Yearly Upgrades of M-series Chips

[senttoschool]

I always assumed that we would be seeing a 2-year upgrade cycle for the M-chip because Apple doesn't sell enough Macs to make an annual refresh worth the R&D (unlike their iPhones). There's also the question of whether we will see enough of an improvement year on year for it to even make sense.

They don't sell their chips to anyone else either, and people are holding on to their devices longer also. We see it in the iPad lineup, where the Ax series chips typically get a 1.5 year refresh cycle.

Moving forward, I won't be surprised to see their processors get refreshed every 3 years. As long as Apple continues to lead in terms of power efficiency, I don't think they are too worried about intel / AMD chips being slightly faster in the high end, especially when the only way they achieve this is by consuming massive amounts of power, which means that they will never work in the form factors that Apple traditionally favours and currently holds sway in.

Even when Apple was using Intel chips, they were updating at least once per year, sometimes twice per year. It was only when Intel crap the bed on 14nm that threw Apple's updates out of balance.

2 years is too long. 3 years is inconceivable. Even AMD's Zen gets updated once every 18-24 months.

Remember that it's the iPhone chip that makes it "affordable" to produce the M series. It's just a scaled up version of the A series.

 

[Falhófnir]

I think yearly is the only long-term possibility.

I know people basically settled on the 18-month idea at the beginning, but that always seemed incredibly strange to me, both because there was zero evidence for it and because of how insanely weird and impractical a schedule it would be for them to maintain with how the tech is researched and made. I mean, their A-series chips, which are based on the same tech, are already released annually. How exactly would that even work, to not sync the M-series chip releases to that in any way? I think this only sounded so natural to people because of the haphazard way they've had to release Macs in the past with how they were tied to Intel's fall-on-face unpredictable chip releases. It doesn't make sense anymore in the new world of Apple Silicon. Supply issues still leave them with some unpredictability for now but that will resolve over time as they mature and diversify their supply sources and as the COVID-19 crisis moves further and further away in the rearview mirror.

So that just leaves a 1-year or 2-year release cycle. 2 years would be the most sensible given how mature this tech is and how unnecessary frequent speed increases are to most of the target audience. It would also mean they could support their Macs for twice as long with the same effort, and a long support life is particularly important to Mac users. But it would sit poorly with their shareholders because of the reduced hype and profits. So I think we are going to be seeing 1 year. Certainly that's what the evidence has been pointing to very, very strongly for a while now.

Indeed, I came to pretty much the same conclusion. While the iPad AX chips which the M series evolved out of were on an >12 month cycle (skipping an A series generation every few years), it's a much different proposition when you have to do it with at least 4 chip variants, going into multiple devices, each of which are on different refresh cycles themselves. It gets messy if, as above, they want new MPro and MMax chips every October, but are happy to let the MacBook Airs and iPads with the base M chips go 16, 18 or 20 months, and on top of that have the Mac mini and potentially the iMac using both the regular M chip and a Pro option.

A 2 year cycle would probably be ok in isolation, but I don't think Apple's lead is secure enough they wouldn't potentially be struggling in the last 6 months before a refresh if competitors can release 2 updates to every one Apple update. Marketing is almost as important as the raw performance figures, and a new chip generation almost markets itself.

 

[Darren.h]

I don't think the Mac chips will get yearly updates. Tech is slowing down. Ideas and new ground breaking tech are happening LESS.

Tim Cook even mentioned this a few years back. And Apple builds and designs their products years in Advance.

They cant continue to shrink this chip past 2nm I bet.

Therefore the only upgrade option is to add more CPU Cores or GPU cores for more performance.

Or new Thunderbolt and faster memory Chips.

 

[Falhófnir]

I don't think the Mac chips will get yearly updates. Tech is slowing down. Ideas and new ground breaking tech are happening LESS.

Tim Cook even mentioned this a few years back. And Apple builds and designs their products years in Advance.

They cant continue to shrink this chip past 2nm I bet.

Therefore the only upgrade option is to add more CPU Cores or GPU cores for more performance.

