Apple has already announced that their new ARM Silicon Macs are coming later this year,
and that within 2 years, they’re ditching Intel processors for good.
But we just got a new piece of news that is an even bigger deal: Apple is also ditching
AMD graphics cards, just like they did to Nvidia last year, and they’re moving forward
exclusively with their own custom GPUs.
So in this video, I’m gonna show you how I know they’re doing this, I’m gonna talk
about what else they’re planning on doing, I’m gonna discuss why they’re doing it,
and I’m gonna let you know what this ultimately means for you and your purchasing decisions.
But before we get into it, we just got in our new Premium version of our classic Apple
Product T-shirt, and this one is incredibly soft and comfortable for just $4 more than
our classic shirt, so definitely check it out in our Merch Shelf right below this video!
Back to the Mac, Apple has a new support document for developers which shows off the difference
between their Apple Silicon Macs and Intel-based Macs.
On the Intel side, it shows support for Intel, Nvidia, and AMD GPUs, and if you’re wondering
why it says Nvidia, well, there used to be Macs with Nvidia graphics cards.
The last one was the 2014 15” MacBook Pro, so this basically shows that the chart is
talking about all previous Macs in general, which is a very important thing to notice,
because if we go back to the chart, on the Apple Silicon Side, it simply says Apple GPU.
This basically proves that Apple is planning to completely ditch AMD graphics cards on
their Apple Silicon Macs.
We’ll discuss why they would do this and what this means in a minute, but first let’s
go through the other interesting parts of the chart.
It shows that the GPU architecture on Apple Silicon Macs will use Tile-Based Deferred
Rendering, which is what they currently use on iPhones and iPads.
To sum it up, TBDR significantly reduces system memory bandwidth requirements, which in turn
increases performance and reduces power requirements. “
So you get better performance with lower memory bandwidth, and it uses less power so that
means less heat and ultimately better battery life. It’s basically a win/win in every
aspect of the GPU.
And in terms of Metal API support, the chart shows that it supports two APIs, Mac 2 and
Apple. This basically means Apple Silicon Macs will support both macOS apps and iOS
apps natively, since they’re both using Apple’s Metal architecture.
Apple also showed off the transition process in another slide, showing off how developers
will transition to fully optimizing their apps for Apple GPUs over the next two years
when Apple reveals their first GPUs.
Now I don’t know if you remember, but Apple dropped support for Nvidia graphics cards
last year, and now it all makes sense why they did that.
Their master plan was to eventually have developers optimize their apps for custom Apple Silicon
graphics chips, so they forced AMD & Nvidia to support their Metal architecture so that
developers could switch their apps over to using Metal.
Nvidia refused to do so, so Apple dropped Nvidia.
But AMD agreed, and they’ve been supporting Metal for years now, which means that it’s
already much easier for developers to transition their apps over to Apple Silicon chips which
run using Metal.
So with all of that said, you probably have a lot of questions, so let’s start with
why Apple would want to completely ditch AMD and Intel graphics.
First off, it’s gonna be a lot cheaper for Apple since they currently have to pay Intel
and AMD for every chip they use, but they also created a slide with 4 different reasons,
so let’s start with the first one.
Faster: Apple believes that their own graphics chips in the future will be faster than the
AMD graphics cards that they’re currently using.
Now I don’t know how long that will take, but if you look at the graphics performance
of Apple’s iPad Pro, it’s nearing 10,000 points in Geekbench 5’s metal test.
And that’s a tiny chip in a very thin iPad Pro, with no active cooling at all.
Apple’s base 16” MacBook Pro comes with a much larger dedicated 5300M graphics chip
which scores around 24,000 points with active fan cooling.
So if Apple was to scale that tiny iPad Pro chip up and give it active cooling, it could
easily outperform the current AMD option.
The second reason on the chart is Power Efficiency. It’s estimated that the iPad Pro chip has
a TDP of between 7 and 10 watts, and that’s the entire chip including the processing side,
compared to 50 watts on the 5300M for just graphics rendering.
