ARM or not?

[Ryan Kukreti]

Let me get straight to the topic, i had thought of buying mbp 13'' 2020 but few hours ago apple revealed the arm mb which are expected to come in late 2020.Is it worth the wait?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Do you need a laptop now or can you wait? There will always be faster and newer systems in the future.

[Ryan Kukreti]

i was worried because upcoming would be one of its kind, i dont want it to be unsupported by many app like surface pro x

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Ryan Kukreti said:

i was worried because upcoming would be one of its kind, i dont want it to be unsupported by many app like surface pro x

Im guessing this is going to be like the ppc to intel switch like 15 years ago. It will be the way all macs are going soon, not like the arm surface products where they forgot them. 

[Darkseth]

It's apple we're talking about, not Microsoft.
They won't be as stupid in that transition, Apple does have the "Power" in their Ecosystem, to make it work.

I wouldn't be surprised, if the first ARM Mac on Day 1 will work MUCH better, than every ARM Windwos does today after x Years.

Microsoft simply threw some out, hid in a Corner, and hoped users and developers would do something.

 

 

Buy, when you need it. Need it now? Buy now.
Don't need it? Then wait.

 

We still don't know what will come out. maybe a 13" Pro, maybe a rebirth of the small 12".. who knows.

[Ryan Kukreti]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Im guessing this is going to be like the ppc to intel switch like 15 years ago. It will be the way all macs are going soon, not like the arm surface products where they forgot them. 

You mean to say most apps will be compatible from day one?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Ryan Kukreti said:

You mean to say most apps will be compatible from day one?

well there is a emulator, so all apps should work on day one, 

[Ryan Kukreti]

1 minute ago, Darkseth said:

It's apple we're talking about, not Microsoft.
They won't be as stupid in that transition, Apple does have the "Power" in their Ecosystem, to make it work.

I wouldn't be surprised, if the first ARM Mac on Day 1 will work MUCH better, than every ARM Windwos does today after x Years.

Microsoft simply threw some out, hid in a Corner, and hoped users and developers would do something.

 

 

Buy, when you need it. Need it now? Buy now.
Don't need it? Then wait.

 

We still don't know what will come out. maybe a 13" Pro, maybe a rebirth of the small 12".. who knows.

I can wait just as long as the performance is better than before

[5x5]

1 minute ago, Ryan Kukreti said:

You mean to say most apps will be compatible from day one?

Will they work? Yes.

Will they work well? Most likely no.

 

Most applications have been built ground up for x86. To make them all work fine will take years. The reason apples last switch went well was that the app count in 2005 was about 100 times smaller so they could afford to go back and update all of them.

[5x5]

1 minute ago, Ryan Kukreti said:

I can wait just as long as the performance is better than before

For better performance, you'll be waiting a long time. Apple ARM products are inherently slower than any current x86 offering and are focussed on low power use, not performance. I'd you need high performance, ARM is out of the question

[Ryan Kukreti]

Just now, 5x5 said:

For better performance, you'll be waiting a long time. Apple ARM products are inherently slower than any current x86 offering and are focussed on low power use, not performance. I'd you need high performance, ARM is out of the question

If I buy mbp 2020 would it still support for more years to come?

[5x5]

Just now, Ryan Kukreti said:

If I buy mbp 2020 would it still support for more years to come?

Maybe? No way if knowing. Apples move to ARM could work out well or it could end in total failure and result in a switch back to x86 in two years at which point everyone with ARM Mac's will be left behind on unsupported hardware. Nobody can know and considering apples recent failures with the butterfly keyboard, cooling issues, dysfunctional display auto profiler and 1000$ stand/400$ wheels, I wouldn't personally rush out to get an ARMbook Pro. If you want a good Mac option, I'd say a used early MBP 2015 is by far the best bet. Decent performance, cheap and the most reliable design apple have produced in the past 10 years

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Maybe? No way if knowing. Apples move to ARM could work out well or it could end in total failure and result in a switch back to x86 in two years at which point everyone with ARM Mac's will be left behind on unsupported hardware. Nobody can know and considering apples recent failures with the butterfly keyboard, cooling issues, dysfunctional display auto profiler and 1000$ stand/400$ wheels, I wouldn't personally rush out to get an ARMbook Pro. If you want a good Mac option, I'd say a used early MBP 2015 is by far the best bet. Decent performance, cheap and the most reliable design apple have produced in the past 10 years

Id probably stay away from those 2015 now, there getting older, and probably only have 2 years of os updates left, then a few years of software support. A newer system is probably a better value in terms of $ per year of use.

 

Id personally wait for arm, the first intel macs aged much better than the last PPC macs

[Ryan Kukreti]

In my opinion I don't like to buy old stuff(especially when it comes to electronics), for me it's either mbp 2020 or arm since they won't drop support for Intel powered mbp maybe mbp 2020 is a good buy?

[dizmo]

No way for anyone to tell. They're not out, we don't have any idea what actual performance will be like.

[5x5]

1 minute ago, Ryan Kukreti said:

In my opinion I don't like to buy old stuff(especially when it comes to electronics), for me it's either mbp 2020 or arm since they won't drop support for Intel powered mbp maybe mbp 2020 is a good buy?

The current one is a safer buy then. (Safer being relative, it still has all the critical 2016-2020 design flaws)

[Ryan Kukreti]

I thought macbook pro has no problems so what is it Now?

