Discussion Apple Silicon SoC thread

[Eug]

M1
5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LP-DDR4
16 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 12 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache
(Apple claims the 4 high-effiency cores alone perform like a dual-core Intel MacBook Air)

8-core iGPU (but there is a 7-core variant, likely with one inactive core)
128 execution units
Up to 24576 concurrent threads
2.6 Teraflops
82 Gigatexels/s
41 gigapixels/s

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Products:
$999 ($899 edu) 13" MacBook Air (fanless) - 18 hour video playback battery life
$699 Mac mini (with fan)
$1299 ($1199 edu) 13" MacBook Pro (with fan) - 20 hour video playback battery life

Memory options 8 GB and 16 GB. No 32 GB option (unless you go Intel).

It should be noted that the M1 chip in these three Macs is the same (aside from GPU core number). Basically, Apple is taking the same approach which these chips as they do the iPhones and iPads. Just one SKU (excluding the X variants), which is the same across all iDevices (aside from maybe slight clock speed differences occasionally).

EDIT:



M1 Pro 8-core CPU (6+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 16-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 24-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 32-core GPU

M1 Pro and M1 Max discussion here:

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M1 Ultra discussion here:

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M2 discussion here:

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Second Generation 5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LPDDR5, up to 24 GB and 100 GB/s
20 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 16 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache

10-core iGPU (but there is an 8-core variant)
3.6 Teraflops

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Hardware acceleration for 8K h.264, h.264, ProRes

M3 Family discussion here:

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M4 Family discussion here:

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[oak8292]

I can see plenty of good, usable products featuring AMD/Intel CPUs and GPUs available at affordable prices. Reason? Competition created by the different OEMs vying for our dollar.

Apple has no competition and whatever they produce, even crappy stuff, has prices wayyyy exaggerated compared to the value they provide.

Nvidia charges the OEMs so much for their graphics card "kits" that they can't really compete on price if they want to stay in business.

Heck, even Snapdragon Elite X laptops are giving 32GB RAM (8448 MT/s!) for prices similar to Apple M2 8GB/512GB laptops.

Clearly, some companies are focused on producing stuff while others are focused on fleecing their customers.

Apple employees are in general Apple shareholders through compensation. If you are an Apple user then you should also be an Apple shareholder. That way you can ‘fleece’ youself.

This conversation is so old. Intel had a gross margin 60% and Microsoft had gross margins close to 90% on their OS. The PC manufacturers with no differentiation had margins of 5-10% and many went out of business. Who is fleecing who. Just because PC manufacturers have no margin doesn’t mean that nobody is ‘fleecing’ anybody. Or have you ever wondered how Bill Gates got so rich?

 

[igor_kavinski]

Or have you ever wondered how Bill Gates got so rich?

He has an excellent wealth manager who invests his money.

 

[poke01]

He has an excellent wealth manager who invests his money.

It’s mostly stocks like Warren.

 

[Doug S]

Apple has no competition and whatever they produce, even crappy stuff, has prices wayyyy exaggerated compared to the value they provide.

Wait, aren't you always making claims about Apple competing with Intel - even claiming that Apple is paying off Geekbench's author to "win" at benchmarking (for a benchmark they've never mentioned once in any keynote, never listed in any powerpoint, doesn't appear anywhere on the web site - unlike every other CPU chipmaker)

So which is it, is Apple trying to "win" against Intel or do they have no competition? Nevermind that they make most of their money from the iPhone. If they dropped the Mac tomorrow most investors wouldn't even notice the difference in their quarterly results.

 

[Glo.]

Apple has no competition and whatever they produce, even crappy stuff, has prices wayyyy exaggerated compared to the value they provide.

Neither Microsoft, nor Google has competition.

They are all three monopolies, in their own nieches. Perfectly designed to never be accused of being monopolies.

 

[The Hardcard]

I can see plenty of good, usable products featuring AMD/Intel CPUs and GPUs available at affordable prices. Reason? Competition created by the different OEMs vying for our dollar.

Apple has no competition and whatever they produce, even crappy stuff, has prices wayyyy exaggerated compared to the value they provide.

Nvidia charges the OEMs so much for their graphics card "kits" that they can't really compete on price if they want to stay in business.

Heck, even Snapdragon Elite X laptops are giving 32GB RAM (8448 MT/s!) for prices similar to Apple M2 8GB/512GB laptops.

Clearly, some companies are focused on producing stuff while others are focused on fleecing their customers.

