Discussion Apple Silicon SoC thread

[senttoschool]

Re: Pricing of the new M1 Macs:

While I don’t think Apple will hit the $599-$699 price point any time soon with Mac laptops, there is now a education specific SKU with decreased storage at 128 GB, available at $799. It’s not for the broad edu market, but is aimed at edu institutional purchases.

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/jxl3hs
View attachment 34213

It’s also available in 5-pack configurations for $779 each.

Yes, no one is buying $500-$700 PC laptops to do professional work anyway. People who buy them are students and people who use it for casual work.

A $700 Macbook with a one-generation behind ARM chip is going to dominate this market. It will still be the best laptop in that range.

I can totally see Apple making this laptop as soon as next year. Or they just drop the price of M1 Air to $700 and keep M2 Air $999.

Not going to happen.

Basically the closest you're going to get is Apple selling old stock as refurbs, and retail stores having sales later on in their product cycle and eventually putting them on clearance once new replacement models are released.



It should be noted that the refurbs usually don't come in the regular retail box and they also don't qualify for the various incentives Apple provides, like Black Friday gift cards and back-to-school free AirPods.

Pretty darn close to happening, right? @Eug

It's already $800 for Education. I stand by my prediction that Apple will release a $700 laptop in the future to the public.

128GB/M1 MBA for $700. 256GB/M2 MBA for $1000. 2021 is my best guess.

 

[Eug]

Pretty darn close to happening, right? @Eug

It's already $800 for Education. I stand by my prediction that Apple will release a $700 laptop in the future to the public.

No. It seems that you don’t understand how Apple edu pricing works.

This is institutional pricing. Such institutional pricing is less than regular edu pricing. And regular edu pricing is less than pricing for the general public.

Plus this 128 GB model isn’t even available to regular edu buyers. It could possibly show up for regular edu buyers in the future, but it will likely never be available to the general public.

 

[senttoschool]

No. It seems that you don’t understand how Apple edu pricing works.

This is institutional pricing. Such institutional pricing is less than regular edu pricing. And regular edu pricing is less than pricing for the general public.

Plus this 128 GB model isn’t even available to regular edu buyers. It could possibly show up for regular edu buyers in the future, but it will likely never be available to the general public.

Ughh, yes this is bulk ordering. But the fact that Apple can sell the M1 MBA with 128GB and 3 years AppleCare for $800 in 2020 should tell you something about their margins and their ability to produce a $700 MBA with a one-gen behind SoC in the future.

 

[lobz]

Entry level M1 MacBook Pro vs previous entry level Intel MacBook Pro similarly configured at similar price points, tested side by side (split-screen video).

Not surprisingly, the entry level Intel MacBook Pro is destroyed.

The bigger difference to me though is that the Intel MacBook Pro got all hot and bothered, and screamed in despair (through its fan), while the M1 MacBook Pro's fan never became audible even once.

One stupid but telling test he did was to launch 50 apps simultaneously. The M1 remained smooth and completely usable for multitasking, and launched those apps quickly. The Intel did reasonably well initially with the app loads, but slowed down later with Final Cut, and the machine was completely unusable during this process. All its resources were dedicated to launching those apps.

EDIT:

It is the 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro with 1.4GHz quad-core Core i5-8257U processor, Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645, and 8GB RAM.

No wonder it gets destroyed.

 

[Eug]

Ughh, yes this is bulk ordering. But the fact that Apple can sell the M1 MBA with 128GB and 3 years AppleCare for $758 should tell you something about their margins and their ability to produce a $700 MBA with a one-gen behind SoC in the future.

You keep digging yourself deeper with non-sensical arguments. Yes, Apple has great margins. However, that doesn’t mean suddenly will start selling Mac laptops at near cost pricing to the general public just to flood the market. They want to keep those margins high after all.

Apple has always sold Macs at deep discounts to institutions, but that has never translated to bargain basement pricing to the general public direct from Apple.

Your arguments aren’t supported by anything except wishful thinking.

 

[Entropyq3]

M1 improves them drastically, in nearly every way. They are obviously going to do MUCH better with this drastically improved product for the same price (or less).

