Apple dumps Intel and shows Final Cut Pro on new Mac with Apple CPU !

[Tamerlin]

Not quite on par - $6B for Apple vs $15B for Netflix - but close to Amazon Prime.

I have a feeling that's where Apple will dedicate its efforts, rather than trying to break into servers... Foundation actually has me thinking about getting an Apple TV subscription. The one trailer I saw for Foundation looks fantastic.

 

[vultch2]

It's not a PowerPC, either.

A - But its not Intel, my reply was to JAMedia.


Also wrong. Servers do a lot more than that. At least the ones that I typically code for do.

A - I am sure servers do a lot more, but their main task is moving data is it not be it for online shopping, banking or Video streaming which tasks had you in mind, housekeeping or specific dedicated applications. My question to you is what process that an Intel x86 or nVidiaA100 does that cannot be coded for an Apple M1.
If its something very esoteric then perhaps its a custom build but what percentage of the server market is this?


Not entirely. A datacenter built around efficient but slow processors can actually end up consuming MORE power than one built on high performance processors that burn more power. The nVidia A100 is actually a great example of how -- replacing an ENTIRE datacenter with a single rack that's 2-3x faster than the entire datacenter saves a lot of compute time. The A100 isn't a power miser, but it's so powerful that the overall hardware requirements decrease drastically.

A - Well I had a look at the nVidia A100 spec sheet, power supply wise its anything from 250 watts to 400 watts compared to 13 watts for an M1, that's a lot more electricity to be paid for. The M1 consuming 30-20 times less power and also benefits from a greatly reduced cost for expensive HVAC management.
And then there is the cost is the NVidia A100 ballpark $12000 compared to $1000 for a mac mini. 12 times the cost. These are very compelling figures for future project planning, i.e when the accountants run the figures.
Is the nVidia A100 faster, I have no doubt it is, but how much faster and does it make sense financially, it depends on your needs.


You're acting like that's news. In reality, you're just not aware of all of the low power datacenter designs that are already out there. Zen3 looks like a power monster on paper when you look only at the wattage per socket, but when you look at its power consumption per core, it ends up not being that much higher than for the M1. Part of that is due to the fact that a lot of the power consumption isn't in the cores themselves, but rather in the interconnects and external I/Os.

A - I disagree, exactly where did I say this is news, in the context of paying very high costs in Greenland for staff, buildings, local taxes, electricity etc considerable savings can be made moving from Intel to say the M1 and moving the entire server farm to a country where costs are considerably cheaper. Do you not think this will factor into future planning for large datacentres.

And yet Intel marketing department did the hard sell stating their chips can save money by running a few degrees hotter saving HVAC costs.


That's why several companies have been building ARM based servers for years. Mostly, because they've been nowhere near as powerful as x86 processors, they've been going into web servers because web servers are latency constrained more than compute constrained, because they spend more time waiting for database queries to complete than they do to complete their own business logic and HTTP request/response processing.

A - I agree many companies have moved to ARM so why not the Apple M1 chip? It offers remarkable performance and appears to really hammer the Intel offerings in overall terms of performance especially for the server market.


Even if Apple did decide to start selling M1 CPUs to to 3rd parties, it would be the newcomer trying to break into a market that several companies are already in, with products that are more suitable for that niche, and much higher end. There are already some 100+ core ARM server processors in the works. They'd be pretty unappealing for most of our needs though, due to not having GPUs and not having as much FPU throughput -- again by design. If your primary use case doesn't need it, it's wasted silicon and not a feature.

A - Apple did in the past sell a server, I have no idea if they would ever enter this market again, as JAMedia pointed out Dell beat them in after-sales service but why not enter the market again? Either sell their own servers or sell/licence some of the new offerings to Dell etc. It would build the Apple ecosystem enormously and they have stated they are going after the higher end PC offerings with the M2 or M1X or whatever they decide to call it.

