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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[coercitiv]

TLDR: There are a lot of trash heaps being sold in the Windows PC market. They probably get replaced every 2 years with another steaming turd out of necessity. The people who buy such awful machines may repeat doing so 2 - 4 times before a Mac user gets a new machine.

My father is still using a Dell Latitude I probably bought over 10 years ago. My mother is using a Toshiba ultrabook bought around 5-6 years ago. I personally still own and use (admittedly as backup) an Asus laptop bought 7 years ago. I will admit $400 machines are probably junk and will have limited lifespan, but historically speaking I bought or helped buy machines in the $600-$900 territory that have held very well in time, point being quality and potential lifespan goes up drastically with PCs too when jumping from bottom of the barrel pricing to the value segment.

Last but not least, keep in mind US pricing is not indicative to global pricing when it comes to comparing Apple vs PC products. It gets worse outside the US. I remember having seriously considered buying a MacBook Pro instead of the Asus laptop 7 years ago, and gave up because the Asus was 50% cheaper, meaning I could upgrade twice as fast for the same price. Screen wasn't near the quality of the Mac, but I intended to use it with a high gamut monitor anyway.

Apple products are great, I never regretted buying an iPhone or the Macbook for my wife, but they're not the best choice in all cases. Last time I considered an upgrade on my phone I literally had to choose between 1x iPhone and 2x Samsung Galaxy S10e, so I upgraded both the phones for my and my wife, and they're behaving great: CPU is nowhere near what I could get on the iPhone, but storage, screen, camera and form factor are all excellent for our needs. If the new iPhone SE 2 was around back then it would have been a better choice, alas it wasn't. Maybe next cycle.

 

[mikegg]

Please do. I've been discussing this topic a lot in other fora. My conclusion, which is shared by many others, is that the Mac hardware will not make a sizeable difference. Even doubling the user base won't be enough to entice game studios. Apple doesn't care about AAA gaming, and AAA game studios don't care about the Mac. The latter is not going to change all by itself. And there's not evidence that Apple is changing. We've seem some games mentioned at the last Apple event, but that's nothing more than usual.

1. Apple is the largest gaming company in the world by revenue. It's bigger than Playstation and Xbox combined. Apple has proven to developers that it can make them money.

2. Apple literally couldn't attract AAA games (more on this below). But it doesn't mean they can't/won't in the relative near future.

2. Previously, the majority of Macs sold (MBA and Macbook Pro 13), couldn't play games at all with their crappy Intel iGPU. They couldn't play iOS/iPadOS games. They couldn't play any x86 games. Why should developers ever make AAA games for the Mac if only low volume Macbook Pro 16"/iMacs/Mac Pros can play them?

3. Now, M1 can play any iOS/iPadOS games. This is important because it takes developers very little effort to optimize an iOS/iPadOS game for MacOS. This will significantly increase the overall gaming market for Macs.

4. Entry level Macs, which make up the majority of Mac sales volume, now have a minimum of a 1050Ti for AAA game developers to target. This is important because every Mac sold in the future will be powerful enough to play AAA games at lower settings.

5. I boldly claimed that Apple will take 50% of total computer market share in the next 5 years. Let's just say I'm crazy and Apple only manages to take 25%, can developers really ignore 25% of the market? Especially if they're already making an iOS/iPadOS version of the game and they have a minimum of a 1050Ti to optimize for?

6. Basic math for you: Suppose that, pre-Apple Silicon, 80% of Macs sold are MBA and MBP13. Neither of them can play AAA games. Macs currently have a ~10% overall marketshare. This means if you make a AAA game for Macs, you're only increasing the market by 2%. Now imagine 100% of all Macs can play AAA games and Macs increase their marketshare to 25% in 5 years. This is a 12.5x increase in the number of users who can play your AAA games on a Mac. This might be a bigger AAA market than Windows because most PCs sold are laptops, and most laptops sold are cheap crap.

