Discussion Apple Silicon SoC thread

[Eug]

M1
5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LP-DDR4
16 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 12 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache
(Apple claims the 4 high-effiency cores alone perform like a dual-core Intel MacBook Air)

8-core iGPU (but there is a 7-core variant, likely with one inactive core)
128 execution units
Up to 24576 concurrent threads
2.6 Teraflops
82 Gigatexels/s
41 gigapixels/s

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Products:
$999 ($899 edu) 13" MacBook Air (fanless) - 18 hour video playback battery life
$699 Mac mini (with fan)
$1299 ($1199 edu) 13" MacBook Pro (with fan) - 20 hour video playback battery life

Memory options 8 GB and 16 GB. No 32 GB option (unless you go Intel).

It should be noted that the M1 chip in these three Macs is the same (aside from GPU core number). Basically, Apple is taking the same approach which these chips as they do the iPhones and iPads. Just one SKU (excluding the X variants), which is the same across all iDevices (aside from maybe slight clock speed differences occasionally).

EDIT:



M1 Pro 8-core CPU (6+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 16-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 24-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 32-core GPU

M1 Pro and M1 Max discussion here:

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M1 Ultra discussion here:

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M2 discussion here:

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Second Generation 5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LPDDR5, up to 24 GB and 100 GB/s
20 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 16 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache

10-core iGPU (but there is an 8-core variant)
3.6 Teraflops

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Hardware acceleration for 8K h.264, h.264, ProRes

M3 Family discussion here:

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[soresu]

That is pretty much the definition of Early adopter pricing.

Not really.

Early adopter can mean a lot of things.

In this context I would call it a lack of available infrastructure and/or R&D interest in the industry to develop and manufacture components for such devices forcing the price up.

At this point that would be a bald faced lie to say the least - given the groundwork laid by companies like Oculus, HTC, Valve, Samsung and various others in the VR/AR field over the last decade to build hype, increase industry R&D and production infrastructure for relevant technologies.

Also you might call it a be all end all halo device - to me it does not sound that impressive vs the specs of the now months old Quest Pro to warrant such a price tag.

The only standout point to me being that the M2 SoC performance is far in excess of any SoC currently in use by a standalone headset, at this point in time at least.

Given that the SoC is already in mass production for use in products on sale for a year now already and that it is a 2nd gen design with pre existnig and largely paid for R&D given M1 sales (and Axx based product sales before that) I do not see this component as being worthy of adding massively significant extra cost.

This is AR, not VR, so this is still Early adopter times

The article I read on ExtremeTech states very much that it is an XR/MR device.

aka it can do either VR or AR.

This display shows your eyes to those around you when you're talking to them. If you're busy in a virtual space, this screen shows swirling animations to let people know you're occupied.

It even has a silly display on the front to tell people watching you in VR mode that you cannot see them.

I say silly because I don't see a display purely for the benefit of everyone but the user to be of any benefit worth adding significant extra hundreds of dollars to the price tag.

You emphasize AR, but this is not a 'true' AR device so to speak - it is a VR device that also does AR by utilising passthrough cameras to projec the outside world on the interior screens, rather than a transparent screen using either projection or a waveguide optic for the AR display.

It only displays your eyes on the front panel in AR mode to mimic the effect of a pair of glasses to an outside observer.

To me only the hefty main SoC truly warrants the higher price tag, and no more than $500-$700 beyond Quest Pro - certainly not $2,000 more, and only because unlike the front panel display it actually has a tangible benefit to the headset user.

The rest of the cost is basically just Apple tax, however you want to excuse that decision.

Citing early adopter production woes with the gamut of possible 3rd party suppliers gagging to sell their components to a high volume sales company like Apple simply does not cut it.

 

[soresu]

I don't think Meta is subsidizing their VR headsets anymore, and while I don't use my quest 2 very much these days I don't recall ever seeing a forced ad other than promoted apps in the app store. They have been playing a long game trying to build the metaverse where the theoretical revenue stream could be an apple store-style 30% cut on transactions just as easily as it could be ads, but that whole thing seems to be dying before we're forced to find out which, thankfully.

