7 ms·

Its very good to see three viable, great emerging CPU architectures. Intel is important, and them getting their CPU node up is critical. AMD has saved x86 from

Its very good to see three viable, great emerging CPU architectures. Intel is important, and them getting their CPU node up is critical. AMD has saved x86 from irrelevency and stagnation, and has been sitting on their next node while Intel caught up, but now has to release it to keep their spot on top. Apple is remaking the game with the M1 / Pro and Max variants - and we still have Jade 2c and Jade 4c coming. Competition is great.

dlp211 5y ago
Jade 2/4c are additional processors being developed by Apple for their <strike>Macbook Air line of notebooks</strike> Mac Pro line for anyone who is like me and didn't know. Edit: first thing I read was wrong, turns out that these are Mac Pro level processors, see below comments for more details. Thanks everyone for the clarification.
- InTheArena 5y ago
  No, the 2c/4c are the MacPro / iMacPro CPUs. Think big-boy versions of the Max / Pro (which are insane already). Jade C "Chop" is the Pro, Jade C Die is the Max. jade 2c is two Maxes. Jade 4c is 4 maxes. https://twitter.com/siracusa/status/1395706013286809600?lang=en https://twitter.com/siracusa/status/1395706013286809600?lang...
  - kube-system 5y ago
    That Jade 4c might be pretty sweet in an Xserve.
  - SavantIdiot 5y ago
    All this die chopping really sounds like the consequence of the Intel architects Apple hired away. Over the years lots of Intel products segmented SKUs by laying them out in a way that facilitated simple chops post wafersort.
  - kergonath 5y ago
    That is...properly exciting. Really looking forward to whatever prosumer desktop Apple will come up with. I'm even ok with an iMac at this point.
- neogodless 5y ago
  My understanding is that they are rumored, code names. But they are expected be even higher scaled iterations of Apple Silicon. In other words, while M1 had up to 4 performance (P) cores, 4 efficiency (E) cores and 8 GPU (G) cores, the M1 Pro and Max scaled up to as high as 8P, 2E and 32G. The Jade 2/4c designation is rumored to go even higher on P and G cores, which means it's much more likely to end up in a Mac Pro than the Macbook Air.
superkuh 5y ago
Saying Apple has remade the processor game is like saying the PS4 remade the gaming market. Yeah, it's true. But only for people that use consoles/macs. That kind of hardware only supports the configuration it's sold in and not full spec. If you try to do things that 99% of people won't do it won't work (ie, attempting to boot off an external drive when the internal one breaks).
- xmodem 5y ago
  I mean, the M1 gains are so great that it's making the mac relevant to entirely new market segments, so i'd say that's pretty game changing.
  - errantspark 5y ago
    I am curious how much of the M1 gains can be realized by just slapping 16 gigs of cache on your die. I know that's a gross oversimplification, and I'm 100% just going off intuition here but it seems to me that memory access efficiency is what carries the brunt of the M1's gains.
    - ericye16 5y ago
      If you slapped 16GB of cache on your die, you would have a humongous die and the most expensive processor in the world. It would be very fast though.
      - GhettoComputers 5y ago
        Is 1GB interesting enough? https://gadgettendency.com/amds-new-processors-will-have-nearly-1gb-of-cache-milan-x-will-receive-additional-cash/ https://gadgettendency.com/amds-new-processors-will-have-nea...
      - smolder 5y ago
        At some point the physical distance to parts of cache would mean you'd have rapidly diminishing returns on adding more. For 16GB it'd need to be some kind of tiered thing with nearer cache segments being quicker. Maybe you could have it present itself as a giant unified cache... sort of like what they did in the new IBM mainframes.
thesquib 5y ago
Except Apple keeps their hardware locked in the Apple ecosystem, but anyhow can buy AMD or Intel
- zamadatix 5y ago
  I wouldn't say locked in when it comes to computer hardware, bundled might be more apt.
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  Hardware ecosystem yes, but Macs continue to ship with unlockable bootloaders and I expect Asahi Linux to be extremely usable within another year.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    I'm skeptical of that claim. 5-year-old Intel Macs still have issues running Linux, and they should be easier to support than something like the M1.
    - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
      Things happen when someone wants to work on them. Running Linux on Apple Silicon machines is a lot more exciting than running Linux on a generic Intel machine with an Apple logo, so there's been a lot more development effort on the former. You can already get a usable desktop on an M1 Mac, if you really want to. The CPU is fast enough that you don't absolutely need graphics acceleration, and Wifi, USB, and display output all work. The big missing piece is the GPU, but Alyssa has a fully-custom user-space implementation for macOS that largely works.
- LASR 5y ago
  What? Anyone can buy Apple. They aren’t doing anything to stop you from running your own ARM os on it.
- arbirk 5y ago
  https://asahilinux.org https://asahilinux.org to the rescue
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

dlp211 5y ago

Jade 2/4c are additional processors being developed by Apple for their <strike>Macbook Air line of notebooks</strike> Mac Pro line for anyone who is like me and didn't know. Edit: first thing I read was wrong, turns out that these are Mac Pro level processors, see below comments for more details. Thanks everyone for the clarification.