 

[JAMedia]

A - Apple did in the past sell a server, I have no idea if they would ever enter this market again, as JAMedia pointed out Dell beat them in after-sales service but why not enter the market again? Either sell their own servers or sell/licence some of the new offerings to Dell etc. It would build the Apple ecosystem enormously and they have stated they are going after the higher end PC offerings with the M2 or M1X or whatever they decide to call it.

I think that whilst Dell is mainstream Apple would do a server, as they did before, to round out their offering to MAC users. There are many companies using iMac's Mini's and the Pro (also iPads and iPhones) who would love Mac Server Also many small companies with Mac laptops. If they are all tending to the same CPU and OS It will be seamless.

Re new Mac Pro. IT look like being a "mini pro" with 12 cores.

I have stopped trusting Apple. I still have a Mac PowerBook G4 (retired) as well as several Intel Macs (Macbooks and Pro ) but Apples direction of travel over the last few years is diverging from mine. It seems that since Steve Jobs took his eye of the ball the vision has changed. primarily to the phone/pad/air user groups.

 

[DLD]

In the "net neutrality" kerfuffle, the big battle was between Netflix and the ISP's because the latter overwhelmed the pipes of the former while refusing the pay for it. As the (presumably) outgoing administration adopted a more of a free market approach, Netflix and the ISP's settled on the streamer paying for its own server clusters inside the ISP hubs. That wasn't exactly inexpensive, amounting to billions of dollars in investment. With the video market pretty much switching to streaming and, for better or worse, with 8K coming up, owning these server clusters is becoming a must. Avoiding the ISP throttling is going to be even more important going forward and this is where Apple can assert its advantage - the financial and the technical muscles - over the others.

 

[indiawilds]

Given the leaks about M2, how many of you are cancelling your Mac Minis and Macbooks and waiting out?

 

[Thomas Smet]

Given the leaks about M2, how many of you are cancelling your Mac Minis and Macbooks and waiting out?

Not me because we always knew the 16" and iMac were going to be a lot better. Not sure how anybody could think otherwise. The M1 is exactly what it is a very impressive entry level chip but at the end of the day still an entry level chip. I'm getting a MBA not as a main system for editing but a smaller and lighter long battery portable machine to do a lot of the other stuff I do. It can be used as a very affordable machine in the field to check footage an organize media and a rough cut. I don't see the point buying a 16" for that when I would still do most of my editing on my main desktop like the iMac or my current Mac mini with eGPU.

It would be nice at times to have a bit more power on the road but it isn't a must. The M1 is fully capable of doing just about anything I can do on my desktop. Just slower rendering which I tend not to do much on the road.

As for gaming I still think one is better off just getting a cheap PC laptop with a 2060 GPU. Not only is it much faster than the M1 GPU for gaming but Windows will still command a AAA gaming presence for at least a few years. Its going to take years for developers to get on board the M1 and many existing games likely will not be ported to MacOS. Thats why I would rather get a $999 MBA and a $1300 Windows laptop with a 2060 for the same cost as a 16" MBP and have the best of both worlds.

 

[puredrifting]

Not me because we always knew the 16" and iMac were going to be a lot better. Not sure how anybody could think otherwise. The M1 is exactly what it is a very impressive entry level chip but at the end of the day still an entry level chip. I'm getting a MBA not as a main system for editing but a smaller and lighter long battery portable machine to do a lot of the other stuff I do. It can be used as a very affordable machine in the field to check footage an organize media and a rough cut. I don't see the point buying a 16" for that when I would still do most of my editing on my main desktop like the iMac or my current Mac mini with eGPU.

It would be nice at times to have a bit more power on the road but it isn't a must. The M1 is fully capable of doing just about anything I can do on my desktop. Just slower rendering which I tend not to do much on the road.

