Apple in advanced discussions to adopt AMD chips - Page 2

Makes zero sense and I heard the same from some just after the Intel announcement. Mac users are about the software and always have been. PPC was rarely the fastest but it was fast enough to be productive.

The only chips AMD offers that are good, are 4 socket devices, which Apple can't use. Intel has then as well. All are too expensive, and suck too much power.

The rest are second rate. AMD has has two good years. Those good years were only because Intel went down the wrong path. That won't happen again.

And what were your thoughts after Apple announced that they were going with Intel processors?

Seriously, I don't see much wrong with this decision. Throw AMD chips in the plastic MacBook, Apple TV, and Mac Mini. Leave the Intel chips in the iMac and MacBook Pro lines. It's a tossup in the Mac Pro sector IMHO.

That being said, guys, it's just a chip. Apple knows what they're doing better than you do so chill.

Perhaps they will stick with Intel for the Pro lines and move to AMD to lower prices a bit in the other lines. If they can shave $20 or more off the cost of an Apple TV, it sounds like a no-brainer. I would expect the next version to do 1080P video. Apple will go with the lowest cost processor/GPU combo that can do that.

Thanks! Unfortunately, I don't know much about processor design.

Except that they aren't exactly the same, as they use different technologies in a number of areas. Developers often code for one chip or the other. In fact, almost all code for Intel, making AMD performance inferior in a number of areas. The only place where that's not true is HPC, and Apple doesn't compete there, unless, very unlikely as it may be, Apple is considering it now.

AMD has no leading technologies anymore, and a poor record of presenting product on time.

Just look at their problems in the past two years Now, without their own fab, they will have even more problems with optimization.

Unfortunately, I have to leave for the day, so I won't be back 'till late. Too bad, this is the most important discussion here in years, if true.

I see this more as Apple has a plan for success when it comes to how Apple products are manufactured and produced. It appears Intel is blocking that by forcing Apple to use only Intel and that is obviously not working well for them.

So just like everything else, Apple explores their options and continues to innovate and if someone stops them, like Intel, they move to someone else.

One thing that is consistent about Apple, they innovate and they are not afraid to change to do so. Something many companies are afraid to do.

I look forward to seeing more good things come from this.

Apple does well buy not having an Intel Inside sticker on their computers. If Apple is exploring a new partnership with AMD, I have no doubt they have a plan up their sleeve. With the release of the A4, Apple is in the chip business - lets not forget.

If it happened once it can happen twice. We'll see how well Bulldozer works. Intel rode their new Yonah/Merom and successor cores to great success.

In the epic AMD/Intel battle the "seesaw" action really comes from leveraging new cores. If Bulldozer and some of the better power/watt AMD cores come out and perform well then it's a whole new ballgame.

AMD has an unquestionable lead in GPU technology compared to Intel so their integrated options are going to perform better for the forseeable future. If Apple is serious about utilizing OpenCL..Intel is not where it's at; AMD is.

LOL, 1 million iPads by the end of the month at the rate they're going now!

Regarding Apple using AMD chips, well, it's only a matter of time. Especially if Intel really is constraining Apple in any way, whether limited access to newest chips, or simply on volume. That is, of course, balanced in my mind by their past partnerships, especially the MacBook Air processor.

This difference in X86 support is miniscule compared to the PPC to X86 transition in which Endian issues alone caused much work to be done. Again I'll continue to harp on this. With Apple's support and collaboration on LLVM/Clang it would be as simple as a compiler flag to target an AMD based machine.

Wouldn't it be funny if AAPL purchased AMD the way AMD did ATI?

Nah, Apple isn't in the market for chip makers.
If they were, they would've purchased ARMH.

Not to be too anal-retentive, but I think the author meant "advance" discussions, not "advanced."

I have noticed that the grammar and spelling on AI has been in a state of decline lately! Hopefully my post will be taken as constructive, as I am a big fan of the site, and start every morning my coming here to see what is new in the world of Apple!

-Josh

Both are unlikely. Apple doesn't like to acquire debt. Both AMD and Adobe are heavily in debt from acquiring ATI and Macromedia respectively. If Adobe never bought Macromedia, I'm sure there would be a lot of interest for Apple to acquire them. With Adobe's debt, Apple would be better off writing competing products. For all we know, Apple intends to release 40-core ARM processors. Apple controls the whole stack, so they can make more dramatic moves if it makes sense to. Stranger things have happened though. It would certainly boost AMDs margins if Apple were to acquire them. It is more likely that AMD has some new mobile tech in the pipeline and they are more willing to work with Apple on a custom system on a chip. It is clear that Apple wants to get their entire MacBook Pro line above 10 hours of battery life and this is the only way it is going to happen any time soon.

