Apple to Skip Intel Arrandale? Demands Alternative Chip?

[arkmannj]

Maybe this is crazy talk, but could Apple just keep the integrated graphics, then still add two discrete Graphics sets ?

Then you have a high powered GPU, a mid range one, and a low range one that the system can pick or mix-n-match from depending on graphics processing/performance needs, power consumption needs, etc...

Idle time it could goto the integrated graphics, need full power turn on all three, or any other combination in between.

It would probably be to hot to have all of them running at the same time on portables though, and maybe take up to much space...hmmmm


While we're at it, could I get a better dedicated Audio processor ?

 

[mdriftmeyer]

2 cores is plenty for 90% of users. 95%. 4-core performance isn't even taken advantage of in most apps.

640KB is all the memory you'll ever need.

 

[Little Endian]

Apple & PA Semi have managed to build its own chip already

indeed... there is always a possibility that Apple could go back to Power PC, although an improbable scenario the option is still there. Apple has an insatiable desire of getting exactly what it wants from vendors to build what they have in mind. That is perhaps Apples greatest advantage over MS as OSX can run natively on various CPU platforms. No need to be reliant only on Intel or AMD, PA Semi, Freescale, and to a lesser degree IBM are all still possible partners in future portable machines. think iphone, itablet, and future laptop possibilities... Intel does not have an absolute monopoly over low power high performance CPU options.

 

[Eidorian]

640KB is all the memory you'll ever need.

It's getting a tad bit old hearing it. It's 2009 and quad core has been mainstream since the Q6600 hit $266.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Plus the fact that Apple would have to retool its OS to run natively on AMD processors much less take advantage of its specialized capabilities, lol.. and plus AMD CPUs, are, at the moment, slower. And lets not even get started on a Xeon vs. Opteron... =x

Considering tinkerer's have gotten OS X running on an AMD CPU with ATI graphics, I doubt that it would be all that difficult for engineers with the source code to do it.

indeed... there is always a possibility that Apple could go back to Power PC, although an improbable scenario the option is still there. Apple has an insatiable desire of getting exactly what it wants from vendors to build what they have in mind. That is perhaps Apples greatest advantage over MS as OSX can run natively on various CPU platforms. No need to be reliant only on Intel or AMD, PA Semi, Freescale, and to a lesser degree IBM are all still possible partners in future portable machines. think iphone, itablet, and future laptop possibilities... Intel does not have an absolute monopoly over low power high performance CPU options.

Windows had a PPC variant back in the day, and like Apple, I'd be shocked if MS didn't have a partially stable build of Windows 7 for other CPU types.

 

[cmaier]

indeed... there is always a possibility that Apple could go back to Power PC, although an improbable scenario the option is still there. Apple has an insatiable desire of getting exactly what it wants from vendors to build what they have in mind. That is perhaps Apples greatest advantage over MS as OSX can run natively on various CPU platforms. No need to be reliant only on Intel or AMD, PA Semi, Freescale, and to a lesser degree IBM are all still possible partners in future portable machines. think iphone, itablet, and future laptop possibilities... Intel does not have an absolute monopoly over low power high performance CPU options.

"improbable" is an understatement.

 

[jamesryanbell]

Wikipedia would be a good start.

I didn't see a master list. Just individual names.

 

[MacSince1990]

640KB is all the memory you'll ever need.

LOLGOOD1.

#1 Gates never said that.

#2 I'm saying 2 cores is enough for 95% of users at the moment, and in the foreseeable 2-year or so future.

#3 What I said was true.

Considering tinkerer's have gotten OS X running on an AMD CPU with ATI graphics, I doubt that it would be all that difficult for engineers with the source code to do it.

Mhm. And OS X has been running on Intel builds since Cheetah. But the transition was still an ordeal. And like I said, they would have to optimize for AMD. Plus the performance is lagging quite a bit behind intel at the moment.

