# ARM on desktop machines?



## lychee (Nov 28, 2020)

I'm about to buy myself a new machine (PC with Ryzen 5900X), and suddenly a fear takes hold of me, "and if this one was going to quickly become obsolete?".

With Apple's recent M1, the world realizes the power of ARM processors, and all at a decent price (I never thought I would one day put affordable and Apple in the same sentence). 
Apple having decided to no longer use X86 processors, I suppose that we will soon see desktop machines from them and that we will take a second technological slap.

I guess the competition will react and eventually we will have desktop ARM on Windows.
So here is where I am, should I make this purchase, or by luck would I have a few years before seeing the obsolescence of my machine coming?

I would like to know what you think of my reflection, hoping to be reassured?


----------



## wayne_rowley (Nov 28, 2020)

Yes, Apple’s shift to ARM will affect the PC industry. Whether the PC industry moves en masse to ARM from Intel - well - I can’t see that happening - at least not quickly. PC laptops will probably move first to take advantage of longer battery life and lower temps, but the move from X86 to ARM64 will be a much larger challenge for the PC industry. While Windows could be ported quickly (it already is) there are many more applications, hardware and games that work with PCs that don’t work on Macs. Microsoft do not control the whole platform as Apple do.

In short go for it - I don’t think you need to worry about obsolescence in the near future.

Wayne


----------



## lychee (Nov 28, 2020)

Thanks for your response @wayne_rowley.

That's the problem, is that I hope my computer will last more than a NEAR future.

My fear is that this M1 slaps some X86 mobile processors with software not optimized for and with less cores, so I tell myself that on a desktop computer with more cores and therefore more power, the whole planet X86 will collapse.


----------



## jcrosby (Nov 28, 2020)

Also don't forget that the m1's performance isn't strictly _because_ it's ARM. What makes it powerful is Apple's circuit design that has features Apple's been perfecting over the past decade in their phones and tablets.... Shared memory, discrete CPU and GPU cores, Neural engine, etc... It's going to be quite a while before other companies can even catch up to Apple's tech.


----------



## Technostica (Nov 28, 2020)

Even if the mainstream market moves to ARM, by the time the hardware and software has transitioned successfully I doubt that will be in less than 5 years. 

Don't be an earlier adopter as the people having issues with the M1 are finding out.


----------



## babylonwaves (Nov 28, 2020)

This documentary contains some interesting historical info on ARM and Apple:


----------



## Andrew Aversa (Nov 28, 2020)

The M1 chip is really impressive, but I don't think it will out-scale high end chips like the 5900x anytime soon for a few reasons. Its 8 cores are split between high and low power, meaning any chip with as many *full* power cores will easily outperform it for multicore tasks. It remains to be seen if Apple's manufacturing approach can double the core count and begin approaching the multicore power of desktop chips.

There's also the RAM limitation. Are they going to be able to pull off 32GB of RAM on the same chip? 64GB? 128GB?


----------



## Rory (Nov 28, 2020)

I would like to see a test of the first M1 computers with 16GB of RAM, Logic and virtual instruments.

I think that Apple will start selling more powerful ARM computers by about June. I have no doubt that these will offer more RAM and graphics power. The big question is whether it will be possible for purchasers to install RAM and use an external graphics card. These options undercut unification of functions in ARM chips. At what cost?

I would not want to be trying to sell Intel 13" laptops right now, or a machine that competes with the Mac mini (Nunc or similar).

There are two good articles on AnandTech on these computers and the technology.


----------



## Andrew Aversa (Nov 28, 2020)

Given the architecture of the M1 chip, I think it's impossible for users to be able to upgrade RAM. Not because Apple arbitrarily disallows it, but because of fundamental limitations. The performance of the chip is so good, in part, because the RAM is integrated on to the SoC. 

External GPU support _seems _more likely.


----------



## Rory (Nov 28, 2020)

Andrew Aversa said:


> Given the architecture of the M1 chip, I think it's impossible for users to be able to upgrade RAM. Not because Apple arbitrarily disallows it, but because of fundamental limitations. The performance of the chip is so good, in part, because the RAM is integrated on to the SoC.
> 
> External GPU support _seems _more likely.