This is NOT a given. They will probably do better, but MUCH better? While the new systems are more profitable for Apple, I don't think their volumes will change drastically. They already largely owned the $1000+ segment, so for their volumes to change significantly they need to lure Windows users who previously spent less for their computers to spend more and change OS. I don't see that happening in multi million per quarter numbers. Also, remember that a lot of Windows systems sold aren't sold to the end users directly, but are bought centrally by companies and administrations. That Apple made their computers a bit nicer doesn't necessarily make much of a difference to these accounts, particularly as they remain at roughly the same relatively high price points as previously.

 

[Denly]

History taught us no one/company can do it all by themselves but Apple seen to be breaking the trend and doing everything very well. Well except owning a factory/foundry.

At this rate no one(OEMs, google, MS, AMD/Intel) will be able to stay close to Apple in a short few years.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Am I the only one disappointed Apple didn't use this opportunity to shake up the form factor? I've felt like the iPad Pro and Mac lines should converge into Surface like products. The base product being a 13.3" tablet, which comes with a base (think something like the Nintendo Switch dock with the ports the MacMini would have), and then you can go with a thinner lighter keyboard cover, or a Macbook/Surface Book style base with huge battery). The higher end keyboard base could also have an integrated Pencil holder (the Surface Book mechanism seems like Microsoft should've designed it as a place to put the Surface Pen).

Which, add an iPad/iPhone dock for the Mac Mini (where it lets you use that for the display while the Mini has the more powerful, non battery and less thermally constrained processor, plus expansion ports. They could sell it in a variety of ways (one would be a simple dock, maybe with wireless or other charging built-in, and then others could be a magsafe articulating arm).

Plus if they came up with a Switch like controllers that clip onto the side, I think that'd help a lot with gaming.

 

[nxre]

History taught us no one/company can do it all by themselves but Apple seen to be breaking the trend and doing everything very well. Well except owning a factory/foundry.

I think the key part of their sucess is that they don't actually own any factory. Manufacturing specialized good such as OLED panels, semiconductors, batteries, etc, require extreme capital investment and depend highly on volume to be profitable. Its really much cheaper to let third parties R&D themselves and set up the production lines and always try to keep at least two suppliers so you can negotiate the best price. While designing a chip is expensive, it comes nowhere close the cost of having a dedicated foundry, they'd be fools to try that. Even if it evers comes to a point where TSMC is a monopoly and charges absurd quantities on their nodes, it would still be cheaper to fund competitors rather than to develop a foundry by itself. Kind of like they did with LG displays, but with ideally more sucess than that.

 

[Doug S]

Am I the only one disappointed Apple didn't use this opportunity to shake up the form factor? I've felt like the iPad Pro and Mac lines should converge into Surface like products.

Making two big changes at once increases the risk of the transition. It makes sense to use the same form factor for the initial ARM Macs, and only make changes to it after it is established. Can you imagine if they'd done the butterfly keyboard and ARM switch at the same time - the ARM Macs would be getting bad press for something that has nothing to do with the change in architecture but it would damage the transition nonetheless.

As for merging the lines, they are not going to do that. If forking iOS into iPadOS only a year ago wasn't enough for you to figure that out, I don't know what to tell you.

 

[amrnuke]

MBA at $1000 is a great value.

Yes, you can get 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD, and maybe a low-end discrete GPU on a $1000 Windows PC.

But with the MBA, you're getting:

• A higher resolution, higher quality screen
• Better touchpad (Mac touchpads are the best, period)
• Significantly faster CPU performance
• Competent GPU performance (assuming $1000 PC gets you entry-level discrete GPU)
• Significantly better battery life
• Significantly better portability
• Significantly better build quality (MBA is all all metal)
• Significantly cooler and quieter laptop
• Significantly better overall system responsiveness

Believe me, I've been trying to switch from Macbooks to Windows laptops because I absolutely despise the touchbar. I found that Macbooks were competitive with Windows laptops in terms of hardware and quality when they used Intel chips. Now Macbooks seem like a no brainer with Apple Silicon.

With Windows PCs, anytime you want a high quality, high brightness, high resolution screen that can match Macbook Retina screens, the price instantly increases to Macbook prices. This is why I haven't switched to Windows.

