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AMD Executive's Comments Lead to Speculation of Apple Adopting Fusion Platform

Plenty of demos and a very live one of Zacate. Fusion can easily fit in where Core 2 is languishing right now.

Zacate for the Air and Llano for the 13" MacBooks. I'm hoping that Llano packs in double the shaders that Zacate does for the GPU side. (160 shaders for Zacate)
 
It would be a grave mistake for Apple to move over to AMD. ATI Graphics are bad enough, let alone AMD's processors.

They are notoriously bad for number crunching associated with A/V editing, which is my primary cause for buying a mac.
 
M3G4 said:
It would be a grave mistake for Apple to move over to AMD. ATI Graphics are bad enough, let alone AMD's processors.

They are notoriously bad for number crunching associated with A/V editing, which is my primary cause for buying a mac.
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Funny, last I checked ATi cards outperformed NViDIA's in terms of double-precision floating point operations because NViDIA apparently caps their cards' capabilities. (I use NViDIA but for financial reasons).

AMD processors are great for number crunching...I mean they've gotta be, considering all the computers in the science labs here use Athlons (unless they're iMacs). Given that a lot of ATi GPUs now support the full hardware acceleration of programs like Photoshop and other video editing programs, I'd say you don't have much of a problem with encoding - or shouldn't.

You bought a Mac because you didn't want to deal with AMD, fair enough; I'm presuming you didn't buy a Mac Pro (even you you like audio/video editing) because those have ATi cards...?

I understand where you're coming from, though. AMD processors have always sort of been viewed as Intel's perpetual subordinate. I don't really think it's a huge problem, considering I'm building a custom machine around a 6-core AMD processor and an HD Radeon 4200, alongside a GTX 260 - what gets me, though, is that they would have to rewrite MacOS and likely many, many applications to run under AMD.
 
Meldar said:
I understand where you're coming from, though. AMD processors have always sort of been viewed as Intel's perpetual subordinate. I don't really think it's a huge problem, considering I'm building a custom machine around a 6-core AMD processor and an HD Radeon 4200, alongside a GTX 260 - what gets me, though, is that they would have to rewrite MacOS and likely many, many applications to run under AMD.
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Rewrite what? It's still X86 and the processors support the same instruction sets as Intel.
 
I hope / think that actually apple will go completely arm atm marvell a plucky small british company is makeing arm chips that are dual core 2ghz plenty fast enogh for say the mackbook air and base macbook and i bet apple could get 3ghz ifthey put ther mind and mony to it thibk about it
A-allready produce millions of 1ghz arm chips
B- even the 2ghz dual core chips use less than 10w power imagine it same or more power and twice the battery life

C-form factor intergrated into super slim mobo not mauch heat issue small heat sink imagine the new mba! Or even macbook or imac!
D-allready got the base of mac os ported to arm for ios not vry hardto port the whole os to it ubuntu has been along with many linux distros heck even ms windows has been. There are plenty of arm apps availible allready
E-cost savings ciuld be huge mass produced logic board intergrated dual core 2-3ghz arm with a very small magsafe powersuppy and two usb ports new mba half price twice the speed/power twicethe battery
 
Matty-p said:
I hope / think that actually apple will go completely arm atm marvell a plucky small british company is makeing arm chips that are dual core 2ghz plenty fast enogh for say the mackbook air and base macbook and i bet apple could get 3ghz ifthey put ther mind and mony to it thibk about it
A-allready produce millions of 1ghz arm chips
B- even the 2ghz dual core chips use less than 10w power imagine it same or more power and twice the battery life

C-form factor intergrated into super slim mobo not mauch heat issue small heat sink imagine the new mba! Or even macbook or imac!
D-allready got the base of mac os ported to arm for ios not vry hardto port the whole os to it ubuntu has been along with many linux distros heck even ms windows has been. There are plenty of arm apps availible allready
E-cost savings ciuld be huge mass produced logic board intergrated dual core 2-3ghz arm with a very small magsafe powersuppy and two usb ports new mba half price twice the speed/power twicethe battery
Click to expand...