My point was that unification of CPU, RAM and graphics is part of what accounts for these computers' performance. "Impossible" is a big word. I have not seen any serious analysis of these computers that makes that assertion. I think that the better question is, what is the performance cost of undercutting unification? Apple may indeed say that the cost is too great. I think that we'll know in the next 7-10 months.

To me, it's interesting that I keep seeing the word "unification" rather than "integration" in discussions about these chips.

In addition to the AnandTech articles, I'd also like to suggest John Gruber's (aka Daring Fireball's) piece.


----------



## wayne_rowley (Nov 28, 2020)

lychee said:


> That's the problem, is that I hope my computer will last more than a NEAR future.
> 
> My fear is that this M1 slaps some X86 mobile processors with software not optimized for and with less cores, so I tell myself that on a desktop computer with more cores and therefore more power, the whole planet X86 will collapse.



I understand your concern, but remember a Mac computer and PC computers are very different. Apple control the entire platform now, from the design of the CPUs/systems, computer hardware, operating system, development tools etc. That allows them to build something that is very efficient!

The PC market is different though. MS provide the OS, and Intel/AMD the chips but many manufacturers provide other PC components such as motherboards, RAM, graphics cards etc. The platform is more open and diverse. This means that one company cannot just design a new ARM based SOC for PCs and say 'this is the PC now'. No one company owns the market.

So while we may see some manufacturers bring out some ARM-based PC laptops following Apple, and MS may revisit Windows for ARM, we're not going to see the whole PC industry drop x86 in favour of ARM64 in the same way that Apple have done. After all Apple is just one manufacturer in the PC market.

I'm with you - I suspect the desktop Apple SOCs are going to rock the PC industry with performance and power, but they will be quite different. I don't think we will see user upgradable RAM or storage anymore for example.

The bottom line - the performance of new Apple chips may bring buyers remorse, but the PC industry cannot flip on its end anywhere as quickly as a single company - Apple - has. So your 5900X PC may not be cutting edge for long - but that's life with computers! But it's not going to stop being a powerful, upgradable performing computer that should last you many years.

Wayne


----------



## Dewdman42 (Nov 28, 2020)

There is going to be a lot of consumer chaos on this question for the foreseeable future.

A huge part of the performance advantage of M1 is the shared memory architecture..more so then the simple clock of the ARM itself. Intel cpu's can match or exceed the simple clock rate of M1, but they are mired in an architecture that causes them to overall seem quite slow in comparison to M1. However, they are much more flexible in terms of memory expansion, PCI expansion, GPU options, etc. 

Its one thing to put M1 into laptops and simple consumer computers...it will be another thing altogether to create a desktop based on M1 that can expand the memory big, have different options for GPU, pci slots, etc. I'm not saying its not possible, but at this point that is not what Apple provided in their first round..they provided a computer...that as long as your needs are at the more-simple end of the spectrum, it has shockingly awesome performance. 

I think there will be a huge push by Apple (and perhap[s later by other manufactures to follow the trend) to get consumers to buy into the more-simple mindset of computing. Convince us that we don't need 64gb of ram, hot rodded GPU's with add-on PCI cards, etc. Convince us that we can get a smaller, cheaper, throw-away computer....use it in its capacity and be mostly completely happy with that, and buy a new one every 3 years. Perhaps even Intel will try to put out some chips that follow the same general architecture that Apple has gone to here, but I think they are probably late to the game and this might be the end of Intel as we know it, perhaps at all.

The vast majority of users do not need a complicated, expandable Intel-based system. when I say the vast majority, I mean 99%! 