I've been trying to tell PC master race nerds for years that people who buy Apple products aren't idiots. Apple phones, tablets, and laptops hardware are genuinely worth the price.

The dumbest thing Apple has done to Macbooks is the touchbar, which increased the price and decreased user experience.

If you check the originating post, I said Macbook has a better screen, better touchpad, better keyboard and that because of those features I had already been considering a Macbook for couple of years. All I was saying is that some people might not see the difference of $300+ and find those things worth the added cost. This doesn't just apply to Macbooks, as you pointed out, but to all higher-end laptops that include such great features. There is nothing at all stupid about buying quality over quantity; the only question is how much quality you get for each additional dollar spent. It may be the case that the quality of the HP Envy 13 is high enough that the $300 isn't worth it. But that's obviously very person dependent.

Apple phones, tablets, and laptops are genuinely worth the price depending on your wants and needs. I think that's important to specify.

 

[Eug]

Am I the only one disappointed Apple didn't use this opportunity to shake up the form factor?

Form factor changes are expected in 2021. Rumours have pointed to both MacBook Pros and iMacs, but I might expect the MacBook Air and Mac mini to get form factor upgrades too.

The Mac Pro is expected in 2022, but I am not convinced the form factor will change in the near term.

Which, add an iPad/iPhone dock for the Mac Mini (where it lets you use that for the display while the Mini has the more powerful, non battery and less thermally constrained processor, plus expansion ports. They could sell it in a variety of ways (one would be a simple dock, maybe with wireless or other charging built-in, and then others could be a magsafe articulating arm).

An iPhone as primary display for a Mac mini is a completely ridiculous I'm-a-geek-and-I'm-doing-this-just-because-I-can type of idea.

An iPad might make more sense, but I don't see them doing this any time soon. About the best we can expect is an iPad as an secondary display, via Sidecar.

Plus if they came up with a Switch like controllers that clip onto the side, I think that'd help a lot with gaming.

This already exists, from third parties, for iPhones.

 

[amrnuke]

I'm not sure to follow. There may a be a tradeoff between pure performance and efficiency, and you would have a point of the M1 was less powerful than the Zen 3 core. But it's not.
And do Ryzen laptop CPUs use a different design compared to desktop? I'm not aware of that. They just use lower frequency, perhaps less cache, binning. But the core design isn't radically different, is it?

Depending on the benchmark, the Zen 3 core can be more powerful - largely they trade blows (Andrei still hasn't worked through the hmmer bug that's inflating the M1's score).

Yes, the laptop APUs absolutely use a different design. Look up Renoir die shot vs Matisse die shot. They don't just use lower frequency. However the core is grossly the same. That being said, packaging can make a big difference in power consumption. Putting IO components on 7nm monolithic APU rather than using a separate 12nm or 14nm IOD saves power and can provide performance gains. Ask Apple how much it helps having all components on the most advanced and power efficient node!

Zen 3 laptop CPUs should be 20-30% more efficient than their predecessors, just like their desktop brethren. This won't be enough to match the M1.

Also, the M1 core is many times more power efficient than intel's TGL, which is a laptop part (the A14 uses 5W vs 20W for TGL to reach similar SPEC scores.)

We don't know how Zen3 core scales down. We also don't know if it will or won't be enough to match the M1, but I can say that I doubt it will be.

 

[name99]

No. It seems that you don’t understand how Apple edu pricing works.

This is institutional pricing. Such institutional pricing is less than regular edu pricing. And regular edu pricing is less than pricing for the general public.

Plus this 128 GB model isn’t even available to regular edu buyers. It could possibly show up for regular edu buyers in the future, but it will likely never be available to the general public.

That's not the real issue. The real issue is that it shows the cost structure.
One can no longer argue that "Apple could never drop these things below $800 because the BOM exceeds that".
What sent and I are saying is that the BOM (TODAY, and certainly in a year!) allows a price of $700 with profit. Whether Apple chooses to do that is a different issue, but the BOM allows it.

At this point it becomes a question of "how does Apple think?" One can trust one's own opinions on that (if one is actually well informed about Apple history), one can trust the opinions are others who are so well informed, or one can trust the opinions of those who have been incorrect in their predictions regarding Apple pretty much since the launch of the iPhone if not earlier.

