AMD’s next-gen Navi 31 references have been spotted in Apple macOS 11’s “Big Sur” OS

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Yeap. I predicted this. They're going to continue using AMD for discrete GPU's. Certainly they'll appear as another option for Mac Pro. But I imagine they'll also appear as options for iMac and iMac Pro. And a mobile version into Macbook Pro 16".

EDIT: Also as an aside, it's good news for eGPU users. Hopefully I'll be able to get one to upgrade my Radeon VII.
 
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UnknownSouljer said:
Yeap. I predicted this. They're going to continue using AMD for discrete GPU's. Certainly they'll appear as another option for Mac Pro. But I imagine they'll also appear as options for iMac and iMac Pro. And a mobile version into Macbook Pro 16".

EDIT: Also as an aside, it's good news for eGPU users. Hopefully I'll be able to get one to upgrade my Radeon VII.
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Nope, Intel platform will be supported on Big Sur also and they still have upcoming releases which will include this GPU.

While they may continue to offer modular cards for the Mac Pro, they will be using their chips only in iMac and Macbooks I bet.
 
aokman said:
Nope, Intel platform will be supported on Big Sur also and they still have upcoming releases which will include this GPU.

While they may continue to offer modular cards for the Mac Pro, they will be using their chips only in iMac and Macbooks I bet.
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I'll take the Vegas odds on that one. Easily. Find the bookie and put me down for $20.
In order for Apple to not need a GPU partner, they'd also have to have GPU tech as good or better than AMD.
They're transitioning over 2 years. How much you wanna bet they can or can't perform as well as top end AMD GPU's? Or in short, when they make a Mac Pro ARM variant in 2 years or less, why would anyone buy it unless it's faster than the Intel variation?
Don't get me wrong, Apple will clearly continue to use their own SoC's for systems that they were using Intel IGP's for before (such as the Macbook 13", Mac Mini, Macbook Air, etc). But DGPU's aren't going away anytime soon.
 
aokman said:
Nope, Intel platform will be supported on Big Sur also and they still have upcoming releases which will include this GPU.
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Lol, I think you misunderstood/misread. He said "using AMD for discrete GPU's", he didn't say they were swapping platforms to AMD.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
I'll take the Vegas odds on that one. Easily. Find the bookie and put me down for $20.
In order for Apple to not need a GPU partner, they'd also have to have GPU tech as good or better than AMD.
They're transitioning over 2 years. How much you wanna bet they can or can't perform as well as top end AMD GPU's? Or in short, when they make a Mac Pro ARM variant in 2 years or less, why would anyone buy it unless it's faster than the Intel variation?
Don't get me wrong, Apple will clearly continue to use their own SoC's for systems that they were using Intel IGP's for before (such as the Macbook 13", Mac Mini, Macbook Air, etc). But DGPU's aren't going away anytime soon.
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Yeah I’m thinking they go all in on this SoC approach and move to unified memory etc basically turning the whole platform into consoles because the benefits of vertically integrating and going all in on Metal etc is probably the play here
 
Ready4Dis said:
Lol, I think you misunderstood/misread. He said "using AMD for discrete GPU's", he didn't say they were swapping platforms to AMD.
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I said big sur will also run upcoming Intel platforms with the new AMD GPUs. Apple will not use AMD in Macbooks and iMac... it would ruin all their work on power savings.

Their SOCs are more than capable as is.
 
aokman said:
I said big sur will also run upcoming Intel platforms with the new AMD GPUs. Apple will not use AMD in Macbooks and iMac... it would ruin all their work on power savings.
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The move to ARM isn't just about power savings. It's also not just about thermal management. It is for sure about both of those things, but it's also about Intel lagging with performance and not being able to keep up with their much faster process technologies. For just sheer speed reasons it's not going to be possible to dump dedicated GPU hardware for the same reason it's not possible to dump dedicated GPU hardware on their high performance options now.

