New References to AMD Processors Discovered in macOS 10.15.4 Beta

[Mr. Awesome]

No.

Yes. Apple's silicon team has been absolutely KILLING IT recently with the H1, A13, A12X, et cetera. Their processors are way faster than a lot of Intel CPUS, plus they have integrated Neural engines and GPUs.
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Time to get rid of Intel and Nvidia completely. Apple & AMD Yes!

That's not what the article is saying. They're not replacing GPUs with AMD, the references are for combined CPU and GPU chips from AMD. And if Apple is developing their own ARM chips for the Mac, they would definitely be all-in-one CPU/GPU/Neural Engine/etc. chips, like the A13.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

wouldn't it be better to go ARM chips instead?

No. If I had to guess, Apple is rethinking that after the ARM32 -> ARM64 transition on iOS, as well as the dropping of x32 apps in Catalina. There's been a *lot* of pushback due to some people not being able to update. Not unwilling, but unable to. Currently, 0% of macOS apps are ARM compatible, there would need to be a very long transition period.

 

[RalfTheDog]

This could be about the Hackintosh market. if($CPU=='AMD') {format($BootDrive);}

 

[kissmo]

Time to get rid of Intel and Nvidia completely. Apple & AMD Yes!

I don't know about NVidia... performance-wise.... they still kill AMD not to mention the temps they run.
That - not considering the previous Nvidia MBPs and iMacs fiasco

I just hope Apple thought this through properly and does not do this just to spite Intel.
Somehow I fear AMD on CPUs though they are killer now.

 

[lkrupp]

Apple dumped Motorola and IBM 68000 CPUs like a hot potato when they couldn't keep up with Intel. There's no reason to think Apple wouldn't do the same to Intel if they can't keep up.

 

[MacLawyer]

Interesting. I depend on BootCamp, so I hope that whatever Apple does allows me to continue using Windows natively. (Anyone here remember the horrible SoftPC?)

 

[lunarworks]

Regarding internal testing, I have no doubt they have builds of macOS running on every commercially available chip under the sun. They secretly had OS X running on Intel hardware all the way back to 10.1, after all.

 

[lkrupp]

Time to get rid of Intel and Nvidia completely. Apple & AMD Yes!

No. Apple and Nvidia are locked in a very important struggle for both of them. Nvidia wants direct access to the hardware and Apple won't allow that. Apple wants Nvidia to use Apple's frameworks only. Neither show any signs of giving in on their respective positions.

 

[DominikHoffmann]

Regarding internal testing, I have no doubt they have builds of macOS running on every commercially available chip under the sun. They secretly had OS X running on Intel hardware all the way back to 10.1, after all.

Yes, absolutely. Maybe we will get a choice of CPS on BTOs.

 

[Logamaniac]

This is for processors, not GPUs. Apple does not seem to have any plans to switch back to Nvidia for their GPUs.

actually Navi is gpu

 

[RalfTheDog]

No. If I had to guess, Apple is rethinking that after the ARM32 -> ARM64 transition on iOS, as well as the dropping of x32 apps in Catalina. There's been a *lot* of pushback due to some people not being able to update. Not unwilling, but unable to. Currently, 0% of macOS apps are ARM compatible, there would need to be a very long transition period.

There are architectural changes that Apple could make to ARM that would blow X86-64 out of the water in terms of performance. You could get many times the speed, even when emulating x-86.

 

[powerslave12r]

It'll be interesting to see this come to fruition. Some folks here were convinced this would not happen.

 

[anshuvorty]

You’re not gonna get a high end gaming computer with an AMD SoC

Trust me, in order to play the latest AAA games, you need a discrete GPU at the very least! APUs/integrated GPUs, in terms of gaming, are only good for League of Legends, Fortnite and the various battle royale/MOBAs that are out there...

 

[opeter]

Apple should have bought AMD a couple of years ago when they were at $2 per share. Would have given them even more control over the Macs graphics and now (possibly) processors.

They can still buy them.

But I hope not. It is good for competition in the PC market, that there are AMD CPUs.

 

[Hastings101]

That’s funny, a “gaming mac”. If that happens it better be Apple’s first Windows PC because macOS isn’t even getting new Blizzard games anymore (Overwatch, supposedly no Diablo 4 now), and the 32-bit doomsday/Catalina killed older games.

 

[DudeDad]

Remember when Apple announced it was moving away from the PowerPC chip to Intel, and the sky was falling?

I hope that the AMD is in the new iMac (and that it still has user-upgradeable RAM). I will purchase it on day one!

 

[anshuvorty]

Yes. Apple's silicon team has been absolutely KILLING IT recently with the H1, A13, A12X, et cetera. Their processors are way faster than a lot of Intel CPUS, plus they have integrated Neural engines and GPUs.
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That's not what the article is saying. They're not replacing GPUs with AMD, the references are for combined CPU and GPU chips from AMD. And if Apple is developing their own ARM chips for the Mac, they would definitely be all-in-one CPU/GPU/Neural Engine/etc. chips, like the A13.

So, Apple will be removing the Intel CPU + AMD GPU combination that is present in the latest MacBook Pros, for example? That will be interesting...

You will be getting more cores for cheaper then....at least on the CPU side of things...

 

[RalfTheDog]

Yes, absolutely. Maybe we will get a choice of CPS on BTOs.

Going to AMD would be a total redesign of the motherboard. It would also require a significant amount of software testing. This is not something they would do for BTO only.

 

[opeter]

Interesting. I depend on BootCamp, so I hope that whatever Apple does allows me to continue using Windows natively. (Anyone here remember the horrible SoftPC?)

AMD CPU are x86. Oh, and the x86-64 instructions (so that we have 64-bit CPUs) thing is and AMDs idea. Not Intels! Intel had the Itanium platform, but that died in a painfull death.

 

[Logamaniac]

There are architectural changes that Apple could make to ARM that would blow X86-64 out of the water in terms of performance. You could get many times the speed, even when emulating x-86.

show evidence of this. As of now it’s just fantasy.
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More than likely Apple sees an opportunity to moderately improve performance while also enlarging their margin per unit sales.

 

[lunarworks]

It'll be interesting to see this come to fruition. Some folks here were convinced this would not happen.

There's still baggage attached to the AMD name. Many people think of them as second-rate chips in value PCs you buy at Walmart.

But if anything, being inside the Mac would raise AMD's public profile.

 

[PickUrPoison]

And Threadrippers for Mac Pros.

Unfortunately Threadripper doesn’t support large ECC RAM configs, which max out at 1.5 TB on Mac Pro. AMD’s memory controller doesn’t allow RDIMM or LRDIMM on Threadripper; I haven’t seen any TR build with even 512GB of ECC RAM. Mac Pro could use the (more expensive) EPYC line though.

 

[velcrovan]

I have always assumed Apple made prototype hardware with AMD CPUs, if only to stay prepared and keep their future options open. They’d be crazy not to.

 

[rjohnstone]

They already use Radeon GPUs, so adding AMD CPU support for a gaming centric rig makes sense.

 

[cbusbuck]

Apple should have bought AMD a couple of years ago when they were at $2 per share. Would have given them even more control over the Macs graphics and now (possibly) processors.

Bad idea. If Apple had bought AMD, its products would have been delayed or become vaporware, with its 'exciting' pipeline running dry.