Apple Considering Adopting AMD Processors for Upcoming Macs?

[snar3281]

How is usability related to the ability of old hardware to boot into a recently released operating system?

So then why is it worth noting if you can't even use it? Wow look at this everyone, I've got the latest OS running on my 10 year old PC! Too bad it's not useable like it was when it was running Windows 95...

I thought so. I didn't believe my opinion had a relation to the inability of installing 10.6 on a non-x86 based Mac.

You thought so? LOL

You are telling me to install 10.6 on an iBook after you constantly say 10.4 is the superior OS and now saying that the inability is the only reason why I didn't do it.

 

[DMann]

Seems PC's only have a 2-3 year life span where as Apple has a 5-6 year one.

HA HA HA...

Any 5 year old Apple has a PowerPC processor. That didn't work out so well, did it?

Let the backpeddling begin...

But not 10.6, right? And not Photoshop CS5. And not....

Priceless²

I've still got an iBook G3 from 2000 running 10.4 right next to me. What's the problem again?

Powerbook G3 (Pismo) here, Runs 10.4 as new.

My 1Ghz iBook (10.4) is still my daily driver. I bought it in '04 and other than slow youtube streaming I am not feeling the need to upgrade yet.

Two iMac G5s running 10.5.8, no need to upgrade, as they run Logic Pro 9, CS4, MS Office 2008, FCS, etc. fast and reliably.

If it still runs, what the hell does it matter?

It doesn't. The original post, which addressed life span, was ridiculed, followed by several laps of backpeddaling.

Show me a 10 year old PC laptop that will be able to run Windows 7 and Photoshop CS5.

I ask once again, what is the problem/difference between an old Mac still running and an old PC running?

Still waiting to hear the results of holding a 10 year old PC to the same (double) standard as a PPC for running CS5.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

AMD = cheaper processors for Apple = greater profit margins. They won't drop the price.

I think Apple's reasoning is simple. Make the most $$$.

 

[wikoogle]

This whole PC's don't last more than 2-3 years is complete and utter horse crap.

I have a Dell Laptop that I bought in 2003 with a Pentium M, and it runs Windows 7 perfectly. It's actually quite fast and even runs programs like Photoshop CS5 without a hitch.

My brother has a slightly newer Dell XPS M1210 laptop from 2005 with a Core 2 Duo and it runs incredibly well. He regularly uses it for video editing and graphics rendering.

If your PC from 5 years ago isn't running well, it's because you don't know what you're doing.

Please read through this guide and follow that, and your five year old PC will run just as fast as a modern day PC.

http://boards.ign.com/teh_vestibule/b5296/191015261/

 

[MCIowaRulz]

I've still got an iBook G3 from 2000 running 10.4 right next to me. What's the problem again?

Old 2001 QS 867 Mhz G4 Tower
1.25GB RAM and a 120 GB+60 GB HD's
OS X Tiger
Apple 17 Inch LCD
Here Yes, it IS slow (and I hope to retire it this year) but WORKS for Word/Email and SD Quicktime Video
Flash however sucks

 

[DMann]

This whole PC's don't last more than 2-3 years is complete and utter horse crap.

Quite a few highly competent computer users, within this thread alone, would tend to disagree with you:

Here at work we have had horrible reliability problems with Dell laptops, so we're ending our buying agreement with that portion of their business and forming an agreement with a more capable supplier. However, we've had great reliability from Dell's servers, so we're keeping them and buying more. If and when Dell can fix their laptop problems over the long term we may eventually place a future order with them again. That's how logical buying decisions are made. They attempt to weigh the costs and benefits and risks and go for the best overall value. Both Intel and AMD make hardware that is capable of being used effectively by Apple somewhere in their lineup. That is a simple and obvious fact. They both offer products that are a benefit in cost or performance or availability compared to the other.

I'm on my 7th dell laptop at work in the past 3 years due to machine failures. I'll chock it up to horrible luck. (although it's a laptop, it never leaves the docking station or my office, so it's not rough handling).

Let's see... Dell Xps laptop - 2 years, internally cracked display.
That was

after hard drive went a year before. Dell could not get the LCD
for it anymore. Got a macbook in 2008 and never had an issue.

A friend's 1 1/2 yr old Dell - Lamp on LCD went out. Dell could
not get the parts for it. He bought a used 2004 macbook and
just gave it to his wife and got himself a new macbook pro.

My work Dell PC - blew a hard drive; then blew the power
supply, hard drive, and motherboard all at same time. They
gave me a new Dell, within a year blew one of the raid drives
and having major issues with a win 7 upgrade.

