Apple wants to move Macs away from Intel chips - report

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  • Reply 121 of 221
    macrulezmacrulez Posts: 2,455member


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  • Reply 122 of 221
    macrulezmacrulez Posts: 2,455member


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  • Reply 123 of 221
    bigpicsbigpics Posts: 1,397member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    So what did Intel do to piss off Apple?



     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Jonteponte View Post


     


    "Ultrabook, inspired by Intel" ?



     


    Maybe, but hardly worth a thumb-in-one's-own-eye vendetta:  http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57523672-75/remember-ultrabooks-yeah-no-one-else-does-either/?tag=nl.e404&s_cid=e404

  • Reply 124 of 221


    We are seeing with the A6 chip that Apple is leveraging better chip design to produce faster hardware, and I think they will with the Macbook Air to start as no one is using Bootcamp on an Air. Possibly the Mac Mini also. 


     


    My question is; when will Apple start to FAB their own chips? Sure, it cost a few Billion to build a FAB and several hundred Million to re-tool, but they have the money and at some point the economics and supply chain advantage will outweigh the cost. How many Ax processors goes into iPods, iPhone, iPads, Airport, AppleTV, possibly the Mac Mini and Macbook Air. That's quite a few million chips. 

  • Reply 125 of 221


    I also wonder why Apple could not put a version of the Ax processor into all their Macs for the GPU? I don't think anyone can argue the graphics performance of the A6 and perhaps the A7 will do dual work also using OpenCL.

  • Reply 126 of 221
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by willgonz View Post



    This would be a huge mistake as Mac Sales have gone up since the switch to Intel. Consumers wanted the option to load Windows natively if they choose so to be compatible with other computers.

    Right now, Microsoft still has a majority of the market share. Apple would have to have greater market share before making this drastic of a move. The need to run Windows in a virtual environment would need to be diminished before hand. Everyone knows what running emulation was like in the PowerPC days and it sucked.


     


    Mac Sales have gone up because Windows can run on a Mac natively and so the perception of grand canyon between OS platforms in a physical level disappeared.


     


    Adding AMD to the mix [note: not replacing Intel] would be a shrewd move and allow Apple to install AMD APU solutions for the Mac Mini and even offer a BTO option for the Mac Pro that includes the Opteron Line, not to mention the new Piledriver/Steamroller set up with heavy emphasis on OpenCL throughout since AMD is 110% committed to it and Nvidia could give a rat's ass about it.

  • Reply 127 of 221
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Richard Getz View Post


    We are seeing with the A6 chip that Apple is leveraging better chip design to produce faster hardware, and I think they will with the Macbook Air to start as no one is using Bootcamp on an Air. Possibly the Mac Mini also. 


     


    My question is; when will Apple start to FAB their own chips? Sure, it cost a few Billion to build a FAB and several hundred Million to re-tool, but they have the money and at some point the economics and supply chain advantage will outweigh the cost. How many Ax processors goes into iPods, iPhone, iPads, Airport, AppleTV, possibly the Mac Mini and Macbook Air. That's quite a few million chips. 



     


    This solution is still 4 years out.

  • Reply 128 of 221
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Shunnabunich View Post


    image



     


    Take out the Pro. There is nothing Pro about that set up.

  • Reply 129 of 221
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by maccherry View Post



    what a lot of people don't know is that AMD uses licensed Intel tech known as x86 architecture. And Intel has told AMD that they can't compete with them on the high end.

    So if Apple tries going with AMD Intel would make sure the best stuff won't get into their machines. So Apple's only move is to use their own swag.


     


    Contracts get modified all the time. If Apple wants to use both CPU vendors, Intel isn't going to lose that relationship when Apple could very well buy AMD for a whiff and then Intel is truly in a bind.

  • Reply 130 of 221

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post


     OpenCL 


     


    Thanks, I was just trying to remember what this was called. I think Apple can leverage their A6/A7 processor for the GPU and allow for OpenCL. 

