I can only guess that AMD has a chicken-and-egg problem with mobile. They're not pushing it much because vendors aren't biting, but also companies like Apple are shy to try because AMD doesn't seem very interested.
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16-Inch MacBook Pro Will Reportedly Use Intel's 9th-Gen Processors With Up to 8 Cores
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I can only guess that AMD has a chicken-and-egg problem with mobile. They're not pushing it much because vendors aren't biting, but also companies like Apple are shy to try because AMD doesn't seem very interested.
That is partially it. However, a major contributor is more likely that AMD just can't ( don't have the resources bandwidth to chase it) . AMD is battling both Intel and Nvidia at the same time on way less revenue and R&D budget.
The chiplets that go into Ryzen are essentially the same chiplets that go into EPYC and will be the same chiplets that go into Threadripper. The I/O chip is different but the chiplet is largely tuned to 'win' at the upper half of the CPU market. Folks fronting money on graphics R&D are consoles and perhaps Apple.
The basic I/O ( USB , etc. ) chip for the previous Zen implementations was just rebadged Asmedia (https://www.techpowerup.com/251964/...-supplier-to-amd-but-x570-an-in-house-chipset )
AMD was on borrowed money to keep the lights on for a couple of years ago. They just can't do everything for everybody. (which is why the temporarily punted out of chipsets for a while. )
AMD also has a bigger "hole' to climb out of on laptops. For a substantive period time they primarily chased the cheapest end that market ( and some chicken-and-egg there too where that is only place being asked in). You'll see vendors do an Intel version of a specific product and then do a "cheaper" AMD version. It is incrementally getting better. https://www.anandtech.com/show/14784/asus-launches-amd-ryzenbased-zenbooks-two-laptops-a-convertible
But still hard pressed to find an AMD laptop coupled to anything other than a 1080p (or lower ) screen. Only one of those three even has USB3.1 gen 2. (let alone Thunderbolt). If a laptop has AMD processors almost trained to expect the feature set to chopped down. That part is the chicken-and-egg.
If AMD teamed up with Apple to do a break-out system that would be a huge for AMD. But Apple probably won't 'bet the farm' on them in this space unless had to for some odd reason.
And this is what's preventing Apple from adopting AMD CPUs throughout the product line. AMD has excellent desktop CPUs that would serve Apple's desktop lineup well (third-generation Ryzen 3 and 5 for the Mini, Ryzen 5,7 and 9 for the iMac, EPYC Rome for the Mac Pro). The iMac Pro would be waiting on a Threadripper update, but that's coming relatively soon. In every case, the AMD chip is at least equal and very often better than a comparably priced Intel chip.
Unfortunately from AMD's viewpoint, something like 2/3 of Apple's Mac output is laptops. AMD doesn't really have a competitive ultra low power laptop chip (MacBook Air, MacBook if we see another non-ARM version). They have a few attempts around 12 watts, some of which are pre-Ryzen, but nothing at all compelling. I couldn't find any mention of AMD having ever introduced a CPU drawing under 10 watts, and there certainly isn't one based on Ryzen technology.
The 13" MacBook Pro is the one machine AMD might be able to serve - there are some Zen+ quad-cores in the 15-35 watt range with integrated Vega GPUs. They may or may not perform as well other than the GPU as the Intel quad-cores Apple's using, but those Vegas will easily outperform the Intel iGPUs. Zen 2 versions (current generation) would be even more compelling.
The 15" (or 16") MBP is completely out in the cold - AMD doesn't make any laptop chip with more than four cores, or with a TDP above 35 watts. The 35 watt versions use a hefty chunk of their power envelope on the GPU (they're really more like 15 watt chips with 20 watt discrete GPUs). The big MBP uses 45 watt chips that can throw all that power at the CPU cores alone (or they can use a little bit on a low-power integrated GPU if the discrete chip isn't needed), plus discrete GPUs in the 50+ watt range.
I suspect Apple would look seriously at switching (who knows how locked in to Intel contracts they are, or how hard it would be to optimize OS X for Ryzen), given their existing relationship with AMD for GPUs, if AMD could show them a competitive <10 watt CPU and a 45 watt 8-core CPU (or better yet a 100 watt CPU/GPU that could allocate power dynamically between Ryzen and Vega cores).
Unfortunately from AMD's viewpoint, something like 2/3 of Apple's Mac output is laptops. AMD doesn't really have a competitive ultra low power laptop chip (MacBook Air, MacBook if we see another non-ARM version). They have a few attempts around 12 watts, some of which are pre-Ryzen, but nothing at all compelling. I couldn't find any mention of AMD having ever introduced a CPU drawing under 10 watts, and there certainly isn't one based on Ryzen technology.
The 13" MacBook Pro is the one machine AMD might be able to serve - there are some Zen+ quad-cores in the 15-35 watt range with integrated Vega GPUs. They may or may not perform as well other than the GPU as the Intel quad-cores Apple's using, but those Vegas will easily outperform the Intel iGPUs. Zen 2 versions (current generation) would be even more compelling.
The 15" (or 16") MBP is completely out in the cold - AMD doesn't make any laptop chip with more than four cores, or with a TDP above 35 watts. The 35 watt versions use a hefty chunk of their power envelope on the GPU (they're really more like 15 watt chips with 20 watt discrete GPUs). The big MBP uses 45 watt chips that can throw all that power at the CPU cores alone (or they can use a little bit on a low-power integrated GPU if the discrete chip isn't needed), plus discrete GPUs in the 50+ watt range.
I suspect Apple would look seriously at switching (who knows how locked in to Intel contracts they are, or how hard it would be to optimize OS X for Ryzen), given their existing relationship with AMD for GPUs, if AMD could show them a competitive <10 watt CPU and a 45 watt 8-core CPU (or better yet a 100 watt CPU/GPU that could allocate power dynamically between Ryzen and Vega cores).
I’m more interested in the scissors keyboard design. The butterfly display was a reliability bellyflop that Jobs would have stopped. The display would be equally attractive if it went back to 17”. 16” from 15.4” is just not compelling unless you’re a marketer more interested in messaging than substance. The iPad side car display capability is much more practically compelling, enough that I would consider an iPad Pro 12.9” to replace my Pro 10.5.
A 17.3 inch 4K monitor available on line from Amazon for between $400 and $570 as a stand alone and at 15.6 for around $330. That's a lot of pixels that you would need a magnifying glass to even notice.
