Apple dumps Intel and shows Final Cut Pro on new Mac with Apple CPU !
- Thread starter joe1946
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scorsesefan
Veteran
Not good. My friend bought a PowerPC G5/DAW for several thousand dollars jsut before Apple went to Intel processors. Obsolete within months...
puredrifting
Major Contributor
In the grand scheme of things, long term, this is good for us, more efficient processing which means less heat management/issues.
It means that the iPad Pros will become even more viable as an alternative to a laptop for remote work.
Hard to believe in 2020 that all of the Intel stuff is still based upon the x86 architecture, which is ancient.
This is much more modern and makes Apples even more different than PCs, it means that Apple controls ALL of the system
architecture, no more relying on Intel or AMDs timelines and availability of components.
It does, however mean the end of the Hackintosh, which will bum some people out.
It means that the iPad Pros will become even more viable as an alternative to a laptop for remote work.
Hard to believe in 2020 that all of the Intel stuff is still based upon the x86 architecture, which is ancient.
This is much more modern and makes Apples even more different than PCs, it means that Apple controls ALL of the system
architecture, no more relying on Intel or AMDs timelines and availability of components.
It does, however mean the end of the Hackintosh, which will bum some people out.
combatentropy
Veteran
- compatibility with apps on their phones and tablets
- less power usage, but I'm not sure how much of a difference it will make in overall battery life. Some say the screen and GPU use more power
- reduced costs for Apple, and they probably will pass some of it on to buyers
Apple has been using own ARM based chips since 2007. Additionally, it makes perfect sense for them to take this in house due to Intel's superior bargaining power vs. its customers. Thirdly, new ARM based server chips are also vying for the gigantic part of the Intel business and Apple likely has the same goals.
More competition on the manufacturing end is good for the buyers. Only if the photo-video industry was more like it.
More competition on the manufacturing end is good for the buyers. Only if the photo-video industry was more like it.
Thomas Smet
Veteran
Yeah this will eventually be a great thing. The iPad Pro also has the performance of the 13" MBP in terms of CPU and GPU and it is super thin with zero fans inside and runs for hours. Increase that size to a standard laptop and the sky really is the limit of what we can have in a 13" form factor or larger.
In the short term it may or may not suck. Kind of depends. Sounds like Adobe is 100% on board and already has most of their apps ported over. From day one it sounds like most users will be covered with the Apple pro apps and Adobe which means most people in the creative world.
Games may take a hit but gaming kind of sucks on MacOS anyway. Nobody wants to adapt to Metal 2 and the 64bit forced thing really pissed off a lot of game developers who don't have the resources to update lower revenue generating games. maybe it will get there eventually and maybe it will not. Arm MacOS will suddenly have a crap load of games however since any iPhone and iPad will suddenly work. Thats another thing to put off traditional game developers. How will they compete with $2.99 and $5.99 games? There is no way they can drop prices that much and justify the cost to develop for Mac. They may just say screw it and stick to Windows.
On the pro field front I think it will be awesome. Only tool I care about not really mentioned yet is Resolve and Blender for 3D animation. Sounds like Blender should work just fine through Rosetta however since Maya worked great in the demo. I'm sure the same will be true for Resolve as well and BMD will likely update it eventually as well. Can't think of any other pro apps I would need to worry about.
I'm a little confused on the GPU front with this move. What does that mean for the GPU? Is it integrated like it is on the iPad? While the iPad is impressive its 3D rendering is far behind that of higher end video cards. For example the 2020 iPad Pro Metal score is 9,894 compared to 43,144 of the new 5600m on the 16" MBP. Thats a massive processing difference and puts the Arm GPU more in line with the Intel GPU performance. Not horrible for everyday use but far from amazing.
On top of that will eGPU still work with an Arm Mac? Will any non Apple GPU work in the future for a eGPU enclosure or Mac Pro? I realize they want thin and efficient but pros are not always so worried about that. Yes we don't want to haul around a 15 lb laptop but many of us find the 16" MBP to have an insane amount of power and pretty darn thin and light. Now if Apple manages 24 core MP performance with four 5700 XT GPUs performance in the same 16" form factor well bring it. I will believe that when I see it however.
In the short term it may or may not suck. Kind of depends. Sounds like Adobe is 100% on board and already has most of their apps ported over. From day one it sounds like most users will be covered with the Apple pro apps and Adobe which means most people in the creative world.
Games may take a hit but gaming kind of sucks on MacOS anyway. Nobody wants to adapt to Metal 2 and the 64bit forced thing really pissed off a lot of game developers who don't have the resources to update lower revenue generating games. maybe it will get there eventually and maybe it will not. Arm MacOS will suddenly have a crap load of games however since any iPhone and iPad will suddenly work. Thats another thing to put off traditional game developers. How will they compete with $2.99 and $5.99 games? There is no way they can drop prices that much and justify the cost to develop for Mac. They may just say screw it and stick to Windows.
