Apple speeds transition away from Intel chips with new Macs

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Apple speeds transition away from Intel chips with new Macs

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https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Techno ... 6&si=44594

Apple speeds transition away from Intel chips with new Macs
U.S. tech leader's latest launch event showcases more powerful silicon

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The new Mac Pro is the latest addition to Apple's computer lineup with its in-house silicon. (Photo courtesy of Apple)

YIFAN YU, Nikkei staff writerOctober 19, 2021 04:42 JST

PALO ALTO, U.S.-- Apple announced a new Mac laptop powered by its latest-generation in-house chips, as the U.S. tech giant continues its two-year transition from Intel processors for its computer lineup.

The new processors, the M1 Pro and M1 Max, are 70% faster than the M1, its original self-designed silicon for Macs, and are the "most powerful chips Apple has ever built," the company said.

At its third launch event of 2021 on Monday, the company unveiled a new MacBook Pro. The 14-inch model will be powered by M1 Pro, which has a graphic processing unit that is two times faster than the original M1 and bigger memory bandwidth. Meanwhile, the new 16-inch MacBook Pro will be equipped with the M1 Max chip that features an even faster GPU and larger memory bandwidth.

From Apple to Google to Tesla, tech companies are increasingly choosing to develop semiconductors in-house, giving them greater control over their supply chain and the ability to tailor chips for their specific products.

Intel processors had been the "brain" of Mac for years, but it started replacing them with its own chips last November, beginning with the launch of the M1-powered MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro and Mac Mini. The company continued the transition by introducing a new iMac desktop with an M1 chip in April and said it would take two years to fully move from Intel chipsets to its own.

Intel stock dipped 0.3% Monday afternoon.

"The proprietary M1 Pro/Max processor is the foundational part of this MacBook, and ultimately we believe will be a game-changer that will convert 30%+ of current MacBook users to upgrade over the next year, catalyzing growth on this hardware segment," Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities, said in a note to clients on Monday.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro chip starts at $1,999, while the 16-inch model powered by the M1 Max starts at $2,499. Both will come in gray and silver and are available for order Monday.

The new MacBook Pros will begin shipping on Oct. 26, signaling the recent easing of pressure on Apple's Mac supply chain. It took the company nearly a month to begin delivering the new iMac announced in April.

Nikkei Asia previously reported that the next generation of M1 chips entered mass production in April.

At Monday's event, Apple also unveiled new AirPods with more audio features, starting at $179. It also added more colors to its smart home device HomePod mini and introduced a new voice control feature for Apple Music.

Apple shares moved up 0.7% on Monday afternoon.
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Re: Apple speeds transition away from Intel chips with new Macs

Post by mannanman »

ARM architecture not Apples “own” at all.
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Re: Apple speeds transition away from Intel chips with new Macs

Post by Kammekor »

Will be interesting to so how these chips behave in real life. Apple promises the best bang per Watt, but I can't find any details on the TDP of these new chips.

Anyway, since the Intel Atom chips about twelve years ago the number of instructions per Watt in laptop computers have increased immensely. That's a good thing.
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Re: Apple speeds transition away from Intel chips with new Macs

Post by nerdlinger »

Kammekor wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:20 pm Anyway, since the Intel Atom chips about twelve years ago the number of instructions per Watt in laptop computers have increased immensely. That's a good thing.
“Instructions per watt” is an extremely dodgy metric to have floating around in a discussion about a move from CISC to RISC architecture…
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Re: Apple speeds transition away from Intel chips with new Macs

Post by newkidontheblock »

Apple tried to move to RISC architecture since the PowerPC days. Unfortunately there were too many chefs IBM, Motorola, etc., in the pot, limiting the power of this system.

Apple licensed the original ARM set and then built on top of it. Kinda like buying a stock car and turning it into a custom racer. Started off with the iPhone, then the iPad, then computers. Operating system is moving to cross unity between phones, computers, and wearables.

The newest iteration in the M1 does away with dedicated GPU cards, instead dedicating cores to GPU. The neural engine ties into using cores for even faster performance. It’s the tight hardware software integration that makes an Apple when firing on all cylinders a fearsome machine.

Hopefully this spurs more competition and innovation and makes even better products in the future.
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Re: Apple speeds transition away from Intel chips with new Macs

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newkidontheblock wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 3:27 am It’s the tight hardware software integration that makes an Apple when firing on all cylinders a fearsome machine.