 

[amrnuke]

M1 achieves its peak SC performance at 5W. 5800U Cezanne, using Zen 3 cores, peak performance will come at 4,4Ghz, which looking at Zen 3 5600X power draw, seems to be around 10-11W. How will exactly AMD overcome this deficit, realistically? And, most importantly, why would they? Laptops are not close to being a big market to them.

We do not know how Cezanne will play out. Where are you pulling these numbers from?

Zen2 desktop single-core loading was 16-23W, while the 4500U's entire TDP is 15W.

 

[name99]

You keep digging yourself deeper with non-sensical arguments. Yes, Apple has great margins. However, that doesn’t mean suddenly will start selling Mac laptops at near cost pricing to the general public just to flood the market. They want to keep those margins high after all.

Apple has always sold Macs at deep discounts to institutions, but that has never translated to bargain basement pricing to the general public direct from Apple.

Your arguments aren’t supported by anything except wishful thinking.

What is your counter argument? I agree (for multiple reasons) that a public low-price model NEXT YEAR is unlikely; but sent and I are not insisting on next year, we are saying this will be the pattern "soon" (say before 2025).

The argument is that Apple has done this for every other product category. Sure, you want to saturate the market of people who can pay for the high end, but once that market is saturated, then there is still value in selling at cheaper prices/lower margin because
- more users generally improves the ecosystem (more developers)
- those users will in time start to buy other Apple products, and will try to buy the nicer versions when they can afford to do so.

For this to work (economically) optimally
- the cheap product has to be delayed until everyone who can afford to buy at the higher end has done so (saturation)
- the cheap product has to be at least perceived as inferior to the more expensive version. It doesn't have to bad (it isn't for any of Apple's products) it's just not as nice. It's a little slower, camera not so good, you know the deal, but still better than pretty much anything the competition makes.

If we assume these principles hold going forward then, yes, of course the cheap MacBook will not appear this year (and almost certainly not next year). Maybe in 2022 but that seems a stretch to me. The earliest timeline I'd put at something like 50/50 odds is maybe in 2023 when the new MBAs are announced, there's a parallel announcement that maybe the 2022 model is still available at a cheaper rate, or there's a new MacBook SE (or whatever) model alongside the Air.

Laptops turn over slower than phones or watches. That argues for a longer delay (time to reach saturation). On the other hand, these new laptops are SO MUCH better that we might see a jolt in purchases corresponding to a set of one time rapid purchases (shorter time to saturation). My guess is Apple haven't yet absolutely decided on when the year will be for the introduction of the cheaper model, just the outlines of the strategy (and perhaps initial design work on what an SE model might look like); and the sales figures over the next year will to some extent drive their decision.

 

[senttoschool]

You keep digging yourself deeper with non-sensical arguments. Yes, Apple has great margins. However, that doesn’t mean suddenly will start selling Mac laptops at near cost pricing to the general public just to flood the market. They want to keep those margins high after all.

Apple has always sold Macs at deep discounts to institutions, but that has never translated to bargain basement pricing to the general public direct from Apple.

Your arguments aren’t supported by anything except wishful thinking.

Again, you're still operating with the 2000/2010 mindset. Everything I said is logical.

This is a subscription economy. Apple wants market share and more Apple devices per customer so they can sell subscriptions. Listen to an Apple earnings call, ffs. I'm an Apple shareholder. They've stated numerous times that they're focusing on becoming much more of a service-oriented company. You can't become a service-oriented company if the cost of your hardware is prohibitive.

No one thought Apple could possibly sell a $400 iPhone in 2020, and yet the iPhone SE is there. A $100 Homepod? Apple would never do such a thing. The original iPad would be $600 adjusted to the 2020 inflation level but here we are with a $330 iPad using an A14 chip.

There is a common theme. Apple devices keep getting cheaper. Intel prevented Macs from getting cheaper because there's always a floor to pricing with Intel chips and the experience of Intel chips is poor at a low price level. Apple Silicon fixes this problem.