Intel's current x86-64 technology is cross licensed from AMD, so really, really minuscule.

I got 1 word for anyone who believes in Intel's infallibility - Itanium.

Apple had OS X running on Intel years before the switch. I would be willing to be large sums of money they have OS X already running very well on AMD if they ever did decided to go that route.

Apple is a very forward thinking company. A decision like this would not be made without much forethought.

Um-m-m-m, no. Macs do not ship with Intel Inside stickers. The Intel-based Macs look pretty much like the PPC-based Macs that they replaced. I expect no AMD stickers on AMD-based Macs. Macs with AMD processors will look pretty much like Macs with Intel processors.

It is possible that our FAT binaries would change at some point too. LLVM supports a bit-code format that could be used for install time compilation. The compiler is quite fast too. This could help lower the impact if Apple chose to do a major CPU shift again. AMD is a pretty easy platform to switch to because it uses the same instruction set though.

What I think would be more interesting is if Apple added an ARM chip for low power mode. Essentially run on an ARM processor unless the performance of an Intel or AMD chip were needed then run those processes on that chip. Of course this would require some very clever chipset design. It seems like an ARM processor (embedded in the chipset) could handle most of the work leaving the Intel for complicated rendering and apps that were not compiled for ARM.

ATI is one thing, AMD another. AAPL will use the former but not the latter.

"If AMD can deliver 80% of the CPU performance of Intel at 60% of the cost, and add significantly better GPU performance and sophistication, it would not be surprising to see Apple working to adopt the company's parts broadly across its Mac lineup within the next year or two."

Learn that in kindergarten?

Agree 100%. Apple will not do anything to sully it's brand. I think Apple wants Intel to reach a deal with Nvidia. That's why the 13' MacBooks have not moved to Core i3. Instead, they moved to a faster Nvidia chip. And by moving to automatic switching, they have blunted the criticism of Intel HD in the 15" and 17" MacBook Pros.

Apple is not happy with the current state of affairs between Intel and Nvidia. I bet Steve has been calling Intel's people to give them a piece of his mind.

Except for the fact that ARMH (which stands for ARM Holdings) licenses its technology as intellectual property instead of manufacturing its own CPUs like Intel, AMD and others do.

And by the way, there's nothing second rate about AMD: they've been the first to release a consumer level 64bit and dual core CPU in 2005 -- featuring a on chip memory controller that made it to Intel's CPU only recently with the Nehalem architecture -- back when Intel was wasting time on its NetBurst micro architecture.

Granted, Intel has regained the lead since then, but AMD still offers a good price/performance ratio and, possibly even more important, guarantees some sanity in the market: rest assured that if AMD wasn't around the CPUs in our Macs would be a lot more expensive -- anyone remembers the days when a Pentium II cost an arm and a leg just because Intel said so?


RT.

AMD's entire market cap is $6.5B. Apple could buy them lock, stock, and barrel with cash on hand. Then they'd have fabs for their A5/6/7/8 chip line and a competitive core if they wanted to play carrot and stick with Intel. They'd get former AMD engineers to enhance the iPad/iPhone chip series' GPU options.

Might be interesting. And it seems at least as likely as Apple going to AMD despite not even using Intel's latest chip offerings when they come out. What's the point of changing suppliers if you're not even taking full advantage of your current one?

Even if AMD could deliver 110% performance at 60% of the cost I would not go there. If we were talking about manufacturing of a licensed design I might (as in Apple A4 for the iPad) but that is not what AMD produces. AMD does there own thing their own way.

With the sort of tweaking that is being done in software these days to try and wring out the max hp from every engine I do not think it is the time to try to add a diesel or rotary to the bunch just to insure supply. It would require a fair amount of engineering effort to optimize two different architectures for speed ups and then they would not be 'across the board' but possibly only for one family (remember the 601, 603, 604 PPC optimizations?).

