Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Dropping ATI?
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
indigo144 said:
This certainly *was* the case for a few years up until the Intel Core Duo. Now AMD is playing catch up.
I personally don't mind it that much, if Apple were to lose ATI. nVidia is a good company too. Choosing between ATI and Intel... well... that's a different story.
Actually, something that big (for ATI) has to get released as a public press/SEC release, just like we heard that PortalPlayer lost the next iPod contract.ehurtley said:
B
ATI vs. Nvidia
I think it would be more wise to use ATI vs. Nvidia, ATI makes better cards for video and graphics workstations, which is what most mac pro users do anyway. Macs never have been game computers. If you want Nvidia, I guess offer it BTO, but I still think that ATI will always offer better graphics technology. Nvidia passes them up every now and then but the ATI always regains their ground. When ATI came out with the 9700 it changed things completely, it took Nvidia a long long time to recover.
I think it would be more wise to use ATI vs. Nvidia, ATI makes better cards for video and graphics workstations, which is what most mac pro users do anyway. Macs never have been game computers. If you want Nvidia, I guess offer it BTO, but I still think that ATI will always offer better graphics technology. Nvidia passes them up every now and then but the ATI always regains their ground. When ATI came out with the 9700 it changed things completely, it took Nvidia a long long time to recover.
Another point...
The AMD/ATI thing isn't even final yet. It must undergo two different government approvals (U.S. and Canadian, since ATI is a Canadian company,) then must be approved by shareholders of both companies.
The actual merger/buyout probably won't officially happen for another year at minimum. (Look how long it took after HP/Compaq announced their merger before it became official.)
Wouldn't Apple have egg on their face if they dumped ATI because of their merger with AMD (because somehow this would keep Intel happy and... Well, Intel charges the same price to every OEM, so it's not like Intel will raise their prices,) and the merger didn't happen...
The AMD/ATI thing isn't even final yet. It must undergo two different government approvals (U.S. and Canadian, since ATI is a Canadian company,) then must be approved by shareholders of both companies.
The actual merger/buyout probably won't officially happen for another year at minimum. (Look how long it took after HP/Compaq announced their merger before it became official.)
Wouldn't Apple have egg on their face if they dumped ATI because of their merger with AMD (because somehow this would keep Intel happy and... Well, Intel charges the same price to every OEM, so it's not like Intel will raise their prices,) and the merger didn't happen...
It'd be a great shame should ATI lose its Mac-business. ATI has always had better picture quality than nVidia, but I guess that doesn't count when the money talks.
I hope this is false information.
I hope this is false information.
Hopefully that Intel doesn't force apple to use their Graphics Chips (which suck) think about it.hokullani said:
Someone asked for the source - I gave it. Everyone is quoting the Inquirer bit and I agree it's a bit sketchy.ehurtley said:
What's more telling is that AMD/ATI execs said in their press conference announcing the merger that they expect to lose the Intel chipset business. I should have included that quote as well. So we know (with some certainty) that ATI will exit the Intel chipset business, we just don't know when.
Stop Saying Intel Will Force Apple To Do Anything!!!
As I mentioned before, Intel doesn't even force INTEL to use their own graphics chipset. (If you didn't get it, the blue/underlined/italic/bold 'INTEL' above is a link to Intel's own developer website page for an Intel-manufacturered and branded motherboard that uses the ATI Radeon Xpress 200 integrated graphics chipset.)
Yet again, people, Intel can't force any vendor to do anything. Not even their own Motherboard department.
I worked for Intel's server division back in '99-'00. At the time, Intel's chipset division was just introducing the RAMBUS chipsets. The server division management didn't want to force server customers to go with a new/untested memory technology, so they opted to use the RAMBUS-to-SDRAM converters. Well, before the release of those chipsets, the converters were found to be horribly unreliable. So Intel never released them. So the server division cancelled all three motherboards that were planned to use those chipsets. Instead, we used third-party (ServerWorks) chipsets. On Intel-developed, manufactured, and branded server products. Yet we didn't get any heat from higher-up Intel management at all. (Heck, even before that, when Intel made perfectly good server chipsets, we used ServerWorks chipsets on a couple products.)
slooksterPSV said:
As I mentioned before, Intel doesn't even force INTEL to use their own graphics chipset. (If you didn't get it, the blue/underlined/italic/bold 'INTEL' above is a link to Intel's own developer website page for an Intel-manufacturered and branded motherboard that uses the ATI Radeon Xpress 200 integrated graphics chipset.)
Yet again, people, Intel can't force any vendor to do anything. Not even their own Motherboard department.
