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By all accounts, Apple’s new ARM-based computers are beastly, combining excellent performance with impressive power efficiency, especially when running optimized applications. But while it bodes well for the future of ARM on Mac, it wasn’t much of a surprise either: Apple’s mobile chips have been some of the fastest in the business for some time, so building a good processor for thin and light it was never too much. in the question. The real test has always been the performance of the chips for high-end users.
To that end, a report from Bloomberg sheds light on Apple’s potential plans. The company is preparing to announce its next series of chips starting in the spring, which will appear in new MacBook Pros and iMacs throughout 2021.
Then in particular, the company is alleged to be working on a chip with “up to 32 high-performance cores”, which is planned for desktops in late 2021 and a “mid-size Mac Pro” planned to launch by 2022 ..
Note that the report only mentions the number of “high-performance” cores, so your computer may also have any number of “high-performance” cores, although they are less important on a desktop system than on a desktop. laptop. -oriented M1.
It’s also worth noting that the 32 cores are not completely fancy, considering that the current Intel Mac Pro has a maximum of 28 cores and that AMD sells chips with 64 cores. Ultimately, performance will come down to how powerful each of those individual cores really is.
The report also notes that Apple is currently working on processors with 16 or 32 cores for future high-end laptops and mid-range desktops. Meanwhile, the company is also focusing on dedicated 64- and 128-core graphics components for its high-end machines that would be “several times faster than the current graphics modules that Apple uses from Nvidia and AMD.” It remains to be seen how Apple will navigate the expandability in its future high-end desktops.
While the company offers impressive onboard graphics on the M1 and could presumably create a graphics chip to compete with Nvidia and AMD, professionals generally want some scalability and future-proofing in their setups.
After all, that’s why the company ditched the trash can design and moved to a more traditional tower a couple of years ago in the first place; the old design wasn’t upgradeable enough. It will be interesting to see the company navigate toward increasingly proprietary hardware while offering professionals the expandability they need.
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Posted on Dec 8, 2020 – 08:56 UTC
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