New Macs

[GeorgeWalk]

I guess my question is, if ARM chips in desktops and laptops are the future, who will be making those chips? Will Intel and AMD switch over? Will other companies step in to provide CPUs? Will we see windows machines with chips made by Apple? Etc.

Apple designs the chips. The actual chips themselves are built by "foundries". The Apple M1 is built by TSMC (Taiwan) on 5nm technology. Apple could have the design built by other foundries, if they need. Apple takes the base ARM architecture and adapts it their needs.

 

[BenF]

I guess my question is, if ARM chips in desktops and laptops are the future, who will be making those chips?

Easy answer: Whatever the free market demands... Perhaps there will be a few more competitors who will shake up the market.
If there's going to be a significant customer demand for ARM processors, then Intel and AMD will also manufacture ARM processors - or will come up with competing solutions that beat these chip designs.

 

[DWPress]

After mulling it over and finding a coupon to reduce the price of a 16GB RAM version I went for it to replace my 2012 Mini. So yesterday I created a VMware clone of my Mojave install with CS6 and other 32 bit needed apps, verified that it was fully functional, then upgraded to Catalina with all it's updates in anticipation of having to move to Big Sur very soon. Everything works as it should, no major surprises.

So I get the notice today that it is backordered of course. Now I get to wait for a new M1 Mini and Okto Dac8 Pro while they get built/shipped.

I feel like a little kid waiting for Santa.

 

[BenF]

I feel like a little kid waiting for Santa.

We all know the feeling! I'm waiting for my SMSL SP400...

 

[Berwhale]

..and i'm waiting for my iLoud MTMs I feel a 'What are you waiting for?' thread comming on...

 

[BenF]

"For higher-end desktop computers, planned for later in 2021 and a new half-sized Mac Pro planned to launch by 2022, Apple is testing a chip design with as many as 32 high-performance cores." (source)

 

[Habu]

"For higher-end desktop computers, planned for later in 2021 and a new half-sized Mac Pro planned to launch by 2022, Apple is testing a chip design with as many as 32 high-performance cores." (source)

Thank you for the link !

« Apple engineers are also developing more ambitious graphics processors. Today’s M1 processors are offered with a custom Apple graphics engine that comes in either 7- or 8-core variations. For its future high-end laptops and mid-range desktops, Apple is testing 16-core and 32-core graphics parts.

For later in 2021 or potentially 2022, Apple is working on pricier graphics upgrades with 64 and 128 dedicated cores aimed at its highest-end machines, the people said. Those graphics chips would be several times faster than the current graphics modules Apple uses from Nvidia and AMD in its Intel-powered hardware.«

 

[ElNino]

I guess my question is, if ARM chips in desktops and laptops are the future, who will be making those chips? Will Intel and AMD switch over? Will other companies step in to provide CPUs? Will we see windows machines with chips made by Apple? Etc.

My guess is that Microsoft will acquire Qualcomm's chip division. Qualcomm has the people but doesn't have enough of a business case on its own to develop truly competitive non-mobile ARM processors. The SQ1 and SQ2 that Qualcomm developed for Microsoft (used in the Surface Pro X) are decent efforts, but don't benchmark anywhere near competitively to the M1, even when the M1 is running ARM Windows via QEMU.

 

[Katji]

I hadn't upgraded a PC for ages, but I jumped on this and bought a new MacBook Pro M1. It is awesome. Battery lasts for days, starts up fast, ergonomics very Apple. I use it with a 38" ultra wide for work, unplug it and bring it into the living room for other stuff. Virtually everything seems to work a bit better - wifi, sleep/wake, screen switching, Remote Desktop to my office Windows machine. And it never gets hot.

Remote Desktop to a Windows machine? Really? ...Is it possible to see the Windows file system and copy files and so, like I can do with Android phone connected to Windows?

 

[Mashcky]

Like others I'm really interested to see the players for developing ARM chips for mobile and desktop as the industry moves away from x86. Qualcomm seems to be stepping their game up, Nvidia owns ARM now so they are an obvious candidate as well perhaps. I can't imagine Microsoft acquiring Qualcomm because it seems too easy a target for anti-trust considering their competitors use Qualcomm chips and because such a move could push out OEMs of Windows PCs.

On a related note, a California company just demonstrated a RISC-V (ARM, and therefore M1, is a reduced instruction set computer, or RISC, as opposed to x86 which is CISC) that has incredible performance per watt competitive with Apple in a very fast single core. RISC-V is an open architecture that doesn't require a license from ARM but I assume has similar advantages. Perhaps there will be new players in the future PC marketplace?

As far as M1 Macs go, I recently decided to let my 2013 rMBP hold on for its dear life for another year (it's doing admirably!) while I wait for higher performance Apple Silicon. If the chips are fast enough and someone releases a reasonably quick virtual machine that runs native to M1, I could probably ditch PCs for good and run Windows speaker design software through virtualization.

 

[Blumlein 88]

snip.......
I could probably ditch PCs for good and run Windows speaker design software through virtualization.

I too have a 2013 rMBP. That last part you wrote sounds awfully good to me. Ditch PCs for good......

 

[earlevel]

I guess my question is, if ARM chips in desktops and laptops are the future, who will be making those chips? Will Intel and AMD switch over? Will other companies step in to provide CPUs? Will we see windows machines with chips made by Apple? Etc.

