You must also know that the highest performing x86 compiler is generally acknowledged to be 'icc', and is provided by Intel. It is reasonable to assume that it is well tuned for Intel's products, and less well tuned for AMD's products.
And completely irrelevant as Apple has their own modified GCC complier, integration with LLVM being a pretty important optimization. For someone claiming to be so aware this is a pretty big oversight on your part...
Buying an Intel chip never made sense to me. When I build a computer, I use AMD. I get similar performance at half the cost.
Rumors have it that intel made all sorts of financial contributions and guarantees that AMD couldn't match to get Apple to move from PPC to x86.
The intel roadmap was just a PR justification for the exclusivity of Apple/intel.
Chances are that the Apple/Intel exclusivity agreements etc. are running out.
You don't think that intel out of the goodness of their heart let Apple get advance access to several of their CPUs used in the Mac Pro, etc.? These were all part of a consent agreement with all sorts of side deals that were forged between Apple and intel, in which Apple guaranteed to use exclusively intel CPUs for X years, and in exchange Apple likely got all sorts of concessions, pricing guarantees, early access privileges, etc. Just like the iPhone/AT&T agreement, these contracts have a limited life time and when they are near the expiry date, you'll see people getting active renegotiating and considering their options.
Just my reading of the events, and likely not too far off...
I understand that Apple wants to get great deals on chips, but no way they should be satisfied with possibly getting 80% performance at 60% cost. They need to get 100% performance at all times when possible. If AMD can deliver, more power to them. I personally wouldn't buy an AMD-based Mac. I've had minor stability issues with them on the Windows side.
I have a phenom 2 setup now with an Asus board and I have ZERO stability issues. I have left my computer on for days and had no crashes. I havent even seen a blue screen since Windows 7. I think this is a fantastic move for Apple and might give me the ability to buy some of their products. I love Apple but I dont love the current cost and this might be a great and wonderfully awesome most incredible absolutely fan-frickin-tastic move!!
Apple using AMD will definitely lower cost/price of Mac mini and iMac for sure. I love using MacOS not intelOS. I would enjoy it even more when I can have MacOS running pc for less $. This is feasible by going with AMD. Cut cost and increase profit margin with no sacrifice in performance. It's a win win.
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.
You don't need to go to Apple to see Mac OS X running on AMD CPUs. Your average Hackintosh owner has a good chance of having an AMD CPU. Just takes a few minor patches for the kernel, that's all. The rest of Mac OS X runs unmodified on AMD CPUs. Something Apple engineers do in less than an afternoon (plus however long it takes run the build chain to create a new install DVD).
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?).
Hardly anyone is writing machine code. Everything is done in the compiler. The relevant open source compilers that Apple uses have multiple CPU platforms in mind, certainly AMD and Intel, not just Intel alone. So LLVM will not perform worse on a AMD CPU than on an intel CPU, that's the whole point of the LLVM architecture, and Apple is rapidly moving towards doing all compilation on LLVM, the writing is on the wall.
I have a feeling, AMD - being much more desperate for exclusive deal with strong manufacturer like Apple is - would accept to design, say, chipset modification only for Apple. Something that would be required to work with OSX, basically rendering OSX application on general Intel or AMD platforms useless.
RIP hackintosh.
There's nothing wrong with current AMD performance - especially performance for the money, and new incoming AMDs might even change top of the performance pyramid. Only problem I can see there is, AMD - to my knowledge - has nothing to compete with Intel mobile processors in terms of low power consumption/processing power... but I might be wrong here, haven't really check on AMD recently.
But then again, even if there is no public available info, ho's to say AMD hasn't got something in their sleeve they have already presented to Apple?
As people already mentioned, Apple was never about top raw performance in their desktops and notebooks... and for Mac Pro, new Opterons could do wonders with good multicore utilisation.
Only problem I can see there is, AMD - to my knowledge - has nothing to compete with Intel mobile processors in terms of low power consumption/processing power.
The talks will be about future products. I'm guessing most likely the AMD Llano processor:
4 cores and a GPU inside a package that consumes 2.5-25W. AMD's integrated GPU is far more likely to out-perform Intel's IGP and if it can rival the 320M in the latest laptops, it would be a very good option as they can use the same CPUs in all the laptops and just add a dedicated GPU in the higher end models. AMD's GPU is a DirectX 11 GPU too - that feature doesn't mater on its own but it means they use a modern architecture whereas NVidia typically reuse older ones.
