Should be around the time Apple Silicon M3 Pro/Max launches.
Would be curious to see what memory the M2 Pro/Max will ship with. The GPU cores are expected to increase because the A15 went from 4 to 5 cores. M2 should have 10 cores. M2 Pro should have 20. M2 Max should have 40. Would LPDDR5 still be enough?
I'm thinking that, at some point, Apple will have to move the Pro/Max versions to HBM2e memory. The standard M2 and M3 SoC's I'm sure would be fine with LPDDR5/X still, but those big-boy SoC's can only go so far. Since they already command a price-premium anyways, only being found in the MacBook Pro's and whatnot, it would make sense to move them to HBM2e.
I don’t know. Apple gets most of the benefit of HBM power reduction just by doing in chip / on package / on substrate ddr. It’s not like they are using 25% of the package power on the ddr bus of the pro/max.
They will just use multiple M1 Max dies which already have the necessary memory controllers on them, and will increase memory bandwidth correspondingly.
I was really just wondering what anyone would do with so many cores... in a laptop!
I can understand 8 cores. Certain tasks parallelize well and it's more efficient to go multi-core than juice up the clock speeds. Plus, you might want a VM or two.
But 20 or 40 cores... ??? Do most people even do stuff on such laptops that could harness so many? And we're not talking about those "mobile workstation" laptops, either. Just like your typical Powerbook user.
Stream Processors (sp) have been the baseline for gpu cores for a long time. SOC vendors wanted to increase marketable core counts without increasing cores, so they added gpu ‘cores’. However, these cores were clusters of cores because otherwise they would be marketing hundreds of cores and the measure would become meaningless. Currently Apple gpu cores have 128 sps. This is analogous to the nvidia sm which contains 128 cuda cores (nvidia calls their sps cuda cores). So a 32 core Apple gpu has 4096 sps, not 6144. Not all sps are created equal due to architectural and memory bandwidth differences, and clock speeds are proportional to performance (not 1:1 due to other bottlenecks).
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lemurbutton - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
Should be around the time Apple Silicon M3 Pro/Max launches.Would be curious to see what memory the M2 Pro/Max will ship with. The GPU cores are expected to increase because the A15 went from 4 to 5 cores. M2 should have 10 cores. M2 Pro should have 20. M2 Max should have 40. Would LPDDR5 still be enough?
NextGen_Gamer - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
I'm thinking that, at some point, Apple will have to move the Pro/Max versions to HBM2e memory. The standard M2 and M3 SoC's I'm sure would be fine with LPDDR5/X still, but those big-boy SoC's can only go so far. Since they already command a price-premium anyways, only being found in the MacBook Pro's and whatnot, it would make sense to move them to HBM2e.nandnandnand - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
Sounds reasonable. If you are going to pay $5000, might as well get the best. HBM3 is also on the table.schuckles - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
I don’t know. Apple gets most of the benefit of HBM power reduction just by doing in chip / on package / on substrate ddr. It’s not like they are using 25% of the package power on the ddr bus of the pro/max.caribbeanblue - Tuesday, January 25, 2022 - link
They will just use multiple M1 Max dies which already have the necessary memory controllers on them, and will increase memory bandwidth correspondingly.blanarahul - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
They are already using 512 bit wide 6400 MHz memory bus with M1 Max. They are going to have to go with HBM/GDDR6 if they want more memory bandwidth.schuckles - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
I agree, seems like a straightforward path to boost max memory bandwidth by another 33% while using 20% less power during normal operationmode_13h - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
> M2 should have 10 cores. M2 Pro should have 20. M2 Max should have 40.That's an awful lot of cores, for a laptop.
Hrunga_Zmuda - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
With their energy budget, that doesn't sound like that big a deal. The M1 Max is an awful lot of performance for a laptop.mode_13h - Wednesday, November 10, 2021 - link
I was really just wondering what anyone would do with so many cores... in a laptop!I can understand 8 cores. Certain tasks parallelize well and it's more efficient to go multi-core than juice up the clock speeds. Plus, you might want a VM or two.
But 20 or 40 cores... ??? Do most people even do stuff on such laptops that could harness so many? And we're not talking about those "mobile workstation" laptops, either. Just like your typical Powerbook user.
GC2:CS - Wednesday, November 10, 2021 - link
He is talking GPU cores.I do not think the CPU will grow in imediate future but A15 - The M2 gen “slice” has 5 GPU cores up from 4 in A14.
tvrrp - Sunday, November 14, 2021 - link
20 and 40 cores will go only to iMac and Mac Pro. Laptops will stay with 10 corescaribbeanblue - Tuesday, January 25, 2022 - link
Different companies define what a 'GPU core' is, differently. A 32-core Apple GPU is roughly equivalent to a '6144-core' RTX 3080M.Otritus - Thursday, May 12, 2022 - link
Stream Processors (sp) have been the baseline for gpu cores for a long time. SOC vendors wanted to increase marketable core counts without increasing cores, so they added gpu ‘cores’. However, these cores were clusters of cores because otherwise they would be marketing hundreds of cores and the measure would become meaningless. Currently Apple gpu cores have 128 sps. This is analogous to the nvidia sm which contains 128 cuda cores (nvidia calls their sps cuda cores). So a 32 core Apple gpu has 4096 sps, not 6144. Not all sps are created equal due to architectural and memory bandwidth differences, and clock speeds are proportional to performance (not 1:1 due to other bottlenecks).nandnandnand - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
If your smartphone doesn't have 64 GB of LPDDR5X, you might as well chuck it in the trash.nicolaim - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
:)Oxford Guy - Friday, November 12, 2021 - link
12 TB ought to be enough for anyone.Whiteknight2020 - Wednesday, November 10, 2021 - link
Has it suddenly stopped making phone calls?CoreLogicCom - Tuesday, November 16, 2021 - link
Wait, you make phone calls with a phone? How 2020!