  • Reply 131 of 221
    jukesjukes Posts: 213member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Richard Getz View Post


    We are seeing with the A6 chip that Apple is leveraging better chip design to produce faster hardware, and I think they will with the Macbook Air to start as no one is using Bootcamp on an Air. Possibly the Mac Mini also. 


     


    My question is; when will Apple start to FAB their own chips? Sure, it cost a few Billion to build a FAB and several hundred Million to re-tool, but they have the money and at some point the economics and supply chain advantage will outweigh the cost. How many Ax processors goes into iPods, iPhone, iPads, Airport, AppleTV, possibly the Mac Mini and Macbook Air. That's quite a few million chips. 



     


    They'll never do it on their own, they don't have the IP for it. They'd need to buy a TSMC or GlobalFoundaries to get it, and then managing that part of the company is a nightmare. Plus they'd be stuck with what their own R&D comes up with going forwards. They're in a much better place if they keep the flexibility to play TSMC/GlobalFoundaries/Samsung off of each other for pricing and process performance.

  • Reply 132 of 221
    jukesjukes Posts: 213member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by maccherry View Post



    what a lot of people don't know is that AMD uses licensed Intel tech known as x86 architecture. And Intel has told AMD that they can't compete with them on the high end.

    So if Apple tries going with AMD Intel would make sure the best stuff won't get into their machines. So Apple's only move is to use their own swag.


     


    That's not how it works. AMD can't currently compete because they A) don't have the 22nm process that Intel is using, and B) made design choices with their current architecture that don't result in better performance for many common applications. Intel has had serious monopoly problems with AMD in the past, and there's just no way they'd ever be able to "tell AMD they can't compete."

  • Reply 133 of 221
    stevenozstevenoz Posts: 314member


    Wow. If Steve Jobs were here he'd say, "That idea is a pile of ....."


     


    We exist in a world of computers that use both Windows and Macs. One can't be all things to all people. (Very few games on Mac, and a lot of pro software is Windows only, eg)


     


    As a consultant, I use the fact that the Mac does both Windows and Mac to sell Apple computers. And I've sold a lot of them. Remember the world still uses Windows mostly.


     


    Gee, I wish Steve Jobs were here to bash the idiot who thought of nixing Intel. Stupid in today's world.

  • Reply 134 of 221
    macrulezmacrulez Posts: 2,455member


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  • Reply 135 of 221
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Originally Posted by MacRulez View Post


    …as Tallest Skil noted there's no reason it couldn't accommodate a Xeon.



     


    To clarify, no reason if the size was bumped up to 1U and kept this design. The design as shown is too small, but that's only because we have an ODD for a frame of reference.

  • Reply 136 of 221
    boredumbboredumb Posts: 1,418member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by MacRulez View Post

    Here's an idea:  maybe they could partner with Motorola to produce them, using an entirely different instruction set.


    They could call it PowerPC....



    Wouldn't that involve an awful lot of risc?

  • Reply 137 of 221
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Originally Posted by boredumb View Post

    Wouldn't that involve an awful lot of risc?


     



     


    ???????????

  • Reply 138 of 221
    macgizmomacgizmo Posts: 102member


    Moving away from Intel in the near future has about as much chance of happening as Kim Kardashian not being a fat-assed attention whore; which is to say that it's certainly possible, but not very likely at all.

  • Reply 139 of 221
    kovacmkovacm Posts: 59member


    if you want to make Aperture run as fast as possible: you would use GPU.


     


    same thing will happened with all power-hunger software ("power-hunger software" aka DESKTOP software: CuBase, Logic, Premier, FinalCut, PhotoShop, 3D Max, AutoCad...) - it will be migrated to GPU, away from x86.


     


    so x86 would become irrelevant even in Wintel world (soon or later)!! 

  • Reply 140 of 221
    godriflegodrifle Posts: 267member
    Wait. Apple needs to differentiate their computers from PC's running Windows, and changing the CPU is the way? Ludicrous.
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