As for gaming I still think one is better off just getting a cheap PC laptop with a 2060 GPU. Not only is it much faster than the M1 GPU for gaming but Windows will still command a AAA gaming presence for at least a few years. Its going to take years for developers to get on board the M1 and many existing games likely will not be ported to MacOS. Thats why I would rather get a $999 MBA and a $1300 Windows laptop with a 2060 for the same cost as a 16" MBP and have the best of both worlds.

That would/will be so strange if in a couple of years, most gamers migrate to Macs because of the Silicon and speed.
I have seen all of you computer nerds (I don't know nearly enough about computers to wear the badge 'computer nerd')
posting about the battle between ARM/M1/Intel/AMD processing but it would be a weird world if
PC's just became passé for gaming. I doubt that will happen but it would be funny if it did.

 

[Tamerlin]

A - Apple did in the past sell a server, I have no idea if they would ever enter this market again, as JAMedia pointed out Dell beat them in after-sales service but why not enter the market again? Either sell their own servers or sell/licence some of the new offerings to Dell etc. It would build the Apple ecosystem enormously and they have stated they are going after the higher end PC offerings with the M2 or M1X or whatever they decide to call it.

I know about that server. It wasn't exactly a success, and that was during a time when servers were a lot more lucractive than things like cell phones.

Apple also introduced a SAN which didn't sell well either, but Apple's reps clearly didn't understand why. It was neither the hardware nor the price.

 

[Tamerlin]

That would/will be so strange if in a couple of years, most gamers migrate to Macs because of the Silicon and speed.
I have seen all of you computer nerds (I don't know nearly enough about computers to wear the badge 'computer nerd')
posting about the battle between ARM/M1/Intel/AMD processing but it would be a weird world if
PC's just became passé for gaming. I doubt that will happen but it would be funny if it did.

Lately, mobile gaming systems have been gaining popularity over desktop gaming systems, and the two flagship consoles offer 4K gaming with hardware ray tracing.

PC gaming IS becoming passe, but Apple, having few AAA games available for its platform, has next to nothing to do with it.

 

[filmguy123]

PC gaming IS becoming passe

Heh - based on what? The new consoles with raytracing can barely pull decent frames with raytracing, let alone with RT + full resolution. While they are a good bump from past generations, they are also underwhelming being slightly slower than a PC's GTX 1080 TI from 3 years ago. And right now, the new RTX 3080 series push 3x the Tflops of the new generation... today... and these consoles have a lifespan of 8-10 years? With raytracing and VR coming into its own, needs all of the power it can get. If anything, PC gaming is growing - it's the only place you can get a "true" next gen experience with high resolution raytracing and constant fast frame rates - and that divide will likely grow starker in coming years.

As of yesterday the lastest snafu is the big game of the year basically only running well on top end PCs: https://wccftech.com/cyberpunk-2077-video-console-high-end-pcs/ - even the new XBOX/PS5 struggle, as the new generation of consoles bring parity with a typical 2017 high end PC build.

I believe it would be more accurate to say that gaming has gone mainstream and the market exponentially expanded. While PC gaming is stronger than ever, by far, gaming has grown so much that it no longer has as large a piece of the pie. But that's based on percentages, not raw revenue and player count.

That would/will be so strange if in a couple of years, most gamers migrate to Macs because of the Silicon and speed... it would be a weird world if
PC's just became passé for gaming. I doubt that will happen but it would be funny if it did.

Important to separate Apple/Mac from their custom ARM architecture. I think it's very possible that gaming could migrate to the ARM architecture if Intel/AMD can't match what Apple is doing via x86. Apple is first to market with a true x86 desktop rival based on ARM, we'll see what the competition does. Windows already supports the ARM architecture so the questions are: Will someone come along to compete with the big x86 players in the PC space? Will Intel/AMD jump to ARM? Will x86 see some architecture redesigns that leapfrog ARM? (Intel said they are working on their own big/little config), etc.

