Intel is really in a major slump because of AMD's Ryzen CPU line

Something interesting from Intel!! Perhaps not very innovative, but at least it's interesting..

pastrychef said:

Something interesting from Intel!! Perhaps not very innovative, but at least it's interesting..

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Looks like the NUC chassis is growing a lot bigger. Maybe a better name would be the "monster NUC" it escaped from the lab and kept growing LOL.

trs96 said:

Looks like the NUC chassis is growing a lot bigger. Maybe a better name would be the "monster NUC" it escaped from the lab and kept growing LOL.

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This and the latest Mac Pro indicates that companies are understanding the need and desires for powerful GPUs from their users and the ability to upgrade them. I think it's a good thing.

Have you guys seen this one? Intel reportedly testing pci 4.0 Optane drives.

Intel is prototyping PCIe 4.0 SSDs, but needs AMD CPUs to test them

Saw that, funny that they need the AMD chipset since theirs don't support PCIe 4.0

My next system might be AMD. I would have no hesitation if I weren't hackintoshing

UtterDisbelief said:

You make a good point.

It doesn't matter whether or not AMD is better in any way than Intel, if you wish to get involved in a Hackintosh project then you have to go Intel as that is what, so far, Apple supports. Things may change in the future but that's down to Apple, not Intel or AMD. Who knows what drives their CPU choice? Of course, we can speculate. They dropped PowerPC in favour of Intel ...

Intel may be struggling and giving Apple good reason to consider changing, but I think it's also well-known that Apple is fabricating their own silicon and it might get to the point where their own designs are used. Why switch, short-term, to AMD from Intel when it would cause less headaches to miss AMD out and go straight to their own CPUs?

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Unfortunately it seems that what we're doing (hackintoshing) is something likely short term.

Apple will indeed shift to another CPU architecture whether for performance reasons or for monetary gain. That move seems to be towards ARM as their high performance per watt designs are embarrassing everyone else in the industry mobile wise.

What remains to be seen is how long it will take Apple (or ARM development in general) to reach a performance level where they can replace every CPU in their Mac line-up at once. They need to be able to make ARM processors that would perform at least as well if not better for the Mac Mini, iMac, Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, iMac Pro (I predict they'll discontinue this line), and of course the Mac Pro.

Future ARM performance for future MBA, MBP and Mac Mini's are definitely attainable. What is yet to be seen is whether they can reach future flagship x86 CPU performance (think future gen 9900K, 3950X, Xeon and Threadripper levels of performance.)

If they can achieve that in the next 5 years then things will change dramatically. If they can't then the hackintosh community will thrive for a lot longer.

WarChest said:

Unfortunately it seems that what we're doing (hackintoshing) is something likely short term.

Apple will indeed shift to another CPU architecture whether for performance reasons or for monetary gain. That move seems to be towards ARM as their high performance per watt designs are embarrassing everyone else in the industry mobile wise.

What remains to be seen is how long it will take Apple (or ARM development in general) to reach a performance level where they can replace every CPU in their Mac line-up at once. They need to be able to make ARM processors that would perform at least as well if not better for the Mac Mini, iMac, Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, iMac Pro (I predict they'll discontinue this line), and of course the Mac Pro.

Future ARM performance for future MBA, MBP and Mac Mini's are definitely attainable. What is yet to be seen is whether they can reach future flagship x86 CPU performance (think future gen 9900K, 3950X, Xeon and Threadripper levels of performance.)

If they can achieve that in the next 5 years then things will change dramatically. If they can't then the hackintosh community will thrive for a lot longer.

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I'm still not fully convinced that Macs are going to ARM. I think the odds of going AMD are much higher than going ARM.

WarChest said:

What remains to be seen is how long it will take Apple (or ARM development in general) to reach a performance level where they can replace every CPU in their Mac line-up at once.

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There's no reason that Apple has to replace every x86 based Intel CPU in Macs with ARM all at once. I know that's what they did in the transition from PowerPC to Intel but that was then and this is now. Back in 2006 all they had were Macs and OS X. The iPad, iPhone and iOS didn't exist yet. There was no concept of or even a reason to have more than a single OS for every Mac product. The iPad Pro now has it's own unique OS. There was already watchOS and tvOS before that. All of these were derived from versions of iOS. Why not a macOS version just for Macbooks ?

There's really no reason they can't switch the whole Macbook line to ARM processors and give them their own OS. Then they can keep the whole desktop line on either Intel or AMD CPUs for the foreseeable future. When your new Mac Pro has a 1.4 kilowatt PSU who needs a more energy efficient ARM processor ? In a laptop it's a huge advantage in terms of battery life. The only battery in a Mac Pro or an iMac Pro is a 3V CMOS battery.

Just think of all the software manufacturers that would need to rewrite everything for their products to be compatible with an ARM based iMac, iMac Pro or Mac Pro. That would be a huge disadvantage to Apple because many would not take on the huge expense of making all of their software ARM compatible. It would really limit what you could run on Apple's pro machines. Would certainly affect their hardware sales too. Many more Pro users would go back to Windows for it's universal software compatibility. When you have to get work done that's what you have to do.

In this Tim Cook era I just don't see an all at once ARM transition happening. He's all about profits and sales before doing things the way Jobs would have. When he found out through research in 2012/13 that customers wanted larger displays on iPhones Apple started making them. If Jobs were still around it wouldn't have happened. If you recall Jobs repeatedly saying, "No one wants a large cell phone." If he were still CEO iPhone displays might be 4.5" to 5.0" max.

Jobs hated the idea of a stylus. Now we've got the Apple pencil. Notice how he called the 3.5" screen "giant."


Soon there may be iPhones with nearly 7" displays that also have an Apple Pencil/stylus, based on how well it works on iPads. Just think of not having to constantly clean off your oily fingerprint smudges on your iPhone screen. Would be nice.

My short term prediction is that we'll either get Macbooks/Macbook Airs with ARM chips or a completely new hybrid type device (laptop/tablet) in then next 1-2 years. These new MBAs as I call them, will hopefully sell at a much lower price due to cost savings from using their own Apple A series chips. The current entry level MBA is $1099. Think how many Apple would sell if that base price were $799 and your mini laptop had 15 hours or more of battery life. It stayed cool and was completely silent. That's a product that is going to be a huge seller for Apple. Nearly every single college student will want to have one to take to classes and carry around in their backpack all day.

WarChest said:

Unfortunately it seems that what we're doing (hackintoshing) is something likely short term.

Apple will indeed shift to another CPU architecture whether for performance reasons or for monetary gain. That move seems to be towards ARM as their high performance per watt designs are embarrassing everyone else in the industry mobile wise.

What remains to be seen is how long it will take Apple (or ARM development in general) to reach a performance level where they can replace every CPU in their Mac line-up at once. They need to be able to make ARM processors that would perform at least as well if not better for the Mac Mini, iMac, Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, iMac Pro (I predict they'll discontinue this line), and of course the Mac Pro.

Future ARM performance for future MBA, MBP and Mac Mini's are definitely attainable. What is yet to be seen is whether they can reach future flagship x86 CPU performance (think future gen 9900K, 3950X, Xeon and Threadripper levels of performance.)

If they can achieve that in the next 5 years then things will change dramatically. If they can't then the hackintosh community will thrive for a lot longer.

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[Fingers Crossed] Rosetta 2 [/Fingers Crossed]