Or new Thunderbolt and faster memory Chips.

As has now been noted ad nauseam that's not really how it works, not any more anyway. Indeed, a lot of features on the 3nm node won't be 3nm, and there's lots of different things they tweak and redesign to help improve the density and efficiency of a new node. It's not just about transistor size. There's probably still years of tweaking and improving and refinements they can eke out before traditional silicon chips are fully exhausted. Maybe don't expect regular game changing leaps any more, but things aren't going to grind to a halt in the way you're suggesting anytime soon.

 

[jdb8167]

They cant continue to shrink this chip past 2nm I bet.

Both TSMC and Intel have plans for sub-2nm in place. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be successful but they both seem confident. I wouldn’t bet against them myself.

 

[Abazigal]

Even when Apple was using Intel chips, they were updating at least once per year, sometimes twice per year. It was only when Intel crap the bed on 14nm that threw Apple's updates out of balance.

2 years is too long. 3 years is inconceivable. Even AMD's Zen gets updated once every 18-24 months.

Remember that it's the iPhone chip that makes it "affordable" to produce the M series. It's just a scaled up version of the A series.

I think it's different when you are shopping for chips from another company and can afford to simply pay for the latest and best that Intel has to offer, without caring two hoots about what went on behind the scenes for R&D.

But when Apple is now footing the R&D costs for designing their own processors, I suspect what Apple is realising is that the longer upgrade cycle of Macs means that releasing a new Mac with a refreshed chip every year will not result in any meaningful improvement in sales.

The M1 came out in end 2020. The M2 came out in June 2022 (roughly 1.5 years later). If the M3 is announced later next week, that would have been another 1.5 years, which I suppose is reasonable (and in line with the iPad's Ax chip upgrade cycle). But it would also kinda suck for people who purchased the 15" MBA a few months ago, only for them to announce the M3 chip so soon.

I really don't know if this was always the plan, or if the pandemic slowed down what would otherwise have been an annual upgrade cycle.

 

[myhaksown]

And about Intel, I think that it’s interesting how the 14th-generation had such a relatively small gain on performance compared to the 13th-generation.

Apple‘s M3 family may show much better results.

It’s partially because the lga1700 socket was kept too long. That and Intel can’t keep up with new node sizes in their own foundry. So if Apple buys all the capacity for 3nm nodes from TSMC Intel can’t use it.

 

[neinjohn]

But when Apple is now footing the R&D costs for designing their own processors, I suspect what Apple is realising is that the longer upgrade cycle of Macs means that releasing a new Mac with a refreshed chip every year will not result in any meaningful improvement in sales.

But they have done that to survive and thrive on the years the smartphone business was very cutthroat on multiple levels. Nowadays the competition is much more around specialised applications of AI computation, mainly photography and video and they have focused on those aspects with the same yearly cadence.

Meanwhile the PC business has being ramping up on all fronts at the same time with more competitors getting in.

The pressure is very much on on any PC competitors and I would argue the edge Apple can use to advance is their management honed skills to hit yearly targets, their focus on cadence upgrades and their step-by-step upgrade capability on targeted tech while shipping products.

 

[ggCloud]

But it would also kinda suck for people who purchased the 15" MBA a few months ago, only for them to announce the M3 chip so soon.

I don't think the 15" MBA will get the M3 this year. The iMac might be.

 

[Gloor]

If you still believe its M2 at this point than you will be very disappointed on monday.
We are getting M3. If Apple did M2 then that would be the most embarrassing marketing flop ever.

M3 it is ( 95% chance)
M2 (only 5% and big flop)

read the tea leaves buddy - you simply can't pick M2 as the most likely scenario.

I feel this is a massive assumption that M3s will be released in the next few days. I believe it's going to be the M2s. Computers (and cell phones, and smart watches, and tablets) are now in the "replaceable" category for most users. Most people won't upgrade because there's a new chip, but will upgrade if their old system physically breaks.

Of course, people who use Macs to make movies, music, etc., for money will benefit from a new, faster, chip, but that I think most people simply buy computers for "casual" purposes.