7. Apple Silicon Macs will significantly improve the ARM software ecosystem for laptop/desktop. This, in turn, will allow Windows ARM to potentially be a serious alternative to x86 Windows. As a developer, you might have to develop for ARM Windows in the future. Why wouldn't you also develop for ARM Macs, especially if Mac market share continues to increase and the minimum GPU is very powerful?

8. Every year, x86 Windows is a smaller and smaller piece of the overall pie. This isn't the 2000s where x86 Windows was the only thing in town. iOS, MacOS, Android, ChromeOS, Linux, and even Windows ARM is making x86 Windows less relevant day by day. AAA developers will continue to target where users are.

One last thing, this isn't Mac related but I should mention that you can play AAA games on a Mac today with Google Stadia.

I can go on and on. I fully expect Apple Silicon Macs to be viable as a platform for AAA games.

tldr: iOS/iPadOS games will increase the gaming market for Macs. All Apple Silicon Macs will have a 1050Ti equivalent for AAA games to optimize for. Mac market share is expected to increase which will attract developers to make games for it. Apple Silicon will make Windows ARM viable which means developers will probably have to make ARM versions of their AAA games regardless.

 

[Qwertilot]

Or, even more simply, what percentage of PC's playing steam are notably more powerful than the iGPU in an M1? Not that large, I suspect.

I'm not remotely as convinced about AAA games but there's every reason to expect fairly widespread support over time.

 

[moinmoin]

I can imagine mobile games and Apple Arcade will ensure much better games support for ARM Macs going forward than ever happened with Intel Macs. Though it will be an interesting split, with console games (aside by Nintendo) being closer to (Wintel) PCs and mobile games closer to (ARM) Macs.

 

[beginner99]

Better yet, watch this:

Since you are posting this moronic video a gazillion times, I need to comment on it.

In essence:
Of course a Porsche will look terrible if you compare it to a Smart while all you do id drive around in Manhattan.

Most of the tests don't even need the eGPU so adding it to the power use and price tax is already highly manipulative. Same for the RAM. You could have installed just 16 GB as well in the intel version without taking any performance hit these tests.
On top of that some of the tests probably would have fared better without the eGPU like transcoding if it would use "SOC" integrated fixed function hardware, eg. QuickSync. It's not clear if the transcoding is run on the i7 or eGPU and no quality comparison either. CPU encoding is slow but quality is better to a lot better. In fact a good 1080p encode is preferable to low bitrate 4k eg. "streaming 4k quality". Then he compares GPU wattage to fixed function hardware wattage. etc. It's a stupid comparison all along. Plus using an NV gpu for the tasks would have shown much different results, AMDs strength are in gaming and not transcode/encode. It's their weakest part.

Having said that Intel, AMD and NV have been slacking off big time in this fixed function sector. I mean this stuff has been standard in smartphones for a decade. AMDs encoding still is rather poor, NV clearly has the lead. QuickSync has quality issues, it's not really real fixed function stuff. Maybe we could also blame windows for not provind an easy enough transparent API. AMD would also have a good starting point to change on this. The IO-die would be ideal place for such hardware. lagging node and only needed on consumer hardware whcih already uses a different one anyway. So the core design isn't affected.

 

[mikegg]

Since you are posting this moronic video a gazillion times, I need to comment on it.

In essence:
Of course a Porsche will look terrible if you compare it to a Smart while all you do id drive around in Manhattan.

Most of the tests don't even need the eGPU so adding it to the power use and price tax is already highly manipulative. Same for the RAM. You could have installed just 16 GB as well in the intel version without taking any performance hit these tests.
On top of that some of the tests probably would have fared better without the eGPU like transcoding if it would use "SOC" integrated fixed function hardware, eg. QuickSync. It's not clear if the transcoding is run on the i7 or eGPU and no quality comparison either. CPU encoding is slow but quality is better to a lot better. In fact a good 1080p encode is preferable to low bitrate 4k eg. "streaming 4k quality". Then he compares GPU wattage to fixed function hardware wattage. etc. It's a stupid comparison all along. Plus using an NV gpu for the tasks would have shown much different results, AMDs strength are in gaming and not transcode/encode. It's their weakest part.

