Apple Plans New ARM-based Macs With Upto 32 CPU Cores

Apple apparently has a highly developed roadmap for switching to ARM-based CPUs from its own development. As part of the departure from Intel by 2022, Macs with up to 32 powerful computing cores are to come onto the market, it is said.

As reported by the US business service Bloomberg, citing information from trustworthy sources from the Apple environment and its suppliers, Apple intends to be more aggressive than most market observers with the move away from Intel to its own ARM platforms, recently initiated with the Apple M1 expected so far.

MacBooks and iMacs with up to 16 high-performance cores, Mac Pro with a maximum of 32

Allegedly, the company plans to use new ARM platforms with up to 16 high-performance and four power-saving cores in the next generation of the MacBook Pro and iMac. Presumably, a graduation of the number of computing cores is planned to depend on the price class and intended use of the respective system.

More expensive models for demanding tasks should then, as usual, have more CPU cores than cheaper versions for simple activities. Depending on how development and production progress at TSMC, it is conceivable that Apple will initially introduce models with eight or 12 performance cores before the absolute high-end versions with even more CPU cores follow later. For desktop systems, including the Mac Pro as well as a variant of the Mac Pro that is only half the size, Apple should meanwhile plan new chip designs with up to 32 high-end ARM-based cores. The introduction of the new ARM-based Mac Pro models is said to take place later in 2021, according to the report.

Apple also has big plans for graphics. While the current Apple M1 SoC comes with a seven or eight-core graphics unit, the manufacturer is already testing graphics solutions from its own development with 16 or 32 graphics cores for the next generation of high-end laptops or mid-range desktops. For the end of 2021 or 2022, Apple is also planning GPUs with 64 or even 128 dedicated graphics cores for high-end systems.