Even if the GPU didn't quite match the 320M but came between it and the 9400M, it would still save money and give the low-end a quad-core CPU.
This isn't kicking off until early 2011 and Intel have their 32nm Sandy Bridge coming at the same time. The delay to the MBP update this year seems to have been caused by Intel supplies but obviously they made sure PC manufacturers got chips. Intel has made sure Apple got some higher end chips first but perhaps Apple's relationship with NVidia hasn't gone down well.
Steve's "not to worry" statement might not have been "not to worry, the updates are coming soon" but "not to worry, we'll make sure this won't happen next year".
4 cores and a GPU inside a package that consumes 2.5-25W. AMD's integrated GPU is far more likely to out-perform Intel's IGP and if it can rival the 320M in the latest laptops, it would be a very good option as they can use the same CPUs in all the laptops and just add a dedicated GPU in the higher end models. AMD's GPU is a DirectX 11 GPU too - that feature doesn't mater on its own but it means they use a modern architecture whereas NVidia typically reuse older ones.
Even if the GPU didn't quite match the 320M but came between it and the 9400M, it would still save money and give the low-end a quad-core CPU.
This isn't kicking off until early 2011 and Intel have their 32nm Sandy Bridge coming at the same time. The delay to the MBP update this year seems to have been caused by Intel supplies but obviously they made sure PC manufacturers got chips. Intel has made sure Apple got some higher end chips first but perhaps Apple's relationship with NVidia hasn't gone down well.
Steve's "not to worry" statement might not have been "not to worry, the updates are coming soon" but "not to worry, we'll make sure this won't happen next year".
There you go. I knew there isn't anything overly exciting in AMD's current mobile offerings, but as I said, I haven't been checking on AMD news recently.
And also as I said - I will not be surprised if AMD comes out with customized platform(s) for Apple - hardware that will not be available from OEMs, which would cripple hackintosh scene. If AMD gets exclusive cookie from Apple, there's a price AMD will (gladly) going to pay.
I can't help but wonder if the allowable exclusion of the stickers, which I assume is part of the licensing, is in no small part because Apple agreed to only use Intel chips in their Macs.
I think it's simpler than that - PC manufacturers get advertising kickbacks for putting those stickers on their cases, and Steve doesn't need the money nor want ugly stickers from anyone on Mac's
I do find it interesting there are no Intel logo's on Apple's product pages (definitely not for the iMac, and the few pages I did glance at for other machines). To me that's more telling than the lack of a sticker on the computers themselves (I don't think they would put an AMD or PowerPC sticker back in the day on either).
You don't need to go to Apple to see Mac OS X running on AMD CPUs. Your average Hackintosh owner has a good chance of having an AMD CPU. Just takes a few minor patches for the kernel, that's all. The rest of Mac OS X runs unmodified on AMD CPUs. Something Apple engineers do in less than an afternoon (plus however long it takes run the build chain to create a new install DVD).
Yes, but as others have (rightly) pointed out, AMD has different internal optimizations than Intel.
Getting code to run is one thing (and obviously pretty easy to do). Getting it to run and take maximum advantage of the hardware with the best possible performance is another. That's what I'm commenting on. I have no doubt Apple has been optimizing for AMD all while it has been writing for Intel. If anything should be clear by now, Apple likes to have their options OPEN and an AMD CPU showing up in one or two Mac's shouldn't be a surprise to anyone - if it happens.
Yes, but when Apple went Intel you had a strong outcry that Apple should have went with AMD. The reasoning was that at the time AMD had the perceived stronger line-up. Apple, however, had the benefit of having access to Intel's product line-up and testing.
Apple isn't going to do anything that hurts performance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
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.
4 cores and a GPU inside a package that consumes 2.5-25W. AMD's integrated GPU is far more likely to out-perform Intel's IGP and if it can rival the 320M in the latest laptops, it would be a very good option as they can use the same CPUs in all the laptops and just add a dedicated GPU in the higher end models. AMD's GPU is a DirectX 11 GPU too - that feature doesn't mater on its own but it means they use a modern architecture whereas NVidia typically reuse older ones.
