AMD and Apple - An inevitable union?

The CEO of AMD, Hector Ruiz, is pretty certain that Apple will, at some point in the not too distant future, start using AMD chips.

AMD CEO Hector Ruiz has suggested that Apple will eventually use AMD processors in some of its future systems, so as not to be held "hostage" to exclusive pricing deals from Intel. At a late dinner in San Francisco the executive criticized Intel for reducing competition to a matter of price through its earlier monopoly of computer architecture, and cited previous examples of exclusive pricing deals with Dell as well as other manufacturers. Dell's recent decision to use AMD processors marks the latest in a series of defections that are breaking Intel's once unshakable grip on mainstream computer manufacturers.

It's certainly not impossible, especially for a device like iTV in which marketing a processor really isn't that important. But all indications point to a cozy relationship for Apple and Intel that might be hard to break.

 

I, for one, won't be counting out AMD just yet. Like they say, which the (microprocessor) chips are down...

That would be great!! And theyd have to put amd support back into the updates... (yes, amd fanboy here, but core 2 duo is quite powerful too.)

max

I think Apple is going to try to keep a smug cozy relationship exclusively with Intel. It's ironic how a computer company with such a small market share is basically "in bed" with another company that practically had the processor market monopolized. I guess it's sort of a symbiotic relationship in a way: Apple retains all name-brand parts, and Intel gets more revenue. Although AMD is arguably better, many people still buy Intel products just for the name brand.

Apple's like the hip kid in school. He'll buy ripped-up jeans at Abercrombie and Fitch instead of getting a comfortable, cheaper pair of Levi's.

But it all breaks down to this: If it wasn't for AMD, Intel would have little to no competition, thus less impetus to work on the multi-core CPUs that Apple now relies on so heavily.

Like they say, which the (microprocessor) chips are down...

I thought it was "When the chips are down." Sorry I'm a grammar Nazi.

I think Apple is going to try to keep a smug cozy relationship exclusively with Intel. It's ironic how a computer company with such a small market share is basically "in bed" with another company that practically had the processor market monopolized. I guess it's sort of a symbiotic relationship in a way: Apple retains all name-brand parts, and Intel gets more revenue. Although AMD is arguably better, many people still buy Intel products just for the name brand.

 

Apple's like the hip kid in school. He'll buy ripped-up jeans at Abercrombie and Fitch instead of getting a comfortable, cheaper pair of Levi's.

 

But it all breaks down to this: If it wasn't for AMD, Intel would have no competition, thus no impetus to work on the multi-core CPUs that Apple now relies on so heavily.

I thought it was "When the chips are down." Sorry I'm a grammar Nazi.

Yep, yep, and everyone thought that Dell would do the same, but they just made the move to include AMD solutions. and funny that you should mention the Intel for Intel brand name thing, my friends dad is just like that, litterally, and he even says it himself! same thing with (insert high end german car manufacturer or other luxury car for the most part) for the (insert logo, badge, or otherwise worthless part...)

max

Dell are ina very different position to Apple - Dell is the market leader they can afford to push intel around while also needing AMD so they can continue to compete at the low end.

Apple have only a tiny market share and no real competitors. Using AMD would be more of an annoyance than a benefit for Apple (as they would be running two suppliers, would need different motherboards etc)

Let me be the first to say the inevitable...

APPLE WILL NEVER SWITCH TO AMD CHIPS!!!!!!!!!!

Now that that's out of our systems, I think the CEO of AMD is absolutely right.

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple switched to AMD. I'm sure Apple has looked at how well OS X runs on AMD on the Hackintoshes. Who knows? Maybe next WWDC Steve will announce "The AMD Transition".

Apple might even do something truly sweet... design a motherboard capable of supporting the X2s, bundle it with OS X, and sell it as a kit for $500.

Apple might even do something truly sweet... design a motherboard capable of supporting the X2s, bundle it with OS X, and sell it as a kit for $500.

i find that very un-likely. maybe with the Mac Pro's, but all the other systems are for the most part designed to wokr right out of the box, barely any installation needed. This woudl be a sweet idea, but i don't think apple woudl make enough profit off of this. if you already have a pretty fast proscessor, why pay $500 more for something that most people wont see the difference in.

