3 ms·

This would explain part of why Apple hasn't been pushing M2 for the data center. Its chips are a better fit for bursty human workloads, not server workloads.

rowanG077 3y ago
Apple doesn't see value in going after the server market.
- XorNot 3y ago
  The consumer might replace their laptop once a year, at a fast cadence, but they don't wake up one day and say "I actually need 3 laptops". Whereas datacenters are now being built constantly, and any future projection would estimate that we're going to keep building more - and if you were unsure before, then the sudden popularity of training AIs and their massive demand for compute should've convinced you. Apple aren't going to leave money on the table (otherwise they'd still be shipping iPhones with chargers and including dongles with laptops): if they're not targeting server markets, it's because their internal modelling is telling them that what they've got is probably at best a peer-capability, rather then some type of vast excession (or would be wiped out easily by another gen of server grade chip releases).
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Apple already failed twice on the server market, A/UX and Xserve, and decided it wasn't for them. They would have to offer a top option with macOS to make it relevant, as they certainly aren't going to be offering their hardware to run GNU/Linux on top of it. It happened once, with MkLinux, and that is also something that management won't be keen in repeating.
KerrAvon 3y ago
Apple Silicon chips aren’t for sale outside Apple, and Apple hasn’t made any products relevant to data centers since they terminated the Xserve line as part of the PowerPC -> Intel transition.
- dehrmann 3y ago
  They have a CPU that's been labeled some version of fastest or most efficient, they're hungry for more revenue, but somehow have no interest in the data center market? There must be a reason.
  - dan-robertson 3y ago
    Data centres care about different things in CPUs. You also don’t see consumer intel CPUs (e.g. core i7, or even the high end gamer cpus / workstation xeons) in normal data centres, even though they run x86. You do see arm in data centres, cf graviton on aws, but these are cpus fds signed for data centres (lots of cores, lots of memory, etc). The big difference is that consumer cpus care less about virtualisation, high core counts, or having lots of memory, and more about single core performance and potentially not getting hot in your lap.
    - dehrmann 3y ago
      > consumer cpus care less about virtualisation, high core counts, or having lots of memory, and more about single core performance and potentially not getting hot in your lap. This goes with what I said in my original comment.
  - paulmd 3y ago
    I think this link posted above is the precise reason - there are already other ARM vendors in the server market with ballpark-similar performance, with better market placement and better business relationships. Nobody trusts Apple not to dump server again after XServe and nobody thinks they're a super great partner to work with. https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-amazon-graviton2-arm-against-intel-and-amd/5 https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-amazon-grav... Why would Amazon choose to pay more for an Apple branded product when they could make a higher margin just doing it themselves? Hyperscalers are almost definitionally at the limit where scaling works and they have the volume to amortize some basic uarch work. And it'll be optimized for their exact PPA targets to make the lowest TCO/etc. Beyond hyperscalers, why would anyone else choose Apple over Ampere, given Apple's general lack of commitment to the server market/open ecosystem/etc? What does the cost look like on this now/in the future? Consider what might happen after the relationship ends, friendly or otherwise - can you keep your business operations going in terms of procurement vs committed instances etc? What if they won't send you any more spares or won't sign some key structure for you (drivers/firmware, UEFI keys, whatever, idk)? Surely anyone involved would want to be super duper sure about this. But Apple has gotten bored and left this market before, and they're always the hot one in the relationship. They can find someone else today if they need. I just don't think there's much of a market for this that wouldn't rather buy an Ampere or build their own clone like Graviton.
foobiekr 3y ago
The chips don't have ECC and have very low maximum memory and aren't suitable for the datacenter.
pjmlp 3y ago
For what? To run GNU/Linux instead of macOS, keep wishing for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MkLinux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MkLinux If it is to have Xserve again, no one cares about it other than companies on the Apple ecosystem, not worth the trouble, they already have Xcode Cloud for that.

rowanG077 3y ago

Apple doesn't see value in going after the server market.

XorNot 3y ago
The consumer might replace their laptop once a year, at a fast cadence, but they don't wake up one day and say "I actually need 3 laptops". Whereas datacenters are now being built constantly, and any future projection would estimate that we're going to keep building more - and if you were unsure before, then the sudden popularity of training AIs and their massive demand for compute should've convinced you. Apple aren't going to leave money on the table (otherwise they'd still be shipping iPhones with chargers and including dongles with laptops): if they're not targeting server markets, it's because their internal modelling is telling them that what they've got is probably at best a peer-capability, rather then some type of vast excession (or would be wiped out easily by another gen of server grade chip releases).
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Apple already failed twice on the server market, A/UX and Xserve, and decided it wasn't for them. They would have to offer a top option with macOS to make it relevant, as they certainly aren't going to be offering their hardware to run GNU/Linux on top of it. It happened once, with MkLinux, and that is also something that management won't be keen in repeating.

KerrAvon 3y ago

Apple Silicon chips aren’t for sale outside Apple, and Apple hasn’t made any products relevant to data centers since they terminated the Xserve line as part of the PowerPC -> Intel transition.

dehrmann 3y ago
They have a CPU that's been labeled some version of fastest or most efficient, they're hungry for more revenue, but somehow have no interest in the data center market? There must be a reason.
- dan-robertson 3y ago
  Data centres care about different things in CPUs. You also don’t see consumer intel CPUs (e.g. core i7, or even the high end gamer cpus / workstation xeons) in normal data centres, even though they run x86. You do see arm in data centres, cf graviton on aws, but these are cpus fds signed for data centres (lots of cores, lots of memory, etc). The big difference is that consumer cpus care less about virtualisation, high core counts, or having lots of memory, and more about single core performance and potentially not getting hot in your lap.
  - dehrmann 3y ago
    > consumer cpus care less about virtualisation, high core counts, or having lots of memory, and more about single core performance and potentially not getting hot in your lap. This goes with what I said in my original comment.
- paulmd 3y ago
  I think this link posted above is the precise reason - there are already other ARM vendors in the server market with ballpark-similar performance, with better market placement and better business relationships. Nobody trusts Apple not to dump server again after XServe and nobody thinks they're a super great partner to work with. https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-amazon-graviton2-arm-against-intel-and-amd/5 https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-amazon-grav... Why would Amazon choose to pay more for an Apple branded product when they could make a higher margin just doing it themselves? Hyperscalers are almost definitionally at the limit where scaling works and they have the volume to amortize some basic uarch work. And it'll be optimized for their exact PPA targets to make the lowest TCO/etc. Beyond hyperscalers, why would anyone else choose Apple over Ampere, given Apple's general lack of commitment to the server market/open ecosystem/etc? What does the cost look like on this now/in the future? Consider what might happen after the relationship ends, friendly or otherwise - can you keep your business operations going in terms of procurement vs committed instances etc? What if they won't send you any more spares or won't sign some key structure for you (drivers/firmware, UEFI keys, whatever, idk)? Surely anyone involved would want to be super duper sure about this. But Apple has gotten bored and left this market before, and they're always the hot one in the relationship. They can find someone else today if they need. I just don't think there's much of a market for this that wouldn't rather buy an Ampere or build their own clone like Graviton.

foobiekr 3y ago

The chips don't have ECC and have very low maximum memory and aren't suitable for the datacenter.

pjmlp 3y ago

For what? To run GNU/Linux instead of macOS, keep wishing for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MkLinux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MkLinux If it is to have Xserve again, no one cares about it other than companies on the Apple ecosystem, not worth the trouble, they already have Xcode Cloud for that.