aokman said:
Their SOCs are more than capable as is.
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I know of no ARM chips that currently are faster than dedicated GPU's in this area. Certainly no ARM SoC's that are faster than Dual Vega II's, let alone faster than what will be coming with Big Navi. The implications of what that would mean in terms of process technology would be insane if they did. I'm not sure how to explain to you any other way than that. But in short if they can make a single SoC that is faster than every desktop CPU and every desktop GPU combined they probably should just get into the business of selling processors and get out of the business of even bothering with being an end seller of computers. The implication in short would mean that they could sell their processors and chase Intel, AMD, and nVidia out of the market as well as Qualcomm and Samsung. Because no one else has anything even close to as performative as that. Apple would stand to make trillions if they had any processor that fast. They should instead attempt to replace every computer and replace every tablet and phone with Apple SoCs. That would be way more profitable than their 10% marketshare on Mac and their 20% share in the smartphone market.

Big Navi as an example is allegedly going to have a 505mm² die size (for their top uncut part). Being able to magically replace that isn't possible without something equally as large (there is no replacement for transistors other than transistors). Processors and GPU's aren't magic. And more specifically, ARM isn't magic.
 
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gigatexal said:
Yeah I’m thinking they go all in on this SoC approach and move to unified memory etc basically turning the whole platform into consoles because the benefits of vertically integrating and going all in on Metal etc is probably the play here
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Unified memory might be a boon to gaming consoles, but the high latency it introduces will not be a boon to other computing platforms - quite the opposite in fact.
 
I laugh at this being the "early" leaks, because if the early indications from Apple pan-out, this could be AMD's last Apple GPU release.

I guess we'll have to wait until Apple releases their 32-core ARM monster-powered Mac Pro to get the final word, but it could be an Apple-powered graphics card in there!
 
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defaultluser said:
I laugh at this being the "early" leaks, because if the early indications from Apple pan-out, this could be AMD's last Apple GPU release.

I guess we'll have to wait until Apple releases their 32-core ARM monster-powered Mac Pro to get the final word, but it could be an Apple-powered graphics card in there!
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I feel like I'm repeating myself, but they would have to have ridiculous GPU development to ever match a discrete GPU from either AMD or nVidia. Intel is a company with much more expertise than Apple and they've struggled with both APU's and DGPU's for well over 10 years. AMD even has people with first hand foundry knowledge and still haven't been able to eclipse companies like nVidia, and that's essentially their "only job".
While I think it's possible for them to overun Intel, especially since their process technology is so much better and their ARM processors are so much more specialized. I think it's very optimistic to think they will be able to make a single SOC that's faster than the best processors AND the best GPU's combined.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
I feel like I'm repeating myself, but they would have to have ridiculous GPU development to ever match a discrete GPU from either AMD or nVidia. Intel is a company with much more expertise than Apple and they've struggled with both APU's and DGPU's for well over 10 years. AMD even has people with first hand foundry knowledge and still haven't been able to eclipse companies like nVidia, and that's essentially their "only job".
While I think it's possible for them to overun Intel, especially since their process technology is so much better and their ARM processors are so much more specialized. I think it's very optimistic to think they will be able to make a single SOC that's faster than the best processors AND the best GPU's combined.
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I said I'm not sure about that future. But Apple's WWDC and developer's guide give us that impression. We will have to wait and see if they can pull that off., or support discrete!

But This 7-core GPU running at 5w from 2018 gets embarrassingly-close to a GTX 1060. Imagine what could happen if they opened that up tto 15w SoC, or a 100w discrete GPU with 16 cores?

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I think that the current shared memory of the devs system is not gong to be the only future of Mac, but there's nothing stopping Apple from building PowerVR licensed GPUs. There's nothing wrong with what's currently powering Apple's SoCs, and you could triple the performance of current chips if you dedicated power and silicon for more cores.
 
There is also the very very outside possibility that Apple is going to licence Navi for their own SOC... as Samsung has.

Not a big potability imo... but ya never know, imagine 8 high performance ARM cores, a couple AI type add on bits, and even half a PS5/Xbone Navi GPU, in a well priced macbook. haha I know not likely... not impossible either.
 
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