For now anyway, Apple is the the one producing ARM processors on that model, but allegedly there have been gaming consoles built on similar architecture, so perhaps Intel will catch up or something else; in order to have a non-Apple platform that uses the same idea. (shrug). will they bother? Depends how wildly successful the new M1's are. There are an awful lot of users out there that are using simple all-in-one PC's from Lenovo or whatever...that are using the old crappy intel architecture and don' have any need or reason to change to anything else. What they have is good enough. Apple is banking that everyone will want an Apple laptop instead of running Windows...like happened with iPhone..most people want an iPhone. Alright...well we shall see. Microsoft is not just going to lay down and say "take it away". Lots of chaos coming...

but I believe all of that chaos will be concerning the 99% of consumers that don't care one single bit about super high performance desktop computing...as we here generally are. They don't need lots of ram, they don't need lots of storage. Many don't need fancy GPU's (neither do we). They don't need high performance low latency audio. They don't need 3 4k displays. Etc.. 

I think its going to be quite a while before Apple or anybody creates a truly expandable high performance desktop based on this new M1 architecture. I hope I'm wrong, because I want one! But That is how I see it.


----------



## Rory (Nov 28, 2020)

I think that this is a rollout that started with Apple's biggest selling computers and will expand to the rest of its lineup over the next 24 months, quite possibly sooner. Apple has had a lot of time to develop this, and I think that it knows exactly where it's going. In my view, this is not some 1st Gen. experiment. That should be clear from its history with ARM, the market size and revenue importance of the product line it started with, and its stated intention to adopt this architecture throughout its product line.

I have no doubt that we will see powerful machines that meet the needs of people who currently need lots of RAM and/or GPU power, including users of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro. The only question is how that power is harnessed. It may involve people rethinking their understanding of computers, and in particular the idea that CPU, RAM and GPU are separate boxes.

In the last decade, Apple has gained a lot of market share for computers and phones, not to mention that it created the market for tablets. Overnight, it has just made Intel 13" laptops, and lightweight desktops, a hard sell, except for people, admittedly a not insignificant number, who are wedded to Windows for personal or business reasons. There's much more to come.


----------



## Andrew Aversa (Nov 28, 2020)

Apple has inched their way up in market share for PCs, but they're still a small player on a relative basis. They're sitting at 7% - well below the top 3 (Lenovo, HP, and Dell, at 24%, 22%, and 16.8% respectively.) IIRC, although it has fluctuated, Apple has never broken 10% or so, and they've been near their current number decades ago.





__





Market share of personal computer vendors - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org





As for phones, actually they've lost an enormous amount of market share. 

In Q4 2011 they were at 45%, as of 2020 they are at 13.5%.









U.S. smartphone market share Q1 2010-Q1 2012 vs. Samsung | Statista


This statistic illustrates the smartphone market share of Apple and Samsung in the United States from the first quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of 2012.




www.statista.com




.









Smartphone market shares by vendor 2009-2022 | Statista


Samsung held the largest slice of the global smartphone market by shipments during the third quarter of 2022, after falling to second in the fourth quarter of 2021, when Apple was the leading smartphone vendor.




www.statista.com





Of course, this isn't to say Apple isn't very successful. They are. But it's more because of their extremely high prices as opposed to dominating market share.


----------



## Rory (Nov 28, 2020)

Andrew Aversa said:


> Apple has inched their way up in market share for PCs, but they're still a small player on a relative basis. They're sitting at 7% - well below the top 3 (Lenovo, HP, and Dell, at 24%, 22%, and 16.8% respectively.) IIRC, although it has fluctuated, Apple has never broken 10% or so, and they've been near their current number decades ago.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The issue of how Apple has done over roughly the last decade is not central to the point of my post, but if you want to get into it, maybe try to be less selective about facts.

In 2010, as your own link shows, Apple was not even in the top five of computer brands.

In 2009, a quick search says that its world market share for phones was under 15%. In any event, if you really want to examine this, what's more important is share in those parts of the phone market where Apple, and indeed Samsung, compete. Both are losing absolute share to Hauwei, but that discussion is apples and oranges.

In 2010, a Microsoft executive publicly derided the iPhone. Blackberry, which I used myself, was completely dominant in large private and government organisations, and in business generally. The President of the United States used a Canadian Blackberry instead of an American iPhone. Very few people thought that Apple could compete with Research in Motion. In the first half of the last decade, there was also a widely held view that Google/Android/Samsung would sink the iPhone. In 2010, Apple launched the iPad. I refer to it, although you choose to ignore it, because it's an important part of this picture. The iPad was also widely derided.

