AMDs market cap is currently just over $2 Billion as opposed to Nvidia which is worth nearly 10 times more. Apple should just buy AMD, its small change for them. They'll inherit state of the art, mid to high-end GPUs and Intel compatible CPUs as a bonus. Add Imagination Technologies for another $460 Million or so, and they can bring their entire CPU/GPU design in-house.
We have had 4 MacPros go in for faulty AMD cards within the first year of owning them and lack of CUDA support for many graphics applications is a problem. It would be nice if there was a choice. Sorry for the double post.
Apple will never support CUDA or are you new to this reality? Card designs going faulty is a responsibility of Apple as those designs were their custom designs specific to the Mac Pro. Now, with the 14nm FinFET I wager you won't have those problems.
I am not new to this reality but upset by it. With Adobe optimizing all of their Creative Cloud apps for CUDA it is starting to make it difficult to justify a MacPro given its lack of upgradeability.
AMDs market cap is currently just over $2 Billion as opposed to Nvidia which is worth nearly 10 times more. Apple should just buy AMD, its small change for them. They'll inherit state of the art, mid to high-end GPUs and Intel compatible CPUs as a bonus. Add Imagination Technologies for another $460 Million or so, and they can bring their entire CPU/GPU design in-house.
Would the x86 license that AMD has, be transferable to Apple? I was under the impression that it was not. Otherwise I think Nvidia would have made a takeover attempt previously.
That being said, an Apple buyout of both AMD and Imagination Technologies would seem to be a winning endeavor.
At this point, it seems that the desktop and laptop lines are no longer much of an Apple priority. Can't blame the leadership as all of the activity is now in the mobile space.
We will only get incremental updates given the meltdown that is now taking place in the Intel leadership. At least we might get upgraded GPUs.
My Radeon 4870 only died when I overtaxed it. I think. Not really sure why it died, but it did.
The GTX 980 I got to replace it has worked beautifully in OS X but infinitely beyond unacceptably in Windows since. Obviously it’s not the hardware, and I’m still on the fence regarding whether it’s the fault of nVidia’s or Microsoft’s software, but it’s not looking good. Coupled with the (finally) death of my MacBook Pro’s 8600M, I’d say that nVidia is worse.
I'd love for Apple to solve the GPU problem somehow. If they don't want an internal installation making their desktops bulky give those who want the higher end dedicated (non-M) cards a way to do it. Thunderbolt 3 through USB-C can, right? If not give me another option. If it has to be part of a new display, I think I'm okay with that. I'd rather see a nice breakout box with some innovative features, though. Plug in a single cable to even a MacBook (non-pro) form factor and you have whatever the latest graphics card capabilities you want to slam into the breakout box along with ethernet, a usb hub, whatever else is cool and interesting.
Lately, had success getting work done sitting in an easy chair with a MacBook Pro (or Air) linked up to an iPad for a second display through a lightning cable. Not the same thing at all, but I'm just suggesting that if I could string over to a dedicated full-size graphics card and game or develop games anywhere just as easily, I'd be a happy camper.
The one hope to push Apple in pursuing a more cutting edge performance GPU for their devices is VR and, fortunately, Tim Cook thinks it's cool. If Apple is going to pursue VR there is no comprising without inducing extreme nausea and vomiting, so somewhere in Apple there are engineers using graphics cards that don't fit anywhere in the Apple computer lineup.
it is about time for FinFET to take main stage. GPU might take over some of the work load of CPU, faster and more efficient, if off chip interconnect delay can be avoid. Packaging and Thermal design are the key. Looking forward to the major improvement of the performance. best of luck.
In my office we've had two 15" MacBook Pros (2011) and a 27" iMac (also from 2011) die this year. All suffered from faulty AMD graphics chips. The MacBooks that have Intel Graphics or Nvidia graphics are sill working fine. I sincerely wish Apple would stop using AMD graphics, from my experience AMD degrades the useful life expectancy of Apple products. I'm not sure I will continue to recommend Apple devices if Tim Cook (and his brilliant calculating mind) keeps using CRAPPY AMD Products.
Unless you actually had the machine analyzed you can't blame the chips as any number of things could have happened. Everything from poor soldering by the builder to a support chip of cap failing could cause the video to fail. Lets look at it this way when a problem has been chip supplier related Apple does get the vendors to warrant and deal with the faulty electronics. Over the years this has happened with both Nvidia and AMD. So if there was real problems here with recent hardware Apple would have been after the supplier of chips. I haven't seen this happen recently so I tend to believe that they got most of the issues worked out.
Honestly I don't think you know what you are talking about. The current machines running AMD chips have been working great and I've not heard credible reports of any of these machine with discrete GPU's having problems. Some machines like the MacPro are basically implementing high performance computing in very small boxes.
Wizard69 there is an Apple discussion that has been going on since 2012 that suggests AMD has cost Apple bottom line profits becaue when the "fix" for AMD graphic failure 3 or more times Apple gives the customer a new MacBook Pro. A lot of 2011 MacBook Pros have been fixed this way.
Perhaps you have some documented evidence that AMD has fixed their problem. Please pass it along because so far no one has located those test results.
So, pretty much its neither NVIdia, nor AMD problem. Its the MacBook/ iMac cooling solution that is cause those issues. Asus, Dell, Lenovo, etc. are running CPU and GPU around 60-80 degrees celsius, and my 2015 MacBook (as well as previous ones) with M370X GPU is around 80 degrees GPU, and 99 degrees celsius CPU
Better cooling solutions = longer lifespan for your GPU
I will gladly trade couple of millimeters on my macbook for a better cooling system.
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previously.
That being said, an Apple buyout of both AMD and Imagination Technologies would seem to be a winning endeavor.
At this point, it seems that the desktop and laptop lines are no longer much of an Apple priority. Can't blame the leadership as all of the activity is now in the mobile space.
We will only get incremental updates given the meltdown that is now taking place in the Intel leadership. At least we might get upgraded GPUs.
The GTX 980 I got to replace it has worked beautifully in OS X but infinitely beyond unacceptably in Windows since. Obviously it’s not the hardware, and I’m still on the fence regarding whether it’s the fault of nVidia’s or Microsoft’s software, but it’s not looking good. Coupled with the (finally) death of my MacBook Pro’s 8600M, I’d say that nVidia is worse.
Perhaps you have some documented evidence that AMD has fixed their problem. Please pass it along because so far no one has located those test results.