Well I think in time it is certainly possible. Quite a few years out, but I suppose Lion is an indication.....
 
Meldar said:
I understand that - I was going off my (limited) experience with Hackintosh stuff, where I'm fairly sure there are distinct versions for AMD- and Intel-based boards. Not that this has much bearing on actual Apple products...
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not much difference
 
Matty-p said:
I hope / think that actually apple will go completely arm atm marvell a plucky small british company is makeing arm chips that are dual core 2ghz plenty fast enogh for say the mackbook air and base macbook and i bet apple could get 3ghz ifthey put ther mind and mony to it thibk about it
A-allready produce millions of 1ghz arm chips
B- even the 2ghz dual core chips use less than 10w power imagine it same or more power and twice the battery life

C-form factor intergrated into super slim mobo not mauch heat issue small heat sink imagine the new mba! Or even macbook or imac!
D-allready got the base of mac os ported to arm for ios not vry hardto port the whole os to it ubuntu has been along with many linux distros heck even ms windows has been. There are plenty of arm apps availible allready
E-cost savings ciuld be huge mass produced logic board intergrated dual core 2-3ghz arm with a very small magsafe powersuppy and two usb ports new mba half price twice the speed/power twicethe battery
Click to expand...

ARM processors will never go into Macs. First ARM processors are astronomically slower in terms of benchmark numbers, not frequency. The ARM Cortex A8 runs at 2,000 MIPS (million instructions per second), compare that to the Core 2 Duo 1.4GHz CPU in the current MBA, which runs at 17,000 MIPS. The new AMD Fusion Ontario product is much more likely and actually has a 10W TDP. Also Apple would not port their entire OS to the ARM architecture, it does not make sense. Also Windows has not been ported to the ARM architecture. Linux works on the ARM, but the only versions that really use it are Android, WebOS, and the upcoming MeeGo OS from Nokia and Intel. Also there are very few mainstream applications that work on ARM. If you don't have MS Office, Adobe, etc then you don't have a solid desktop platform.
 
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AppleFinn said:
ARM processors will never go into Macs. First ARM processors are astronomically slower in terms of benchmark numbers, not frequency. The ARM Cortex A8 runs at 2,000 MIPS (million instructions per second), compare that to the Core 2 Duo 1.4GHz CPU in the current MBA, which runs at 17,000 MIPS. The new AMD Fusion Ontario product is much more likely and actually has a 10W TDP. Also Apple would not port their entire OS to the ARM architecture, it does not make sense. Also Windows has not been ported to the ARM architecture. Linux works on the ARM, but the only versions that really use it are Android, WebOS, and the upcoming MeeGo OS from Nokia and Intel. Also there are very few mainstream applications that work on ARM. If you don't have MS Office, Adobe, etc then you don't have a solid desktop platform.
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Never is a strong word. I imagine just like with X86 in the PPC days there is likely already an ARM version of OS X.
 
Eidorian said:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mainbo...ia_We_Are_Not_Building_Chipsets_Anymore.html#

Game over man, game over.
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Definitely. I wasn't surprised though, the licensing battle has certainly reduced nVidia's interest on chipsets. Although nVidia's chipsets were never that popular nor good. They were okayish for smaller lappies as they saved space since bridges and the GPU were on same chip.

Fusion is looking more and more viable for ≤13" laptops. Fudzilla is again reporting that Apple will use Fusion
 
Mr. Retrofire said:
Sandy Bridge has 256-Bit AVX instructions and even better AES encrypt/decrypt instructions. Both extension sets are important for Apple. Applications can be found in image processing, File Vault and so on. It makes no sense for Apple to switch to AMD processors.
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256-bit AVX is in AMD's Bulldozer CPUs, out next year.