None of those companies have ever passed on any opportunity to get as much money as they can for their products. to the extent that they charge less than Apple for anything is always because they don’t have a choice.

Qualcomm Has a long established history of double and triple charging for their technology. If you really think that Snapdragon X pricing has anything to do with company values more virtuous than Apple you are farther gone than I realized.

Go to the next CES Computex with a talk on how Qualcomm is more committed to producing stuff than fleecing their customers. Everyone who chooses to listen to you will thereafter rank you as the top comedian of all time.

And Apple is not charging way more for the same thing. They have a different business business model and they offer different products. One problem with Apple is that everything is bundled. Every Mac comes with a professional hardware media encoder. The problem is you have to buy one even if all you want to do is use Microsoft office to handle documents.

There are numerous other problems for the consumer with Apple products, but it’s not as if that is not also an issue with everyone else. Don’t forget to talk about a key part of the Qualcomm/Microsoft push is to siphon off data and personal information from every buyer of Snapdragon X. Apple could do better with user privacy, but Microsoft/Qualcomm is subjecting their entire customer base to alien anal probes.

Plus, a huge portion of any lower prices go to just being inferior. Snapdragon has the same hardware support for the X86 memory store model as Apple. so there’s no reason for Prism to be as inferior as it is to Rosetta 2 other than Microsoft/Qualcomm simply cheaped out. A Yugo was more affordable than a Lexus, because they were only superficially the same thing. Switching to Qualcomm ARM is severely less refined than switching to Apple ARM.

Apple’s base GPU is stronger and more stable. The M3 provides a better experience running Windows DX12 games than Qualcomm.

Apple provides tremendous performance and benefits for its price. If they are things you don’t care about, that is a personal concern, not something about Apple. There is nothing wrong with your personal valuations so long as you are clear that they are subjective points of view. The mistake in your posts is that you present your subjective views as objective facts when they are nothing of the kind.

 

[DavidC1]

Prism, they named it Prism, just like PRISM that Edward Snowden leaked years ago.

PRISM - The PRISM program gathers user information from technology firms such as Google, Apple and Microsoft, while the Upstream system gathers information directly from the communications of civilians via fiber cables and infrastructure as data flows past.

Recall is basically in-your-face version of that.

 

[SarahKerrigan]

Prism, they named it Prism, just like PRISM that Edward Snowden leaked years ago.

PRISM - The PRISM program gathers user information from technology firms such as Google, Apple and Microsoft, while the Upstream system gathers information directly from the communications of civilians via fiber cables and infrastructure as data flows past.

Recall is basically in-your-face version of that.

And just like the pre-Alpha RISC that DEC designed in the 80s! The plot thickens!

 

[igor_kavinski]

The mistake in your posts is that you present your subjective views as objective facts when they are nothing of the kind.

Subjective maybe but not just my view only. Non-Apple users far outnumber Apple users. In fact, I don't know a single professional around me (almost 300 people) who has an M series Macbook, not even the 8GB version. Ironically, I have that dud of a laptop (hate how it's built. Metal. Yuck). And I had no choice but to get it because I needed to pawn off some hardware and the Macbook was the only thing I could get in return that wasn't as insulting as the cash that loser shopkeeper offered me for my NIB Geforce cards. And the people I know range in salaries from $1000 a month to $25000 a month. Haven't heard a single one of them sing praises of the M series Macbook.

Yes, there are plenty people I know with iPhones. But none of them is motivated by their iPhone experience to try out a Macbook for everyday computing. What's wrong with Macbooks is that you can't customize them enough. Every one of them looks the same. Feels the same. It's like every Mac user is in a prison wearing the same uniform. There is no Apple desktop. Upgradability matters to most people. No one wants a device that they might have to sell off at a loss or relegate to some closet because it can no longer meet their needs. Apple computers (the barely affordable ones) are boring. The maxed out ones could be exciting but then you would have to take out a loan like you were buying a car or something. Maybe if some of you people met normal folks and talked to them, you would hear the same things I say here.

 

[Doug S]

Microsoft/Qualcomm is subjecting their entire customer base to alien anal probes.

Wait, their anal probes are of alien design? That's news to me, I always assumed their anal probes were manufactured in China and imported to the US like every other tech product.

 

[poke01]

Maybe if some of you people met normal folks and talked to them, you would hear the same things I say here.

no, normal people don't give crap about M chips or PCs or AMD or Intel. The only PC hardware company they would know and care about is Nvidia and for smartphones iPhones.

Upgradability matters to most people. No one wants a device that they might have to sell off at a loss or relegate to some closet because it can no longer meet their needs.