So your whole argument is that you don't know if the software is even taking advantage of the eGPU?

You do realize that the video reviewer posted 2 versions of every benchmark for the Intel Mac right? One without the eGPU and one with the eGPU.

Then he compares GPU wattage to fixed function hardware wattage. etc. It's a stupid comparison all along. Plus using an NV gpu for the tasks would have shown much different results, AMDs strength are in gaming and not transcode/encode. It's their weakest part.

All he's showing is how much power the M1 GPU uses vs Intel GPU and the eGPU. Nothing wrong with that. Take it for what it is.

Plus using an NV gpu for the tasks would have shown much different results, AMDs strength are in gaming and not transcode/encode. It's their weakest part.

You can't use an Nvidia eGPU on a Mac. What are you talking about?

 

[SpaceBeer]

5. I boldly claimed that Apple will take 50% of total computer market share in the next 5 years. Let's just say I'm crazy and Apple only manages to take 25%, can developers really ignore 25% of the market? Especially if they're already making an iOS/iPadOS version of the game and they have a minimum of a 1050Ti to optimize for?

7. Apple Silicon Macs will significantly improve the ARM software ecosystem for laptop/desktop. This, in turn, will allow Windows ARM to potentially be a serious alternative to x86 Windows. As a developer, you might have to develop for ARM Windows in the future. Why wouldn't you also develop for ARM Macs, especially if Mac market share continues to increase and the minimum GPU is very powerful?

5. Apple might take 50% of total market-share in segments they have their products available. Unless they start making $400-$700 laptops in near future, it will not happen. Largest part of laptop market-share is in $500-$1000 range. Probably is similar for desktops. Also, most people buying expensive PCs are gamers and professionals. While in some areas Apple might offer better alternative (photo/video editing, design, etc...), in some areas (CAD, engineering simulations...) nothing can replace existing workstation systems (x86 + Windows + Quadro/Radon Pro) in near and not so near future. Only cloud services, and I don't see that coming soon. At least not in next 5 years

7. Unless I can use my M1 based Mac do develop for other ARM systems (Linux, Windows) without much additional work after, I will not use it at all.

The best thing about ARM is competition, as there are so many SoC manufacturers so you can get what you need. It is also the worst one, as each one of them might require additional optimization for its graphics and other custom blocks (image, video processing, AI, etc.). Just put yourself in position where you need to make e.g. CAD program that needs to work on M1 based Mac, SQ2 Surface, Snapdragon based Chromebook, Kirin based Matebook with Ubuntu Kylin, Pinebook Pro with Rockchip, etc. Plus all current x86 systems.

 

[Eug]

I don't know if anyone has posted this so-called leak yet:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1330417977662054400

However, it just states the obvious, that the new chip for the MacBook Pro next year is 8+4.

TLDR: There are a lot of trash heaps being sold in the Windows PC market. They probably get replaced every 2 years with another steaming turd out of necessity. The people who buy such awful machines may repeat doing so 2 - 4 times before a Mac user gets a new machine.

For the record, my primary Windows PC at home is a CAD$399 special (incl. monitor) that I bought a decade ago from Wal-Mart. Original performance was fine for mainstream business application use at that time. Obviously, things changed as time went on so I added memory and an SSD several years ago, and eventually got a "new" CPU too. However, the CPU is also a decade old.

My main beef with it at the time was actually nothing to do with the specs. It was the fact that it was full of bloatware. So, I deleted all of that and was happy.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Without knowing how that site gets their results I honestly can't tell you, but a few others did point out valid reasons for Macs to be overrepresented in that metric. The first being office machines with no internet access, but the second (and what I consider a far bigger factor) being that Apple hardware likely has a longer life span so Mac users don't replace it as often.

They have a FAQ with all the details. It seems like the should have a reasonable take on the numbers.