 

[XboxEvolved]

I fully expect that Apple will release new chips every 9-12 months from here on out depending on demand and where they are with the technology. It’s not a bad thing and just the way tech goes. I would think once you start seeing them having problems with the spec they are using, like they did with PowerPC, and Intel after that more rumblings of them switching architectures will begin. A lot of people suspected Apple would switch to Intel as far as as 2-3 years before they did, a lot of people just assumed Apple would switch to using their own ARM series right around the time the 64-bit iPhone 5S/A7 came out, and in fact not long after that and sometime after even, their were rumors that Apple had began to tinker with the idea of using their chips not long after that.

I may be remembering wrong, but I swear I read somewhere that Apple was looking to break out of the ARM instruction set and forge their own path at sometime which also, probably going to happen. I’m not sure when, but if you look at how long Apple uses a particular architecture, they usually go for 10-15 years until they switch to something else. Each time they have switched, it has been less and less of a hassle, and I would wage that a totally Apple dependent chip in the future will be virtually hassle free for the developer and end user alike. So basically what I’m saying is, if Apple hasn’t switched over to a totally Apple design by 2035 I would be completely shocked.

 

[WC7]

Just want to know when Apple plans to introduce its advanced M5 'multitronic' chip. It will likely have all the new AI capabilities ... but, I am most worried about its personality. Could someone ask Dr. Daystrom to comment?

 

[senttoschool]

I think it's different when you are shopping for chips from another company and can afford to simply pay for the latest and best that Intel has to offer, without caring two hoots about what went on behind the scenes for R&D.

But when Apple is now footing the R&D costs for designing their own processors, I suspect what Apple is realising is that the longer upgrade cycle of Macs means that releasing a new Mac with a refreshed chip every year will not result in any meaningful improvement in sales.

The M1 came out in end 2020. The M2 came out in June 2022 (roughly 1.5 years later). If the M3 is announced later next week, that would have been another 1.5 years, which I suppose is reasonable (and in line with the iPad's Ax chip upgrade cycle). But it would also kinda suck for people who purchased the 15" MBA a few months ago, only for them to announce the M3 chip so soon.

I really don't know if this was always the plan, or if the pandemic slowed down what would otherwise have been an annual upgrade cycle.

Apple deemed it important enough to update its laptops with new Intel chips as many as twice per year. That should tell you that every time they make an update, however minor, sales jump.

So from a pure sales standpoint, it makes sense to update as frequently as possible. And since M series is just scaled up A series, the R&D is mostly paid for by the iPhone. Furthermore, performance improvements are more important for computers than phones. Yet, we still get a new chip on the iPhone annually.

 

[reklex]

I always assumed that we would be seeing a 2-year upgrade cycle for the M-chip because Apple doesn't sell enough Macs to make an annual refresh worth the R&D (unlike their iPhones). There's also the question of whether we will see enough of an improvement year on year for it to even make sense.

They don't sell their chips to anyone else either, and people are holding on to their devices longer also. We see it in the iPad lineup, where the Ax series chips typically get a 1.5 year refresh cycle.

Moving forward, I won't be surprised to see their processors get refreshed every 3 years. As long as Apple continues to lead in terms of power efficiency, I don't think they are too worried about intel / AMD chips being slightly faster in the high end, especially when the only way they achieve this is by consuming massive amounts of power, which means that they will never work in the form factors that Apple traditionally favours and currently holds sway in.

isn’t the M chip based on the A chips they used for the iPhone?

 

[Abazigal]

isn’t the M chip based on the A chips they used for the iPhone?

I don’t know if they are similar enough to be lumped under the same basket in terms of R&D costs.

 

[reklex]

I think it's different when you are shopping for chips from another company and can afford to simply pay for the latest and best that Intel has to offer, without caring two hoots about what went on behind the scenes for R&D.

But when Apple is now footing the R&D costs for designing their own processors, I suspect what Apple is realising is that the longer upgrade cycle of Macs means that releasing a new Mac with a refreshed chip every year will not result in any meaningful improvement in sales.