No most people couldn't care less about desktops otherwise desktops would still be the primary computer. Sadly, people prefer laptops these days.

Feels the same. It's like every Mac user is in a prison wearing the same uniform. There is no Apple desktop. Upgradability matters to most people.

I don't know igor, some very smart people wore the same type of clothes everyday.


I do enjoy your fatally wrong Apple opinions, lol keep'em rolling

 

[poke01]

In fact, I don't know a single professional around me (almost 300 people) who has an M series Macbook, not even the 8GB version.

what country? Cause in some countries its very expensive to get macbook's due to the insane markups,taxes that's its best to get a Windows laptop.

In my company we at least have ARM macbooks as I see some using it as they go past my desk and we are a Windows focused org.

 

[FlameTail]

Here's an absurd idea (speculation):

The M5 Macbook Pro will come with a Tandem OLED screen... as well as a Solid-State battery!!!

That's how they are going to make it slimmer.

 

[okoroezenwa]

Here's an absurd idea (speculation):

The M5 Macbook Pro will come with a Tandem OLED screen... as well as a Solid-State battery!!!

That's how they are going to make it slimmer.

Well I hope so as I’d like to get a more mature tandem OLED config when I’m due to upgrade.

 

[Orfosaurio]

Here's an absurd idea (speculation):

The M5 Macbook Pro will come with a Tandem OLED screen... as well as a Solid-State battery!!!

That's how they are going to make it slimmer.

Here is some very wild speculation:
The A18 and the rest of the M4 family will use the N3P process.

 

[igor_kavinski]

what country?

UAE. The Apple Store prices here are comparable to US prices.

 

[poke01]

UAE. The Apple Store prices here are comparable to US prices.

Yeah, UAE has sane Apple pricing. Then I guess the PC platform just offers better value and Macs have no use for their workflows

 

[name99]

They've been on a yearly cadence for iPhone since forever. Macs are a much lower volume product, and don't have a set release schedule in the same month every year. I don't know how you can argue that it is too hard to do a yearly release schedule for Apple Silicon when they've been proving they can do it year after year with the A series SoCs, despite covid and WFH, despite TSMC hiccups like N3B, despite key personnel leaving to form their own startups, despite simultaneously getting Apple Silicon off the ground.

In fact I would argue that it is BECAUSE of the requirement that they do yearly releases for iPhone at the same time every year that it becomes much easier to do the same for the Mac. They already have to tapeout an SoC that will ship in product by the tens of millions per month starting in September, so they've always aligned their core development roadmaps with that in mind. Now true Apple Silicon is three more tapeouts, but they are using the same cores so it isn't nearly as bad as that makes it sound.

Perhaps trying to do four tapeouts and verification cycles at the same time (i.e. for shipping Macs in October/November like they did with M3 last fall) stretches them a bit thin. If so that's easy to remedy, since Apple has never maintained a particular time of the year when a certain Mac model has to come out, but gives them perfect flexibility to choose the time of the year they do the other tapeout cycles to find what works best.

It's not just "can you do it", it's also "does it make sense?"

Sense includes financial sense (cost of developing and testing *this* particular product, not just "next M P Core" but this specific M5 Ultra with this specific configuration of CPUs A&B, GPU C, power control firmware D, interrupt controller E, etc etc etc; and then the mask sets) but it also includes writing and validating all the drivers, and having to commit to supporting this product for, what, at least 7 years.

Remember, even in the INTEL days, where upgrading a product (eg iMac Pro or Mac Pro) is "just" a matter of swapping out one Xeon for another, and much of the above work is Intel's problem, not Apple's, Apple upgraded these things on a LONG schedule.

I think we overestimate how fully commoditized each part is (even in the Intel world) so that we assume swapping one Xeon for another is a lot more trivial than it is, at least if you are Apple and care about details like power.
And each new config, once it ships, is a deadweight you have to keep supporting (every weirdness that affects security, or power, or a special ordering of how you bring parts up out of sleep, or some nonsense in its particular BT or WiFI that means a future feature like unlocking with Apple Watch becomes a problem) for years afterwards...

 

[name99]

40 GPU cores may not be bandwidth limited, with 16 CPU cores.

But 24 Performance cores, with 80 GPU cores are not going to be bandwdith limited, considering how memory bandwdith intensive Apple architectures are?

And we are talking only about Ultra class chip.

M4 Extreme may combine both of those designs. Will LPDDR still be sufficient?

Do you honestly not know how Apple memory controllers and memory bandwidth work? It feels like you are familiar with Xeon and AMD and are just assuming that Apple works the same way.