Quite frankly, I wouldn't have accepted a laptop like that 5 years ago and if I had bought one with those specs I very much doubt it would have lasted me 5 years. The worst desktop I can get from Dell is a quad core i3 with a spinning hard disk and 4 GB of RAM. It's $380. That isn't lasting me 5 years either.

If that works for them now, it will probably still be working the same way for them in 5 years, because they probably don't do much more than use internet on it. It's mainly high end buyers on forums like this that think computers become too obsolete to use. Computers don't get worse for your tasks, just because newer, more powerful computers come out.

Also it's not like Apple didn't sell VERY slow machines. Until M1 replaced it, the Macbook Air was running a VERY slow Intel Dual core, likely slower than in that Cheap dell.

TLDR: There are a lot of trash heaps being sold in the Windows PC market. They probably get replaced every 2 years with another steaming turd out of necessity. The people who buy such awful machines may repeat doing so 2 - 4 times before a Mac user gets a new machine.

I really don't think this is that much of a factor. People aren't buying new Junk PC every 2 years. I think it's more probable that the difference represents the home user vs corporate use case, which is good news for Apple. Mac 30% market share of home users in North America is really decent.

Anyway, I don't think the focus on market share means anything. I doubt Apple is worried about Mac market share suddenly after all these years. They are still following the same playbook. Make the best product they can, and deliver the best user experience. Do that well and market share will likely improve(in higher end), but market share isn't the point, great products are.

 

[LightningZ71]

I suspect that people are being substantially over-optimistic about Apple's future with AAA games. It appears that everyone is overlooking the giant elephant in the room, large consoles. They represent millions and millions of sales each year which are essentially fixed function computers with x86 architecture and directX compliant hardware from AMD. Those are systems that are guaranteed to be purchasing AAA class games and to have a long life span. They share a common architectural base with the vast majority of the personal computer market, x86 with directX compliant hardware.

And, even with that captured customer base, most studios seem to barely make any money and frequently go out of business or consolidate. And, the common thread here is a belief that they will suddenly decide to essentially redevelope their games for a completely different computer architecture AND video hardware to serve a market that is a tiny fraction of the already small share that Apple computer products represent?!?!

And please, don't wheel out the "but some do it for the switch!" Let's look at the switch for a second. It's got a SOC that's based on a we'll understood, open core design, using a standard implementation of the ISA, couples with a maxwell class gpu that is also we'll understood. On top of that, Nintendo is selling millions and millions of them, essentially as fast as they can make them, to customers that are absolutely going to buy games for them. That is a solid, hungry market. About the only comparison and benefit for Apple from the switch is that it gives some of the studios some experience developing for an ARM target. That's about as far as it goes.

If Apple was serious about wanting to attract the AAA game market, they would have put more effort into the Apple TV. It was their chance to put performance hardware in living rooms where game consoles live and people play games. A few years ago, I played a demo game on an Apple TV in an Apple store. It was a solid effort and gave the expected level of visuals and game play and seemed to be a good foundation to build on. All Apple would need to do is to make an Apple TV based around the M1 8GB SOC package and release a comprehensive design kit for it and we could see where it goes. The current one is based on the A10X. While it's not an awful SOC, it isn't exactly state of the art. The problem for Apple is that the Xbox and PS4 will represent a price ceiling for them that is substantially less than the cheapest Mac mini, which is going to be not too far off the Apple TV in terms of cost of goods sold.

 

[Heartbreaker]

I suspect that people are being substantially over-optimistic about Apple's future with AAA games.

Where? I don't think I have see a big expectation of AAA Apple gaming in this thread.

IMO, Where Apple is headed with gaming is an improvement of low end machines, and unification of their lineups.

Going forward, Games on the Mac are more likely to be migrations from iPhone/iPad games, and less likely to be from current generation AAA PC/Console games.

I think this will be fine and an improvement for casual gamers, but unsatisfying for hardcore gamers.

This approach is probably the right one for Apple. It's nearly impossible that Apple would become a serious hardcore gaming target, getting the best current generation AAA titles.

Better more (and improved) casual games than nothing.