AMD delivers Intel "compatible" processors. They are very different processors. Where do you usually see these on the Windows side - in the lower tier price conscious lower end. Apple seems to be able to do fine with Intel stuff for the moment. If Apple can use this for some sort of bargaining chip then go for it but I don't want one.

I think what you end up with with multiple processor suppliers in this case is fewer choices available for the consumer and in my mind that is a bad thing.

OSX is pretty portable so if they don't get their way with one vendor then they can easily move to another.

Seemingly, Apple's frustrations with CPU manufacturers may eventually have them creating their own CPUs at all levels of their products. Time will tell.

You seem oblivious to "modern" day tech. It matters not what the market looked like 6 years ago. The PPC 60x series were not multicore until the very ends and the development tools were nowhere as sophisticated as they are today. We cannot glean much from what the market was like a half decade ago and apply it to today and future computing needs.

AMDs roadmap, on paper, is strong for 2011 provided they hit their targets and deliver.

Apple has become very protective of OS X, and after the recent Pystar debacle, it would not surprise me at all if they eventually move to proprietary chips across the entire line to prevent that kind of piracy from happening again, especially in China where IP is not very well respected. Now that Macs are reaching the 10% threshold and provided Apple can learn to work with partners like AMD, a new CPU could prove beneficial in that regard.

Rosetta2 for legacy Intel compatibility.

I couldn't agree anymore

If AMD are good enough for CRAY then im sure its good for me
by the way amd optrons wins hands down in multi cpu setups.

Oh boy.

I wonder if disagreeing with a moderator on AppleInsider gets one into trouble? (Yes, I just have to ask. Hoping it doesn't.)

I'd politely suggest that your viewpoint here is incorrect. I don't know where you got your reliability information for AMD versus Intel, but the source should be double-checked--it sounds highly dubious. I've been in the business of assembling systems for a long time for all kinds of roles--everything from end user desktops to servers to appliance "things" that center around a computer (such as surveillance or TV DVRs and FreeNAS boxes).

Some have Intel processors while others have AMD CPUs. The split is roughly 50% of each. There have been some odd failures along the way, but never has a microprocessor failed. Nor has the rate of failure been skewed to suggest that one platform is any more reliable than the other. I use good quality components, build things to have a reasonable lifetime, and don't try to cut corners somewhere.

If anything has given AMD's products a black eye here, I'd say that it had to be the number of unscrupulous dealers who took advantage of the fact that an AMD processor could cost less and paired it with junk (motherboard, case, PSU, etc) to get a system out the door for an unbelievable price. I've seen this done many times--and it's not AMD's fault. Is it easy to blame them? Yes, it is. Is it correct? Absolutely not.

Furthermore, look around sometime and see how many AMD products you find. They're very big in the embedded microprocessor market, both x86 (Geode or 80186 based products) and non-x86 (Elan family and others, though it seems these have been discontinued). Apple has used AMD products before, usually at the heart of their LaserWriter printers. (And you don't have to look hard to find a LaserWriter still soldering along--I'd wager that many of the long time participants in this forum still have at least one. I have two.)

Do I hope to change your mind? Get you to use an AMD product? No, I don't. To think that I am is to miss my point. Intel's products are (for the most part*) excellent. I do hope that you might reconsider the "no respect" bits and maybe look further into the source that suggested AMD products were unreliable.

It must also be considered that AMD's lead in graphics technology (though through the acquisition of ATI) is considerable as compared to what Intel has. I hate to say that, as I really do like the Intel IGPs for what they are.

Disclaimers: I am not in any way affiliated with or employed by/for AMD. I am somewhat partial to their products and have been since the days of the Am486 CPU. However, I have just as many Intel-based boxen running as I do AMD--and all work fine.

* look sometime at the P4 processors. The Pentium 3 could give many early P4s a run for their money when running most programs, especially those that hadn't been optimized for a P4. Northwoods P4s were pretty good in most regards. The S478 and LGA775 Prescott processors, on the other hand, had a lousy performance to power consumption ratio. In addition, the thermal design power of the Prescott was poised to go through the roof. These things became such problems that Intel tossed out much of the work that was being done for future P4 CPUs and went back to the Pentium M mobile stuff (itself based on the P3) as the basis for all the Core/Core2/iX CPUs that followed.

The nice thing about that 13 foot model is that with a little waterproofing you can actually surf the ocean and the net at the same time. Heck thats as long as some of the ancient Koa island boards of Hawaii!