Do us all a favor: Go do some research on how Apple memory works (eg, for a start - what is the relationship between the memory controllers on the two halves of an M1/M2 Ultra...)

 

[name99]

And just like the pre-Alpha RISC that DEC designed in the 80s! The plot thickens!

And who was the OG Prism expert???
It goes all the way to the founding of the US and earlier, I tell you!

 

[FlameTail]

@poke01 indeed, Apple's execution prowess has been unmatched.

Looking back, the transition to Apple Silicon was executed almost flawlessly.

In contrast, Qualcomm/Microsoft have stumbled out of the door with the X Elite.

 

[Mopetar]

Apple have done these architectural transitions multiple times, so it's hardly surprising that it went so smooth for them, especially considering that they've been running iOS (which already shares a lot of code with MacOS) on ARM for well over a decade prior.

If Apple hadn't pulled it off seemingly flawlessly, I'd have been a lot more alarmed and/or concerned.

 

[Eug]

Apple have done these architectural transitions multiple times, so it's hardly surprising that it went so smooth for them, especially considering that they've been running iOS (which already shares a lot of code with MacOS) on ARM for well over a decade prior.

If Apple hadn't pulled it off seemingly flawlessly, I'd have been a lot more alarmed and/or concerned.

The Intel to Apple Silicon transition was nonetheless a monumental task, and I was still quite impressed at just how smooth it was, even considering they had already been doing the iOS thing for such a long time.

I was there the last time around with the PowerPC to Intel transition, and it was considerably rougher at that time, but even then it wasn't as bad as it could have been. What was really, really rough though was the transition from OS 9 to OS X. My first personal Mac was a G3 iBook that shipped dual boot with OS 9 and the first release version of OS X, which was 10.1 in 2001. However, despite being a "release" version, It was like running a very, very early beta, cuz basically that's what it was, and there was essentially no software for it.

BTW, just for nostalgia... Here are my benches of Intel Macs vs. G4 Macs.

Core i7 iMac - Benchmarks and first thoughts

I finally received my 27" Core i7 iMac last week, right before a killer busy weekend, so I haven't had as much time with it as I would have ...

everythingapple.blogspot.com

 

[Doug S]

@poke01 indeed, Apple's execution prowess has been unmatched.

Looking back, the transition to Apple Silicon was executed almost flawlessly.

In contrast, Qualcomm/Microsoft have stumbled out of the door with the X Elite.

Because it was just Apple, they controlled all the pieces - and we still don't know how many years this was worked on from the first ARM frankenmacs built from iPhone SoCs began to appear in secret Apple labs. So sure X Elite stumbled out the door, but whose fault was it? Qualcomm designed the chip, Microsoft did the OS and X translator. Both had responsibility for the drivers.

Based on Charlie's article and what we've seen, they both share a lot of the blame. Maybe they would have benefited from pushing it back, but Qualcomm didn't want to keep stringing people along for a full year after the initial announcement before systems shipped. Microsoft didn't want to delay their big "AI PC" push. It was a game of chicken and neither was willing to blink for their own reasons.

If you set a bar for really high expectations, you have to be really sure you can deliver. You can't say "oh well we can't achieve the promised performance TODAY, but we're sure the next stepping will take care of it or the fixed drivers Microsoft promised will take care of it". They were still fixing serious performance regression issues in the drivers during initial shipments!

 

[igor_kavinski]

Qualcomm designed the chip, Microsoft did the OS and X translator. Both had responsibility for the drivers.

Apple has the advantage of having both hardware and software teams under the same roof. Two different companies, with most likely different work ethics and cultures, are gonna result in some sort of friction, even when they are partnered to work on the same thing and aligned with the same goals. And God forbid that anyone should partner with Microsoft. They have a tendency to ruin the other party in one way or the other and compete against them once they get a fair bit of inside knowledge of the other's workings. So if QC is wise, they wouldn't reveal too much of their hardware's inner workings which Microsoft devs may need to know or releasing the required info only when absolutely necessary, slowing down progress.

I'm working on a project with two external vendors and it is literally such a headache. Privately, the leads from both message me that some issue is the other's fault while in the group chat, they seem to begrudgingly work together to sort out the issue. And collaborating online has this disadvantage that you don't know what the other is doing. You could be working your ass off while the other is having a party and enjoying life and doing only the bare minimum. Such brooding and nagging thoughts can cause a lot of pent up resentment and ultimately lead to loss of productivity and a string of missed deadlines.