 

[Mopetar]

this topic is useless by now
other topics are there to help people find answers , get knowledge of some tech terms
this is an topic of spitting at each other

Maybe it can at least quarantine all of that in one location?

I think that would almost make it the most useful thread of all!

Anyway, I don't think the focus on market share means anything. I doubt Apple is worried about Mac market share suddenly after all these years. They are still following the same playbook. Make the best product they can, and deliver the best user experience. Do that well and market share will likely improve(in higher end), but market share isn't the point, great products are.

I have no doubt they'll gain some market share, but the point I was making was in regards to the people who think Apple will wind up taking something like a third of the market share or maybe even doubling their existing share anytime soon. They can't do it while maintaining their prices and they'd have to cut profit just to gain additional sales for that lower profit.

If that's something Apple were interested in doing, the phone market wouldn't look like it does now. Maybe it's shifted a little bit, but there used to be all kinds of statistics about how Apple only had something like 10% of the overall global market, but they were taking in over 90% of the profit.

Additional market share gains on Apple's part will naturally come as people around the world become wealthier. Apple is well positioned as a luxury brand with a reputation for lasting a long time. As developing countries start to grow their middle classes, there are going to be a lot more potential Apple customers.

 

[Doug S]

Alternately, Macs seem to represent ~15% of active laptops/desktops connecting to the internet:

Desktop Operating System Market Share Worldwide | Statcounter Global Stats

This graph shows the market share of desktop operating systems worldwide based on over 5 billion monthly page views.

gs.statcounter.com

10 years ago it was only about 5%, so significant growth.

There is also significant regional split.
Lower in Asia, Africa, South America, and India. (near 10%)
Higher in Oceana, and North America. (near 30%).
Europe in between. (near 20%)

There's a big difference in sales and installed base - longevity comes into play. How long do you think those $200 Celeron laptops sold at Best Buy last? When something goes wrong with them that is "fixable", like the battery gets old or the OS gets crapped up by malware, do you think that person is taking it in to the "Geek Squad" to get it fixed? Of course not, they would probably charge you $100 to clear malware or swap out the battery (yeah I know they are trivially replaceable in most PC laptops, but the overwhelming majority of average people won't do that - most people don't even change their own wiper blades!)

They will just recycle that old laptop and buy a new one for $200 - all that low end stuff is treated as basically disposable. If on the other hand you pay $1000 for a laptop it is not only built to last longer, you will be willing to pay $100 once or twice to get a few more years out of it. Even if you don't personally use it, you will pass it on to someone who will.

The regional splits are obvious, Apple stuff costs more so sales are lower in places with lower incomes.

 

[Doug S]

Pretty much no one, right? That's exactly the way I see it, and it goes double for businesses. If better hardware = adoption of the platform were true, Apple would not have been bleeding market share in the phone space to Android for the past 3 years.

Anyone who thinks Apple is "bleeding market share to Android" doesn't understand the market. If you look at the market share of overall mobile phone sales Apple's share has been remarkably steady for years. The reason it looks like they are slowly losing share is if you only look at the smartphone market share. That matters because the cheapest phones out there are not smartphones they are so-called "feature phones". Android has been slowly moving further and further to the low end - you can get Android phones for $50 now but in places with truly low incomes there are plenty of people for whom that's still too much so even in 2020 there are over a half billion feature phones shipped.

This graph illustrates what I'm talking about, the growth in "smartphone" sales is a lot higher than the growth in overall phone sales. Apple's sales of the parts of the market they participate in are remaining steady or even growing (as some Android owners abandon the "high end" segment and figure a $150 phone is good enough) and all the Android growth is in lower and lower market ranges as they slowly eat the feature phone market from the top down as cheaper and cheaper Androids get built.

