It’s not ironic. It’s straight up weird and unexpected is what it is.
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Yeah maybe ironic is not the right term
Shocking would be a good word to use here.
Maybe what I wanted to say is that ironically while Intel blasted the Apple ARM based SoC as bad their own comparable x86 are slower and now everybody including them seems to jump onto the ARM train
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I’m kinda annoyed that it’s taking this long for Apple to at least announce a more powerful system. I’ve been planning on updating my main workstation for several months now…remember when the rumor was that Apple would announce M1x systems in the Spring, then it was for WWDC, and then it was right after WWDC? Now it’s for September with a November release. It has been a very frustrating experience.
An ideal set up for me would be a new Mac Mini Pro with at least up to 32Gb of RAM (ideally 64), and a more powerful CPU/GPU core combo. At that point what I would probably do is purchase that system (assuming it’s within $3k tops) and convert my Intel Hackintosh into a Windows 11 machine. The plan would be for me to be able to work in MacOS in Blender and other apps for the most part, and then send everything over to the Windows machine for rendering and simulations.
Come on Apple…hurry the F up…at least announce an event date!!!
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Yes !!!
For me it Apple Silicon was a paper launch, with only M1,
so far.
And while for a moment it looked ok for Apple promising,
forgiving them all pain of neglecting 3D people since 2012,
now they start breaching end to end decryption and destroy
everything again.
I would be so happy to have left my comfort zone of Vectorworks
CAD (Mac/Windows) and Cinema4D (Mac + Windows) for my Arch Viz
and learned into Blender, or used Modo and Bricsad on Linux.
(Looks like at one day, not so far, I have to do anyway)
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It does indeed take a very long time. On the other hand if even Toyota cut global production by 40% due to component shortages, I can understand Apple.
The demand for new MacBooks probably will be huuuge.
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Not that weird, Apple has included some hardware to assist Rosetta 2 with running x86 code.
Can’t 100% remember where but it speeds up converting the x86 instructions to micro-ops without having to do the entire x86 → ARM translation IIRC
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My thoughts exactly. I’m itching to transition from my current Windows PC to a powerful Apple Silicon iMac.
The articles about the upcoming multiple events don’t mention the expectation of a more powerful iMac. I hope I won’t have to wait until somewhere in 2022. 
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The rumor mill is definitely heating up:
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It’s entirely understandable in retrospect. At the time, it was mindblowing. The idea that a program can run at least as fast through a translation layer as it can on native hardware is, well, it’s counterintuitive is what it is.
…yet here we are.
This is what I’m hoping for right here. If Apple finally gets around to releasing a high end Mac Mini, I’ll be there day 1.
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I always count several from the word seven as 7 or more; few = 3, couple =2, “a handful” = 5, a dozen = 12 (obviously 
)
As for timeframe I believe Apple is almost dead on. M1 November 2020 - M1X November 2021 - M2 November 2022. New chips will follow the same release cadence as the iPhone’s chip cycle.
This will still allow Apple to stay true to their “2 Year” full transition.
I never expected to see the M1X stuff in June just after seeing the release of the M1 in November, but I won’t lie,; with those heavy rumors I was getting really excited it may happen.
Products that will utilize a certain chip variation will release around or after the new chip cycle.
I know you know this, but treating the rumor mill (at least with Apple) as anything more than entertainment will cause frustrations.
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With how well my first gen M-series mini is performing I believe you’ll be more than satisfied. And as well as it is working for me now I may skip a generation or maybe with the power consumption and thermal issues being greatly improved I may give a new shiny MacBook a shot again. I would love to have that go anywhere plug into any monitor, (quiet) work station that I’m always spouting off about here. 
***Edit: Almost forgot, I do need more than 16GB of RAM that the current mini offers. So If the new Mini has a 32 or even 64GB version I would be sold. Same for MBP 64GB.
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One of the upgrades I’m hoping for is compatibility with external GPU’s. I think this can be a real big deal for users dealing with video-heavy processing apps such as Resolve, which although feels snappy in use, it still renders considerably slower than a GPU-equipped Mac. Also Octane and Redshift users require some sort of external GPU.
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YES! Although I didn’t use an eGPU with my iMac, I heard of so many people getting great performance boost from their last Gen Minis and MBP when using one. I know with the M- series stuff the eGPU option disappeared, but I really do hope this becomes a thing again.
Some talks I hear are that it’s not gone forever but reinstating it for the M-Series Macs is going to take time. Not unlike missing features in Cycles X; not gone just not there yet.
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I think they are vapor ware way OFF.
I start counting at least from WWDC 2020.
Honestly,
I count from 2012 when the stopped selling the Cheese Grater here,
because of any Power Supply Security Regulations.
Personally I think it will be more like M1x November, M2 spring next year and M2x November next year.
M2 will be less fast than the M1x and will go into the Air.
M2x will be the bigger Imac?
MacPro I am not expecting till even later like M3x.
Mac Pro coming next year. It is not possible to keep x86 junk any longer in the top machine even with the help of fast graphic cards. Apple would have to jump to new Intel or AMD architectures (with DDR5 and PCIe5) and that wouldn’t make sense since they already have their own CPU/GPU and all new software is optimized for Mx.
I think it would not be a wise decision of Apple to wait that long with a really competent machine for heavier audiovisual use. Right now there are only consumer-level and semi-pro options (Macbook, Mac Mini and candy-colored toy-like iMacs), while the iMac Pro has been discontinued for about half a year or so by now?
During the past years, Apple has already lost a lot of pro users to Windows PCs with NVIDIA GPUs, including myself, but also well-known 3D guys like Greyscale Gorilla.