Rumors indicated that the Apple Silicon processor that will bring future Mac desktops and notebooks to life would reach a configuration of at least 12 cores, and now tipster @ a_rumors0000 indicated that the first processor to reach the market will be precisely 12 cores, which is expected to be powerful enough to stand up to Intel Core processors and even AMD Ryzen.
While the information was revealed, no further details were given, though initial rumors indicated that these 12 cores will be broken into 8x high-performance + 4x high-energy-efficient, expecting the 13-inch MacBook Pro to be the first computer to I integrated it during the fourth quarter of this year.
The first tests based on the development kit, in the form of a Mac Mini with the “old” Apple A12, by means of a Rosetta 2 emulator that is not capable of running all the silicon cores, only the high-performance one (4x high performance + 4x high efficiency), managed to outperform the Surface Pro X powered by the Microsoft SQ1 processor.
The most impressive thing was that in the OpenCL benchmarks the Apple SoC iGPU offered higher performance than the graphics of an AMD Ryzen 5 4500U or an Intel Core i7-1065G7, not bad for a SoC that really is a 2018 A12X Bionic Expectations for the Apple A14 is now very high, as it is the company’s new top-of-the-range SoC built with a cutting-edge manufacturing process: TSMC’s 5nm.