Global feature phone and smartphone shipments 2008-2020 | Statista

The forecast illustrates the global feature phone and smartphone shipments from 2008 to 2010, with forecasts from 2011 to 2020.

www.statista.com

 

[darkswordsman17]

People are falling over themselves for the new M1 chip, but I don't get why people act like Apple came out of nowhere or are surprised that its good. This is the result of a decade of building possibly the premiere chip engineering team in the world. This move was rumored when they bought the one chip company like a decade back. Frankly, I'm surprised it took this long, considering how much resources they put towards it. It goes to show how difficult such a move actually is, and that its basically a complete overhaul needed to even begin such a move (which is why it took Apple and is taking others even longer). Frankly if it wasn't competitive with Intel (languishing under the weight of poor business management) and AMD (operating with what, 1/100, 1/1000 of Apple's resources) then it would've been almost outright embarrassing (see Nvidia's moves prior to buying ARM to try and get there).

I'm honestly a bit surprised there isn't more second guessing AMD's move to go x86 instead of ARM. Makes you wonder where they might would have been now had they gone ARM instead. Imagine if AMD had taken all the ideas that make Zen great, paired with many of the moves that Apple has made. We've seen others show that even without optimizations that ARM can be quite competitive in servers. AMD could have been sitting pretty there. With a competitive ARM core, perhaps Microsoft doesn't dilly dally Windows support. Further, Android would give them an alternative to build from. Heck, maybe Apple would've ditched Intel and foregone their own chips even. And AMD might would have bought ARM instead of Nvidia. When Zen 1 launched there might not have been as big of a performance shift, but I bet efficiency would have been bigger (and I think arguably pushed for quicker adoption; plus in servers they could just add more cores to get there), and they'd probably be even further along in the perf/W push. I think ARM would have actually been a benefit for AMD, as it would have gotten them competitive in laptops and servers faster. Instead of companies looking to do their own ARM designs to try and get away from the Intel situation, they'd have AMD chips. It also would've likely helped them in game consoles.

The other thing I'm a bit surprised hasn't been talked about more. Apple is now all in on ARM, and Nvidia just bought ARM. That might actually be a blessing though, as Apple has the legal resources to take on Nvidia should the latter try something. But, it also means that Apple doesn't get ARM to itself. Had Apple bought ARM then rolled out these, I bet the talk would be the death of Windows, and that Android might not be far behind. Perhaps we'd be looking at one or more of the PC 3 (AMD, Intel, Nvidia) partnering up.

 

[Doug S]

I just wonder at the big mismatch between sales and usage numbers which are about double that. Half the Windows PC's running industrial equipment, and other use cases without internet access?

There's no mystery there, higher end PCs are built better, it is economic to fix them for longer, and they perform better relative their competition at the time they are sold which all combine to having a longer service life. If you sell junker Best Buy specials that are used for four years, and $1000 laptops (whether Mac or PC) that are used for eight, that $1000 laptop will show up as having double the installed base when compared to its market share. If they used the same amount it would also have a "usage base" double - but I would expect that $1000 laptop to get used MORE because the more you use a tool the more you are willing to spend on it.

I don't know the story there as far as Mac vs PC, but for phones iPhones show up with a disproportionate amount of usage relatively to not only their market share but also their installed base (which is already much higher for iPhones than their market share, because again they last longer and because they cost more thus are economic to resell/repair for longer and receive much longer software support which all combine to them being much more likely than Android phones to have second and third owners even if you the average first owner upgrades every 2 or 3 years)

I assume some of this higher iPhone "usage" reflected in browser numbers etc. is because a lot of the lower end Android market is for casual users who just need a "phone". People like my mom who has never used a mobile browser or even sent a text message. Or people who maybe they do use apps or browsers a bit but if you have several hours of "screen time" a day you are more likely to think a $1000 phone is worth it versus someone who has several hours of screen time a month.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Where? I don't think I have see a big expectation of AAA Apple gaming in this thread.

IMO, Where Apple is headed with gaming is an improvement of low end machines, and unification of their lineups.

Going forward, Games on the Mac are more likely to be migrations from iPhone/iPad games, and less likely to be from current generation AAA PC/Console games.

I think this will be fine and an improvement for casual gamers, but unsatisfying for hardcore gamers.