...Also, Apple's been using ATI graphics since the Power Mac G3. So that part's not exactly a stretch..

 

[belltree]

This gives the last option on this poll a sliver of hope

 

[Little Endian]

well folks like me who do audio stuff and some of my mates who does Finalcut stuff are the only people I know that employs an Apple computer. I 100% agree with you that only a dead small margin of folks needs anything more than 2 cores in their machines, but for us semi-pros + geeks, we always need to stay future-proof and ahead...

as for the rest of the population, I don't see why the average joe will need to pay the additional premium for a mac at all, seeing W7 is fantastic on my desktop...

Agreed, as I am a gearhead as well, but if you think rationally there is no revolutionary performance increase ahead of us if Apple goes with Intel's current Arrandale and GPU offerings. Even with the best Arrandale offerings we would see a 15-30% increase in CPU performance over the best Core 2 Duo options. A 15-30% boost in performance is great but hardly revolutionary.

Now if we are talking Quad core options and the fastest discrete GPUs available then we could see 50-100% peformance increase though the higher range increase would involve mainly Graphics intensive scenarios. I don't see this happening in the immediate future (next 6 months) or so as while the technology is here to make that happen the TDP and cost effectiveness is not quite here yet. Apple does not want to make a laptop with sub 3 hour battery life that doubles as a hotplate and costs in the $2500-$3000 range. After all we are still in a recession... and Apple still cares about style and functionality.

 

[powers74]

Big Blue

... and to a lesser degree IBM ...

HA! Over Steve's cold, dead body!

 

[Yixian]

Yeah... well maybe not a 5400 =P Their only option for a MBP is a 56xx (5650), as they've used a midrange card in their laptops for the last 10 years... PowerBook G3s and onwards.

Plus a 58xx would melt the damn thing lol

There are 57XXs too, a 5770 for example would be excellent.

 

[Ledgem]

Has someone thought about considering the HP Envy? I just find two things where the MBP beats it (for me), which are battery life and OSX. All the rest is >= to MBP. Plus, price is considerably lower. I really don't know what to do. I still prefer MBP though, but we'll have to se what they come up with in the next 2 months...

I'm also using a 15" Macbook Pro (the version right before they went unibody).

The Envy's style seems to be a copy of the latest Macbook (aluminum) and Macbook Pros. But that's just the outside - the hardware inside is extremely high-performance. People say that the battery life isn't great, but it's rated for ~3 hours - that's pretty phenomenal, given what's inside. You also have the choice to get a higher-capacity battery, which would probably stick out of the case but would give you ~8-9 hours of battery life.

If I were in the market for a desktop replacement laptop today I'd almost certainly be going for the Envy. Windows 7 is quite a decent OS, so the pain of changing operating systems yet again wouldn't be too great. The only trouble would be finding replacements for much of the Mac-only software that I've come to rely on.

 

[Furrybeagle]

Yes but it is also a shame that Apple never actually took advantage of Nvidia's chipsets. On a Windows machine with the Nvidia chipset and a discrete Nvidia you could run a hybrid SLI mode but OSX never supported it.....

I’m going to take a wild guess and say thermal constraints kept this from being a reality.

 

[hackum]

So how does this piece of news affect the probability of a new MBP line in Jan/Feb 2010?

 

[Little Endian]

HA! Over Steve's cold, dead body!

"improbable" is an understatement.

Regarding going back to Power PC... perhaps "improbable" is an understatement and sure going to Power PC may involve going over Steve's dead body. Albeit it is good to remember that 5 years ago or so those same statements were made about the probability of Apple transitioning to Intel. And of course here we are today... where things could go tomorrow could be quite a surprise

I made my original comment about the Apple and PA Semi relationship. Namely how Apple acquired PA semi (Power PC chip developer) and how they had and are rumored to still have Power based chips under development.

Windows had a PPC variant back in the day, and like Apple, I'd be shocked if MS didn't have a partially stable build of Windows 7 for other CPU types.