[Darkseth]

46 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

For better performance, you'll be waiting a long time. Apple ARM products are inherently slower than any current x86 offering and are focussed on low power use, not performance. I'd you need high performance, ARM is out of the question

I have literaly no idea where such comments come from everywhere. I mean, NOONE can show me a 45w ARM Apple Chip so far for a solid comparison. How do you "know" that ARM can't have the same performance? Can you show me an Apple ARM chip on 45w, so i can compare it to the Macbook Pro 16" Intel CPUs? No? There you go..

 

Compare the A12z with a similar TDP x86 chip. The A12z runs circles around that toy. In every aspect. A 2 year old iPad chip actually competes with my D esktop i7 6700k clocked on 4.4 Ghz when it comes to pure Benchmarks.

The iPad Pro 2018 from 2 years ago still destroys the current Macbook Air 2020 i5 in Performance, and it does that without a Fan and even without throttling at all (and with much less space inside the Device).

The A14X will probably increase single Core performance by 40%~ compared to the A12z, and there will be multiple, bigger variations of the Chip. A14X probably for the next iPad Pro 2021, and bigger versions for the Notebooks, since they have more space for cooling.
You can't compare an 8w Apple Chip with a 45w+ x86 chip. That is not an indicator how much performance will be possible.

And you can't compare an iPhone chip to a 250 Watt 32 Core workstation.

Apple's ARM chips were just made for only Smartphones and Tablets untill now. 

Apple won't put a smartphone/Tablet chip into a Notebook, they'll have special chips on a larger scale. 15w, 28w, probably even up to 45w.

 

And the Emulator, you've seen it. The A12z emulated Rise of the Tomb Raider in 1080p 30fps, by not even scratching on 15w tdp.

So... Wait untill the ARM Mac actually launches on A14X based chips, and THEN you can see if it can compete with performance.
We still have no indicator how far you can "blow up" the ARM chips, untill they lose their Efficiency. If that even would happen. And even then, i imagine they will have a much better Performance / Watt compared to Intel, who technologically haven't made ANY progress since 2015, except "adding more Cores", and overclocking them more.

 

Btw: Apple's Compiler is made to be platform independant. They said, developers can make their Apps natively on ARM within Days. Let it be 2-3 Weeks, still not really long to optimize.
I think it's very very unrealistic, that ARM will fail. Apple didn't decide that 2 months ago like "oh idc, lets just try and see". They've been probably working on it for years. And Apple does have MANY years of ARM expertise. Hardware, AND Software.


I have no reason to think, that it would Fail. Even the opposite, i think the endresult will surprise many.

Still, i wouldn't wait just to wait for it. Just buy the Computer, when you need it. It's not, that Intel based Macbooks will stop beeing supported within the next 5-7 years at least.
Even another Aspect: I believe, the current Models (already Magic Keyboard, but still Intel) will keep their Value really high later on the second hand market, because you can still use Bootcamp / Virtualisation with a native Windows 10 64 Bit.

 

  

29 minutes ago, Ryan Kukreti said:

I thought macbook pro has no problems so what is it Now?

There is no Design flaw 2020, unless youä're talking about the internals, like Louis Rossmann would criticize.  For example, very difficult to repair, etc.

The Keyboard is "fixed" on the 2020 Models, the dedicated ESC key is back, and inverted T-Arrowkeys.

So yea, the 2020 Pros are safe to buy for now, if you need a Device now.

[Ryan Kukreti]

It's not like I am in the desperate need of laptop. I can surely wait for arms, even though I won't use the full power but who doesn't like extra power ?

[Darkseth]

Keep in Mind, we still don't know which developers will be Lazy, and won't bring their Apps for ARM untill 2021.
Maybe Apps you might need?

It's just speculation. Maybe the Performance will be similar since it will be the entry level 13" pro, but simply with less power consumption?Who knows...

I mean... Sorry, but noone can take that decision away from you^^ Because we don't know what'll happen. Apple said, their transition is supposed to be over at the End of 2022. So, if it runs according to Plan, untill then you might have Apps that aren't optimized yet, even if they do have their Rosetta 2 Emulator.
There are arguments for waiting, and arguments for buying now and be happy for a few years - and then switch to ARM when it's more established.

[5x5]

2 minutes ago, Ryan Kukreti said:

It's not like I am in the desperate need of laptop. I can surely wait for arms, even though I won't use the full power but who doesn't like extra power ?

To put it this way. Developers are extremely lazy. Either x86 will get dropped or ARM will get dropped. The thing is, we still have no idea which one will get dropped but x86 has several decades of support behind it while Apple's ARM SoCs get redesigned every 2-3 years and older ones lose support. This is the primary reason people are forced into new phones and tablets - older ones are dropped and left in the dust. Meanwhile, even Core 2-based MacBooks still have access to fairly updated apps, although a much more limited selection.

My point - if you want to gamble, the x86 models are more likely to come out on top in the long run.

[Ryan Kukreti]

What I can do is wait for few months when youtubers give their reviews...if it's good I buy arm if not then I can always buy mbp 2020

[Ryan Kukreti]

Considering the fact I will mostly type and watch videos maybe a little bit editing on it...apple showed few apps would be available from the beginning so no problem for me

[5x5]

1 minute ago, Ryan Kukreti said:

What I can do is wait for few months when youtubers give their reviews...if it's good I buy arm if not then I can always buy mbp 2020

You should be looking at reviews from respected outlets - UltraBookReview (on features and performance), Louis Rossmann (on quality), Anandtech (on the tech behind it) - do NOT buy anything based off of random Apple fans on youtbe

[Ryan Kukreti]

What about mkbhd Linus and max tech?