Hopefully this spurs more competition and innovation and makes even better products in the future.
The past has shown open standards encourage innovation and improved products much more than 'hardware software integration' IMHO. Not even talking about the ridiculous pricing of past and current 'hardware software integrated computers'.
The rat race between Intel, AMD, Nvidia and some other chip manufacturers has pushed all companies to make the fastest CPU/ GPU possible, followed by the trend to squeeze as much power in a low-power chip as possible.

For instance the original open standard PC-bus and later the 16 bit ISA bus, followed by all kinds of new bus-designs made all kind of innovations possible as well as affordable.

If we would have left it all in the hands of IBM in the early nineties I think we would not have been where we're now.
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Re: Apple speeds transition away from Intel chips with new Macs

Post by xandreu »

I have the M1 Macbook Air which is a nice computer but very overhyped if you ask me. Some apps take forever to open, even those that have been recompiled to run on Apple silicon. Microsoft Office apps are a good example. Once they are open though, they run pretty snappy but not amazingly snappy in a way some YouTubers would have you believe. I did a lot of research before I decided to buy one and I was kind of led to believe they were on a whole other level of computing. They're not. Apart from the battery life, which is very good but again, depends what you're using it for.

It's a nice computer and I certainly don't regret buying it, but it's not the beast I was led to believe.

It makes me skeptical of the reviews these new ones are going to get...
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Re: Apple speeds transition away from Intel chips with new Macs

Post by orussey98 »

xandreu wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 12:22 pm I have the M1 Macbook Air which is a nice computer but very overhyped if you ask me. Some apps take forever to open, even those that have been recompiled to run on Apple silicon. Microsoft Office apps are a good example. Once they are open though, they run pretty snappy but not amazingly snappy in a way some YouTubers would have you believe. I did a lot of research before I decided to buy one and I was kind of led to believe they were on a whole other level of computing. They're not. Apart from the battery life, which is very good but again, depends what you're using it for.

It's a nice computer and I certainly don't regret buying it, but it's not the beast I was led to believe.

It makes me skeptical of the reviews these new ones are going to get...
Do you think you could have better for the same price? What do usually do with it?


Apple is changing the industry right now. Intel milked Apple during years and didn't really innovate.
M1 pro and M1 max seem really promising even I think 90% of the people won't need those computers.
+ the notch that looks really stupid
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Re: Apple speeds transition away from Intel chips with new Macs

Post by rogerrabbit »

xandreu wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 12:22 pm I have the M1 Macbook Air which is a nice computer but very overhyped if you ask me. Some apps take forever to open, even those that have been recompiled to run on Apple silicon. Microsoft Office apps are a good example. Once they are open though, they run pretty snappy but not amazingly snappy in a way some YouTubers would have you believe. I did a lot of research before I decided to buy one and I was kind of led to believe they were on a whole other level of computing. They're not. Apart from the battery life, which is very good but again, depends what you're using it for.

It's a nice computer and I certainly don't regret buying it, but it's not the beast I was led to believe.

It makes me skeptical of the reviews these new ones are going to get...
Microsoft products on apple have always been awful. I have the M1 Macbook Pro and 90% of the applications works (lightning) fast. Rest fine, and few like Microsoft products mediocre at best.
The battery life of this thing is incredible. Full day of work and still have battery left at the end of the day. Just amazing.

orussey98 wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 1:23 pm Do you think you could have better for the same price? What do usually do with it?


Apple is changing the industry right now. Intel milked Apple during years and didn't really innovate.
M1 pro and M1 max seem really promising even I think 90% of the people won't need those computers.
+ the notch that looks really stupid
If considering the battery life + speed, there is nothing comparable on the market right now imho.
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Re: Apple speeds transition away from Intel chips with new Macs

Post by Kammekor »

nerdlinger wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 11:21 pm
Kammekor wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:20 pm Anyway, since the Intel Atom chips about twelve years ago the number of instructions per Watt in laptop computers have increased immensely. That's a good thing.
“Instructions per watt” is an extremely dodgy metric to have floating around in a discussion about a move from CISC to RISC architecture…
Yes, it depends on how you define an instruction. When comparing CISC to RISC architecture you're referring to real low basic instructions.

Anyway, Apple's promise:

Image

"Industry-leading performance per Watt"
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