I fear you're missing what I'm saying. I'm not talking about a Mac Pro upgrade kit, I'm talking about a way for joe schmoe PC user to construct a working, legal mac.

Thanks for the catch, Takuro.

FWIW, I think a "Build your own Mac" kit would rock.

Does anyone think there's more than $400 profit in every Mac sold? So, why not sell a kit?

I fear you're missing what I'm saying. I'm not talking about a Mac Pro upgrade kit, I'm talking about a way for joe schmoe PC user to construct a working, legal mac.

Ohh, ok, ya that might work. although that would still mean that apple woudl have to write drivers and optimize OSX for the mobo.

APPLE WILL NEVER SWITCH TO AMD CHIPS!!!!!!!!!!

 

Now that that's out of our systems, I think the CEO of AMD is absolutely right.

So you're saying Apple will not officially "switch" all its machines to AMD chips, but that the CEO of AMD is correct in the sense that possibly some (not all) Apple machine will eventually use his chips? Or did you think that the CEO of AMD was actually concurring with the idea that Apple isn't going to use his chips? (which is the complete opposite of what he said.) Eck.. confused by that post...

Either way, like some pointed out, Apple would never bother to support two different motherboard and CPU types at the same time. They want to keep things simple and manageable to meet demands for the small user-base that they have.

Keep in mind that this whole thread is based on the quote of the CEO of AMD. He's not exactly unbiased. Anybody who is involved in a big company would like to boast that their products have opportunities in new markets. But from a logical standpoint, I still don't see Apple adopting their technology. Apple's even moving away from ATi cards as is...

Apple is all too familiar with being held hostage by a chip maker. Remember Motorola?

I would be almost certain that the contract between Intel and Apple provides Apple with some form of pricing and/or other protection(s).

If Intel's x86 development lags behind AMD, only then does Hector Ruiz wishful thinking stand a chance. He wants to be the hip kid with Apple jeans........

I actually would be surprised if Apple switched over to AMD. They have a lot of time and effort put into making OS X work on Intel. While it wouldn't be super hard to make it work on AMD (as opposed to PPC to Intel transitions), there would most likely still be a transition.

Apple will still keep a cozy relationship with AMD, though, because of the AMD/ATI merger.

The CEO of AMD, Hector Ruiz, is pretty certain that Apple will, at some point in the not too distant future, start using AMD chips.

AMD CEO Hector Ruiz has suggested that Apple will eventually use AMD processors in some of its future systems, so as not to be held "hostage" to exclusive pricing deals from Intel. At a late dinner in San Francisco the executive criticized Intel for reducing competition to a matter of price through its earlier monopoly of computer architecture, and cited previous examples of exclusive pricing deals with Dell as well as other manufacturers. Dell's recent decision to use AMD processors marks the latest in a series of defections that are breaking Intel's once unshakable grip on mainstream computer manufacturers.

It's certainly not impossible, especially for a device like iTV in which marketing a processor really isn't that important. But all indications point to a cozy relationship for Apple and Intel that might be hard to break.

 

I, for one, won't be counting out AMD just yet. Like they say, when the (microprocessor) chips are down...

Mash,

Not to toot my own horn, but I've been saying for months this will probably happen.......not sure if I posted this here, but posted about APPLE X86 about 5 years ago and with SUN using AMD (cousin works at SUN in Boston)....and has written several books.

Anyway back to the thought.....

I've been saying for months.....AMD and APPLE are partners in the hypertransport.

Second, MAC users went with AMD for GigaStudio and some RAW performance vs slower intel who most mac users saw as a CPU for MSFT excel and wordprocessing.

Then, after Apple bought Emagic (logic) it shoot Avid/Pro-Tools in the foot, as well as Adobe, in fact, Adobe was so upset the next release was for the PC only....

Avid/Digi responded by buy Midiman (aka M-Audio) as they know the power of the PC is growing and TDM to some extent is losing ground....

So, what does this have to do with the price of tea in china?