Sandy Bridge's integrated graphics barely compares to the 9400M, let alone the 320M already in the MacBook air. The Llano dual core low power cpus due around the time of the MacBook air refresh would be ideal. They'd also be suitable for the Mac mini.

I'd expect the MacBook Pro 13" to get a discrete GPU and an i3 or i5 when it drops the optical drive (and gets and SD slot in its place).
 
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I have a friend who works for AMD (Toronto office) and he told me that "it was only a matter of time before Apple adopts their APU products". He mentioned that their 28W APU is based on a 6xxx ATI which is comparable in performance with that of a 5830M.He also mentioned that they were working on a similar APU for a "next generation of consoles" that being the next playstation which by the way will be capable of running games in 1080p @ 60 fps no problem.
 
I do not think so. See this:

Intel at CES to show off next-gen of Apple-bound Sandy Bridge processors

Apple can adopt some AMD Fusion chips in Mac Mini or next MacBook Air - it can be possible. But I can not imagine that AMD is only one supplier for Apple.
Apple lessons learned regarding NVIDIA MCP89 (NV320M) showed that Apple can stuck with old CPUs due to license battle between NVIDIA and Intel. BTW NVIDIA has decide to not focus on chipsets anymore and they will stop to supply MCP89 chipsets with NV320M for Apple next year I believe:Nvidia: We Are Not Building Chipsets Anymore.

Apple realize Intel as a technology leader is more stable partner. Especially because we heard a rumour that Apple will be a first customer that adopt Intel Light Peak in their products. Imagine what Intel will do if Steve Jobs will call to Paul Otellini and say: "Paul I just sign a contract with Global Foundries/AMD. Thank you for support. Bye ! ;-)" After few seconds (to take a deep breath) Paul say: "We will kick your ass!". I am really sure Intel can do this: ILP sold first to Asus or HP.

I can not believe that Apple will adopt AMD E-350 platform presented today, because this is netbook platform:
- CPU performance is weak (on the same level like Intel Atom D510)
- GPU performance is much less than NVIDIA NV320M (even VIA Nano Core VN1000 platform is better) so it will be a step backward

Go thru Apple products and you will see that they never use a low cost CPUs from Intel.
 
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zacate is massively inferior to the 1.4Ghz C2D/320M combination according to anand.

I think we will see AMD cpus in appel laptops next year, but probably not this one.

I am salivating over the prospect of building an HTPC/server out of it though. Hardware accelerated video playback, full HDMI/audio support, modern 64 bit CPU that is more than adequate for the job. The one issue is that I don't know of software that I can use to actually get both the server functionality of Windows Home Server as well as good HTPC functionality. Boxee running on WHS maybe?
 
if this year is any indication, it will take apple months to release products based on these new CPU's. meanwhile dell/HP will have new systems for sale the week before the announcement
 
alent1234 said:
if this year is any indication, it will take apple months to release products based on these new CPU's. meanwhile dell/HP will have new systems for sale the week before the announcement
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It is not an indication.

It turns out that Intel had major supply issues with their Core i processors. My Envy 15 took 2 months to ship out, and I ordered it before CES even ended. Many manufacturers started selling random SKUs because the 520m that they all launched with apparently was in short supply for a long time. Apple waiting for several months to release their stuff was most likely to avoid the weeks-long delays that HP had.

All that is speculation by the way, but from what I could tell it all came down to supply.
 
jav6454 said:
And it lifted. AnandTech did the whole review. Apparently, the CPU side is sort of weak on Multiple threads and Flops, but can do well on single thread and in-order execution.

The GPU apparently was the shocker here. It toasted every IGP out there.
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It's an Atom stopper but not much else. Now we just need to see Llano.
 
arogge said:
Other companies don't seem to have a problem selling both AMD- and Intel-based systems. Entering into an exclusivity agreement with Intel or anybody else is pretty stupid, especially when things break down over disagreements or technical setbacks.
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It's worked out quite well so far.
 
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