While MS has had and may still have versions of Windows for the Power PC platform it is only Apple and OSX that actually have an OS platform that is running relatively seamlessly across multiple architectures, mind you in the real world not just in speculation, rumor, and theory.

 

[diamond.g]

I didn't see a master list. Just individual names.

Here is the list. It shows all the known Nehalem chips. This list shows all of Intels (known) microprocessors.

 

[cmaier]

Believe me or don't, but that team has not been working on ppc since apple acquired them.

Regarding going back to Power PC... perhaps "improbable" is an understatement and sure going to Power PC may involve going over Steve's dead body. Albeit it is good to remember that 5 years ago or so those same statements were made about the probability of Apple transitioning to Intel. And of course here we are today... where things could go tomorrow could be quite a surprise

I made my original comment about the Apple and PA Semi relationship. Namely how Apple acquired PA semi (Power PC chip developer) and how they had and are rumored to still have Power based chips under development.



While MS has had and may still have versions of Windows for the Power PC platform it is only Apple and OSX that actually have an OS platform that is running relatively seamlessly across multiple architectures, mind you in the real world not just in speculation, rumor, and theory.

 

[*LTD*]

Apple leaving Intel?

Not anytime in the near future. Apple and Intel will work it out and life will go on, if these rumours are true to begin with.

The move to Intel continues to bear fruit, quarter after quarter.

 

[whoami]

i'm sure apple has it's ace with PA semi building something that would complement the Intel chips, not replace them!

 

[Little Endian]

Believe me or don't, but that team has not been working on ppc since apple acquired them.

I never said that I did not believe you... If you have potential insider information I would be interested if you could share what you know. Regardless my only point is not to completely discredit future possible scenarios no matter how unlikely, dead or improbable they may be. You must admit though that Apple utilizing someone other than Intel in part is more probable than MS abandoning Intel or the X86 architecture. Apple is not tied to eternity to Intel we could see AMD in the future or perhaps someone else fill whatever needs Apple has in the future especially in future portable products that demand the lowest power usage. Heck why does apple still not and is not rumored to use an Intel offering in the iphone and potential tablet mac?

 

[SiliconKnight]

I dont know if this is necessarily true. It seems to me the Arrandale chip does come with onboard GPU but like all boards like this you should be able to offload GPU to a off-board card via PCIX.

Intel wouldn't "Mandate" you use their onboard card that would be shooting themselves in the foot!

-SK

 

[cmaier]

I never said that I did not believe you... If you have potential insider information I would be interested if you could share what you know. Regardless my only point is not to completely discredit future possible scenarios no matter how unlikely, dead or improbable they may be. You must admit though that Apple utilizing someone other than Intel in part is more probable than MS abandoning Intel or the X86 architecture. Apple is not tied to eternity to Intel we could see AMD in the future or perhaps someone else fill whatever needs Apple has in the future especially in future portable products that demand the lowest power usage. Heck why does apple still not and is not rumored to use an Intel offering in the iphone and potential tablet mac?

As a guy who worked at AMD for ten years, and was one of a handful of designers who worked on the first AMD64 chips, even I wouldn't recommend a switch to AMD.

As for the belief thing, that was just my way of saying I won't say anything else on that topic.

 

[diamond.g]

As a guy who worked at AMD for ten years, and was one of a handful of designers who worked on the first AMD64 chips, even I wouldn't recommend a switch to AMD.

As for the belief thing, that was just my way of saying I won't say anything else on that topic.

I often wonder if AMD screwed themselves trying to get a real quad core out as opposed to just putting two dual core dies together. It seems that AMD could have spent the time improving IPC as opposed to having to chase leakage issues and whatnot...

 

[!¡ V ¡!]

Take a year or two to release it intel and , my SR MBP is still running strong for my requirements. I have no compelling reason to upgrade for a while.