| Cult of Mac

Make your Mac Pro graphics pop with new AMD Radeon Pro GPU

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AMD's latest GPU can boost your Mac Pro's graphics performance.
AMD's latest GPU can boost your Mac Pro's graphics performance.
Photo: Apple

Need to add a little more graphical firepower to your Mac Pro? AMD rolled out its new Radeon Pro W6600X GPU for Mac Pro on Tuesday, now available at Apple for $700.

The new graphics processing unit is designed to boost image quality and performance for design pros and other content creators.

Samsung gives mobile gamers a big reason to ditch iPhone and iPad

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Samsung Exynos 2200 with ray tracing
The Exynos 2200 is the world's first mobile SoC with ray tracing.
Image: Samsung

Samsung this week announced its newest Exynos chipset for smartphones and tablets, and it comes with a major graphics improvement that could just persuade mobile gamers to swap iPhone and iPad for Galaxy devices.

The Exynos 2200 is the world’s first mobile system-on-a-chip (SoC) with an AMD RDNA 2 GPU that supports ray tracing. It could enable major visual improvements in upcoming Android games — if developers take advantage of it.

Apple loses another key chip designer as Microsoft swoops in

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Groups oppose Apple photo scanning
Why is Apple struggling to hold onto its chip-makers?
Photo: Benjamin Balázs

Another key chip designer has left Apple for Microsoft. Mike Filippo, who joined Cupertino in 2019 after a decade with Arm, is the second processor engineer Apple has lost in as many weeks after Jeff Wilcox left to join Intel.

Filippo will reportedly work on server chips for Microsoft’s Azure group, which is said to be pushing forward with its own silicon for cloud computing services.

Early benchmarks show crazy performance gains for Apple M1 Max

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2021 MacBook Pro with M1 Pro and M1 Max chips
Up to 181% faster graphics than the last 16-inch MacBook Pro.
Photo: Apple

Buying a new MacBook Pro with a high-end M1 Max chip? You can expect crazy gains in both processing and graphics performance — no matter which Apple notebook you’re upgrading from, according to early benchmarks.

The M1 Max blows all the MacBook chips that came before it — not just those made by Intel, but even Apple’s own M1 — right out of the water, with up to 181% faster graphics than the previous 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Mac Pro gets even faster graphics with AMD’s new Radeon Pro GPUs

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Mac Pro gets even faster graphics with AMD's new Radeon Pro GPUs
The AMD Radeon PRO W6000X series graphics cards are engineered to a wide variety of demanding professional graphics applications.
Photo: AMD

AMD launched new Radeon Pro W6000X series GPUs for Mac Pro on Tuesday. These add-on graphics processing units for Apple’s most powerful macOS desktop are designed for demanding professional applications, including 3D rendering, 8K video compositing, color correction and more.

Two ‘trash can’ Macs form core of nerdy workstation built to last [Setups]

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Those two
Those two "trash cans" at upper left prove core to this setup.
Photo: XTJ7@Reddit

Redditor XTJ7, a programmer and photographer based in Germany, knows how to make a setup last and do just what he needs it to do. As his recent post declared, his setup’s core is two “trash can” Mac Pro towers from 2013 plus a racy gaming PC.

Yeah, you heard right: That’s two computers running from 2013 to now. Eight years might as well be a few decades as far as computer performance goes. But he has his reasons to wait on the upgrade.

Beefed-up Mac Pro and modded PC crush IT work and gaming [Setups]

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Best of all worlds? A powerful Mac and PC combo crushes work, gaming and podcasting.
Best of all worlds? A powerful Mac and PC combo crushes work, gaming and podcasting.
Photo: Liquidsama@Reddit

Redditor Liquidsama’s setup is popular on the social media app not just for the adorable Pac-Man Ghost Light in the corner (see photos), but for its awesome computing power for work and play.

The LED ghost light phases through nine colors and reacts to music, by the way — which is neat — but the real draw here is a bulked-up Mac Pro for IT work and a heavily modded PC for gaming. Not to mention a great audio rig for podcasting.

Apple M1 chip outperforms AMD, Nvidia graphics in new benchmarks

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Apple M1 chip
Gaming is about to get a lot better on Mac.
Photo: Apple

Apple’s new M1 chipset has been blowing away rival Intel chips in CPU performance benchmarks, and it doesn’t stop there. It turns out Apple Silicon can give many graphics cards a run for their money, too.

New tests reveal the M1 easily outperforms the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and AMD Radeon RX 560 in graphics benchmarks. It could make gaming on a Mac better than ever.

ARM iMac with custom Apple GPU could arrive in second half of 2021

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This iMac concept reflects what a lot of people want.
Could it look something like this?
Photo: Daniel Bautista

A brand-new iMac, powered by Apple Silicon combined with a custom Apple GPU, will land during the second half of 2021, according to a new report.

Codenamed “Lifuka,” the all-in-one is expected to use 5-nanometer chips manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company — like those destined for iPhone 12 and other Apple Silicon machines later this year.

Why the new iMac is still a great buy, even without Apple Silicon

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2020 iMac: The new iMac looks just like the old one (only faster).
The 2020 iMac is certainly worth your cash.
Photo: Apple

Apple’s newest iMac is by far the fastest yet, with huge increases in both CPU and GPU performance. It also ships with improved speakers and microphones. And yet, it seems a lot of Apple fans don’t care.

The reason? The new iMac is powered by Intel processors, like all its predecessors since 2006, instead of Apple Silicon. Since Apple revealed its plan to switch to its own custom chips at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June, Intel processors just don’t hold the same appeal.

But there are some great reasons to continue buying Intel-powered Macs in 2020. Here are a few.