Apple is now accelerating the development of its proprietary chips to compete with – and perhaps beat – even the fastest Intel processors.
The new processors in question, which will be on their way to Mac and (some larger) MacBook Pro computers, are expected to be launched as early as next year, according to Bloomberg. MacBook Pro 13″, MacBook Air and the Mac mini were all updated with new entrails (the Apple M1 chip) in November.
Apple’s new silicon is built on an architecture licensed by ARM, now about to purchased by Nvidia.
The next generation of processors that are now said to be under development will reportedly have up to 20 CPU cores – 16 high-performance cores and four power-efficient cores. The technical specifications of the new processors change almost daily, so it is not known at this time whether the next generation Apple MX chip will actually have so many cores, but this seems to be the number Apple is aiming for, according to Bloomberg article.
The “roadmap” Apple is working from also seems to include a CPU with 32 cores, which will be used in the planned so-called half-sized variant of Mac Pro, which is scheduled to come in 2022. It is also said that Apple will improve the graphics part of the new processors, and aim to integrate either 16 or 32 GPU cores in the upcoming chips.
All of this indicates a hard shift away from Intel processors as early as 2022, as this seems to be the time when Apple has the ability to replace Intel with ARM from top to bottom. This does not represent a trajectory for Intel, but it will probably not do much good for the bottom line.
How long will Intel dominate?
Intel has taken great advantage of its dominance of the CPU market in the last 15 years, which may make the last couple of years a little extra pain for the processor pioneers.
At the same time as Intel was in the middle of a strenuous battle over the PC processor market with AMD, Nvidia announced its acquisition of ARM last month, and with it gave some less fortunate points for the blue-collar company – and now that Apple is moving away from Intel – and AMD hardware does not look much better.
Intel has been resting on its laurels for many years, and has been the strongest party in a duopoly with AMD until recently, but now the competition is suddenly starting to pick up in the CPU market, since both Apple and Microsoft are really investing in ARM.
Adding a number of mistakes made by Intel in recent years, especially when it comes to security holes and problems with transitions to new production processes, so it’s no wonder it can start to falter a bit. The company is nowhere near being knocked out, but there may be some tough rounds in the ring ahead for the old CPU champion.
For us consumers, however, this can prove to be positive. Competition is always an advantage, and Intel has desperately needed a motivating factor for years.
Now that Apple is slowly but surely discarding the slow pace of development Intel has been stuck in for years – it is still two to three years until Intel’s 7 nm process starts, while AMD’s new 5 nm processors can come as early as 2022 – the company has a golden opportunity to accelerate the technological advancement in processors in a way that Intel simply has not managed in recent years.
If you add increased pressure from AMD and maybe also Nvidia (who knows what kind of plans are waiting for ARM), then it is not unlikely that there may finally be some way in the gruel for Intel.
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