A few weeks after the iPad was launched, I bought one. As a direct result of that purchase (I was, as stated, a Blackberry user, and had never owned an Apple product), I started buying Apple call options. I still own the resulting shares. Indeed, I held onto them despite reading, day after day, that Apple shares were way too expensive, and that its increase in revenue and market share, in particular in the markets that matter, wouldn't last. People who were buying Apple shares around 2009-2011 were paying a _lot_ of attention to what was happening in the relevant markets.

None of this goes to the main point of my post. Not interested in getting into a debate over stats, or over your theory about how Apple makes money. I know what happened, because by the end of 2011 a good part of my net worth was on the line. That tends to focus attention. Having listened to every Apple quarterly earnings call for ten years, I also have a view on why Apple is successful. My view differs from yours, but there's no need to debate that here.


----------



## ridgero (Nov 28, 2020)

I‘ll buy a Mac Mini 16 GB, it’s not expensive and certainly a very good daily driver 

When a more powerful Pro version comes out, I will replace it :D


----------



## robcs (Nov 28, 2020)

There one question that I’m surprised no-one has asked  Sibelius was originally written for the ARM-powered Acorn Archimedes. I wonder if any of the original developers are still around, or they all quit after Avid took over


----------



## Audio Birdi (Nov 29, 2020)

robcs said:


> There one question that I’m surprised no-one has asked  Sibelius was originally written for the ARM-powered Acorn Archimedes. I wonder if any of the original developers are still around, or they all quit after Avid took over


They develop Dorico nowadays


----------



## gives19 (Nov 29, 2020)

Audio Birdi said:


> They develop Dorico nowadays


Probably living on a beach somewhere earning 20%


----------



## Alex Sopala (Nov 29, 2020)

Audio Birdi said:


> They develop Dorico nowadays



Which is also on x86 until/unless they optimize for ARM. Performance matters a lot less for scoring software compared to sample streaming.

On topic, you'll be fine with the 5900x. It'll be a great computer that'll do this kind of stuff for YEARS. You don't necessarily need the cutting edge all the time for this stuff, and despite computers just naturally getting slower over time due to higher requirements for programs and whatnot, it's one of those things that tends to be very gradual. Competition's been heating up, but you'll have a great machine regardless of the competitive strides in consumer hardware.


----------



## Tronam (Dec 2, 2020)

Andrew Aversa said:


> Apple has inched their way up in market share for PCs, but they're still a small player on a relative basis. They're sitting at 7% - well below the top 3 (Lenovo, HP, and Dell, at 24%, 22%, and 16.8% respectively.) IIRC, although it has fluctuated, Apple has never broken 10% or so, and they've been near their current number decades ago.
> ...
> Of course, this isn't to say Apple isn't very successful. They are. But it's more because of their extremely high prices as opposed to dominating market share.


This is all technically true, but I think discussions around market share of personal computers and phones can be a little misleading sometimes because Apple has typically avoided high volume, lower end "commodity" markets. Windows and Android numbers are heavily padded out with low end office computers, netbooks, and cheap or "free" phones. What was the single best selling phone over this past year? The iPhone 11, and it wasn't even close. In fact, of the top 10 most sold smartphones, 5 were iPhones. Sure, in aggregate there were more Android phones sold overall across many models and manufacturers, but most are not competing at the high or even midrange. Most basic, modern flip/slider/candybar budget phones are running Android too.

Apple likes the position they're in. They make most of the profits and get to avoid much of the legal scrutiny directed at dominant marketshare leaders. It's a win win situation for them. And because they're willing to so aggressively "burn the bridges behind them", the Mx chips will be very difficult for the rest of the industry to quickly respond to. Apple is one of the few companies in the world who can pull off this level of full vertical integration. Microsoft and the entire x86 software/hardware industry is shackled by decades of legacy tech debt and expected backward compatibility (which can be a good thing too!). For desktop computers where power and cooling systems can keep growing and become more elaborate as needed, this isn't as big of an immediate issue. In the laptop space they'll be in for quite a shock within the next 2 years. The M1 is just the beginning.


