iMac Pro to feature A10 Fusion coprocessor, possibly for low power tasks

[Taf the Ghost]

I do think this is actually a good direction for Apple, as so much of their ecosystem is on ARM-based chips for iOS. The ability to run native-mode could really help with certain things going forward.  Though I feel it should be pointed out that Zen design has a ARM co-processor on-die for AES acceleration. (I think it's only turned on for Threadripper and Eypc, though.) So there's a definite trend towards this within the User space of certain segments of the computer industry. It also makes a lot of sense from a utility and security perspective.

[Misanthrope]

Not to be cynical but I think this isn't a case of being practical or useful tech and more of a case of AMD having tons of palettes of these fucking things unsold so they might as well get something for them out of Apple.

[leadeater]

6 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

Not to be cynical but I think this isn't a case of being practical or useful tech and more of a case of AMD having tons of palettes of these fucking things unsold so they might as well get something for them out of Apple.

How does AMD come in to this? This is using Apple's own A10 ARM processors not AMD's A10 APUs, unless I'm missing something which is highly likely cos bleh Mac.

[Misanthrope]

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

How does AMD come in to this? This is using Apple's own A10 ARM processors not AMD's A10 APUs, unless I'm missing something which is highly likely cos bleh Mac.

 

4 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

Would work well for their macbooks

(also not sure if dramatically lowering power draw for a PC would do for the common people)

 

AMD? o_o

Oh ok I thought this A10:

 

Spoiler

My bad

[Drak3]

8 hours ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

FCPX puts Premiere Pro to utter shame in terms of performance.

It's gotten to the point where only parts of the video editting processes, FCPX is faster, and it's not uniformly faster as you scale hardware up. Working with the power the iMac Pro will have, it's likely Premiere Pro will be neck and neck with FCPX.

[Commodus]

2 hours ago, Drak3 said:

It's gotten to the point where only parts of the video editting processes, FCPX is faster, and it's not uniformly faster as you scale hardware up. Working with the power the iMac Pro will have, it's likely Premiere Pro will be neck and neck with FCPX.

Eh, I'd dispute that.  FCP is a beast when it comes to exporting videos at the least.  We also have to see how well FCP is optimized for the new Xeons and Vega graphics compared to Premiere.  Apple has that rare advantage of knowing exactly what hardware is coming down the pipeline and fine-tuning its pro software to run well out of the gate.  (Apple has worked with Adobe in advance on previous releases, but it's clear Apple still has an edge).

[ClientDigital]

9 hours ago, leadeater said:

I can't remember if the HEDT CPUs have the issue or not, what effects me and what I actually had to check was if E5 and above Xeons were effected and they are not .

 

Also personally I run a 4930k so yay for being outdated, don't even need to check.

Does this issue effect vPro CPUs like the i7-7920HQ or i7-7820HQ?

[DildorTheDecent]

10 hours ago, ClientDigital said:

It would be great if the new MacBook Pro had a 6 core processor (probably i7-8920HQ) and a Vega mobile GPU as well as an A11X Bionic from the 3rd gen iPad Pro that is yet to be released 

Damn...The children here would have a field day whining about the price.

 

"I want high end but I don't want to pay for it" kek.

[leadeater]

6 hours ago, ClientDigital said:

Does this issue effect vPro CPUs like the i7-7920HQ or i7-7820HQ?

Yes, vPro is the fully featured version of AMT. In fact they all have vPro capability but it's microcode locked out on overclocking CPUs etc.

[BuckGup]

18 hours ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

Don't NVIDIA Maxwell GPUs beginning with GM2xx also have an ARM co-processor?

If you consider the onboard VID then yeah

[Coaxialgamer]

18 hours ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

Don't NVIDIA Maxwell GPUs beginning with GM2xx also have an ARM co-processor?

They do. But not quite for the same purpose. 

[Dabombinable]

So instead of BIG:Little with x86_AMD64 cores, it will be x86_64BIG:ARMLittle?

[captain_to_fire]

49 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

So instead of BIG:Little with x86_AMD64 cores, it will be x86_64BIG:ARMLittle?

Somehow but remember that the A10 Fusion chip is also big:LITTLE with two power efficient and two high performance cores. The A10 Fusion for the iMac is mostly for security with the Secure Enclave coprocessor for storing cryptographic data and hands free “hey Siri”. 

 

I’m much more interested if Apple implemented this on the MacBook Pro 2018. An 8th generation ULV core i5/i7 and discrete mobile Vega GPU for resource intensive tasks and Apple’s A10 Fusion for light tasks. 

[mr moose]

I get that there are so many advantages to this (otherwise they wouldn't do it).  but I can help but feel an always on Co-processor with access to networks/internet brings a certain amount of bad joojoo.

 

I'm sure it's not the end of the world, but as tech gets more complicated/interlinked and connected more often than not, the avenues for security breaches become more plentiful and harder to close. 

[Drak3]

47 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I get that there are so many advantages to this (otherwise they wouldn't do it).  but I can help but feel an always on Co-processor with access to networks/internet brings a certain amount of bad joojoo.

 

I'm sure it's not the end of the world, but as tech gets more complicated/interlinked and connected more often than not, the avenues for security breaches become more plentiful and harder to close. 

Get out of here with your reason and historically backed up logic, heathen!

 

Kappa.