Surfs up!


BTW: They say most of the weight is from the battery.

Are you kidding?!? Apple half sponsored the Hellmouth. Macs were prominently displayed on Buffy. Happy to see another whedonite here! How about that Avengers news?

On topic: I have an AMD Phenom II PC that I built, which has been great. I've had no issues with it and it's given me great bang for my buck. It's like saying that Coke is better than Pepsi...or macs are better than PC's for that matter...both have their place, and both are good products...

While OSX may be portable, those who have the older G4 Power chips might disagree with the loss of support with Snow Leopard.


While IMO there has been some widening in relations between Apple and Intel, putting AMD in the mix will give Apple more latitude. Seems that Apple has lost some of its favoritism with Intel. Apple use to have top priority with Intel in supply of chips and was the first in line to review new ones.

A question arises with Intel's acquisition of Wind River and its move into the Smart Phone territory might cause a further widening rift between Intel and Apple.

Apple could be wooing AMD into a deal similar to the IBM, Motorola and Apple alliance that produced the Power PC chips--or course all of this is pure speculation my my part.

Wonder if it's possible the long awaited release of the Mac Pro has anything to do with this? Hopefully NOT.

You miss my point altogether - it has to do with writing code for processors that are seemingly the same but very different on the inside. I am very aware of how multicore technology has evolved.

The fact is that software is where the biggest bottleneck is in performance right now. I dare say if we had a good model for using the resources that are available to us for the silicon providers we could get much more out of what we already have. Why make the model more complex by adding a new flavor?

The sophistication of the development tools has a lot more to do with how easy it is to do the kind of things that allow us to reuse code and build on stuff we already have done. In the last 25 years I have seen great advances in our ability to express ourselves and abstract our code to take away from the iron but that has little to do with the processor. Can you expand on how this?

I am quite surprised to say that we can learn nothing from history - remember what happens when you do not learn from it. You are doomed with this attitude.

Will an AMD iMac/Macbook be able to run programs like Parallels or Bootcamp. If not--I'm sorry to say but I just won't be able to bring myself to update my iMac or Macbook. It's disappointing enough that an article suggests they are thinking of switching over to AMD because it's "cheaper" (since when did Apple go for cheap?), but not having the freedom to choose which OS I want to use is real burden to me. Nevertheless, I prefer functionality over easiness/luxury in the long run. Sorry Apple.

Seeing some of the stuff from there knockoff district has amazed me. These guys have made it a real art to reverse engineer stuff. I think that what is really respected there is the ability to copy.

IMO no.

Actually, isn't "advanced" an adjective which modifies the noun "discussions?"

I stated Apple adopting AMD processors as very real possibility in a Jan 4, 2010 piece titled, 2010 - What's in store for the Mac?

Note that I state the following under speculation #1

Speculation 1 - Apple adopts AMD processors

Ok, this one is out there but not outside the realm of possibility. By adopting AMD processors, Apple could open several doors for the Mac. I highlight two:

1. It could strengthen Apple's bargaining position with Intel over microprocessor supply and prices. A pure play on buyer and supplier power.

2 Differentiation - Adding AMD as a chip supplier will allow Apple to further differentiate and segment both the portable Mac lineup and its customers. This segmentation could occur at the feature and price sensitivity levels. The precedent was set when Apple lowered Mac prices in 2009. It's no secret that the MacBook and MacBook Pro models do not differ substantially (see Apple's comparison table) even though Apple rebranded the 13-inch aluminum MacBook as a MacBook Pro in June 2009 and now classifies the white polycarbonate model as the only MacBook. Adding a new microprocessor supplier could help differentiate the portable lineup.

I can see amd cpu's in macbooks but not in macbook pro's. Apple will not lower the price and if the put in an amd in macbook pro's but do not lower the price significantly they will start to go back to how they were right before the change over to x86.

Unless they plan on doing what Dell does. Have an amd and intel version.

i don't think that the switch to intel 'legitimized apple as a quality brand'. i think it was a great move because of the 'you can run windows if you want to' aspect of it, so it gave switchers another reason, but the quality of the brand was already established.

with apple's highest growth being in the consumer market, i'm not sure how important the brand of the cpu is. apple doesn't take intel's cobranding money, so there have never been any 'intel inside' stickers on them. i wonder how many of apple's customers know or care what's inside.