That is extremely efficient, meaning way less power being used, way less heat output and
less fan noise.
This is huge news for Apple since their 16” MacBook Pro is already hitting their 100W
total TDP limit to ensure that users get the full performance when unplugged.
So Apple is currently hitting a performance wall in terms of power usage, and switching
to their own efficient ARM chips will give them a ton of room to grow.
This basically means that in the worst case scenario, Apple could easily make a 50W TDP
graphics chip and get 5x more performance than the current A12Z chip, therefore doubling
the performance of the AMD 5300M once everything is optimized.
And that’s not even considering that Apple’s Silicon GPUs will be a completely new family
of chips made using the new 5nm processor instead of the current 7nm process that the
A12Z is built on.
The 3rd reason is new Metal features for macOS. This basically means that they can continue
to improve the features of macOS while staying efficient, which they’ve already started
to show off at WWDC, like the new Messages app which is much more functional than before.
The 4th reason is alignment with iOS, iPadOS and tvOS.
Basically, switching Mac over to Apple Silicon is gonna make it a whole lot easier for Apple
to develop and update their own apps. Instead of having to work on iOS and macOS apps separately,
they can do it once and make some minor adjustments for each platform.
This means less work for Apple and third-party developers, who no longer have to make two
different apps if they want it on both iPhone and Mac.
Now out of all of those reasons, I think the most important one is that Apple will no longer
be held back by Intel and AMD’s product release timeline.
So we’ll no longer see a new MacBook Pro with basically the same graphics or processor
as last year’s model. Apple will be able to consistently give us a processor and graphics
improvement every single year, just like they do with the iPhone.
Now another very big question is if Apple is going to start making dedicated graphics
chips or just stick to ones that are integrated into the processor like they currently are
with their iOS devices.
Well, if Apple is switching to ARM and ditching both Intel processors and AMD graphics, they’re
doing it everywhere, including the Mac Pro.
And the Mac Pro needs to have incredibly powerful graphics performance, and to do this, they’ll
most likely have to separate the graphics from the ARM processor, so we should expect
Apple to make dedicated graphics chips.
Now whether they’ll be removable is another question, but this ultimately means that they
could also separate the ARM chips in the MacBook Pro, for example, to have a high-powered dedicated
graphics chip.
So with all of that said, let’s get to the final point. What does all of this mean for
you?
Well, if you want your third-party apps to work well, you should probably wait to upgrade
to an Apple Silicon ARM Mac until your apps are finally proven to be fully optimized for
Apple’s GPUs.
This might take 2 or 3 or even more years depending on how actively the developer of
your much needed app updates and optimizes it for new technology.
So in that case, it might be a good idea to buy an Intel-based Mac right now like the
16” MacBook Pro on sale using the link below and enjoy optimized AMD graphics performance
for the next couple of years before buying an ARM-based Mac.
Now what this also means is that eGPU support is most likely going away on Apple Silicon
Macs, or at least eGPUs with AMD graphics.
Apple will probably create their own custom Apple eGPU in the future, but if you like
the idea of using an eGPU for gaming on Windows 10 through bootcamp, absolutely do not upgrade
to an Arm-Based Mac later this year.
Stick with an Intel-based system like the 13” MacBook Pro which performs very well
when connected to an eGPU.
But eventually, you’re gonna have to switch over to an Apple Silicon Mac, and hopefully
by then, more game developers will be encouraged to bring some really great games over to the
macOS platform.
And in general, the switch to the custom Apple GPUs means that your future MacBook or iMac
is gonna be more powerful thanks to Metal optimization, while running a lot cooler and
quieter. So while this might seem a bit disappointing right now, everyone is gonna win in the end.
If you disagree with my point of view, let me know down in the comment section below,
and if you learned something new from this video, go ahead and click the circle above
to subscribe and be sure to check out this Apple Product t-shirt down below. Thanks for
watching, and we’ll see you in the next one!