With quest you can connect it to a PC wired or wirelessly and play games on Steam without ever giving a dime to Meta. You can also sideload apps. I'd bet Vision Pro won't do either of those, in which case I'll continue to pay for HW that lets me do what I want with it.

They are playing a long game, but not the one you are thinking of.

They are still Facebook - and ads are still very much their stock and trade.

They certainly may hope to gain from the app store to the extent of Google or Apple in the future no doubt as sales improve and the marketshare increases, but ads are still their wheelhouse.

They bought Oculus to eventually turn it into a portal for VR/AR social networking.

Right now the Metaverse looks like some bad PS2 era app, but the potential is definitely there for an expansive and more immersive experience ala Ready Player One, at least visually anyway, if not haptically at the moment.

I don't believe that they would display ads right in front of your face - but certainly any in world displays, billboards, walls etc etc are rife for advertising exploitation, like decals on 3D world textures.

I once saw a guy in the city where I went to university who rented his car exterior panels to advertisers, and of course you have real world billboard posters, advertising plastered on the sides of buses and in the windows of various shops.

There are countless possible opportunities to advertise in a virtual social world in ways exactly like what we see everyday in the real world.

Technically everytime you see a brand logo/name on someones clothing you are effectively being advertised to, the great irony being that people often pay a premium to buy t-shirts etc with prominent brand logos.

 

[A///]

as an apple nut and someone who shook steve jobs's hand back in the day i would love to agree with the other guy but this isn't early adopter pricing. this is apple pricing. with apple over the quest pro which ive watched a review on you get more polish for the product. more time was put into it even if it doesn't hold the best specs. you'll get at least 5 years if not more support out of it. ammortised over 5 years it's around 700 a year, not bad if you're into it. this is not going to be a hot seller with most apple people. this is aimed at a specific niche of apple customer who will not for a second think about spending 3500 because it doesn't impede their finances.

vr and ar have their place in this world, but we mostly don't see it because companies are focused on stupid stuff. I can see this pro headset making sense for someone like me who would rather sit back on the couch feet up knocking back glasses of wine and pecking my head around to select things if that's possible without moving my hands. the ultimate laziness. apple can make some serious headway into this headset if they open it up to windows and linux too and drop the mother of all sdks allowing any company to implement the headset into their tools.

it would be remarkable if you could bring up an ar model of something your coworkers designed in a high end cadcam software and test it for useability without sending it off to be made as a 1 off that costs a lot. once you get down with the verification that things are as they should be it goes off to get made or milled. if you have to do multiple revisions then that costs a lot. if apple could open up the headset and maybe introduce touch sense gloves with it in the future you could put on a headset and gloves at work and get a feel for that product. I can think of many instances where such a combination would be great.

 

[Doug S]

It seems they are only available for a lot of money...

That's always the case, but at least with M1 Max someone posted an unannotated die photo to Twitter a few months after it came out, which included the bottom part where the I/O pads were located that Apple had cut out in the die photos it made available when it announced M1 Max.

So I was hoping someone had or will do the same with M2 Max, though since it is just a mildly improved M1 Max they probably don't see the point.

 

[Doug S]

The early adopter pricing excuse doesn't fly this far into the current VR/AR tech progression.

This is just Apple being Apple.

The same Apple that charged $1000 for a stand on the old Mac Pro Display.

The same Apple that charged a ridiculous (server HW level price) markup on PC hardware based Macs once they migrated to x86 in the 00s.

They charge that much because they know that there are some people out there who will buy it merely because it is Apple.

Obviously they will need to front a cheaper model later on to get higher sales - but that doesn't mean that the ones buying this current headset need think of themselves are early adopters at all.

The real early adopters bought the Rift, the Vive and later the Index.

After those initial hype stirrers came out the responsible parties fielded cheaper standalone headsets using inside out to reduce costs by eliminating tracking modules.

At this point any talk about early adopters on Apple's part is just insulting the consumers intelligence - like their waiting till phablets had been in the market for years and ignoring them completely, and then adopting them and acting like its the best thing since sliced bread as if Apple engineers personally invented the concept.

This is just how Apple works as a business.