HP mini tower - only got a year out of it.
HP tower - used it for 1 1/2 years, completely rebuilt the
machine for my wife to use, she started complaining on how
slow it was just surfing the net, so I got her a mac mini in
2008. She is now a happy camper.

I've had plenty of Dell desktops and laptops fall apart during the past ten years.

By contrast, all of my Apple hardware has remained in tact, and in operating condition.

This, too, is my personal experience.

 

[Repo]

AMD = cheaper processors for Apple = greater profit margins. They won't drop the price.

I think Apple's reasoning is simple. Make the most $$$.

It's perfectly reasonable for a company to be interested in generating more revenue, as long as (in Apple's case) R&D is increased, hopefully leading to better consumer products.

 

[doctoree]

Business school 101:
More competition between Intel and Amd:
Better AMD CPUs:
Cheaper Intel CPUs:
ALL GOOD FOR US CUNSUMERS

 

[firewood]

I heard a rumor from someone at work (who heard it from someone else...so let's just get it out of the way that it's very baseless) that the meetings might have more to do than Apple just using AMD chips...

Anyone consider the possibility that Apple isn't trying to buy CPUs from AMD, they might be trying to sell AMD something instead?

Dobberphul's group has already done their own original RISC, then ARM, then MIPS, then PPC. Usually with a much better performance/power envelope than was done at each architecture's originating company. So what challenge is left for his talented group? (NOT Sparc!)

So say, if Dobberphul's team has figured out a way to do an x86 micro-architecture offering something with better than Atom performance (on Apple's Xcode/LLVM generated code) but at lower than Cortex A* power levels, what does Apple do? They do not have a license to manufacture x86 CPUs.

But AMD does. And AMD is in need.

What could Apple get in return? A graphics division? 6 month exclusive on the best speed/power grades? Better negotiating leverage against Intel by offering not to go through with the deal after the rumors pop?

(disclaimer: this posting may have been caused by my cat walking across the keyboard).

 

[tigress666]

I've had plenty of Dell desktops and laptops fall apart during the past ten years.

By contrast, all of my Apple hardware has remained in tact, and in operating condition.

This, too, is my personal experience.

I can't say that. Most of my Macs (and I've had five so far starting with the 128k) have been pretty good and lasted five years (my G4 is still going strong at 10 years). But my current Macbook is a bit of a let down and makes me wonder if Apple has gone downhill (lots of little things breaking on it). And to be fair, I had a Performa that did have a problem or two before it hit five years old (That model though had design issues. I believe it was the actual first Power PC model, the 6100, and they still had some bugs to work out).

Can't say I really can say much about PCs. I've only had two (a Gateway, and well, the Gateway but completely gutted out and completely new internals. Basically we re-used the case and that was it).

I will say one advantage to PC's is that you can build your own easily enough and you can have a lot of control over quality if you make your own. And you can build it to what you think you really want. I think if you rely on a lot of companies who put it together for you, yeah, you do get crappy quality. But if you make your own, you are more likely to be able to get a good quality PC (for better money). But really, that's the strength in general of PC/Windows vs. Mac. You're not at the whim of what one company thinks you want.

Of course, that also means that more things might not work right as it is hard to have one OS fit so many different machine specifications. That's the strength of Apple. Not as much customization but it will run smoothly. It's in Apple's best interest to use decent hardware cause what they are selling is that it just works. Which won't work well if they use bottom of the line stuff.

 

[cjmillsnun]

That's what I just said. His link all are SERVER CPUS!! There are no desktop cpus over $185. Where is the beating a dead horse icon when you need it.

What class of CPU does the Mac Pro use?

I'll give you a clue. It uses Intel Xeon chips.

Xeon is Intel's server line.

 

[MorphingDragon]

No they didn't. They settled the case, which is completely different, and AMD got only enough money to keep it afloat for one year.

At least AMD is turning a profit now and stock prices are rising. Their debt is also halved. AMD is clambering out of their pitfall. (The pitfall of complacency)

If AMD was just about to go bankrupt, would they be able to withdraw the 64bit license and leave Intel in the dark again? Or would the related patents become public domain. (Assuming they don't get bought out)

 

[cutthroughthebs]

Mac rumors... Land of the clownberries!!!!

 

[mrochester]

Intel has just announced record profits which means they're once again taking advantage of weaker competition and we're paying through the nose.

WOW, that's an incredibly ironic statement to make on an Apple forum!

 

[chatin]

AMD keystone that holds prices down

Approximate distance in miles from Cupertino California to Sunnyvale California is 4 miles.

These two companies could have a great synergy or even enter into a purchase agreement.

The implications for the PC business would be huge as AMD is the keystone that holds prices down.