I worked for Intel's server division back in '99-'00. At the time, Intel's chipset division was just introducing the RAMBUS chipsets. The server division management didn't want to force server customers to go with a new/untested memory technology, so they opted to use the RAMBUS-to-SDRAM converters. Well, before the release of those chipsets, the converters were found to be horribly unreliable. So Intel never released them. So the server division cancelled all three motherboards that were planned to use those chipsets. Instead, we used third-party (ServerWorks) chipsets. On Intel-developed, manufactured, and branded server products. Yet we didn't get any heat from higher-up Intel management at all. (Heck, even before that, when Intel made perfectly good server chipsets, we used ServerWorks chipsets on a couple products.)
Demon Hunter said:
Don't know if it's such a good thing to have only nvidia for apple, Nvidia would start dictating terms to apple and it won't be like apple would have a choice in that matter. Nvidia monopoly over apple and other pc companies is not a good sign in any way. Monoploies are bad for both the industry and the consumer.
markiv810 said:
Replace Nvidia with Intel and you could be talking about general-purpose processors as well
I would love it if Apple continued to sell PPC hardware along with the Intels, and also offer ATI and Nvidia GPU's along with the integrated Intels for whoever needs something better.It's sad to see that it looks like Apple is denying us the choice.
Macrumors said:
Several sites are pointing to a blog with speculation that AMD's recent acquisition of ATI may mean that Apple will drop ATI.
This remains entirely speculative.
The quoted blog claims that Intel might put pressure on customers not to use ATI graphics cards. ("Intel might not allow Apple..."). May I just say that there is already a lawsuit running where AMD is suing Intel for unfair competition. Now imagine Intel puts pressure on Apple, Apple drops ATI, AMD sues Intel, and Steve Jobs is invited to court as a witness. Do you think Steve Jobs would
a. Lie in court, possibly under oath, risking a jail sentence, in order to help their supplier Intel.
b. Tell the truth.
In other words, if Intel tried that, it would be illegal and no chance to get away with it, and it would be very expensive. Anyway, why would Intel do that? Intel cares whether you buy an Intel processor or an AMD processor. Intel doesn't care whether you buy an NVidia graphics card or an ATI graphics card, even if AMD buys ATI or if they merge.
ampd said:
Are you saying Apple shouldn't use ATI graphics cards because ATI doesn't have good Linux drivers? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
As long as ATI keeps on making chips that work on standard bus interfaces such as PCI express apple wont have to worry and cant be forced to use intel or nvidia grapics systems. While Im sure Intel would like to insentivise their customers to use their graphics systems they cant force anyone to do so.
As for ATI loosing its licence to build integrated graphics for intel systems, that might be possible, depending on the original licence with intel of course.
Apple learnt a expensive lesson with IBM/Motorola/Freescale, im sure they would like to keep their options as open as possible, and while im sure Intel/nVidia will be competative enough to keep things going apple would be better of with third true option.
As for ATI loosing its licence to build integrated graphics for intel systems, that might be possible, depending on the original licence with intel of course.
Apple learnt a expensive lesson with IBM/Motorola/Freescale, im sure they would like to keep their options as open as possible, and while im sure Intel/nVidia will be competative enough to keep things going apple would be better of with third true option.
Intel graphics suck. Case in point look at the poor graphics on the Macbook. You can't even play games with it is so weak.
ATI is vehemently denying it, according to the post by Dr. No. As I had pointed out, it would be their duty to report something that significant to their shareholders, so there probably isn't any truth to the speculation.Lollypop said:
Again the article is: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3524
B
entirely speculative and unlikely
And unlikely. Apple has had such good luck with single source suppliers in the past...
Nah... Even Dell has broken the Intel-Only stance and will be selling AMD processors and relies heavily on ATI for low-end dualhead graphics (I see a lot of X1300SE cards in their desktop configs).
Macrumors said:
And unlikely.
Apple has had such good luck with single source suppliers in the past...Nah... Even Dell has broken the Intel-Only stance and will be selling AMD processors and relies heavily on ATI for low-end dualhead graphics (I see a lot of X1300SE cards in their desktop configs).
laidbackliam said:
It's not gonna happen!!! Intel has an 87% market share, and they can't be seen squeezing the other 13% through monopolistic practices.
ampd said:
That's nuts. ATI has excellent linux support, you're just buying the wrong cards. In order to get the "good stuff" from ATI, you have to use FireGL cards (the "pro" line) and not the consumer cards.
Case in point - All of SGI's Vizualization Supercomputers (the Prism line) use only ATI FireGL cards.
gnasher729 said:
Quite right. Intel would never be so stupid, and risk so much for so little potential gain. Given their historic market share, they must have a team of lawyers examining company practices for potential anti-trust implications.
Gasu E. said:
Try like 50% if it's a good day. And I wouldn't be so sure of Intel not folowing monopolistic practices. They have in the past. Do you think it's coincidence Dell (prior to this year) never used AMD? Intel made them an "offer they couldn't refuse", just like Microsoft has done.....