Did you read what it has? Two microLED displays totaling 23 million pixels - how much do two defect-free displays the size of the nail on your little finger with ~ 4000 x 3000 resolution cost? How about 12 cameras, of a high enough quality that reportedly viewing the world through it is noticeable but only just?

Apple designed a totally new processor to handle all the incoming I/O from the twelve cameras, six microphones, etc. to supposedly minimize latency to the point where the people who get queasy with current AR/VR don't with this (I guess the jury is still out on that until we see some reviews from people who have tried previous products and felt ill)

Apple has invested a lot of money in microLED but hasn't really done much with it until now. There's a lot of room to drive down the cost via technology improvements and economies of scale, so version 2 of this should be cheaper, and version 3 cheaper yet. Apple decided to avoid compromising except where they had no choice (i.e. the battery pack) but claim to have solved the biggest problem with current solutions - that half the people who try it feel motion sickness with short exposure.

The interface sounds interesting too. People talk about the "minority report" interface for interacting with 3D space but that would be a nightmare to use in real life. Imagine having to hold your arms extended in front of you all day! Supposedly you can have your hands resting on your lap and make tiny little gestures like tapping your thumb and forefinger together to interact with the interface. You get the minority report UI without the early onset arthritis. They've clearly spent a lot of time looking at the problems with current solutions (or sci fi dream solutions) and coming up with practical approaches that will work in the real world.

I'll bet they view $1500 as the price where people will really start looking at it, assuming developers come up with some interesting apps and games.

 

[repoman27]

Well, not a particularly good die shot, but テカナリエ清水 @techanalye1 posted this recently on Twitter:

And here's Apple's PR shot from today's presentation:

 

[Heartbreaker]

but this isn't early adopter pricing. this is apple pricing.

Did you even watch the presentation? There is simply no way to build this blend of bleeding edge technologies for under $2000.

It has the best resolution, highest density OLEDs on the market, the best eye tracking, best optics, the best external cameras, best processors, and of course best industrial design with molded front glass protecting all the external sensors and cameras. Heck it even has a third OLED display facing out, so people can see your eyes.

It's the bleeding edge of every custom part, so the price is high, and it's the first design incorporating all the parts so of course the price will drop over time, that is the very definition of early adopter pricing.

The only way this isn't early adopter pricing is if it stays this high forever, and pretty much no one expects that.

 

[A///]

Did you even watch the presentation? There is simply no way to build this blend of bleeding edge technologies for under $2000.

It has the best resolution, highest density OLEDs on the market, the best eye tracking, best optics, the best external cameras, best processors, and of course best industrial design with molded front glass protecting all the external sensors and cameras. Heck it even has a third OLED display facing out, so people can see your eyes.

It's the bleeding edge of every custom part, so the price is high, and it's the first design incorporating all the parts so of course the price will drop over time, that is the very definition of early adopter pricing.

The only way this isn't early adopter pricing is if it stays this high forever, and pretty much no one expects that.

Did we watch the same presentation? I saw no specific specs mentioned by Apple, and I haven't seen a breakdown video. Whether apple sells this at cost, a loss or profit, do you think it matters? It's apple. Tim Cook could sell his feces with an apple stamp on it and there'd be fools lining up to buy it. I'd buy it if I had a reason to. Check and see how much the hololens 2 sells for and it does less than this.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Did we watch the same presentation? I saw no specific specs mentioned by Apple, and I haven't seen a breakdown video. Whether apple sells this at cost, a loss or profit, do you think it matters? It's apple. Tim Cook could sell his feces with an apple stamp on it and there'd be fools lining up to buy it. I'd buy it if I had a reason to. Check and see how much the hololens 2 sells for and it does less than this.

As for specs, they mentioned 23 million pixels from its two eye displays, make it the highest resolution headset displays, they are also showed that they are full RGB per pixel OLED, not Pentile (which lowers the effective resolution).

Not sure what the rest of your point is. The price is based on the expense of having a load of bleeding edge technology.

You know what bleeding edge means: Only for the early adopters...

 

[Ajay]

where did you get server from that? by going xeon or epyc you're throwing more cores and memory at a problem. current tr is old and only the pro level supports some or all of the features as xeon ws or xeon. what's disappointing is the overall specs for what you get @ starting and kitted out. the pricing is better than the older xeons but you're getting fleeced on the raw specs @ the hi end. it's fast and great until you need more. least more pro software is heading to linux each day as an option. it would be more stable than windows.