Actually, what is more likely and addresses the issue with both underwhelming new console hardware (they are good, I only mean compared to enthusiast PCs) and with x86 vs ARM architecture, is the trend towards streaming gaming and cloud based computing. Google Stadia is the best example of this today, and both Sony & Microsoft have seemingly setup their consoles for a future of streaming gaming where you only need hardware good enough to decompress the stream and maintain high speed, low latency network connection. In which case, gaming will move away from a PC, away from a console, away from x86 or ARM, and to literally any connected device.

This comes with a fun side bonus of corporations keeping their customers hooked into a rent everything, own nothing model.

 

[Tamerlin]

Heh - based on what? The new consoles with raytracing can barely pull decent frames with raytracing, let alone with RT + full resolution. While they are a good bump from past generations, they are also underwhelming being slightly slower than a PC's GTX 1080 TI from 3 years ago. And right now, the new RTX 3080 series push 3x the Tflops of the new generation... today... and these consoles have a lifespan of 8-10 years? With raytracing and VR coming into its own, needs all of the power it can get. If anything, PC gaming is growing - it's the only place you can get a "true" next gen experience with high resolution raytracing and constant fast frame rates - and that divide will likely grow starker in coming years.

Have you actually seen what the new consoles can do?

A lot of the latest AAA games are being released on all three platforms now. I have a feeling that the consoles will be getting more frequent generational updates in the near future to better keep up with technology progress.

As of yesterday the lastest snafu is the big game of the year basically only running well on top end PCs: https://wccftech.com/cyberpunk-2077-video-console-high-end-pcs/ - even the new XBOX/PS5 struggle, as the new generation of consoles bring parity with a typical 2017 high end PC build.

I believe it would be more accurate to say that gaming has gone mainstream and the market exponentially expanded. While PC gaming is stronger than ever, by far, gaming has grown so much that it no longer has as large a piece of the pie. But that's based on percentages, not raw revenue and player count.

I have a feeling that while we'll see a few AAA games that leverage the top feature set and horsepower of the flagship CPU + GPU combinations, those are such a small market due to their price tags that more and more high end games will end up being console optimized. Their $500 price tag will lead to a MUCH larger target market, and with just two configurations for each, so it's also a far easier target to optimize for. That's probably also nVidia's biggest concern...

Important to separate Apple/Mac from their custom ARM architecture. I think it's very possible that gaming could migrate to the ARM architecture if Intel/AMD can't match what Apple is doing via x86. Apple is first to market with a true x86 desktop rival based on ARM, we'll see what the competition does. Windows already supports the ARM architecture so the questions are: Will someone come along to compete with the big x86 players in the PC space? Will Intel/AMD jump to ARM? Will x86 see some architecture redesigns that leapfrog ARM? (Intel said they are working on their own big/little config), etc.

Realistically, except in the ultra-low power niche, the M1 isn't even close to competitive. Take out the power constraints, and even Intel's current lineup is far ahead, and AMD is farther ahead still... except for the supply constraints. x86 doesn't scale down to M1 levels well, but we have yet to see how well the M1 scales up.

The big question is going to be whether or not AMD and Intel will try to get into the ultra-mobile market. So far, both have used increases in efficiency (which Intel is WAY behind on) to increase performance within a given envelope. Same with nVidia. The Ampere and Navi2 are both a lot more efficient than their predecessors, and both companies used the lower thermal load to drive up clock speeds and/or add computing resources.

AMD is leading the industry in both compute density and performance per watt now, mainly by offering a lot of performance. We'll see what the future holds... and how much of Apple's power consumption advantage is due to the design, and how much is due to the process edge it has.

Actually, what is more likely and addresses the issue with both underwhelming new console hardware (they are good, I only mean compared to enthusiast PCs) and with x86 vs ARM architecture, is the trend towards streaming gaming and cloud based computing. Google Stadia is the best example of this today, and both Sony & Microsoft have seemingly setup their consoles for a future of streaming gaming where you only need hardware good enough to decompress the stream and maintain high speed, low latency network connection. In which case, gaming will move away from a PC, away from a console, away from x86 or ARM, and to literally any connected device.

