Good article stating reasons why Apple may switch from Intel to AMD Ryzen CPUs in the near future.
A transition to ARM for macOS will take years. In the meantime, AMD should supply Appleu2019s x86 hardware.
www.macworld.com
I spoke to Stork right after the AMD keynote at CES and also made the argument that Apple should consider going with AMD. I think that it could bring Macs back to the realm of affordability without sacrificing performance. In fact, performance will probably increase.
With macOS relying heavily on Metal even for Finder, the more powerful IGPUs found in AMD CPUs will surely benefit every macOS user. Heat and power consumption should not be a concern since AMD has begun their transition to 7nm. At the very least, I feel that Apple should consider using AMD CPU/APUs for education focused Mac models. Remember, the eMac?
Of course, this is all dependent on whether they stay on the X85/X64/AMD64 architecture....
As for Apple going to ARM based CPUs, it's looking increasingly probable with each passing day. I watched a video (which I can't find again for the life of me) explaining how CISC is finally beginning to reach its limits. For years, Intel fended off the limitations of CISC with increased core counts and shrinking manufacturing process (i.e. 14nm to 10nm, etc). But as we have seen it is getting increasingly difficult to shrink the dies. Meanwhile RISC performance has been improving at a dramatic pace. If you go strictly by Geekbench numbers, An iPhone XS Max already outperforms the latest MacBook Air.
One of the biggest concerns of users regarding switching from X86/X64/AMD64 to ARM is loss of virtualization. I don't know how difficult it would be to add virtualization technology to an ARM CPU, but the other major operating systems already have ARM versions available. Windows is available for ARM. Linux is available for ARM.
ARM CPUs have also started finding their way in to server rooms, the most notable is probably Amazon developing their own
ARM CPUs for servers. Apple started developing customized ARM CPUs for their devices long ago. It only stands to reason that they have at least tinkered with developing ARM based CPUs for high end desktop use.
All of this is only possible due to Intel's lack of innovation and improvements to their CPUs. Core count on remained unchanged on each generation of their CPUs with only minor bumps in MHz for years. This opened up the door for AMD and ARM to catch up and perhaps surpass them. Currently, Intel seems to be on a mad dash to regain some of the lead that it squandered. However, they have not been able to lower prices and pricing is extremely important to OEMs like Apple.
For all these reasons, I now think that it's just a matter of time before Apple dumps Intel and why I feel that a move to ARM based Macs may be inevitable. Analysts,
and even Intel themselves, believe that Apple may begin their transition to ARM based Macs as soon as 2020. If they are that far along with moving to ARM, there may not be any time or room for AMD based Macs.