 

[name99]

Am I the only one disappointed Apple didn't use this opportunity to shake up the form factor? I've felt like the iPad Pro and Mac lines should converge into Surface like products. The base product being a 13.3" tablet, which comes with a base (think something like the Nintendo Switch dock with the ports the MacMini would have), and then you can go with a thinner lighter keyboard cover, or a Macbook/Surface Book style base with huge battery). The higher end keyboard base could also have an integrated Pencil holder (the Surface Book mechanism seems like Microsoft should've designed it as a place to put the Surface Pen).

Which, add an iPad/iPhone dock for the Mac Mini (where it lets you use that for the display while the Mini has the more powerful, non battery and less thermally constrained processor, plus expansion ports. They could sell it in a variety of ways (one would be a simple dock, maybe with wireless or other charging built-in, and then others could be a magsafe articulating arm).

Plus if they came up with a Switch like controllers that clip onto the side, I think that'd help a lot with gaming.

Apple have retained the cases of devices across every major transition for the past 20 years or so. Not just PPC to Intel, but also things like the A7 (64-bit) iPhone transition. Doing this is not a random choice, it's done for good, deep reasons.

I've discussed the tech side of this elsewhere (basically when the guts are changed
- do one thing at a time, first get the invisible stuff, the SW and electronics right; THEN play around with new features and designs
- you won't be absolutely sure what's now possible until you have the new SW and electronics working well; and you can' t optimize the new designs and features until you know what's possible)

But even more important is the customer psychology side. I discuss that here in a sequence of tweets:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1329105328684769280

 

[Eug]

If we assume these principles hold going forward then, yes, of course the cheap MacBook will not appear this year (and almost certainly not next year). Maybe in 2022 but that seems a stretch to me. The earliest timeline I'd put at something like 50/50 odds is maybe in 2023 when the new MBAs are announced, there's a parallel announcement that maybe the 2022 model is still available at a cheaper rate, or there's a new MacBook SE (or whatever) model alongside the Air.

I am 100% sure Apple will not have Mac laptops at regular retail pricing of $699 or less in 2022 or earlier.

If you're talking 2023 or later, I'm more hesitant to guess, although I do see them dropping prices (and I've said it was a possibility before too). However, I still very skeptical of a $699 price point. My personal guess is $899 regular retail.

Again, you're still operating with the 2000/2010 mindset. Everything I said is logical.

This is a subscription economy. Apple wants market share and more Apple devices per customer so they can sell subscriptions. Listen to an Apple earnings call, ffs. I'm an Apple shareholder.

No one thought Apple could possibly sell a $400 iPhone in 2020, and yet the iPhone SE is there.

Um. This was predicted for years, although I personally had predicted $449 in 2020.

A $100 Homepod? Apple would never do such a thing.

I don't follow Homepods so I won't comment.

A $330 iPad with an A14 chip? Never. The original iPad would be $600 adjusted to the 2020 inflation level.

Uh, what? First of all it's A12, not A14, and second of all, just about everyone predicted an A12 iPad for $329 in 2020.

Well, OK, not everyone. Some predicted A11, but that didn't make much sense to me, since A11 is basically an orphaned product. And some predicted A12 iPad at $330 in 2021 instead of 2020, but A12 in the iPad was a foregone conclusion.

I bought an A10 iPad in 2019 but I was in fact very reluctant to do so, because I was sure an A12 version was coming sooner than later. But I bought the A10 iPad because it was for a gift, and I got a big discount off it. Basically I got the LTE version brand new from my carrier for the price of a WiFi version, so that was a good incentive to buy instead of waiting. The other two incentives to buy were the fact that it got the 3 GB RAM I considered a prerequisite, and because it supported the Smart Keyboard, which I could get cheap on Amazon too.

 

[senttoschool]

I am 100% sure Apple will not have Mac laptops at regular retail pricing of $699 or less in 2022 or earlier.

$699, $750, $799. One of these. I just said $700 because it's catchy. Anything from $700-$800 is what I consider as an extractive price to most would-be Windows laptop buyers.

The problem with the $699 price point is it becomes much harder to create hardware that is actually good that can still generate a good profit.

Meh. Again, Apple sells the M1 MBA for $800 w/ 3 years Apple care to edu institutions now. You don't think they can do something for the public in the next 2 years?

This was predicted for years, although I personally had predicted $449 in 2020.