The M1 came out in end 2020. The M2 came out in June 2022 (roughly 1.5 years later). If the M3 is announced later next week, that would have been another 1.5 years, which I suppose is reasonable (and in line with the iPad's Ax chip upgrade cycle). But it would also kinda suck for people who purchased the 15" MBA a few months ago, only for them to announce the M3 chip so soon.

I really don't know if this was always the plan, or if the pandemic slowed down what would otherwise have been an annual upgrade cycle.

they’d be doing themselves dirty giving up their hand now.

if competition finds a way to mimic the M series success while still being a beast in gaming and 3D workflows most people will pick it over a MBP.

 

[throAU]

is there a real difference form the M! to M2?
especially with 16 cores?
and
how many years will our friends at  Cupertino support their own M1 chip?

thanks!

For a start the baseline m2 includes the pro-res media engine, the base m1 does not.

Faster GPU cores, CPU cores also 25% faster or so.

 

[killhippie]

I think the M3 Ultra may arrive in March or April alongside an upgraded M3 MacBook Air and an upgraded Mac Mini.

I think Mac mini was said to be late 2024 before its next upgrade according to one of the leakers. If Apple make thier M series chips obsolete quickly and end up forcing people to make updates way to early I mean the M2 Pro is good enough for many as it is now, then people might get a cause of looking at other markets, maybe not hardcore Apple fans but casual Apple Mac users and any businesses that use Apple computers (most use Windows) would not be able to justify the cost, especially home users.

 

[Matt Leaf]

Well, this is probably the year where the M2 MacBook Pro finally dies. Well, not discontinued as of yet, but I think this is the Touch Bar MBP's last generation. And as a result, all that's happened is the cycle has gotten a bit out of order, but of course, it's all totally planned. The M2 Air isn't ready for a refresh, so the MBP's, slow sellers this gen, are coming in early. As others said, maybe M2 Pro/Max was just a stop gap, so the short cadence is justified. Looking forward to what we see anyway. I think 1.5 years will be a general rule of thumb for most Mac releases, sometimes early, sometimes late.

 

[Ethosik]

If there is a full suite of M3 chips launched at the event then I think a yearly cadence is very likely from now on.

I believe that is the goal. COVID, chip shortages, etc affected timelines for M2. And rumors are M2 was ready a few months before they announced it.

 

[Ethosik]

Gurman says it will be M3/M3 Pro/M3 Max only, so no M3 Ultra. Don't know if he's right, but an M3 Ultra would be surprising.

They really need to pair Ultra with Max. It doesn’t look good having their top of the line products (Mac Studio) still at M2 Max but laptops on M3 Max.

 

[Ethosik]

If the M3 will be announced, it will make the Vision Pro look odd with the promised M2 chip… you’d expect the latest and greatest for their new flagship product next year. Or maybe it will get the M3 after all?

They boxed themselves in a corner. Should have just re-packaged it as V1 or something. Then it won’t matter if it’s M2 based as it’s what they deemed appropriate for that device.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

A9X: November 2015
A10X: June 2017
A12X: November 2018
A14X: November 2020
A15X: June 2022
A17X: November 2023

it’s been 18 to 24 months or roundabout there for the last eight years.

 

[Ethosik]

is there a real difference form the M! to M2?
especially with 16 cores?
and
how many years will our friends at  Cupertino support their own M1 chip?

thanks!

Yes. Especially with the Ultra as they fixed the 2x scaling issues with graphics and media encoders/decoders.

 

[Ethosik]

I really hope they don't move to an annual cadence for Macs. It is a lot of work to release a new product, and I'd rather them spend that energy making progress rather than just to release a minor update.

It's almost to the point I think the phones should go to a slower cadence, but at least they have the volumes to justify the effort. Macs don't. If there's something really worth releasing, fine. But no point in more frequent releases just to keep abreast of incremental benchmark advancements.

They need to be faster. Intel and AMD are getting more and more ahead.