On the pro field front I think it will be awesome. Only tool I care about not really mentioned yet is Resolve and Blender for 3D animation. Sounds like Blender should work just fine through Rosetta however since Maya worked great in the demo. I'm sure the same will be true for Resolve as well and BMD will likely update it eventually as well. Can't think of any other pro apps I would need to worry about.
I'm a little confused on the GPU front with this move. What does that mean for the GPU? Is it integrated like it is on the iPad? While the iPad is impressive its 3D rendering is far behind that of higher end video cards. For example the 2020 iPad Pro Metal score is 9,894 compared to 43,144 of the new 5600m on the 16" MBP. Thats a massive processing difference and puts the Arm GPU more in line with the Intel GPU performance. Not horrible for everyday use but far from amazing.
On top of that will eGPU still work with an Arm Mac? Will any non Apple GPU work in the future for a eGPU enclosure or Mac Pro? I realize they want thin and efficient but pros are not always so worried about that. Yes we don't want to haul around a 15 lb laptop but many of us find the 16" MBP to have an insane amount of power and pretty darn thin and light. Now if Apple manages 24 core MP performance with four 5700 XT GPUs performance in the same 16" form factor well bring it. I will believe that when I see it however.
Thomas Smet
Veteran
Yeah... I use a ton of Apple products but I just don't see them passing those cost savings to the consumer at all. They never have and likely never will.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
That's why they have huge profit margins and an HQ building with 100% curved glass
groveChuck
U-matic Member
Last edited:
groveChuck
U-matic Member
What, do you still like your glass square? :grin:
Thomas Smet
Veteran
what's wrong with that? Any business strives to have a value where they can have a high profit margin?
Samuel H
Major Contributor
ARM CPUs are great in terms of performance-per-watt but not so much in terms of just performance, so I guess this is good for the Macbook Air, has pros and cons for the Macbook Pro, and is bad for iMac and Mac Pro. The Cortex-X1 is supposed to push performance at the cost of efficiency, and maybe tests with that is what convinced Apple, but given their track record I'd say they're just as likely to use a terribly outdated model instead.
To me, it seems they're just doubling down on their current approach: they will be better at the things they were already good at, while anybody who cares a lot about total performance is not using apple anyway.
To me, it seems they're just doubling down on their current approach: they will be better at the things they were already good at, while anybody who cares a lot about total performance is not using apple anyway.
combatentropy
Veteran
The original Macintosh sold for $2,495 in 1984, which is over $6,000 in today's dollars. Their prices do come down. More recently, the original iPad started at $499, and it is now 2/3 that.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
There's nothing wrong with that. I'm just concurring with the prediction that they will pocket the savings.
Let me opine on something I know nothing about ... oh, like usual - new ARM chips from Ampere, Marvell and Amazon could probably be tweaked - easily tweaked, perhaps? - to run on the similar architecture from Apple. In that case, Apple could co-produce some of them, rebadge or simply purchase whatever they need to fill out any gaps within their lineup.
PS. Since ARM chips are going inside pretty much everything these days, it moves Apple into a chip making business outside its own products and/or allows it to sell packaged hardware+software deals to whomever. Which means economy of scale and lower prices for everyone.
scorsesefan
Veteran
Of course they will. While other companies that build PCs integrate flexible and user modifiable technology into their products and pass along cost savings to consumers, Apple locks down their products, charges higher prices and discourages user experimentation (swapping out components, etc.)... In any case, as a lot of editors have switched to subscription based software, I doubt that the chip swap-out will be as destructive in that regard...
TheTrickster
Well-known member
As we can see from the iPAD and successive iPhones the performance of the CPU / GPU is very powerful for something that fits in your pockets and normally doesn't get too hot - and every year its seems we are 2X faster, 3X faster etc etc according to Apple keynotes.
My only concern with Apple going this route would be competition for ARM (or the lack of it). With AMD throwing cores at their Threadripper and aligning their Radeon GPUs closer and closer and with Intel - no doubt fixing their thermal issues eventually. Both are pushing speeds, hardware decoding etc faster and faster - which benefits the end user
Where does this leave ARM? Where is their competition for pushing their chips faster? or am I missing something?
My only concern with Apple going this route would be competition for ARM (or the lack of it). With AMD throwing cores at their Threadripper and aligning their Radeon GPUs closer and closer and with Intel - no doubt fixing their thermal issues eventually. Both are pushing speeds, hardware decoding etc faster and faster - which benefits the end user
Where does this leave ARM? Where is their competition for pushing their chips faster? or am I missing something?