To any connected device with enough horsepower... though there are some bandwidth-saving technologies based on DLSS and similar technologies in the works that could facilitate a transition to cloud based gaming using thin clients.

This comes with a fun side bonus of corporations keeping their customers hooked into a rent everything, own nothing model.

That's not a pleasing trend, though for massively multiplayer games it's kind of irrelevant.

 

[combatentropy]

it would be a weird world if PC's just became passé for gaming

I don't know about gaming on Macs, but a few days ago, this story was popular on Hacker News, Many Windows games now work on Linux. And as was mentioned, streaming is pretty cool, like Google Stadia, which lets you play even on just a Chromebook.

 

[filmguy123]

Yes I’ve looked closely at the new consoles, they are superb for $500. I’m merely saying they aren’t that exciting from a technological breakthrough point of view. They use a slower and lower core version of the AMD zen chips available on desktop and a slower version of Amds new desktop GPU with very limited RAM. The SSD is very good, but nothing not available on PC.

Not a slam on the new consoles at all, I will be upgrading my ps4 pro to a ps5 when you can actually get one. But by sheer benchmarks and performance numbers they are a long ways away from true next gen 4K 60fps RayTracing. Just look at reviews on miles morales.

I don’t think you could build a better PC for $500. But you can’t buy a $1500-$2000 console, whereas on a PC you can easily triple the performance ceiling for that price if you’ll pay to play. Nothing new I’m saying here of course, only that, the idea some people have of next gen gaming now available thanks to new consoles is more than ever a case of consoles playing hardware catch up and being a few years behind. They’re underwhelming from that point of view.

That said, we will see new experiences because of them, because the hardware will become accessible and mainstream. But, it will be a couple years as most developers will develop for the lowest common denominator. I was merely saying that gaming on PC isn’t passé, it’s seen record numbers and sales in the past year, it’s just that the market has expanded so much.

Cyberpunk is a good case in point. Many are saying they had their hopes up too high that it would redefine gaming. Turns out it’s just a great game. The graphics are excellent and the world is large but even the top PCs struggle to run it, and the top PCs are 3x faster than new consoles. Don’t expect miracles is all.

To pure’s point ARM architecture could usurp x86 if it offers a true next gen experience at lower power and cost in a few years... say a $500 console faster than today’s best PCs. That would really usher in a paradigm shift in gaming. This time around, it’s all a bit more evolutionary as x86 has only roughly doubled in single core cpu performance since the last console cycle, and while GPUs have seen bigger gains... meanwhile, pixels pushed has quadrupled thanks to 4K and raytracing chews through performance.

 

[Thomas Smet]

That would/will be so strange if in a couple of years, most gamers migrate to Macs because of the Silicon and speed.
I have seen all of you computer nerds (I don't know nearly enough about computers to wear the badge 'computer nerd')
posting about the battle between ARM/M1/Intel/AMD processing but it would be a weird world if
PC's just became passé for gaming. I doubt that will happen but it would be funny if it did.

I'm not sure we are there yet or ever will be but developers will need to start considering developing for both platforms or miss out on a chunk of potential market share. While there are a ton more PCs out there than Macs its important to note that most PCs are utter garbage for gaming and more business or casual crap from BestBuy kind of computers. Many of which don't have any kind of dedicated GPU and likely never will.

The M1 is much better than any other integrated GPU right now and better than some dedicated GPUs from 2018 or older. That for the first time ever makes a entry level Mac a realistic option for some level of gaming.

It is a high cost to develop for two platforms but its an even higher cost to miss out on a growing portion of the market.