Even if the GPU didn't quite match the 320M but came between it and the 9400M, it would still save money and give the low-end a quad-core CPU.
This isn't kicking off until early 2011 and Intel have their 32nm Sandy Bridge coming at the same time. The delay to the MBP update this year seems to have been caused by Intel supplies but obviously they made sure PC manufacturers got chips. Intel has made sure Apple got some higher end chips first but perhaps Apple's relationship with NVidia hasn't gone down well.
Steve's "not to worry" statement might not have been "not to worry, the updates are coming soon" but "not to worry, we'll make sure this won't happen next year".
Good, progressive post, Marv'. I tend to like your seasoned posts. This one, particularly forward looking with some interesting info'.
A quad core AMD with ATI inte' graphics... would be nice to drop into the Mac Mini at some point?
Personally, I hope AMD (FINALLY) come back at Intel with some competition and give their products, in performance and price, a run for their money. It's good for consumers, it can be good for Apple and keeps things healthy. (I remember the electrifying race to 1 gighz between Intel and AMD!)
I just hope if Apple goes AMD, they pass on the 20% cheaper cpu price to the consumer..? I'll still maintain a hundred pound price cut across the board is the minimum of what's required. And they still wouldn't be cheap!
Comments
You must also know that the highest performing x86 compiler is generally acknowledged to be 'icc', and is provided by Intel. It is reasonable to assume that it is well tuned for Intel's products, and less well tuned for AMD's products.
And completely irrelevant as Apple has their own modified GCC complier, integration with LLVM being a pretty important optimization. For someone claiming to be so aware this is a pretty big oversight on your part...
Go buy something else then, if you think you're not getting your money's worth. Stop the whining.
No, I'm going to WHINE LOUDER just to annoy you. So THERE!
Why don't you move to China where they tolerate different points of view?
Or walk into a lamp post so your rose tinted glasses can trigger your overly sensitive water sensor?
Or better still, send some KGB guys around to gaffer tape my typing hands together.
*Looks around. Oh, we're in America. *(Checks dictionary under democracy...)
Lemon Bon Bon.
Buying an Intel chip never made sense to me. When I build a computer, I use AMD. I get similar performance at half the cost.
Rumors have it that intel made all sorts of financial contributions and guarantees that AMD couldn't match to get Apple to move from PPC to x86.
The intel roadmap was just a PR justification for the exclusivity of Apple/intel.
Chances are that the Apple/Intel exclusivity agreements etc. are running out.
You don't think that intel out of the goodness of their heart let Apple get advance access to several of their CPUs used in the Mac Pro, etc.? These were all part of a consent agreement with all sorts of side deals that were forged between Apple and intel, in which Apple guaranteed to use exclusively intel CPUs for X years, and in exchange Apple likely got all sorts of concessions, pricing guarantees, early access privileges, etc. Just like the iPhone/AT&T agreement, these contracts have a limited life time and when they are near the expiry date, you'll see people getting active renegotiating and considering their options.
Just my reading of the events, and likely not too far off...
I understand that Apple wants to get great deals on chips, but no way they should be satisfied with possibly getting 80% performance at 60% cost. They need to get 100% performance at all times when possible. If AMD can deliver, more power to them. I personally wouldn't buy an AMD-based Mac. I've had minor stability issues with them on the Windows side.
I have a phenom 2 setup now with an Asus board and I have ZERO stability issues. I have left my computer on for days and had no crashes. I havent even seen a blue screen since Windows 7. I think this is a fantastic move for Apple and might give me the ability to buy some of their products. I love Apple but I dont love the current cost and this might be a great and wonderfully awesome most incredible absolutely fan-frickin-tastic move!!
I think Apple should go with AMD. That can give us more choice. I prefer AMD-ATI than Intel-Nvidia or Intel-ATI solutions.
I really agree! But it would be unwise to stop building Intel machines. I am PRO choice!
Personally I always liked AMD back in the days. Remember AMD breaking the 1GHz barrier!
They're able to pull some tricks out of their sleeves, and most certainly while partnering with Apple.
