. But if they’re actually ready for WWDC, then no, it’ll just be called M1x. As for the Mac Pro… we’ll it’s definitely going to be weird. I think the existence of the Afterburner card proves that Apple sees a future in highly specialized modular add-ons providing most of the differentiation, but buyers would still want a bigger chip than in the 16” laptops, so who knows… of course nobody even knows how an M1 would perform with proper cooling and a higher clock! [edit] also making M2x ahead of M2 will give them the benefits of “binning” some chips
wmf 6y ago
Here's an ARM workstation: https://store.avantek.co.uk/ampere-altra-64bit-arm-workstation.html https://store.avantek.co.uk/ampere-altra-64bit-arm-workstati... "Unfortunately" the minimum CPU is 64-core.

by mikece 6y ago

mciancia 6y ago

There is something available for building workstations. Not sure what about performance though. https://www.solid-run.com/arm-servers-networking-platforms/honeycomb-workstation/ https://www.solid-run.com/arm-servers-networking-platforms/h...

hajile 6y ago

M2 seems very unlikely to me because that will create product misinformation easily. Imagine the following M1 -- 4 A14 cores M2 -- 8 A14 cores M3 -- 4 A15 cores That "third generation" sounds better, but is actually inferior to the second generation. X1 or M1x seem much more likely. It's the same reason why they made an A12x instead of calling it A13. They probably need 3 designs, but economies of scale begin to be a problem. A14 and M1 are now selling in the millions, so they get a huge benefit. More importantly, they are in devices that get replaced a bit more frequently. M1x (8-16 cores) will be in bigger iMac and laptops. They don't sell nearly as many of these. In addition, yields on the larger chip will be lower. Finally, people with these devices tend to keep their machines longer than phones, tablets, or cheaper laptops. The 16-64-core chips are a major potential headache. If they go chiplet, then no big problem (actually, the M1x as two M1 chiplets seems like a desirable direction to head). If it is monolithic, the very limited sales and production will drive prices much higher. A logical way to offset this would be bigger orders with the excess being sold to Amazon (or others) to replace their mini cloud, but that's not been mentioned publicly.

mikece 6y ago
I always assumed the "M" in the M1 designation meant "mobile" and that higher-powered (in terms of processing, electricity, and heat dissipation) would be coming later and have a different letter designator. Either that or we'll get Air/Pro suffixes to the chip numbers (eg: M1 Pro, M2 Air...)
- mcintyre1994 6y ago
  M for mobile could make sense given they've just put an M1 in an iPad Pro. I assumed it was Mac before that and we'd get an M1X or something for higher end models but that seems wrong now.
  - mft_ 6y ago
    ...but they also just put it in the iMac...
    - wffurr 6y ago
      The iMac has long used laptop grade parts.
    - mcintyre1994 6y ago
      The variant of it that uses laptop parts, but fair point. Mobile does seem a stretch for iMac. Let's just call it Apple's unique naming convention :)
- danaris 6y ago
  ...I always thought it was for "Mac". Though the fact that they've just labeled the chip in the latest iPad Pro as such does add a bit of confusion to that.
Eric_WVGG 6y ago
Another possibility is that they skip M1x altogether; if the Pro machines are coming in the autumn and not for WWDC, then the frame will be closer to the iPhones and it would make sense for them to use that later tech. M1 (winter 2020) — 4x A14 cores M2x (autumn 2021) — 8x A15 cores M2 (winter/spring 2022) — 4x A15 cores etc. There’s really no reason for the naming and timing of Pro machines to lag behind consumer machines just because of arcane numbering. And there’s precedent, Intel Core Duo Macs were released before Intel Core “Solo” Macs. But if they’re actually ready for WWDC, then no, it’ll just be called M1x. As for the Mac Pro… we’ll it’s definitely going to be weird. I think the existence of the Afterburner card proves that Apple sees a future in highly specialized modular add-ons providing most of the differentiation, but buyers would still want a bigger chip than in the 16” laptops, so who knows… of course nobody even knows how an M1 would perform with proper cooling and a higher clock! [edit] also making M2x ahead of M2 will give them the benefits of “binning” some chips

wmf 6y ago

Here's an ARM workstation: https://store.avantek.co.uk/ampere-altra-64bit-arm-workstation.html https://store.avantek.co.uk/ampere-altra-64bit-arm-workstati... "Unfortunately" the minimum CPU is 64-core.