Misunderstood your comment about EPYC CPUs, large memory etc - Sorry. Apple is a big fan of fleecing it's customers - how else does a company post such enormous profits and a market value of ~2T US!

 

[Heartbreaker]

Misunderstood your comment about EPYC CPUs, large memory etc - Sorry. Apple is a big fan of fleecing it's customers - how else does a company post such enormous profits and a market value of ~3T US!

Apples Gross Margins are about the same as AMDs, at around 43%. This is not an exorbitant margin for a company engaged in heavy R&D.

 

[Ajay]

Apples Gross Margins are about the same as AMDs, at around 43%. This is not an exorbitant margin for a company engaged in heavy R&D.

Gross margins are 43%!! That doesn't sound right.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Gross margins are 43%!! That doesn't sound right.

Apples Gross Margins have been near 40% for over a decade. It's in every financial report.

People like to pick out things like the big margins on RAM upgrades, and assume that applies to everything, but it doesn't. Apple tends to pick top quality suppliers, use top quality materials, with expensive manufacturing techniques, it all adds up to more expensive products to build.

 

[Mopetar]

Apple M2 Ultra with 24-core CPU, 76-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine
192GB unified memory
8TB SSD storage
Stainless steel frame with wheels
Magic Mouse + Magic Trackpad
Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and Numeric Keypad - US English
Final Cut Pro
Logic Pro

comes out to $12,847.98 before sales tax.

$13K for a fully kitted out Mac isn't actually that bad. I remember some years ago being able to configure a Mac Pro that cost over $40,000. Granted, it had lot more RAM in it, but a lot of the cost was the top of the line Xeon CPUs that probably came close to the individual cost of this whole computer once you adjust for inflation.

Of course if you wanted to buy a similar workstation from Dell it also cost well above $40K because Intel wasn't selling those CPUs for cheap to anyone.

Apple should have found a way to sell a system with a double SoC even if they couldn't find a way to unify it. Even if they added an extra $7k for that alone, it would be a more worthy Pro successor.

 

[trivik12]

Apple has much better silicon for their AR/VR glass compared to XR2 used in Quest 2. Quest 3 has newer SOC but still will be slower than M2 used in VP. Plus Apple is using Micro LED 4K display which is bleeding edge. I think Quest 3 will be using Mini LED.

That said price for VP means only rich and hardcore Apple fans will buy this. Already see bunch of folks who order 96GB MBP, ready to pre-order VP as well. Knowing Apple's large fanbase they will sell not so insignificant volume. But they will not build a big market at this price. Until they can figure out Micro LED display production which will not be easy, I cant see price drop in next 2 years. May be this is the norm. With Inflation 3.5K may not be crazy for some.

 

[trivik12]

There was also tons of chatter that Apple will launch M3 silicon with 15" MBA or any new Mac devices. That did not happen. So is that delayed to 2024 if VP is coming up with M2 and releasing in early 2024. Only Apple SOC on N3B will then by A17 which will probably be only used for Pro phones.

 

[soresu]

Plus Apple is using Micro LED 4K display which is bleeding edge

#1. It's microOLED, not microLED - different display technologies.

#2. They quoted 23 MP total is 11.5 MP per eye - which is roughly 3.4K x 3.4K per eye.

It's not bleeding edge though - they quote a 7.5 µm pixel pitch, but a French company was doing 4.7 µm pixel pitch microOLED in 2012, and a 2.5 µm pixel display was announced at SID 2019.

It's only bleedng edge if you don't read the tech news often enough.

 

[Heartbreaker]

#1. It's microOLED, not microLED - different display technologies.

#2. They quoted 23 MP per eye which is almost 1.5x 4K x 4K per eye.

It's not bleeding edge though - they quote a 7.5 µm pixel pitch, but a French company was doing 4.7 µm pixel pitch microOLED in 2012, and a 2.5 µm pixel display was announced at SID 2023.

It's only bleedng edge if you don't read the tech news often enough.