InTheArena 5y ago
No, the 2c/4c are the MacPro / iMacPro CPUs. Think big-boy versions of the Max / Pro (which are insane already). Jade C "Chop" is the Pro, Jade C Die is the Max. jade 2c is two Maxes. Jade 4c is 4 maxes. https://twitter.com/siracusa/status/1395706013286809600?lang=en https://twitter.com/siracusa/status/1395706013286809600?lang...
- kube-system 5y ago
  That Jade 4c might be pretty sweet in an Xserve.
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
  All this die chopping really sounds like the consequence of the Intel architects Apple hired away. Over the years lots of Intel products segmented SKUs by laying them out in a way that facilitated simple chops post wafersort.
- kergonath 5y ago
  That is...properly exciting. Really looking forward to whatever prosumer desktop Apple will come up with. I'm even ok with an iMac at this point.
neogodless 5y ago
My understanding is that they are rumored, code names. But they are expected be even higher scaled iterations of Apple Silicon. In other words, while M1 had up to 4 performance (P) cores, 4 efficiency (E) cores and 8 GPU (G) cores, the M1 Pro and Max scaled up to as high as 8P, 2E and 32G. The Jade 2/4c designation is rumored to go even higher on P and G cores, which means it's much more likely to end up in a Mac Pro than the Macbook Air.

superkuh 5y ago

Saying Apple has remade the processor game is like saying the PS4 remade the gaming market. Yeah, it's true. But only for people that use consoles/macs. That kind of hardware only supports the configuration it's sold in and not full spec. If you try to do things that 99% of people won't do it won't work (ie, attempting to boot off an external drive when the internal one breaks).

xmodem 5y ago
I mean, the M1 gains are so great that it's making the mac relevant to entirely new market segments, so i'd say that's pretty game changing.
- errantspark 5y ago
  I am curious how much of the M1 gains can be realized by just slapping 16 gigs of cache on your die. I know that's a gross oversimplification, and I'm 100% just going off intuition here but it seems to me that memory access efficiency is what carries the brunt of the M1's gains.
  - ericye16 5y ago
    If you slapped 16GB of cache on your die, you would have a humongous die and the most expensive processor in the world. It would be very fast though.
    - GhettoComputers 5y ago
      Is 1GB interesting enough? https://gadgettendency.com/amds-new-processors-will-have-nearly-1gb-of-cache-milan-x-will-receive-additional-cash/ https://gadgettendency.com/amds-new-processors-will-have-nea...
    - smolder 5y ago
      At some point the physical distance to parts of cache would mean you'd have rapidly diminishing returns on adding more. For 16GB it'd need to be some kind of tiered thing with nearer cache segments being quicker. Maybe you could have it present itself as a giant unified cache... sort of like what they did in the new IBM mainframes.

thesquib 5y ago

Except Apple keeps their hardware locked in the Apple ecosystem, but anyhow can buy AMD or Intel

zamadatix 5y ago
I wouldn't say locked in when it comes to computer hardware, bundled might be more apt.
Wowfunhappy 5y ago
Hardware ecosystem yes, but Macs continue to ship with unlockable bootloaders and I expect Asahi Linux to be extremely usable within another year.
- kelnos 5y ago
  I'm skeptical of that claim. 5-year-old Intel Macs still have issues running Linux, and they should be easier to support than something like the M1.
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    Things happen when someone wants to work on them. Running Linux on Apple Silicon machines is a lot more exciting than running Linux on a generic Intel machine with an Apple logo, so there's been a lot more development effort on the former. You can already get a usable desktop on an M1 Mac, if you really want to. The CPU is fast enough that you don't absolutely need graphics acceleration, and Wifi, USB, and display output all work. The big missing piece is the GPU, but Alyssa has a fully-custom user-space implementation for macOS that largely works.
LASR 5y ago
What? Anyone can buy Apple. They aren’t doing anything to stop you from running your own ARM os on it.
arbirk 5y ago
https://asahilinux.org https://asahilinux.org to the rescue

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]