AMD Based Apple Laptop?

[drsmithy]

AMD's 386 and 486 clones were always cheaper than Intel's, and they always at least matched the clock-for-clock performance of Intel's direct counterparts.

But back in those days, Intel always had a faster CPU on the market somewhere. Eg: when AMD's 386s were at 40Mhz (vs Intel's 33), Intel had 486s. When AMD's first 486s came out, Intel had 486DX2s, when AMD's clock-multiplied 486s appeared, Intel had the Pentium. Etc.

AMD having the fastest chip on the market - which they only did for about 50% of the last 5 years, despite their general dominance - is very much a blip on the radar.

AMD have, however, often ruled the price/performance ratio at the lower, end, I'll grant - but in that market they have been plagued by buggy chipsets and cheap, low-quality motherboards. VIA has done more to hurt AMD's acceptance in the mainstream than Intel could ever have hoped to do.

 

[ign]

amd or intel, no big difference

what if they make an amd based substitute of the 12' powerbook? that'd be awesome, I would definitely go for it. i really miss a pro laptop that's not as big as the 15' .... the macbooks with their plastic alloy and glossy screen aren't appealing at all, considering they don't even have a decent graphic card....

 

[jamesi]

Here we go folks.



Just to put everybody's mind at ease. These are the guys who predicted the arrival of a G5 iBook in early 2005.

They have never, ever been right.

ditto, why would apple switch to another chip when they are with the most reliable and solid choice at the moment

 

[maczter]

...VIA has done more to hurt AMD's acceptance in the mainstream than Intel could ever have hoped to do.

Anyone know who's making the fantabulously spotty logic boards for the MacBook Pros? They bought one for me at work and it's getting ready to go in for its 3rd logic board replacement. I've used Macs since '92 and owned several of my own since '96 and I've never had to replace anything but a worn out (noisy) fan in a PowerMac. This thing's really starting to annoy me.

it would mean backstabbing and betrayal if apple went with amd.

Seriously though, what's the big deal? These days CPU's don't cost much more than mid-range GPU's, but you don't hear anyone freaking out when Apple offers both NVidia *and* ATI GPU's in the Mac Pro and the iMac.

 

[Dunepilot]

the current 17" C2D iMac is 6.8 inches thick

The Apple site quotes that as the 'depth' of the iMac (presumably the space needed to situate it on a desk, including the depth of the stand. I seem to remember the actual iMac 'screen' itself being around 2 inches thick when they introduced the G5 version. Have a look at the C2D iMac in a shop - it's certainly not 6.8" thick.

Back OT - there's really no reason why Apple would look at AMD now. They have a good relationship with Intel, are getting the supply of chips that they need, and they've very much fallen into bed with the company for the lower-end machines (integrated graphics etc). At present they're doing well with one supplier where they had mixed success with dealing with two in the past (IBM and Freescale).