Who is making headsets with those 4.7 um or 2.5 um pixel OLEDs?

 

[dullard]

Who is making headsets with those 4.7 um or 2.5 um pixel OLEDs?

Plessey Semiconductors. https://plesseysemiconductors.com/microleds/active-matrix-display/

More Info: https://www.ledinside.com/news/2019/9/plessey_produces_microled_display_2_5_micron_pixel_pitch

 

[Doug S]

Well, not a particularly good die shot, but テカナリエ清水 @techanalye1 posted this recently on Twitter:

Yeah doesn't appear it has three sets, though I guess it remains to be seen how they will redo the floorplan to provide three sets of I/Os and the memory controllers as I suppose theoretically they could use a fine pitch and fit three sets along a single edge though I'm skeptical. If they used a finer pitch putting them on a corner would make for easier routing.

Maybe moving things around for that is how we get (or appear to be getting) 50% more memory controllers with M3 - they would no longer be able to be strung along two full sides like currently.

 

[soresu]

Who is making headsets with those 4.7 um or 2.5 um pixel OLEDs?

You are inadvertently making my point for me.

It's not bleeding edge technology - it's just "we are the biggest swinging eggplant" edge spend.

Others could use displays at this resolution - they just don't because most businesses are not Apple to absorb high introductory product costs like this.

It is not like Apple are a startup just out of their 2nd/3rd funding round and coming at the tech market from scratch with zero sales.

They are possibly the most successful consumer product manufacturer in the world, so the "bleeding edge" argument carries little weight, almost none at all when their existing highly profitable sales margins on numerous product lines can defray the cost of building in house production capacity necessary to make it reasonably affordable for them to manufacture.

Thus we return to Apple™ prices.

 

[Heartbreaker]

You are inadvertently making my point for me.

It's not bleeding edge technology - it's just "we are the biggest swinging eggplant" edge spend.

Others could use displays at this resolution - they just don't because most businesses are not Apple to absorb high i

Having someone say they have something in a lab is kind of meaningless, you have no idea what limitations it has.

When you are shipping the best thing out there, that is the bleeding edge making it to the real world, which is what matters.

Someone has to be first to bring this stuff to market, and it's often those with bigger bottom line and gets sold to consumers with deeper pockets initially (early adopters).

 

[soresu]

Plessey Semiconductors. https://plesseysemiconductors.com/microleds/active-matrix-display/

More Info: https://www.ledinside.com/news/2019/9/plessey_produces_microled_display_2_5_micron_pixel_pitch

Interesting - I wonder if we are well into nm pitch range by now.

That being said it seems like they would do better to work on the space between the pixels rather than just making them smaller though - I can't understand why it seems a digital micromirror display based HMD running at 720p shows less screen door than a state of the art emissive display running at over 2K x 2K.

 

[A///]

Misunderstood your comment about EPYC CPUs, large memory etc - Sorry. Apple is a big fan of fleecing it's customers - how else does a company post such enormous profits and a market value of ~2T US!

Their phone sales are higher than their computers put together if I'm not mistaken. they're one of the reasons the android handset makers raised their products while delivering a middling product.

 

[A///]

$13K for a fully kitted out Mac isn't actually that bad. I remember some years ago being able to configure a Mac Pro that cost over $40,000. Granted, it had lot more RAM in it, but a lot of the cost was the top of the line Xeon CPUs that probably came close to the individual cost of this whole computer once you adjust for inflation.

Of course if you wanted to buy a similar workstation from Dell it also cost well above $40K because Intel wasn't selling those CPUs for cheap to anyone.

Apple should have found a way to sell a system with a double SoC even if they couldn't find a way to unify it. Even if they added an extra $7k for that alone, it would be a more worthy Pro successor.

yes but it's not the integrated ram. this was due to the processor cost from intel. idk if apple sold the xeon p 28 core when it was available but if it did, they weren't getting that for cheaper than at most a grand or two off the retail cost.those came out in early 2017 but I don't remember apple updating the trash can for those processors. Dell or HP offered them in dual socket and single socket format. I don't remember the price but there's plenty of videos on youtube kicking around about it. at the time it outclassed the mac pro in raw performance.