The key is that the M1 is not a CPU, it's a system on a chip. Most PC makers are integrators—they integrate a CPU, memory, GPU, OS, etc. from various manufacturers. The CPU needs to send a lot of info to the GPU for it to do its thing, over a bus. In the Apple chip, they share memory. That's just a simple example, but it illustrates why companies like HP can't simply replace their Intel CPUs with ARM and get the boost Apple is seeing.

On the downside, it's also a reason why Apple's not going to be dropping this is the $$$$$ Mac Pro 7,1, whose application call for huge memory and GPU options. They's have to design a "pro" chip to meet the expectations, likely down the road when they can pack more onto a chip. But the ones they do design will kick the competitions butt in its market.

So the next question would be, what about low-end PCs that have built-in graphics, etc.—can't they target a similar system-on-a-chip (SoC)? The fundamental burden of Intel CPUs is the legacy instructions, they'd have to part with some backwards compatibility, something that Apple hasn't been shy about doing. That in itself wouldn't be so bad, I think, but if the PC is still going to be about Windows, that would have to be reworked (and Windows is also burdened with backward compatibility).

I read a good article recently....found it... Why Is Apple’s M1 Chip So Fast?

 

[Ron Texas]

It's only a matter of time before 32 GB main memory and other high end features are available. The MacBook Air is probably right on target even with only 16 GB. The typical user wants a small light travel friendly machine. It's been some time since I have been in one, but I used to see lots of them in the United Club, or similar clubs of some non US carriers.

 

[blueone]

I guess my question is, if ARM chips in desktops and laptops are the future, who will be making those chips? Will Intel and AMD switch over? Will other companies step in to provide CPUs? Will we see windows machines with chips made by Apple? Etc.

I can't believe we'll ever see Windows systems with Apple chips in them. I also can't believe Intel and AMD will switch to the ARM instruction set, especially since they will soon be owned by Nvidia.

Intel's and AMD's problem is that they both are hugely invested in two architectures. The x86-64bit instruction set, which is very complex, and their underlying microcode execution architectures, which they both call "micro-ops". They both have a deep pipeline of engineering innovation based on these technologies, and the inertia they'd have to overcome to switch to a different CPU instruction and architecture strategy seems overwhelming.

If I were running Intel, after I fired at least half of their senior executive team, I'd take the best CPU architects and engineers they have, put them in a dedicated and isolated team, and direct them to design a new ground-up architecture to lead the industry. It wouldn't look like x86 does, that's for sure. It would be unlikely to have the ARM instruction set, because there's nothing magic about it, and I wouldn't want Nvidia dictating the instruction set I had to support. The catch with this strategy is that it takes a while to develop a new instruction set and CPU architecture. Two years would be a miracle. Even RISC-V took longer than that. (Interesting tidbit: RISC-V, an open CPU instruction set and architecture definition emerging as a competitor to ARM, was conceived in the Parallel Computing Lab at Berkeley, originally funded by Intel and Microsoft.)

Intel could probably hasten development quite a bit by just using and extending the RISC-V instruction set, but then they'd have to donate any extensions they came up with up, and may have to support extensions others get accepted. I can't picture Intel giving up control like that, and that wouldn't be my choice. But still, Intel needs a new ground-up instruction set and architecture, and it has to be better than their last attempt, which was Itanium. (Yuck, although HP deserves as much blame as Intel does.) Intel's current strategy, be a jack of all trades with CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, AI chips, smart NICs, switches, and a software ecosystem to tie it all together to make a you-name-it-we've-got-it system architecture solution does seem a bit like aiming at the past. The cloud computing world, the real market to aim at, does their own software ecosystems, and doesn't seem to like to lock themselves into pretty much anything from anyone else. They're even replacing TCP, for example. (https://engineering.fb.com/2020/10/21/networking-traffic/how-facebook-is-bringing-quic-to-billions/)

One way or another Intel (and AMD for that matter) is going to have to innovate their way out of their x86 mess. AMD has out-innovated Intel, at least for now, but both IMO are vulnerable to someone starting from a blank page and not legacy thinking. The Apple M1 is just a hint of what can happen.

 

[blueone]

It's only a matter of time before 32 GB main memory and other high end features are available. The MacBook Air is probably right on target even with only 16 GB. The typical user wants a small light travel friendly machine. It's been some time since I have been in one, but I used to see lots of them in the United Club, or similar clubs of some non US carriers.

I'm anxious to see Apple's plan for large memories. It could be just a bigger SoC package, or it could be a separate chip package. I suspect we'll know within six months.

 

[ahofer]

Remote Desktop to a Windows machine? Really? ...Is it possible to see the Windows file system and copy files and so, like I can do with Android phone connected to Windows?

Yes. My firm uses F5, which prevents me from moving anything between environments, but Microsoft Remote Desktop runs on the Mac, including the new M1s.

 

[Katji]

But how do you install a Windows app on OSX, some sort of simulator/VM thing? RD is more than just an app too.

 

[Mashcky]

But how do you install a Windows app on OSX, some sort of simulator/VM thing? RD is more than just an app too.

We'll have to wait until Windows makes an ARM system that is compatible with M1, if they ever choose to OR use virtual machine. I'm simply hoping for a decent virtual machine to run a few light Windows programs.

 

[ahofer]

But how do you install a Windows app on OSX, some sort of simulator/VM thing? RD is more than just an app too.

No, windows runs on a remote machine. Remote Desktop is an OS X app. I'm using it right now, on an M1 Mac.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-remote-desktop/id1295203466?mt=12

 

[ElNino]

Some people have also gotten QEMU to successfully run ARM Windows on the M1. ARM Windows contains a module that allows you to run Windows Intel binaries, not quickly, but it's an option.