Discussion Apple Silicon SoC thread

[Roland00Address]

Apple hasn't historically launched products at their developer conference, have they?

Short Answer: Nope they haven't. Longer answer chronicling all the stuff in the last two decades, as you can see it is less than a coin flip, almost 1 in 3 events.

It was more true in the past when Apple was using Intel and when Intel had new chips every years it was common to announce stuff at WWDC. It has not been true for years, but people are nostalgic. Past WWDC announcements of hardware

2003: Power Mac G5
2006: Mac Pro
2008: iPhone 3G
2009: iPhone 3GS
2010: iPhone 4
2012: MacBook Pro with Retina
2013: TrashCan MacPro
2017: HomePod
2017: 27" iMac Pro
2019: The New Cheesegrater Mac Pro which uses Intel Xeon

So in the 19 years, we got 10 new device announcements. But when you look at what they were, they were 3 Phones, but also Switching the G5 to Intel instead of PowerPC, and adding better cooling to the 27" and putting Xeons / Decent GPUs into an All in One. Thus only really 6 new devices in 19 years (G5, iPhone, Macbook Pro with Retina though there were Aluminum Macbooks Pros before, TrashCan, HomePod, and 2019 Intel Cheesegrater Mac Pro.) So by my count there were 6 new hardware announcements that were prominent. This paragraph is new form factors / some key new feature, lets now switch to spec bumps below.

Also announced at WWDC has been past spec bumps with the 3rd Generation Macbook (with one port) in 2017, 3rd Gen 2007 Macbook Pro, 3rd Generation 2009 Macbook Pro, 7th Generation 2012 Macbook Pro, 1st Gen Macbook Pro Retina (mentioned earlier), 2nd Generation Touchbar Macbook Pros. And that is all I can remember with laptops with a quick glance at Wikipedia and a few articles. But as you can see from the list Apple just did this paragraph as spec bumps when new intel silicon was available, 75% of the time Intel releases silicon in the 3 other quarters of the 4 quarter year and thus Apple does events or press releases for such spec bumps.

 

[Doug S]

It looks like when they did announce Macs at WWDC it was always "pro" level Macs like developers would probably buy, not consumer stuff like a Macbook Air or Mac Mini that would presumably be the first out of the gate with M2 (though maybe they won't follow the same pattern with M2 releases they did with M1)

Weren't there rumors Apple was going to introduce a faster x86 Mac Pro at some point this year to tide people over until they had the Apple Silicon Mac Pro ready next year? I think it would make sense to have one last x86 version of it simply due to the risk averse nature of some of its customer base.

So if I was going to bet on a Mac being announced, I'd bet on that.

 

[ashFTW]

Weren't there rumors Apple was going to introduce a faster x86 Mac Pro at some point this year to tide people over until they had the Apple Silicon Mac Pro ready next year? I think it would make sense to have one last x86 version of it simply due to the risk averse nature of some of its customer base.

If they do, I would want new Mac Pro with the rumored 56 core Sapphire Rapids Xeon W-3400, not the last year’s 38 core IceLake Xeon W-3300. But that will also set the bar quite high for  Si Mac Pro to surpass; beating 56 core SPR won’t be easy!

Edit: Don’t get me wrong, 28 -> 38 core is a meaningful update, but it’s time has come and gone. If Apple wanted to do that, they should have done it end of last year or early this year.

 

[Eug]

WWDC is a conference for developers. The WWDC keynote is for the general public, streamed to everyone, anywhere in the world. They discuss everything at the keynote including pro Macs, consumer Macs, HomePods, Apple Music, etc. If there is new hardware to announce, they announce it. If there isn’t, they don’t. Both my MacBook (non-Pro) and my iMac (non-Pro) were announced at WWDC.

Apple isn’t foolish enough to arbitrarily limit the WWDC keynote to only hardcore developer topics, as it would be a dumb waste of a major Apple event streamed worldwide, one of just a few per year.

Is the M2 (or refreshed M1) MacBook Air going to be announced at the WWDC keynote? I dunno. Rumour mill notwithstanding, I personally had previously guessed it could be later in the year for various reasons. However, that the venue was the WWDC keynote was not one of those reasons.

As for the Intel Mac Pro, Apple doesn’t have to release another one to continue supporting legacy Intel pro customers. All they have to do is continue selling the current model. However, I’m not convinced Apple will do even that for an extended period of time. I expect the Intel Mac Pro may be discontinued when or not long after the Apple Silicon Mac Pro is released. So by 2023, the Intel Mac Pro may be dead and buried. BTW, the used resale market for high end Intel Mac Pros is almost non-existent now. Nobody wants them, so they generally either sit unsold or get sold for bargain basement prices.

 

[gdansk]

I doubt it. There were a bunch of rumors about new MacBooks last year around this time but they announced them in fall as usual.

I expect the same for MBA with a new, but not as new as we hoped, chip.

 

[jpiniero]

Weren't there rumors Apple was going to introduce a faster x86 Mac Pro at some point this year to tide people over until they had the Apple Silicon Mac Pro ready next year? I think it would make sense to have one last x86 version of it simply due to the risk averse nature of some of its customer base.