Windows gaming will never go away but developers are going to have to find a way ti plot their resources to develop for both like Blizzard always has for Diablo and WOW. Diablo is a AAA game and always worked great on MacOS. Played it for years on my 2012 iMac with the 680 MX GPU. It now runs just as well if not better under Rosetta and the M1 which is amazing. That is a 2013 game but not any less visually pleasing or entertaining. It is also proof there is no reason why other games couldn't work on MacOS. Developers have just been cheap and lazy to bother porting games.

 

[filmguy123]

If apples ARM GPU and M1x chip deliver, and developers support the platform, gaming on a MacBook Pro may well be faster than gaming on a PS5.

 

[Thomas Smet]

I'm not sure we are there yet or ever will be but developers will need to start considering developing for both platforms or miss out on a chunk of potential market share. While there are a ton more PCs out there than Macs its important to note that most PCs are utter garbage for gaming and more business or casual crap from BestBuy kind of computers. Many of which don't have any kind of dedicated GPU and likely never will.

The M1 is much better than any other integrated GPU right now and better than some dedicated GPUs from 2018 or older. That for the first time ever makes a entry level Mac a realistic option for some level of gaming.

It is a high cost to develop for two platforms but its an even higher cost to miss out on a growing portion of the market.

Windows gaming will never go away but developers are going to have to find a way ti plot their resources to develop for both like Blizzard always has for Diablo and WOW. Diablo is a AAA game and always worked great on MacOS. Played it for years on my 2012 iMac with the 680 MX GPU. It now runs just as well if not better under Rosetta and the M1 which is amazing. That is a 2013 game but not any less visually pleasing or entertaining. It is also proof there is no reason why other games couldn't work on MacOS. Developers have just been cheap and lazy to bother porting games.

Games built with Unity for example can be publish to Windows, MacOS or Linux. Absolutely no reason not to have MacOS ports of more games.

 

[filmguy123]

Baldurs gate 3 is something Apple showcased for M1, built on unity, and supposedly runs great. Hopefully unreal engine will be supported with ARM/Mac out of box as Apple has (had??) close relationship with Epic... at least till the fortnite fiasco.

Not that any of this matters much to video, except, stuff like Baldurs Gate 3 would be nice on the next 14 hour flight is all!

 

[Tamerlin]

I'm not sure we are there yet or ever will be but developers will need to start considering developing for both platforms or miss out on a chunk of potential market share. While there are a ton more PCs out there than Macs its important to note that most PCs are utter garbage for gaming and more business or casual crap from BestBuy kind of computers. Many of which don't have any kind of dedicated GPU and likely never will.

That tells you more about the market than anything else. That niche is ripe for console vendors... but are mostly into casual gaming if they play games at all, most likely.

The M1 is much better than any other integrated GPU right now and better than some dedicated GPUs from 2018 or older. That for the first time ever makes a entry level Mac a realistic option for some level of gaming.

Not quite. The downer is that the new Xe GPUs are tied to aging Sky Lake tweaks, except for the new Tiger Lake processors which are limited to only four cores. Xe is however ahead of anything AMD has planned until the Navi2+Zen3 (Vermeer, IIRC) APUs land.

It is a high cost to develop for two platforms but its an even higher cost to miss out on a growing portion of the market.

Windows gaming will never go away but developers are going to have to find a way ti plot their resources to develop for both like Blizzard always has for Diablo and WOW. Diablo is a AAA game and always worked great on MacOS. Played it for years on my 2012 iMac with the 680 MX GPU. It now runs just as well if not better under Rosetta and the M1 which is amazing. That is a 2013 game but not any less visually pleasing or entertaining. It is also proof there is no reason why other games couldn't work on MacOS. Developers have just been cheap and lazy to bother porting games.

It's a business decision more than an effort one. The gaming market for macs has been small. Not a lot of game development shops can afford to develop OSX ports of games at all, let alone for a market that isn't big enough for them to recoup their costs on.

Unless the M1 takes a significant enough market share AND delivers competitive performance for gaming, it's still going to be relegated to casual gamers and big companies that can afford the extra time, effort, and developers.

