Watch out Intel, here comes Apple's A9X!

[Menzenski]

Apple will not use ARM based SoC's in their next macbooks , simply because of how OSX runs on x86 , and making a custom ARM version would either require making a totally new OS for macbooks , or split the market in half and have windows RT all over again.

 

I wouldn't think of a potential ARM OS X as a cut down, useless version of OS X like Windows RT was to normal Windows.  I'd think of it instead as an enhanced iOS version, with support for the whole App Store, and also things like a file explorer.  Basically what a lot of people were hoping would be on the iPad pro.

 

But I suppose it would also need support for a cursor to be put on a macbook-type device, ehh probably wont happen but fun to think about.

Edited January 25, 2016 by Menzenski

[Mew]

Yes , but TDP is often synonymous with power consumption

That's only true because people mistake it for power consumption and because turbo boost helps it approach the target tdp whereas each chip due to the Silicon lottery would either runs at the same speeds but draw different amounts of power (intel) or run at different speeds and draw the same amount of power (nvidia).

[Coaxialgamer]

I wouldn't think of a potential ARM OS X as a cut down, useless version of OS X like Windows RT was to normal Windows.  I'd think of it instead as an enhanced iOS version, with support for the whole App Store, and also things like a file explorer.  Basically what a lot of people were hoping would be on the iPad pro.

they would have to rewrite and recompile all the apple store apps to work for an ARM based OS . Not to mention that all other apps wouldn't work. The whole" desktop OS for ARM" thing feels a lot like what M$ did with Windows RT

[Menzenski]

they would have to rewrite and recompile all the apple store apps to work for an ARM based OS . Not to mention that all other apps wouldn't work. The whole" desktop OS for ARM" thing feels a lot like what M$ did with Windows RT

 

I bought the og Surface RT when it came out, I know the pain lol.  But is iOS not already ARM based?  Serious question I thought it was.

[Coaxialgamer]

That's only true because people mistake it for power consumption and because turbo boost helps it approach the target tdp whereas each chip due to the Silicon lottery would either runs at the same speeds but draw different amounts of power (intel) or run at different speeds and draw the same amount of power (nvidia).

yeah , but a 300W TDP chip roughly equates to 300W of power consumption ( again , roughly) , as most of the electricity is turned into heat. Same here. I wouldn't expect a core M to use much more than 5W

[Coaxialgamer]

I bought the og Surface RT when it came out, I know the pain lol.  But is iOS not already ARM based?  Serious question I thought it was.

IOS is arm based . But OP was talking about putting ARM chips in macbooks , and i don't think anyone wants to run IOS on a macbook. So that would mean OSX for ARM.

[Sauron]

Intel doesn't care because they make faster cpus than core Ms too. It's like saying "watch out Intel, it's faster than atoms!"

 

Different cpus at different price points. And the price point of the ipad pro is in line with core i7 surface pros.

[AlexGoesHigh]

Apple will not use ARM based SoC's in their next macbooks , simply because of how OSX runs on x86 , and making a custom ARM version would either require making a totally new OS for macbooks , or split the market in half and have windows RT all over again.

You know OS X began life running on IBM power chips do you? they went through the trouble of porting all that code from power chips (which is a RISC design which is closer to ARM that x86 in the grand scheme of CPU design) to x86, and in the process they pretty much forced all their ecosystem to port their apps to the new hardware platform, so yeah its not the first time they screw everyone even themselves to change something, if they are very serious about using their own ARM design into their OS X devices, they will do it.

 

Also the main reason RT died was because MS went greedy and only allowed store apps to be installed, i think RT would be a completely different experience if they allowed normal win32 apps to work on RT, and its not like its PITA to do, almost all RT device included full desktop office pre installed.

[AlTech]

Are the A series CPUs Unix compatable? That's what makes modern Mac processors so great.

 

Probably not. Except when Linux Distros are made to be able to run x86 and Arm.

 

OS X can't run Arm.

 

A recent review of the iPad Pro shows Apple's A9X Chip challenging Intel's Core M lineup.

As well, here is an article from ExtremeTech with a bit more information http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-head-to-head-against-intels-core-m-in-arm-x86-grudge-match

Most of you have probably heard about the iPad Pro that Apple launched not too long ago (if you hadn't your cave must be quite cozy). As we all knew Apple's A9X Chip had incredible performance for a mobile CPU. Anandtech has gone ahead and reviewed the iPad Pro, and along with it checked out a comparison of the A9X vs. the Intel Core M lineup.

The A9X can obviously fight against the Broadwell Core Ms, though it seems the Core M still beats the A9X by a small margin. However, this is still something of note. As well, the A9X seems to use less than 5 watts of power.