Given that nobody else seems to be offering Icelake-W workstations, I have to doubt Apple is able to get chips either.

 

[repoman27]

Given that nobody else seems to be offering Icelake-W workstations, I have to doubt Apple is able to get chips either.

The boutique builders (Bizon, Boxx, Puget Systems) seem to be able to get them, but not the big OEMs (Dell, HP, Lenovo). So it looks like Intel can't hit the volumes the larger OEMs would need without cutting into their allocation of higher margin server parts. Apple's requirements for the Mac Pro probably fall somewhere in between the two.

System Plus has completed their reports on the M1 Pro and M1 Max and made a couple photos available:

 

[ashFTW]

I think it's not Icelake-W's availability, but the fact that it was not a very compelling product. So the big OEMs decided to wait for the next generation and/or work with AMD.

Edit: It also didn’t help that Whitley platform was a dead end. At least the next platform Eagle Stream, will support two Xeon releases — Sapphire Rapids and Emerald Rapids.

 

[Doug S]

Given that nobody else seems to be offering Icelake-W workstations, I have to doubt Apple is able to get chips either.

I didn't know no one else had them yet. Before they announced their switch Apple getting first access to something new wasn't unusual. No way Intel does that for them now.

 

[ashFTW]

So excited for the WWDC keynote tomorrow!!

BHPhoto seems to have jumped the gun and created public placeholders for “M2 Mac Mini” and “Mac Mini Tower with M1P” products on their website.

9to5Mac BHPhoto WWDC leak

M2 Mac Mini coming soon

Mac Mini Tower coming soon

 

[Eug]

So excited for the WWDC keynote tomorrow!!

BHPhoto seems to have jumped the gun and created public placeholders for “M2 Mac Mini” and “Mac Mini Tower with M1P” products on their website.

9to5Mac BHPhoto WWDC leak

M2 Mac Mini coming soon

Mac Mini Tower coming soon

I'm thinking those listings at B&H are probably bull, just some overzealous employee there.

However, more interesting is the fact the Apple Store has been taken offline. Apparently the last time Apple did this before the WWDC keynote, they ended up announcing a whole bunch of Macs during the keynote.

 

[igor_kavinski]

M2 M2 M2!!!!!

 

[Doug S]

I'm thinking those listings at B&H are probably bull, just some overzealous employee there.

However, more interesting is the fact the Apple Store has been taken offline. Apparently the last time Apple did this before the WWDC keynote, they ended up announcing a whole bunch of Macs during the keynote.

View attachment 62711

They do that when they announce ANY products. It could be as big as a full line of M2 Macs or it could be as minor as a new Apple TV. Or they upgraded the screen wipe

 

[Eug]

M2 is here!

 

[guidryp]

M2 looks like a fairly small evolution. Biggest difference might be increasing memory to 24GB. I would expect the base memory is now 12GB which is better for entry level buyers.

 

[jpiniero]

M2 is here!

They didn't increase the core count and only an 18% improvement. Which is a little disappointing given that it's been 18 months.

 

[Doug S]

With M2 on 5nm and a rather small MT boost, it might be using A15 cores instead of A16. If so that would be kind of a bummer.

 

[LightningZ71]

Still on the same base node, just a round of slight tweaks and refinements, so, any expectations of big gains are excessive. They evolved the current design and will likely spread it up the stack. Given what we've heard about TSMC N3 being delayed, this was likey the "fall back" solution and next year's "M3" will likely represent what they wanted to do. This is just my guess.

 

[Roland00Address]

They didn't increase the core count and only an 18% improvement. Which is a little disappointing given that it's been 18 months.

I am not watching live, did they announce which foundry process are they using? If its the same foundry process as the M1 there will only be limited performances enhancements unless one makes the chip huge. And even if they make the chip huge it will not be the CPU increasing in performance but instead the GPU, Neural Engine, etc.

 

[jpiniero]

I am not watching live, did they announce which foundry process are they using?

Sounds like N4. Apple called it "Second Generation 5 nm process technology".

 

[Saylick]

I am not watching live, did they announce which foundry process are they using? If its the same foundry process as the M1 there will only be limited performances enhancements unless one makes the chip huge. And even if they make the chip huge it will not be the CPU increasing in performance but instead the GPU, Neural Engine, etc.

They called it "2nd gen 5nm", so likely TSMC N4.

 

[guidryp]

I am not watching live, did they announce which foundry process are they using? If its the same foundry process as the M1 there will only be limited performances enhancements unless one makes the chip huge. And even if they make the chip huge it will not be the CPU increasing in performance but instead the GPU, Neural Engine, etc.

"2nd-generation 5nm technology"

 

[uzzi38]

Sounds like N4

They called it "2nd gen 5nm", so likely TSMC N4.

More likely N5P if they're using Avalanche cores both of you

 

[gdansk]

Performance is small increase.
But I am surprised they announced the laptops and that the base model is still 8GB

 

[jpiniero]

Performance is small increase.
But I am surprised they announced the laptops and that the base model is still 8GB

And it has a notch now.