----------



## SirKen (Dec 2, 2020)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/apple-tumbles-after-iphone-sales-miss-china-drops-29/ar-BB1awq5o
China was a big market for Apple and Apple's market share will decline further in China due to the major push of Huawei and Xiaomi. Of course, this doesn't mean that Apple is doomed.

On the note of M1, it is quite impressive what it can accomplish on the low end. However, like Andrew said, I would like to see if the current approach is scalable before making a judgement call on X86, especially after the recent performance gains AMD has introduced to the market.


----------



## Tronam (Dec 2, 2020)

SirKen said:


> https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/apple-tumbles-after-iphone-sales-miss-china-drops-29/ar-BB1awq5o
> China was a big market for Apple and Apple's market share will decline further in China due to the major push of Huawei and Xiaomi. Of course, this doesn't mean that Apple is doomed.
> 
> On the note of M1, it is quite impressive what it can accomplish on the low end. However, like Andrew said, I would like to see if the current approach is scalable before making a judgement call on X86, especially after the recent performance gains AMD has introduced to the market.


They wouldn't have announced the move to Apple silicon if they didn't already know they could meet or exceed the performance of their entire product line, including their higher end "pro" machines. Modern Apple is typically very conservative about fundamental technologies like this. This isn't some last minute move of desperation like back in 2006. They have over a thousand chip engineers and been planning this for years. They've also made sure there is enough performance headroom to compensate for most penalties incurred by x86>ARM64 translation. In many cases Rosetta 2 translation still manages to outperform native on Intel with like for like hardware models.

I'm not sure where this assumption is coming from that they can't scale up their custom silicon because they've already been doing this across all of their devices for a long time now. From the smallest chips in AirPods to the custom Afterburner accelerator card they launched with the Mac Pro last year which can handle 20+ 4K RAW video stream timelines. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

I wouldn't worry too much about x86 though; It isn't going anywhere soon, but the performance-per-watt battle is going to be a rough one for CISC moving forward.


----------



## SirKen (Dec 2, 2020)

Tronam said:


> They wouldn't have announced the move to Apple silicon if they didn't already know they could meet or exceed the performance of their entire product line, including their higher end "pro" machines. Modern Apple is typically very conservative about fundamental technologies like this. This isn't some last minute move of desperation like back in 2006. They have over a thousand chip engineers and been planning this for years. They've also made sure there is enough performance headroom to compensate for most penalties incurred by x86>ARM64 translation. In many cases Rosetta 2 translation still manages to outperform native on Intel with like for like hardware models.
> 
> I'm not sure where this assumption is coming from that they can't scale up their custom silicon because they've already been doing this across all of their devices for a long time now. From the smallest chips in AirPods to the custom Afterburner accelerator card they launched with the Mac Pro last year which can handle 20+ 4K RAW video stream timelines. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
> 
> I wouldn't worry too much about x86 though; It isn't going anywhere soon, but the performance-per-watt battle is going to be a rough one for CISC moving forward.



You might be right but I think the move has more to do with Apple not needing to provide high level performance for the pro market to keep their bottom line going. This move was fantastic for them as it will please the masses due to their low computing requirements. It also creates a better ecosystem for people willing to buy into Apple.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Dec 2, 2020)

SirKen said:


> https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/apple-tumbles-after-iphone-sales-miss-china-drops-29/ar-BB1awq5o
> China was a big market for Apple and Apple's market share will decline further in China due to the major push of Huawei and Xiaomi. Of course, this doesn't mean that Apple is doomed.



My technical analysis says Apple's stock hasn't tumbled all that far.

This is the chart for the past month:






Here it is for... looks like less than six months, I dunno, it was supposed to be a year but I shrunk the window:


----------



## SirKen (Dec 2, 2020)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> My technical analysis says Apple's stock hasn't tumbled all that far.
> 
> This is the chart for the past month:
> 
> ...



