the truly amazing thing is that the M1 Max Macbook Pro will have twice the transistor count of a 3090 in its SOC (not counting memory stacks). That's a laptop CPU now.
It also has hexadecimal-channel RAM. 16 channels of DDR5. Instead of putting the SOC on GDDR6 and gimping the CPU side with higher latency, they just stacked in DDR5 channels until they had enough. Absolute meme tier design, Apple just does not give a single fuck about cost.
(note that DDR5 channels are half the width of DDR4 - you get two channels per stick. But, the burst length is longer to compensate (so you get the same amount per burst), and you get higher MT/s. But either way, it's conceptually like octochannel DDR4, "but better", it's a server-class memory configuration and then they stacked it all on the package so you could put it in a laptop.)
We don't know exactly of course, but I wouldn't be surprised, if Apple doesn't even save costs with their own chips vs. buying from Intel/AMD. In any case, they wouldn't be able to reach that compute power in a laptop of that size at all without the new chips.
Best buy has been doing physical drops on a monthly basis. I got one in the last drop @ MSRP, only waited in line for 30 minutes. It's worth checking out if you are looking for a card.
I will say though if you are in a large city this doesn't work as well, the lines are longer.
It also has hexadecimal-channel RAM. 16 channels of DDR5. Instead of putting the SOC on GDDR6 and gimping the CPU side with higher latency, they just stacked in DDR5 channels until they had enough. Absolute meme tier design, Apple just does not give a single fuck about cost.
(note that DDR5 channels are half the width of DDR4 - you get two channels per stick. But, the burst length is longer to compensate (so you get the same amount per burst), and you get higher MT/s. But either way, it's conceptually like octochannel DDR4, "but better", it's a server-class memory configuration and then they stacked it all on the package so you could put it in a laptop.)