People, don't just look at AMD for their CPU's but also as the owner of ATI, wich is already inside a lot of Macs.
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.
You don't need to go to Apple to see Mac OS X running on AMD CPUs. Your average Hackintosh owner has a good chance of having an AMD CPU. Just takes a few minor patches for the kernel, that's all. The rest of Mac OS X runs unmodified on AMD CPUs. Something Apple engineers do in less than an afternoon (plus however long it takes run the build chain to create a new install DVD).
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?).
Hardly anyone is writing machine code. Everything is done in the compiler. The relevant open source compilers that Apple uses have multiple CPU platforms in mind, certainly AMD and Intel, not just Intel alone. So LLVM will not perform worse on a AMD CPU than on an intel CPU, that's the whole point of the LLVM architecture, and Apple is rapidly moving towards doing all compilation on LLVM, the writing is on the wall.
Never saw this coming. Then again, that's what everyone said before the move to Intel.
Just for those FYI. Apple was one of the first to join AMD's Hypertranaport Conaortium in the 1990s. This is what sparked the x86 rumors.
RIP hackintosh.
There's nothing wrong with current AMD performance - especially performance for the money, and new incoming AMDs might even change top of the performance pyramid. Only problem I can see there is, AMD - to my knowledge - has nothing to compete with Intel mobile processors in terms of low power consumption/processing power... but I might be wrong here, haven't really check on AMD recently.
But then again, even if there is no public available info, ho's to say AMD hasn't got something in their sleeve they have already presented to Apple?
As people already mentioned, Apple was never about top raw performance in their desktops and notebooks... and for Mac Pro, new Opterons could do wonders with good multicore utilisation.
I can see this happening.
Only problem I can see there is, AMD - to my knowledge - has nothing to compete with Intel mobile processors in terms of low power consumption/processing power.
The talks will be about future products. I'm guessing most likely the AMD Llano processor:
http://arstechnica.com/business/news...in-laptops.ars
4 cores and a GPU inside a package that consumes 2.5-25W. AMD's integrated GPU is far more likely to out-perform Intel's IGP and if it can rival the 320M in the latest laptops, it would be a very good option as they can use the same CPUs in all the laptops and just add a dedicated GPU in the higher end models. AMD's GPU is a DirectX 11 GPU too - that feature doesn't mater on its own but it means they use a modern architecture whereas NVidia typically reuse older ones.
Even if the GPU didn't quite match the 320M but came between it and the 9400M, it would still save money and give the low-end a quad-core CPU.
This isn't kicking off until early 2011 and Intel have their 32nm Sandy Bridge coming at the same time. The delay to the MBP update this year seems to have been caused by Intel supplies but obviously they made sure PC manufacturers got chips. Intel has made sure Apple got some higher end chips first but perhaps Apple's relationship with NVidia hasn't gone down well.
Steve's "not to worry" statement might not have been "not to worry, the updates are coming soon" but "not to worry, we'll make sure this won't happen next year".
The talks will be about future products. I'm guessing most likely the AMD Llano processor:
http://arstechnica.com/business/news...in-laptops.ars
4 cores and a GPU inside a package that consumes 2.5-25W. AMD's integrated GPU is far more likely to out-perform Intel's IGP and if it can rival the 320M in the latest laptops, it would be a very good option as they can use the same CPUs in all the laptops and just add a dedicated GPU in the higher end models. AMD's GPU is a DirectX 11 GPU too - that feature doesn't mater on its own but it means they use a modern architecture whereas NVidia typically reuse older ones.
Even if the GPU didn't quite match the 320M but came between it and the 9400M, it would still save money and give the low-end a quad-core CPU.
This isn't kicking off until early 2011 and Intel have their 32nm Sandy Bridge coming at the same time. The delay to the MBP update this year seems to have been caused by Intel supplies but obviously they made sure PC manufacturers got chips. Intel has made sure Apple got some higher end chips first but perhaps Apple's relationship with NVidia hasn't gone down well.
Steve's "not to worry" statement might not have been "not to worry, the updates are coming soon" but "not to worry, we'll make sure this won't happen next year".
There you go. I knew there isn't anything overly exciting in AMD's current mobile offerings, but as I said, I haven't been checking on AMD news recently.