Great chart! The drop from the article on October 30th can be seen on your chart right there. That being said, I am failing to understand how these charts relate to the Apple's market share of personal computers and phones. Were you by any chance distracted by the "Apple shares decline" portion of the article title instead of focusing on the 29% revenue drop in China due to lower iPhone sales numbers?


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Dec 2, 2020)

I'm focusing on how any day of the week you can find several articles saying AAPL downside fundamentals upside risk personal computer space China surprise earnings report core competence analyst forecasts.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Dec 2, 2020)

Also, trading 30X earnings bellweather moving average analyst Yao Ming, who was right about the iPhone 12 having a better camera, predicts ARM shipments Q1.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Dec 2, 2020)

My take: they move a lot of merch.


----------



## Rory (Dec 2, 2020)

My experience is that it was a good idea to purchase the stock in 2010-2011, hold onto it and ignore the clever analysis. If you've been listening to Apple earning calls every quarter for a decade, the Chinese market is not exactly a new, earth shattering topic. When it comes to Apple, every day for the last decade there has been no shortage of people peddling everything from dark clouds to Armageddon. They would have found that buying the stock would have been a better use of their time than predicting Apple's future on Internet forums.


----------



## SirKen (Dec 2, 2020)

I don't know if it is the lack of punctuation or something else but I am really struggling following your points and how it relates to the previous conversation. I will do us both a favour and bail out of this thread. We can all wait and see if Apple will be able to scale up the ARM CPUs.

Also, my apologies to everyone else in the thread and the OP for unintentionally letting this topic digress by posting a relatively recent article that had references to APPL share price. I just wanted to highlight the potential impact of the change in sales and tried to connect it to the Apple's product decisions. 

Anyway, wish you all a great evening!


----------



## MusiquedeReve (Dec 2, 2020)

I just bought the Mac Pro 7,1 earlier this year and now there is an ARM Mac
How soon before they begin making Mac Pro's with ARM - ughhhh maybe I bought too soon


----------



## Tronam (Dec 2, 2020)

EpicEsquire said:


> I just bought the Mac Pro 7,1 earlier this year and now there is an ARM Mac
> How soon before they begin making Mac Pro's with ARM - ughhhh maybe I bought too soon


They officially stated 2 years for the full transition. Since they tend to refresh their highest end systems the least frequently, the Mac Pro will likely be the last one they update. Now that the most popular entry level models are taken care of they’ll focus on the higher end laptops and iMacs next year. With the dramatically lower power requirements of Apple silicon it’ll be interesting to see how they design a new Mac Pro enclosure since it won’t need such an elaborate cooling system as the current design. I wouldn’t be overly concerned though. They have a good track record of supporting their pro systems for at least 5-7 years, so Intel based macOS will be around for a while yet.


----------



## Saxer (Dec 3, 2020)

No matter what happens with Apple and PC development: if you buy a computer right now it will not stop working just because a newer computer would be faster.
You can fall out of play if you need to be compatible to a broad user base and you are dependent on the newest version of all software you use. Mainly concerns software developers. But as the complete user base is still on Intel machines the switch to a new system will last longer than the average life time of a computer.

And even at the time before 2000 when no computer was really fast enough and all the studio work was a kind of never ending workaround using external hardware and extension cards and chassis for extension cards to get the needed CPU it was a good idea to buy a computer when you need it. Waiting for the next better one is just a waste of time. Whining about better machines out there if yours is still working too.


----------



## zimm83 (Dec 3, 2020)

NI says Kontakt not compatible with these new chips.....for now.. They are working on it...


----------



## Alex Fraser (Dec 3, 2020)

EpicEsquire said:


> I just bought the Mac Pro 7,1 earlier this year and now there is an ARM Mac
> How soon before they begin making Mac Pro's with ARM - ughhhh maybe I bought too soon


I brought a MbP earlier this year. The intel inside is clearly from another era of computing, getting all hot and warm at the slightest provocation.

I kept my previous Mac for around 7 years. This one is getting traded for a new Mx model within 3 three years tops.

I have no fears about the tech scaling up to "pro" levels . In fact, I'd bet that the models are already running in some form in Apple's underground labs.


