Apple ships nigh 3 million Macs a quarter. I don't know about you but I don't think there are many companies that are sneezing at that amount of sales.
I keep seeing people over the web attempt to downplay Apple's influence. This is due somewhat to Apple's deft marketing. They still "feel" like that small underdog company to many but the 40 billion in the bank isn't there because they are small potatoes. They have Microsoft like revenue numbers and there's no signs of abatement with regard to them pushing their iPhone OS and Mac OS ecosystems forward.
I do think it's time to add AMD to the lineup for no other reason than product differentiation in pricing and removing the reliance on a single supplier.
Apple ships nigh 3 million Macs a quarter. I don't know about you but I don't think there are many companies that are sneezing at that amount of sales.
I keep seeing people over the web attempt to downplay Apple's influence. This is due somewhat to Apple's deft marketing. They still "feel" like that small underdog company to many but the 40 billion in the bank isn't there because they are small potatoes. They have Microsoft like revenue numbers and there's no signs of abatement with regard to them pushing their iPhone OS and Mac OS ecosystems forward.
I do think it's time to add AMD to the lineup for no other reason than product differentiation in pricing and removing the reliance on a single supplier.
Is it possible that those alleged meetings with AMD could be for a more complex purpose than merely CPU purchases? Perhaps Apple is interested in AMD as a partner to advance their internal chip designs derived from the PA Semi and Intrinsity (rumored) acquisitions. Maybe they want to buy AMD? AMDs market cap is well within the reach of Apple's cash pile. Maybe AMD has got something Apple wants and we don't know what it is? Or something ATI has.
I doubt this is true. These engineering decisions had to be made months ago without knowledge of how many Arrandale parts were truly going to be available at launch. I'm more inline with the convention wisdom that states "Apple used Core 2 Duo in the MBP 13 because they didn't want to be stuck with Intel IGP so they kept the Nvidia board and added beefed up GPU"
Agreed. The benefits of Core i3 alone are not significant enough to outweigh keeping a better-than-9400M integrated Nvidia chipset, with higher-clocked Core 2 Duo.
Plus there's the refudging of the motherboard, adding a discrete card and switching between Intel HD etc. which will add more time and cost to updating the MacBook Pro 13".
I wrote at length (and it was suggested I was going overboard) on how Intel is shoving their rubbish IGP up everyone's rear.
I think Apple found a good compromise in sticking to Core 2 Duo on the 13" and making smooth switching to the discrete GPU on the 15" Core i5 and upwards.
My fear was that Core 2 Duo would be phased out and Apple would have to take only Arrandale parts. However 32nm production and even Sandy Bridge will take time to reach full stride, Looks like Core 2 Duos will be around until at least early 2011.
My only major "disappointment" (and I don't like this word) is that 40nm ATI 5 series GPUs would have been great and, Nvidia or ATI, 256MB VRAM is really just sad. It should be 512MB or 1GB. But I'm thinking from a gaming perspective, I'm not sure how VRAM helps general apps.
And to those that say "oh, but 1GB is too much for a GPU of that class", I suggest when you're driving games with antialiasing at 1680x1050 or 1920x1200, the 1GB will be useful. And 512MB over 256MB is definitely highly influential on gaming performance.
But I guess, who games on a Mac, right?
On a side note, you should see the performance-per-watt for Nvidia's big (pun somewhat intended) new thing aka Fermi aka Nvidia 480 / 470. Run it in SLI and I think you could power a small African village.
Comments
I keep seeing people over the web attempt to downplay Apple's influence. This is due somewhat to Apple's deft marketing. They still "feel" like that small underdog company to many but the 40 billion in the bank isn't there because they are small potatoes. They have Microsoft like revenue numbers and there's no signs of abatement with regard to them pushing their iPhone OS and Mac OS ecosystems forward.
I do think it's time to add AMD to the lineup for no other reason than product differentiation in pricing and removing the reliance on a single supplier.
Apple ships nigh 3 million Macs a quarter. I don't know about you but I don't think there are many companies that are sneezing at that amount of sales.
I keep seeing people over the web attempt to downplay Apple's influence. This is due somewhat to Apple's deft marketing. They still "feel" like that small underdog company to many but the 40 billion in the bank isn't there because they are small potatoes. They have Microsoft like revenue numbers and there's no signs of abatement with regard to them pushing their iPhone OS and Mac OS ecosystems forward.
I do think it's time to add AMD to the lineup for no other reason than product differentiation in pricing and removing the reliance on a single supplier.
Is it possible that those alleged meetings with AMD could be for a more complex purpose than merely CPU purchases? Perhaps Apple is interested in AMD as a partner to advance their internal chip designs derived from the PA Semi and Intrinsity (rumored) acquisitions. Maybe they want to buy AMD? AMDs market cap is well within the reach of Apple's cash pile. Maybe AMD has got something Apple wants and we don't know what it is? Or something ATI has.
Time will tell.
I doubt this is true. These engineering decisions had to be made months ago without knowledge of how many Arrandale parts were truly going to be available at launch. I'm more inline with the convention wisdom that states "Apple used Core 2 Duo in the MBP 13 because they didn't want to be stuck with Intel IGP so they kept the Nvidia board and added beefed up GPU"
Agreed. The benefits of Core i3 alone are not significant enough to outweigh keeping a better-than-9400M integrated Nvidia chipset, with higher-clocked Core 2 Duo.
Plus there's the refudging of the motherboard, adding a discrete card and switching between Intel HD etc. which will add more time and cost to updating the MacBook Pro 13".
I wrote at length (and it was suggested I was going overboard) on how Intel is shoving their rubbish IGP up everyone's rear.
I think Apple found a good compromise in sticking to Core 2 Duo on the 13" and making smooth switching to the discrete GPU on the 15" Core i5 and upwards.
My fear was that Core 2 Duo would be phased out and Apple would have to take only Arrandale parts. However 32nm production and even Sandy Bridge will take time to reach full stride, Looks like Core 2 Duos will be around until at least early 2011.
My only major "disappointment" (and I don't like this word) is that 40nm ATI 5 series GPUs would have been great and, Nvidia or ATI, 256MB VRAM is really just sad. It should be 512MB or 1GB. But I'm thinking from a gaming perspective, I'm not sure how VRAM helps general apps.
And to those that say "oh, but 1GB is too much for a GPU of that class", I suggest when you're driving games with antialiasing at 1680x1050 or 1920x1200, the 1GB will be useful. And 512MB over 256MB is definitely highly influential on gaming performance.
But I guess, who games on a Mac, right?
On a side note, you should see the performance-per-watt for Nvidia's big (pun somewhat intended) new thing aka Fermi aka Nvidia 480 / 470. Run it in SLI and I think you could power a small African village.