The A9X seems to trail the Broadwell low-end Core Ms by a small amount, and trails higher end Core Ms as well as Skylake Core Ms by a greater amount, but this is definitely something we should notice. Apple has been improving IPC by quite a lot in recent years, while Intel has only been improving it by about 5-10% each year. A few years ago Apple SOCs were nowhere near Intel CPU IPC, but now this has changed considerably. The A9X is already coming quite close to Intel, and it is quite possible that the SOC going into the iPhone 7 and iPad Air 4 could be on par with Intel Core Ms. The generation after that, Apple could potentially start having their SOCs have higher IPC than Intel ones. If this happens, it is possible Apple could swap out their Macbook CPU for a A10X or A11X. It is not likely they will replace Macbook Air or Macbook Pro CPUs, but it is possible the Macbook could get an upgrade.

 

x86 is x86. Arm is Arm. You can't compare them. Too different architectures.

[Menzenski]

IOS is arm based . But OP was talking about putting ARM chips in macbooks , and i don't think anyone wants to run IOS on a macbook. So that would mean OSX for ARM.

 

But what I'm suggesting is that Apple doesn't nerf normal OSX down, I'm suggesting expanding iOS into something that looks and feels more like OSX on a laptop-ish device like a macbook.  Normal people wouldn't care if it was adapted from iOS as long as it feels the same.

[Coaxialgamer]

You know OS X began life running on IBM power chips do you? they went through the trouble of porting all that code from power chips (which is a RISC design which is closer to ARM that x86 in the grand scheme of CPU design) to x86, and in the process they pretty much forced all their ecosystem to port their apps to the new hardware platform, so yeah its not the first time they screw everyone even themselves to change something, if they are very serious about using their own ARM design into their OS X devices, they will do it.

 

Also the main reason RT died was because MS went greedy and only allowed store apps to be installed, i think RT would be a completely different experience if they allowed normal win32 apps to work on RT, and its not like its PITA to do, almost all RT device included full desktop office pre installed.

I knew that. And normal windows apps couldn't run on windows RT BECAUSE THEY ARE USING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT INSTRUCTION SETS .

 

Also , since apple went through all the trouble of making MAC OS x86 , why would they break years of compatibility and make an ARM version ?

[Coaxialgamer]

But what I'm suggesting is that Apple doesn't nerf normal OSX down, I'm suggesting expanding iOS into something that looks and feels more like OSX on a laptop-ish device like a macbook.  Normal people wouldn't care if it was adapted from iOS as long as it feels the same.

it might work , but then we would basically an ipad pro with a keyboard ( basically an OS that can't use half the power of the machine thanks to IOS's apps.

[AlexGoesHigh]

I knew that. And normal windows apps couldn't run on windows RT BECAUSE THEY ARE USING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT INSTRUCTION SETS .

 

Also , since apple went through all the trouble of making MAC OS x86 , why would they break years of compatibility and make an ARM version ?

Win32 apps as they exist now, OFC not, but if MS provided a compiler for it, it would literally be a 15 minute job, on which 14 of those you would wait for the compiler to finish, so yeah when i mean that RT supported normal win32 apps, i mean MS releasing the tool that allowed that.

 

They did exactly that with the switch from power to x86, killed years of compatibility, and third party support, and they didn't give a shit about all that job to switch CPU's, like i said if Apple REALLY wants to use its ARM designs on OS X devices they will do it.

[RagnarokDel]

It is possible that if Apple decided to use its own CPU in the Macbook Intel would pay them to not do that. Intel probably has too many resources to let Apple do that, though you never know.

If Apple did that, this is what the new macbook would be like

 

 

 

 

Lets say Apple develops an ARM compatible version of OSX.  Then they can use their own CPU designs.  Intel then loses business from Apple, who is kind of a big player in the computer world.

 

It's not that far fetched.

Apple already has shitty marketshares in the PC market, guess how low it would go if they did that? Suddenly every app ever made for OSX dont work and have to be significantly modified to take become compatible with arm processors. If they did that, they might as well just close their PC division and let Microsoft run free without competition.

 

I don't disagree, but I would say that a potential low end macbook could get by using the App Store, with the higher end models retaining core m.  Pretty much just an iPad pro with a permanent keyboard and proper file explorer.

You dont just change the chip in a computer without having a compatible motherboard, so then you need a different motherboard between each versions doubling the R&D cost. It's just not worth doing.

=============================================

Some people are forgetting a very simple factor: Why would you want to get less performance in a laptop by using weaker hardware? No matter how impressive those chips are on arm, they would be akin to going back to a penthium 3 while trying to run a current desktop OS.

[zMeul]

you know what .. let them do it

 

it's not like Intel supplied Apple with CPUs since the dawn of time

Apple used in their systems IBM's architecture, the PowerPC

[bcredeur97]

isn't the A9X running on smaller transistors than the CoreM?

[Menzenski]

Apple already has shitty marketshares in the PC market, guess how low it would go if they did that? Suddenly every app ever made for OSX dont work and have to be significantly modified to take become compatible with arm processors. If they did that, they might as well just close their PC division and let Microsoft run free without competition.

 

You dont just change the chip in a computer without having a compatible motherboard, so then you need a different motherboard between each versions doubling the R&D cost. It's just not worth doing.

=============================================

Some people are forgetting a very simple factor: Why would you want to get less performance in a laptop by using weaker hardware? No matter how impressive those chips are on arm, they would be akin to going back to a penthium 3 while trying to run a current desktop OS.