This approach is probably the right one for Apple. It's nearly impossible that Apple would become a serious hardcore gaming target, getting the best current generation AAA titles.

Better more (and improved) casual games than nothing.

Gaming is going streaming, so I'm not sure how much the local hardware is going to matter. Plus AAA games are already on mobile. PUBG had mobile versions pretty quickly, and CoD and Fortnite are there. Epic did mobile before they did their own service. Even Nintendo has multiple non-Nintendo hardware games. Its just a matter of time til we get the rest of the way there.

I actually think that's what sold Nintendo on Nvidia is the future server/streaming tech and not Tegra (well not directly, as I think Tegra is important for being cheap and low power).

Which, aren't mobile games already making as much as PC and console combined?

Apple doesn't really have to do much of anything to become big in gaming, gaming is already moving the direction Apple is moving. As we see with the M1, Apple has no problem biding its time and letting things naturally move that direction. Some of you also seem oblivious to the fact that Apple is following Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, and are moving their brand to "aaS" (as a service) model.

 

[Heartbreaker]

People are falling over themselves for the new M1 chip, but I don't get why people act like Apple came out of nowhere or are surprised that its good.

I think it's because most people didn't really believe that Apple iPhone SoCs were really desktop class. There wasn't a lot cross platform benchmarks that it could run, and people chose to believe Geekbench was invalid, rather than believe that iPhones had desktop class performance.

So in the minds of most, Apple only had "Smartphone CPU performance", and now suddenly they have an amazing lower power CPU with top class desktop performance, seemingly out of nowhere.

 

[Doug S]

People are falling over themselves for the new M1 chip, but I don't get why people act like Apple came out of nowhere or are surprised that its good. This is the result of a decade of building possibly the premiere chip engineering team in the world. This move was rumored when they bought the one chip company like a decade back. Frankly, I'm surprised it took this long, considering how much resources they put towards it. It goes to show how difficult such a move actually is, and that its basically a complete overhaul needed to even begin such a move (which is why it took Apple and is taking others even longer). Frankly if it wasn't competitive with Intel (languishing under the weight of poor business management) and AMD (operating with what, 1/100, 1/1000 of Apple's resources) then it would've been almost outright embarrassing (see Nvidia's moves prior to buying ARM to try and get there).

I'm honestly a bit surprised there isn't more second guessing AMD's move to go x86 instead of ARM. Makes you wonder where they might would have been now had they gone ARM instead. Imagine if AMD had taken all the ideas that make Zen great, paired with many of the moves that Apple has made. We've seen others show that even without optimizations that ARM can be quite competitive in servers. AMD could have been sitting pretty there. With a competitive ARM core, perhaps Microsoft doesn't dilly dally Windows support. Further, Android would give them an alternative to build from. Heck, maybe Apple would've ditched Intel and foregone their own chips even. And AMD might would have bought ARM instead of Nvidia. When Zen 1 launched there might not have been as big of a performance shift, but I bet efficiency would have been bigger (and I think arguably pushed for quicker adoption; plus in servers they could just add more cores to get there), and they'd probably be even further along in the perf/W push. I think ARM would have actually been a benefit for AMD, as it would have gotten them competitive in laptops and servers faster. Instead of companies looking to do their own ARM designs to try and get away from the Intel situation, they'd have AMD chips. It also would've likely helped them in game consoles.

The other thing I'm a bit surprised hasn't been talked about more. Apple is now all in on ARM, and Nvidia just bought ARM. That might actually be a blessing though, as Apple has the legal resources to take on Nvidia should the latter try something. But, it also means that Apple doesn't get ARM to itself. Had Apple bought ARM then rolled out these, I bet the talk would be the death of Windows, and that Android might not be far behind. Perhaps we'd be looking at one or more of the PC 3 (AMD, Intel, Nvidia) partnering up.

The reason it took Apple this long is that they clearly wanted to wait until they would have no one doubting the move was for the benefit of their customers, rather than for Apple's own benefit. They could only do that if it was a clear performance win over the x86 Macs they replace, and even running under emulation was not a compromise.