Yea, and I'm one of the first to predict a $700 Apple Silicon Macbook. More people will make this "prediction" soon.

I don't follow Homepods so I won't comment.

Don't need to. It's a $100 Homepod.

Uh, what? First of all it's A12, not A14, and second of all, just about everyone predicted an A12 iPad for $329 in 2020.

You're right here, I was wrong. I was looking at the Air specs which has the A14. But the point stands. We a $330 iPad using an older SoC when the original iPad was $600 adjusted for inflation. Sound familiar? Expect the same strategy for Macs.

 

[nxre]

Zen2 desktop single-core loading was 16-23W, while the 4500U's entire TDP is 15W.

TDP ≠ Power Draw, we've gone over this discussion numerous times.

 

[Eug]

$699, $750, $799. One of these. I just said $700 because it's catchy. Anything from $700-$800 is what I consider as an extractive price to most would-be Windows laptop buyers.

I will go on record again to say I expect we may get an $899 MacBook Air eventually, and we won't get a $699 MacBook Air in the next few years.

I also think $799 is a remote possibility, but that's a whopping 14% more than your original $700 statement. That's quite the revised goalpost there if now all of a sudden you're saying you actually mean $800.

Don't need to. It's a $100 Homepod.

My point was I don't know if people were guessing $100 Homepods or now because I don't follow them.

But people guessing $399 SEs in 2020? Check.
People guessing $329 A12 in 2020? Check.

 

[Mopetar]

I'm always cautious when benchmarks involve exporting to H.264 and H.625, as the results heavily depend on the dedicated encoding hardware, which the Mac Pro may not have (at least, it doesn't have quick sync). Sure, in the end the M1 can be faster than the Mac Pro, but this doesn't necessarily reflect the performance of the M1 CPU cores.

I use my current MBP to do a lot of video work, so honestly the encoding performance is really important for what I'm using it for and the casual web use and other stuff it gets used for isn't nearly as taxing, so I could see myself upgrading once they release one with a larger screen. It'll probably cost a lot less than the old one as well which makes it an easier pill to swallow.

 

[senttoschool]

I will go on record to say I expect an $899 MacBook Air eventually, and we won't get a $699 MacBook Air in the next few years.

I think $799 is a remote possibility, but that's a whopping 14% more than your original $700 statement. That's quite the revised goalpost there.

Nah. A $899 MBA doesn't do it. It barely makes a difference. No one will bat an eye. It's like if Apple priced the iPhone SE $100 cheaper than the iPhone 12 Mini ($700). No one will care about the SE if it's priced at $600.

Now a $700 or $750 MBA? That's something.

 

[Denly]

I think the key part of their sucess is that they don't actually own any factory. Manufacturing specialized good such as OLED panels, semiconductors, batteries, etc, require extreme capital investment and depend highly on volume to be profitable. Its really much cheaper to let third parties R&D themselves and set up the production lines and always try to keep at least two suppliers so you can negotiate the best price. While designing a chip is expensive, it comes nowhere close the cost of having a dedicated foundry, they'd be fools to try that. Even if it evers comes to a point where TSMC is a monopoly and charges absurd quantities on their nodes, it would still be cheaper to fund competitors rather than to develop a foundry by itself. Kind of like they did with LG displays, but with ideally more sucess than that.

I think the key part of their sucess is that they don't actually own any factory. Manufacturing specialized good such as OLED panels, semiconductors, batteries, etc, require extreme capital investment and depend highly on volume to be profitable. Its really much cheaper to let third parties R&D themselves and set up the production lines and always try to keep at least two suppliers so you can negotiate the best price. While designing a chip is expensive, it comes nowhere close the cost of having a dedicated foundry, they'd be fools to try that. Even if it evers comes to a point where TSMC is a monopoly and charges absurd quantities on their nodes, it would still be cheaper to fund competitors rather than to develop a foundry by itself. Kind of like they did with LG displays, but with ideally more sucess than that.

I meant no Tech company in the last 20yrs - except maybe Samsung not sure if that count as Samsung do lot more than just tech - managed to do SW/HW design/silicon/ under one roof and not f it up. I can think of company did 2 things well but not all 3, and I am just using the general term like HW/SW.