 

You're forgetting that Apple has already done that when they switched from PowerPC chips to Intel in '05.  I'm pretty sure that didn't result in them closing down their computer division.  If switching to their own CPU designs (whatever the software consequences are) results in more profit they'll do it.

 

They need to design a new motherboard every time they switch Intel chipsets...?  They might as well not update their Ivy Bridge based macbook pros to Haswell because they need a new motherboard.

 

I would argue that "getting less performance by using weaker hardware" is exactly what Apple did by releasing the Macbook last year.  They could've updated the air line with Broadwell based U-class processors and a retina display, but instead chose to introduce a new line of lower-performing hardware.  It's not unprecedented.

 

All of that said, I doubt Apple will leave Intel in the near or even medium term.  But long term, who knows?  They've made huge gains in cpu and gpu performance in recent years in arm implementations.  Imagine what they could do in the future.  

[BuckGup]

Yeah but who actually uses an Ipad except games and watching movies? You don't go into a business and see everyone walking around with them and writing stuff down and what not and if they are using it to write stuff down they will just have a laptop as typing on an Ipda screen is aids

[patrickjp93]

My God you people are dim. These are browser benchmarks. For Pete's sake they mean absolutely nothing! Go ahead and compile a video game on ARM and try to play on the A9X hooked up to a Titan X. No one in the ARM field is anywhere close to catching either x86 or PowerPC in actual performance. ARM for now has very niche uses which is why it still has even a remote power advantage over x86, though that's disappearing each year. Apple will not be switching over Macbooks for another 5 years minimum, and the Airs and Pros will be x86 for at least the next 12.

[Godlygamer23]

No it isn't...

 

Jesus

The thermal design power (TDP), sometimes called thermal design point, is the maximum amount of heat generated by the CPU that the cooling system in a computer is required to dissipate in typical operation. Rather than specifying CPU's real power dissipation, TDP serves as the nominal value for designing CPU cooling systems

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_design_power

Yes it is. The higher the clock speed and voltage, the higher the TDP(though non-measurable by us).

[Curufinwe_wins]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_design_power

Yes it is. The higher the clock speed and voltage, the higher the TDP(though non-measurable by us).

Jesus fuck... do people not actually get this stuff?

 

Literally every youtuber has made a video clarifying this stuff how do you not know this by now...

 

From that same article:

 

 

 

Since safety margins and the definition of what constitutes a real application vary among manufacturers, TDP values between different manufacturers cannot be accurately compared. For example, while a processor with a TDP of 100 W will almost certainly use more power at full load than a processor with a 10 W TDP from the same manufacturer, it may or may not use more power than a processor from a different manufacturer that has a 90 W TDP. Additionally, TDPs are often specified for families of processors, with the low-end models usually using significantly less power than those at the high end of the family.

 

Watch and please learn...

 

ESP around 1:30-2:00 min.

[Godlygamer23]

Jesus fuck... do people not actually get this stuff?

 

Literally every youtuber has made a video clarifying this stuff how do you not know this by now...

 

From that same article:

 

Watch and please learn...

That is very natural because lower powered items produce less heat. Temperature and heat are not the same thing.

[Curufinwe_wins]

That is very natural because lower powered items produce less heat. Temperature and heat are not the same thing.

OMFG. You don't even know what you said wrong...

 

TDP is an effectively made up bullshit RATING on the power of a part (which is 100% analogous to energy dissipation or commonly referred to as heat).

 

It is NOT a MEASUREMENT on said heat/power and it CANNOT be accurately compared between manufacturers.

 

Calling a piece 15W TDP and comparing it to another manufacturers part with a different TDP is BAD/WRONG

[Godlygamer23]

OMFG. You don't even know what you said wrong...

Then explain it to me. TDP is measured in watts, which is a measurement of energy. In this case, that measurement is thermal energy being emitted.

Also: http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/light_lessons/thermal/differ.html

[RagnarokDel]

You're forgetting that Apple has already done that when they switched from PowerPC chips to Intel in '05.  I'm pretty sure that didn't result in them closing down their computer division.  If switching to their own CPU designs (whatever the software consequences are) results in more profit they'll do it.

 

They need to design a new motherboard every time they switch Intel chipsets...?  They might as well not update their Ivy Bridge based macbook pros to Haswell because they need a new motherboard.

 

I would argue that "getting less performance by using weaker hardware" is exactly what Apple did by releasing the Macbook last year.  They could've updated the air line with Broadwell based U-class processors and a retina display, but instead chose to introduce a new line of lower-performing hardware.  It's not unprecedented.

 

All of that said, I doubt Apple will leave Intel in the near or even medium term.  But long term, who knows?  They've made huge gains in cpu and gpu performance in recent years in arm implementations.  Imagine what they could do in the future.  

I'm not forgetting it at all. Most apps were already being made for x86 because of Windows. That's not the case with arm.

 

Actually that's not the issue, you're talking about making 2 motherboards for 1 product.