I don't understand your thought that AMD "could have gone ARM". Who the hell would they be selling their ARM desktop chips to? What OS were they going to run? Who would be buying their ARM server CPUs, and what OS would they run? OK here "Linux" makes a good answer, but there's no reason to believe that AMD could make an ARM CPU that performs better than their x86 CPUs. If you think the ARM ISA has some sort of an advantage over x86, you're simply wrong. The ISA hasn't made any difference since the 90s, once transistors became so plentiful that translating CISC instructions into microops became reasonable the ISA became irrelevant from a performance perspective. AMD would have shot themselves in the foot if they tried to go ARM instead of sticking with x86.

 

[shady28]

The other thing I'm a bit surprised hasn't been talked about more. Apple is now all in on ARM, and Nvidia just bought ARM. That might actually be a blessing though, as Apple has the legal resources to take on Nvidia should the latter try something. But, it also means that Apple doesn't get ARM to itself. Had Apple bought ARM then rolled out these, I bet the talk would be the death of Windows, and that Android might not be far behind. Perhaps we'd be looking at one or more of the PC 3 (AMD, Intel, Nvidia) partnering up.

Apple is a founding member of ARM and as such has rights to ARM IP past present and future. The sale to Nvidia has no effect on that. Not that Apple is using the new ARM IP, it's at the core as far as instructions ARMv8-A, but Apple's cores far outstrip the latest A72 design. ARMv8-A itself dates back to 2011.

 

[jeanlain]

Apple doesn't really have to do much of anything to become big in gaming, gaming is already moving the direction Apple is moving.

Apple has been openly hostile toward game streaming services and for a good reason. Game streaming goes against their business model and they're certainly not moving in that direction. They sell phones and tablets with high computing power. Traditional (local) gaming is one of the reason why people buy their devices.

 

[Doug S]

Apple has been openly hostile toward game streaming services and for a good reason. Game streaming goes against their business model and they're certainly not moving in that direction. They sell phones and tablets with high computing power. Traditional (local) gaming is one of the reason why people buy their devices.

The "app" model assumes that people are paying the true cost of the app, or something like it, just like they used to when they bought a game for their PC or console previously. Back when people were buying physical discs for games at brick and mortar stores the developer of the title was lucky to get 30%, let alone the 70% they get from app stores.

The problem is that app makers moved on to "game is free, we'll nickel and dime you for every little thing within the game and/or make our money via advertising" and now want to move to "web shell platform for streaming game is free, we'll charge you for the games either per title or per hour or via the same in-app nickel and diming".

So Apple's resistance is understandable, these new models take a free ride on everything Apple built, and require Apple to host and provide updates for their stuff without collecting a cent in revenue. It would be like if someone used your garage to have a garage sale, and made you foot the bill for the electricity they used as well, while they collected all the profit.

 

[LightningZ71]

Have you been attempting to hide from the universe for the last year? The whole point of the Epic/Apple lawsuit is Apple's requirement that every single transaction in an app in their pay them 30% rent. Apple makes loads of money from the apps they host.

 

[Mopetar]

I think it's because most people didn't really believe that Apple iPhone SoCs were really desktop class. There wasn't a lot cross platform benchmarks that it could run, and people chose to believe Geekbench was invalid, rather than believe that iPhones had desktop class performance.

AnandTech has been showing SPEC results for a wide variety of the different benchmarks in the iPhone/iPad reviews for a while now and those results were consistent with the idea that they had some truly incredible performance. I think the people that dismissed Apple's SoC achievements were just not paying attention or burying their heads in the sand.

 

[HurleyBird]

The reason it took Apple this long is that they clearly wanted to wait until they would have no one doubting the move was for the benefit of their customers, rather than for Apple's own benefit.

Yeah, I'm sure that's the reason. The company that makes $1000 monitor stands and actively gets in the way of users repairing their devices is really concerned about appearing too mercenary.