And also as I said - I will not be surprised if AMD comes out with customized platform(s) for Apple - hardware that will not be available from OEMs, which would cripple hackintosh scene. If AMD gets exclusive cookie from Apple, there's a price AMD will (gladly) going to pay.
No, I'm going to WHINE LOUDER just to annoy you. So THERE!
Lemon Bon Bon.
You don't annoy me. You just sound feeble and pitiable. I truly hope there is more to your life than this.
I can't help but wonder if the allowable exclusion of the stickers, which I assume is part of the licensing, is in no small part because Apple agreed to only use Intel chips in their Macs.
I think it's simpler than that - PC manufacturers get advertising kickbacks for putting those stickers on their cases, and Steve doesn't need the money nor want ugly stickers from anyone on Mac's
I do find it interesting there are no Intel logo's on Apple's product pages (definitely not for the iMac, and the few pages I did glance at for other machines). To me that's more telling than the lack of a sticker on the computers themselves (I don't think they would put an AMD or PowerPC sticker back in the day on either).
You don't need to go to Apple to see Mac OS X running on AMD CPUs. Your average Hackintosh owner has a good chance of having an AMD CPU. Just takes a few minor patches for the kernel, that's all. The rest of Mac OS X runs unmodified on AMD CPUs. Something Apple engineers do in less than an afternoon (plus however long it takes run the build chain to create a new install DVD).
Yes, but as others have (rightly) pointed out, AMD has different internal optimizations than Intel.
Getting code to run is one thing (and obviously pretty easy to do). Getting it to run and take maximum advantage of the hardware with the best possible performance is another. That's what I'm commenting on. I have no doubt Apple has been optimizing for AMD all while it has been writing for Intel. If anything should be clear by now, Apple likes to have their options OPEN and an AMD CPU showing up in one or two Mac's shouldn't be a surprise to anyone - if it happens.
Apple isn't going to do anything that hurts performance.
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.
The talks will be about future products. I'm guessing most likely the AMD Llano processor:
http://arstechnica.com/business/news...in-laptops.ars
4 cores and a GPU inside a package that consumes 2.5-25W. AMD's integrated GPU is far more likely to out-perform Intel's IGP and if it can rival the 320M in the latest laptops, it would be a very good option as they can use the same CPUs in all the laptops and just add a dedicated GPU in the higher end models. AMD's GPU is a DirectX 11 GPU too - that feature doesn't mater on its own but it means they use a modern architecture whereas NVidia typically reuse older ones.
Even if the GPU didn't quite match the 320M but came between it and the 9400M, it would still save money and give the low-end a quad-core CPU.
This isn't kicking off until early 2011 and Intel have their 32nm Sandy Bridge coming at the same time. The delay to the MBP update this year seems to have been caused by Intel supplies but obviously they made sure PC manufacturers got chips. Intel has made sure Apple got some higher end chips first but perhaps Apple's relationship with NVidia hasn't gone down well.
Steve's "not to worry" statement might not have been "not to worry, the updates are coming soon" but "not to worry, we'll make sure this won't happen next year".
Good, progressive post, Marv'. I tend to like your seasoned posts. This one, particularly forward looking with some interesting info'.
A quad core AMD with ATI inte' graphics... would be nice to drop into the Mac Mini at some point?
Personally, I hope AMD (FINALLY) come back at Intel with some competition and give their products, in performance and price, a run for their money. It's good for consumers, it can be good for Apple and keeps things healthy. (I remember the electrifying race to 1 gighz between Intel and AMD!)
I just hope if Apple goes AMD, they pass on the 20% cheaper cpu price to the consumer..? I'll still maintain a hundred pound price cut across the board is the minimum of what's required. And they still wouldn't be cheap!
Lemon Bon Bon.
Why would you want to use intel i5 or i7 for much higher price for less performance?
That's what my decision has always come down to in situations in which I had a choice.
When building systems, I always looked into the CPU first, because that defined my choice of MB. And in every case, I chose AMD.
You don't annoy me. You just sound feeble and pitiable. I truly hope there is more to your life than this.
Feeble and pitiable. That it? I was hoping for something less pithy.
No. This is my life. So, I guess we can keep one another company.
Lemon Bon Bon.