From Tom's Hardware.

[www.tomsguide.com]

And yes, you CAN compare the benchmarks with this context 'laptops are better at delivering sustained performance over a longer period of time, as opposed to the shorter max burst performance that benchmarks like Geekbench 4 are designed to measure. In other words, the iPhone 8 simply doesn’t have the thermals and heat dissipation necessary to replace your laptop.'

So putting the A11 chip in a form factor for better thermals than an iPhone would mean an ARM-based, lower Mac is entirely possible. I would guess the A11 chip is as fast or faster than 95% of the Macs in daily use today (all but quad core machines - faster than the mini, MBA, Macbook, and i5 MBPs). Only the quad core i7 MBPs, iMacs and Mac Pro are left not competing with ARM.

And we wonder why there's no Mac mini? The ATV5 using an A11 processor would be faster than the current Mac mini and save Apple about $200/unit in cost.

EDIT: Long live the Mac! I've lived through the Motorola to PowerPC to Intel changes. I hope I as a writer and non video-producer will see an ARM Mac instead of being forced to devolve into an iOS iPad.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2017 09:07AM by sekker.

Wouldn't we have to deal with all of the software not running on ARM?

How many iPhones would I need to be faster than my 12 core Mac? Is there a dongle to connected them all and get the computing power combined? I suppose that last question is one for Jony Ive.

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The Apple A11 chip has gotten a lot of specialized functions to compete with Intel extensions but there are still a lot of applications where it falls flat. iOS still won't do dynamic resizing windows and the iOS devices only come with 4 GB of RAM.

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Yeah, methinks I'll keep my intel chips for virtualizing other desktop operating systems where I can get real work done like writing automation scripts and managing fleets of iOS devices.

All of the listed concerns can be fixed by updated software or hardware (i.e. adding RAM).

Will be interesting to see what the A12 clocks in - if it's another 30-50% improvement over the A11, it'll start competing at the i7 level.

And with Apple making their own graphics chips, there could be some amazing development to overtake Intel.

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M A V I C
Wouldn't we have to deal with all of the software not running on ARM?

How many iPhones would I need to be faster than my 12 core Mac?

Do you have good software that really uses those 12 cores?

Quote
sekker

Quote
M A V I C
Wouldn't we have to deal with all of the software not running on ARM?

How many iPhones would I need to be faster than my 12 core Mac?

Do you have good software that really uses those 12 cores?

Final Cut would be one. Compressor is another.

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Quote
M A V I C

Quote
sekker

Quote
M A V I C
Wouldn't we have to deal with all of the software not running on ARM?

How many iPhones would I need to be faster than my 12 core Mac?

Do you have good software that really uses those 12 cores?

Final Cut would be one. Compressor is another.

Both could be re-written for a multi-core ARM device. But not likely worthwhile to Apple to do so.

Quote
sekker
All of the listed concerns can be fixed by updated software or hardware (i.e. adding RAM).

Will be interesting to see what the A12 clocks in - if it's another 30-50% improvement over the A11, it'll start competing at the i7 level.

And with Apple making their own graphics chips, there could be some amazing development to overtake Intel.

If you look at the Geekbench numbers for the top end Kaby Lake i7 *dual core* laptop chips, this 6 core A11 chip is neck and neck in the multicore speed (2 vs. 6 cores). It's still way behind in single core speed which is how may apps and OS functions work however so the i7 and yes, even the i5 will still "feel" faster for day-to-day uses.