----------



## gsilbers (Dec 3, 2020)

From what I read, it seems windows has a arm based version but failed or something along those lines.






__





Redirect Notice






www.google.com


----------



## macmac (Dec 3, 2020)

What I wonder is since Apple now launches a new OS every year, yet people will not all be buying an ARM computer right now, will the future OS's during that transition time (and purchasing span) still incorporate Rosetta 2? Or will they stay with Big Sur for more than a year.

During the intel transition, Snow Leopard was the only OS that offered Rosetta.


----------



## kitekrazy (Dec 3, 2020)

lychee said:


> I'm about to buy myself a new machine (PC with Ryzen 5900X), and suddenly a fear takes hold of me, "and if this one was going to quickly become obsolete?".
> 
> With Apple's recent M1, the world realizes the power of ARM processors, and all at a decent price (I never thought I would one day put affordable and Apple in the same sentence).
> Apple having decided to no longer use X86 processors, I suppose that we will soon see desktop machines from them and that we will take a second technological slap.
> ...



Windows systems don't really become obsolete unless the hardware can't be replaced. What keeps the Pc market alive is gaming and PC gaming is still the top platform.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Dec 3, 2020)

SirKen said:


> I don't know if it is the lack of punctuation or something else



It's something else, and I'm not sure why you're getting all huffy, because what I posted isn't fighting snark, it's just commentary.

Anyway, even though computers are much longer-term investments than they used to be, one thing hasn't changed: you wait to buy a new machine until you need it, knowing a better one will come out soon.









Apple (AAPL) Reportedly Redesigning MacBook Pro and Air


Apple (AAPL) MacBooks will get a new look and mini-LED displays, a leading analyst deduces from supplier sources. Annual sales may double.




www.investopedia.com


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Dec 3, 2020)

Another point: a great visionary mind in his own mind - me - is always saying that the time will come when there are no desktop computers, just laptops (or some kind of portable devices that connect to big monitors and input devices).

iPhones are already close to having that kind of power. After six years of service from my old one (which is still working fine), I just upgraded to the new top model. It has at least as much raw power as most desktop machines, never mind that the comparison doesn't mean a lot in the real world (since its power is used differently).


----------



## lychee (Dec 3, 2020)

Olala my thread has gone all over the place. 

To come back to the main one, @Saxer, @kitekrazy ... I may have expressed myself badly, I do not intend to stop my purchase project, I was just expressing my fear of making this purchase at a time when I felt that 'Apple is going to change the rules of the game.

Ok not everything is compatible, but it's Apple and when Apple does something everyone follows and I don't think it's going to last.
So imagine, a program running on Rosetta 2 is at least as efficient as the old Intel hardware sometimes even better, so what will it be when it is optimized for, and in the form of a powerful desktop computer?


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Dec 3, 2020)

For sure Apple is going to change the rules of the game. Not everything is even compatible with Catalina, never mind Big Sur!

The good news is that there's always a market for used Macs. You're unlikely to lose a fortune with any machine you get today.

The bad news is 16GB max.


----------



## gzapper (Dec 3, 2020)

gives19 said:


> Probably living on a beach somewhere earning 20%



They reply to posts on the Dorico forums daily.
I hope they're doing so from a beach.
Dorico kills sibelius, by the way.


----------



## ridgero (Dec 3, 2020)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> For sure Apple is going to change the rules of the game. Not everything is even compatible with Catalina, never mind Big Sur!
> 
> The good news is that there's always a market for used Macs. You're unlikely to lose a fortune with any machine you get today.
> 
> The bad news is 16GB max.



Entry Level


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Dec 4, 2020)

ridgero said:


> Entry Level



Right, but the question is To buy or not to buy, whether 'tis nobler in the wallet to suffer the dings of outrageous pricing.


----------



## gzapper (Dec 4, 2020)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Right, but the question is To buy or not to buy, whether 'tis nobler in the wallet to suffer the dings of outrageous pricing.