 

[ranguvar]

Let's not fool ourselves. The only motivation behind such a move would be higher profit margins for Apple.
Apple's prices are ridiculous already. My 3 years old PC cost less when I bought it than my June-2009-MBP, and it's still running faster than the MBP.
If Apple continues to increase their profit margins, I'm moving from genuine Apple hardware to OSx86. There are many other computers that are on par with Apple's (both in specs and in build quality), for far less money.

 

[bruinsrme]

This whole PC's don't last more than 2-3 years is complete and utter horse crap.

I have a Dell Laptop that I bought in 2003 with a Pentium M, and it runs Windows 7 perfectly. It's actually quite fast and even runs programs like Photoshop CS5 without a hitch.

My brother has a slightly newer Dell XPS M1210 laptop from 2005 with a Core 2 Duo and it runs incredibly well. He regularly uses it for video editing and graphics rendering.

If your PC from 5 years ago isn't running well, it's because you don't know what you're doing.

Please read through this guide and follow that, and your five year old PC will run just as fast as a modern day PC.

http://boards.ign.com/teh_vestibule/b5296/191015261/

I have to agree with you. My wifes dell desktop is 5 years old, my XPS desktop is 2.5, I have an insprion laptops; one that is going on 11 years old (little noisy but is still a great email, internet computer and the other inspiron is 7 years old, still running a dual boot XP/Vista.

I am waiting for the day to find an excuse to buy a new machine.

 

[theneweyes]

The point is not what is now with AMD but with what could be with Apple's support?

 

[offwidafairies]

i smell more hackint0shing

 

[LillDrutten]

Server

My guess that they will be introduced in a new server line.

 

[thunng8]

And don't fool yourself into thinking that Apple has turned its back completely on PPC chipsets as well...

Everything is STILL in place, even though 10.6 was Intel-only. Apple could implement UB back into the fold in a heart beat and have POWER7 chips smoking away in a reborn PowerMac.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POWER7
Not too shabby on the specs...
4/6/8 cores per chip available
Running 3.0-4.14 GHz
45nm chips

I'm also sure that I could heat my house off of one of these chips by running Final Cut Pro... but hey! That would be AWESOME!

The latest IBM Power7 chips are much faster than anything Intel has and also with decent power characteristics (actually better per/watt than the high end Nehalem server chips they compete against). However, I doubt Apple would ever switch back since that would require way too much work as so many apps including Snow Leopard are already "x86 only". Also IBM does not have a POWER7 chips suitable for laptops.

 

[SactoGuy18]

I think AMD may have recently shown Apple a motherboard with the Phenom II X4 CPU using all AMD chips (including ATI GPU) that runs MacOS X 10.6.3 just about as fast as a motherboard running Intel Core i7 CPU, but at MUCH lower production cost. That could make the Phenom II X4 very attractive for the iMac.

 

[mabaker]

People don’t realize how much power lies in the ATI graphic cards. Coupled with OpenCL and AMD processors they could easily TOP the current i7 offerings benchmark-wise.

You have to know Apple looked at things always differently - I welcome the recent rumours about using the AMD processors cuzz it has some major advantages for the end users.

 

[MorphingDragon]

People don’t realize how much power lies in the ATI graphic cards. Coupled with OpenCL and AMD processors they could easily TOP the current i7 offerings benchmark-wise.

You have to know Apple looked at things always differently - I welcome the recent rumours about using the AMD processors cuzz it has some major advantages for the end users.

The things Apple could get from AMD:

A better price/performance ratio.

A better chipset/iGPU combo that supports CrossfireX, CrossfireXpress (Hardware based GPU switching), DX11/GL3.2/CL1.0/AL1.0 and native Sata3/USB3 support if used with the 8XXA series.

Better GPUs.

A funky green and red logo design with a dragon holding an orb.

A ridiculous amount of physical cores.

Better memory bandwidth. (Apple doesn't use the X58 chipsets so Triple channel can be ignored)

A proper APU package.

Things Apple lose from going to AMD:

Raw number crunching power.

Heat efficiency.

Battery life.

 

[phoenix78]

I think the argument in the article (towards the end) re: 80% performance at 60% of price is really bad!

20% difference in performance is a big deal! Apple will then forever be associated with underperforming machines, even if it is cheaper. This is a bad thing!

AMD also offer awful battery life and heat issues in laptops. And add to that poor performance.

If the integrated graphics fiasco with nvidia is a turn off... it is hypocritical to then drop intel cpus for a worse cpu. People will make more use of the cpu than they will with the gpu. Unless you are a gamer, in that case you would be buying a macbook with discrete gpu.