 

[Tamerlin]

Yes I’ve looked closely at the new consoles, they are superb for $500. I’m merely saying they aren’t that exciting from a technological breakthrough point of view. They use a slower and lower core version of the AMD zen chips available on desktop and a slower version of Amds new desktop GPU with very limited RAM. The SSD is very good, but nothing not available on PC.

You're still missing something very obvious, in fact the entire reason that the gaming consoles are such a big business -- so big that the three stalwarts in gaming were almost by themselves generating enough money for AMD to stay alive while getting Zen off the ground, spinning off Global Foundries, and transitioning its production to TSMC.

Gaming consoles, since they're constant, are a much easier target for developers. Most gamers won't spend $1500-$2000 on a computer that can match a $500 gaming console. The companies that sell gaming consoles don't try to make money on the consoles; those are like Black Magic selling Resolve for peanuts; their revenues from the games and licenses to develop and sell games.

They don't NEED to compete with a high end gaming system; they need to compete with the mid-range, which these ones do. The serious gamers and the pro gamers aren't part of the target market, though some will probably purchase one or both consoles in addition to their serious rigs.

Not a slam on the new consoles at all, I will be upgrading my ps4 pro to a ps5 when you can actually get one. But by sheer benchmarks and performance numbers they are a long ways away from true next gen 4K 60fps RayTracing. Just look at reviews on miles morales.

The reviews on ArsTechnica were quite positive -- enough that I would have pre-ordered one (not sure which) had I been more of a gamer. But I just haven't had enough time for gaming lately, so...

I don’t think you could build a better PC for $500. But you can’t buy a $1500-$2000 console, whereas on a PC you can easily triple the performance ceiling for that price if you’ll pay to play. Nothing new I’m saying here of course, only that, the idea some people have of next gen gaming now available thanks to new consoles is more than ever a case of consoles playing hardware catch up and being a few years behind. They’re underwhelming from that point of view.

Historically, the gaming consoles outsell gaming PC's hand over fist. That trend is continuing -- it's also why nVidia rushed the Amperes out to market before their supply chains were ready for prime time.

That said, we will see new experiences because of them, because the hardware will become accessible and mainstream. But, it will be a couple years as most developers will develop for the lowest common denominator. I was merely saying that gaming on PC isn’t passé, it’s seen record numbers and sales in the past year, it’s just that the market has expanded so much.

I suspect that it will be before long. The consoles have a lot of advantages that PCs don't and can't have -- ever. The reverse is also true, but the advantages that the PCs have come at a cost that is making them increasingly harder to sell, since a current iPad or Chrome Book already has more than enough horsepower for most computer users. The consoles can appeal to the demographic of gamers that really just want to play nice looking games for fun but don't want to spend $1500-$2000 on a computer just for gaming. But $500 at launch, or $400 or so in a couple of months... that's a huge market. And I suspect that Microsoft and Sony might start amping things up a bit.

To pure’s point ARM architecture could usurp x86 if it offers a true next gen experience at lower power and cost in a few years... say a $500 console faster than today’s best PCs. That would really usher in a paradigm shift in gaming. This time around, it’s all a bit more evolutionary as x86 has only roughly doubled in single core cpu performance since the last console cycle, and while GPUs have seen bigger gains... meanwhile, pixels pushed has quadrupled thanks to 4K and raytracing chews through performance.

The last five years have also included a shift that no one expected five years ago, because when Intel made the transition to 14nm, it was ahead of everyone else, AND the rest of the industry couldn't match its transistor density until they reached 12nm.

Who, five years ago, would have predicted that right now Intel would still be predominantly shipping processors using its 14nm node and using TSMC to get 7nm capacity for its GPUs?

Five years ago it wasn't even certain that AMD would still EXIST today, it was in such bad shape. And now AMD is buying Xilinx...

It's a good thing for the consumers that there's a new competitor in town, any way you slice it.