Or to take arms against a sea of upgrade troubles
And by opposing end them by staying with intel. To die - to sleep
No more, 4 more sleeps Apple announces a new end


----------



## ridgero (Dec 4, 2020)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Right, but the question is To buy or not to buy, whether 'tis nobler in the wallet to suffer the dings of outrageous pricing.


I bought it, because I am a tech nerd and it seems to biggest leap in computers in the last 20 years. :D

We knew ARM will be efficient, but also that powerful? I really enjoy the memory and cpu management, everything loads instantly. Its like a i9 on speed @ 20 watts :D


----------



## Justin L. Franks (Dec 4, 2020)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> The good news is that there's always a market for used Macs. You're unlikely to lose a fortune with any machine you get today.



The market value for Intel Macs will drop quite quickly, especially after the Apple Silicon transition is mostly complete. The same thing happened with PowerPC Macs after the Intel transition. Apple dropped support for PowerPC in their OS just 3.5 years after the first Intel Mac was released. The first Intel Mac was in early 2006, with OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) in August 2009 being Intel-only.

Not being able to run the latest version of MacOS will quickly diminish the value of Intel Macs.



Nick Batzdorf said:


> The bad news is 16GB max.



For now, yes, that is the maximum. This is especially important for us. 32 GB would be the *absolute* minimum, with 64 GB being preferable.

But the specific M1 models which were replaced were all only available with a maximum of 16 GB anyways, except for the Mac Mini.

So higher amounts of memory are certainly going to be available when the replacements for more-powerful models are released.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Dec 4, 2020)

Justin L. Franks said:


> The market value for Intel Macs will drop quite quickly, especially after the Apple Silicon transition is mostly complete



Yes, I should have said either of the ARM machines we're talking about here, although the lower-priced Intel machines don't have a lot of room to drop. The expensive ones - especially that $50K Mac Pro - are another matter.


----------



## Tronam (Dec 4, 2020)

I don't think we should cling too tightly to the 2006 transition schedule to inform this one. As a company Apple is 30x larger than they were back then and have plenty of resources to ensure this goes more smoothly. Considering they just released their highest end Mac Pro last December, I fully expect new Intel versions of macOS, Rosetta 2 and universal binaries to continue for at least the next 5 years. By that time every active Mac developer of professional software and hardware should be Mx native and working pros can switch over without fear of breaking their workflow.


----------



## Rory (Dec 4, 2020)

Mark Spencer, who is a genuine expert on Final Cut Pro and Motion, has posted a video comparing the performance of his 2019 16" MacBook Pro and the M1 13" MacBook Pro. For me, this video has quite a bit more credibility than most of what I've seen on YouTube, Marques Brownlee's and Dave Lee's overview videos excepted.

As shown at 07:05, Spencer's 16" MacBook sells for US$3300. The version of the 13" M1 MacBook that he uses in the video (8GB RAM, 1TB SSD) costs $1700.

He's currently in Belize, hence the beach.


----------



## Technostica (Dec 4, 2020)

Apps that use the GPU a lot will show significant gains due to the Unified memory architecture. 
This has little to no bearing on how apps that are predominantly CPU bound will perform.


----------



## lychee (Dec 7, 2020)

My fear begins to materialize in this rumor:

Apple working on a 32-core processor for high-end Macs - The Verge


----------



## gzapper (Dec 7, 2020)

lychee said:


> My fear begins to materialize in this rumor:
> 
> Apple working on a 32-core processor for high-end Macs - The Verge



Sounds like its time to stop buying intel macs.


----------



## Justin L. Franks (Dec 8, 2020)

lychee said:


> My fear begins to materialize in this rumor:
> 
> Apple working on a 32-core processor for high-end Macs - The Verge



Yup, this was inevitable. Higher end Macbook Pros, iMacs, and especially Mac Pros are going to need more CPU cores. And Apple is apparently also working on GPUs with up to 128 cores (the M1 has up to 8).

An iMac with 16 performance cores, 4 efficiency cores, and 32 GPU cores (with options for 24 performance cores, and 48 or 64 GPU cores) would be a POTENT machine. It would definitely blow away my current 2019 iMac (i9-9900K + Vega 48).


----------

