Apple Has Built its Own Mac Graphics Processors
upstart writes in with an IRC submission:
Apple has built its own Mac graphics processors:
Like iPhones and iPads, Apple Silicon Macs will use an Apple-designed GPU - something that makes complete sense when you consider this is how current iOS devices work. But it could be a reason for pause by some high-end users during the transition period from Intel-based hardware.
[...] You see, while Intel Macs contain GPU's from Intel, Nvidia and AMD, Apple Silicon Macs will use what the company seems fond of calling Apple family" GPUs. These use a rendering system called Tile Based Deferred Rendering (TBDR), which iOS devices already use.
It works differently from the Immediate Mode rendering system supported in Intel Macs: While the latter immediately render imaging data to device memory, the former makes more use of the GPU by sorting out each element first before submitting it to device memory.
You can find out more here.
The effect is that TBDR rendering delivers lower latency, higher performance, lower power requirements and can achieve higher degrees of bandwidth. The A11 chip and Metal 2 really consolidated this technique.
It's important to note that the GPU in a Mac with Apple silicon is a member of both GPU families, and supports both Mac family and Apple family feature sets. In other words, using Apple Silicon and Rosetta, you should still be able to use software designed for Intel-based Macs.
[...] How will Apple exploit this? Will it ditch fans in order to make thinner Macs? Will it exploit the opportunity to explore a new design language for its PCs? At what point will an iPhone become all the Mac you ever need, given your choice of user interface and access to a larger screen?
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.