 

[Thomas Smet]

You're still missing something very obvious, in fact the entire reason that the gaming consoles are such a big business -- so big that the three stalwarts in gaming were almost by themselves generating enough money for AMD to stay alive while getting Zen off the ground, spinning off Global Foundries, and transitioning its production to TSMC.

Gaming consoles, since they're constant, are a much easier target for developers. Most gamers won't spend $1500-$2000 on a computer that can match a $500 gaming console. The companies that sell gaming consoles don't try to make money on the consoles; those are like Black Magic selling Resolve for peanuts; their revenues from the games and licenses to develop and sell games.

They don't NEED to compete with a high end gaming system; they need to compete with the mid-range, which these ones do. The serious gamers and the pro gamers aren't part of the target market, though some will probably purchase one or both consoles in addition to their serious rigs.



The reviews on ArsTechnica were quite positive -- enough that I would have pre-ordered one (not sure which) had I been more of a gamer. But I just haven't had enough time for gaming lately, so...



Historically, the gaming consoles outsell gaming PC's hand over fist. That trend is continuing -- it's also why nVidia rushed the Amperes out to market before their supply chains were ready for prime time.



I suspect that it will be before long. The consoles have a lot of advantages that PCs don't and can't have -- ever. The reverse is also true, but the advantages that the PCs have come at a cost that is making them increasingly harder to sell, since a current iPad or Chrome Book already has more than enough horsepower for most computer users. The consoles can appeal to the demographic of gamers that really just want to play nice looking games for fun but don't want to spend $1500-$2000 on a computer just for gaming. But $500 at launch, or $400 or so in a couple of months... that's a huge market. And I suspect that Microsoft and Sony might start amping things up a bit.



The last five years have also included a shift that no one expected five years ago, because when Intel made the transition to 14nm, it was ahead of everyone else, AND the rest of the industry couldn't match its transistor density until they reached 12nm.

Who, five years ago, would have predicted that right now Intel would still be predominantly shipping processors using its 14nm node and using TSMC to get 7nm capacity for its GPUs?

Five years ago it wasn't even certain that AMD would still EXIST today, it was in such bad shape. And now AMD is buying Xilinx...

It's a good thing for the consumers that there's a new competitor in town, any way you slice it.

I think consoles outsell gaming PCs as well because a good gaming PC pretty much has to be built which not everyone has the stones to do. Its getting a bit better now that Walmart sells gaming systems and laptops are getting some decent graphics options if you know where to look for them. Its easier to walk into a Walmart, Target or BestBuy to buy a console vs trying to find that just right laptop for gaming. Plus as you mentioned the insane cost for a half way decent gaming PC.

In the video world we are kind of used to buying higher end machines but most people are buying rather dumbed down computers and I would argue there are likely more PC users with computers only capable of casual gaming than there are Mac users. There are more PC users and a larger percentage using crap business level machines that can barely run Word and Zoom at the same time. There may be more 16" MBP users than there are ROG or Razer Blade users due to how many people know and use the 16" MBP for video, music, photography, graphic design and so forth. I know a ton of Windows users but not a single one that owns a specific gaming Windows laptop. I know a ton of 16" MBP users however. I also know I can't get my hands on a M1 MBA to save my life and even the base models are back ordered until the end of the year. A custom model is likely end of January. That feels like pretty good sales to me.

I also think a lot of casual to budding gamers will appreciate being able to game on machines that have a long battery life and have little to no noise. Casual gamers can also turn into more serious gamers if the games are there. We live in an age where most computers kids get today are lighter weight laptop and not desktops like we had growing up where we could swap out the graphics card to get into gaming. Will there be hardcore gamers in the future with a shrinking custom desktop rig market? Developers may have to branch out to appeal to a new audience unless they are using consoles for that purpose.

To be honest ever since I got a Switch I don't care about gaming on a laptop as much anymore. The Switch with its online store has a ton of games I would only be able to get on Steam and Windows.