Mac is for the creative, gaming forced PC's to come up with faster and better GPU's, and at the same time the CPU's followed suit. However Intel is still seen as a SUIT AND TIE company whereas AMD more of a creative company, similar to apple (PIXAR uses AMD chips to render)...

Soooooooooo.....if you where apple and knew IBM could not keep pace and knew Intel would give you a great discount, let alone the ability to process all the orders (which isn't that much compared to PC's) wouldn't you use INTEL for R&D, promotions, UB platform development and help, etc, etc.....

Then when AMD comes out with a better and faster chip (they will), they can switch or use both.

Several years ago there was a quad core chip that was a test chip...from AMD and get this...no fan, no heatsink, no anything and cool to the touch like touching copper........and that was several years ago.

AMD always has something up their sleeve and .65 maybe smaller with SOI will mean faster and much cooler chips which also means higher megahertz, and like Apple, AMD's hertz are RAW hertz as is intel now is....as for years Intel needed at least 1.0 gigahertz to compete with AMD with the long (Intel) pipelines which meant longer branch prediction and errors returning slower - -

I think AMD (especially now that it owns ATI) is a good fit for Apple.....

In addition, Apple/AMD focus on the creative markets - together their platforms could overtake Pixars rendermen, Digi's Pro-Tools, Avid.

All good stuff, and at the same time, price reductions for the consumer bringing the MAC to a more level PC playing field in terms of cost.

peace

Let me be the first to say the inevitable...

 

APPLE WILL NEVER SWITCH TO AMD CHIPS!!!!!!!!!!

 

Now that that's out of our systems, I think the CEO of AMD is absolutely right.

Funny didn't you not like me saying such a statement and that I wasn't an Apple spokesman and how I didn't represent blah blah blah? Yes you did.

Plus Apple WILL use AMD chips, on the graphics cards at least since the ATI and AMD merger. On the CPU side, it is a coin toss.

I actually would be surprised if Apple switched over to AMD. They have a lot of time and effort put into making OS X work on Intel. While it wouldn't be super hard to make it work on AMD (as opposed to PPC to Intel transitions), there would most likely still be a transition.

 

Apple will still keep a cozy relationship with AMD, though, because of the AMD/ATI merger.

Dude, you do realize that AMD chips are the same pretty much as Intel chips don't you? Sure Intel has Hyperthreading and some small things that make them "different" (not better) but OSX86 runs on SSE2 and SSE3 extensions, and they are in AMD chips. How do you think OSX86 users that have the correct AMD chips run OSX86? Magic? No. The "making OS X work on Intel" was pretty much 90% to 95% done, since Apple has compiled OS X for Intel since 10.0. The new addition is the EFI and that is easy to do if they put their chips on an AMD board.

Yeah but there won't be a big transition but there will still be one... The current osx86 kernels are optimised for the Intel Core Duos / Core 2 Duos... There would also need to modifiy drivers....

This shouldn't take much time to do... But you can't just say that it would be hasel free.

Retroz, What you are saying makes will happen at some point... The real question is when and I see no reason for Apple to switch anytime soon.

Who uses Mac's? Im not talking about the Hackintosh mac's, I mean real purchased Mac's? I walk around my college campus, and see 99% of the people walking around with Dell's, HP's, Toshiba's, etc.

Then I walk by the Cafe and thats where you see the people using the Macbook's. They are the Art Majors, and people who are minoring in art for the most part.

Now, how does this tie into this article? If you were to Poll the real mac ownerbase on whether they should switch from Intel to AMD, they would say stay with Intel. Like it was pointed out, its the hip Abercrombie and Fitch jeans with holes in it (which I wear, so dont hate them) VS the comfortable, less hip pair. People think Intel is hip, because of the commercials, because of the namebrand, and because of what the average computer base knows.

For most people, their mac does what it needs to do, and they would see change as something thats unneeded, especially because they paid $2000+ for their system, for Apple to switch processors and require a whole new Mobo would be a slap in the face for most users, because their system would be sub-par. Would it be really sub-par in comparison? Probably not enough for the average user to notice. However if Apple were to switch, there would be a HUGE press conference, and apple would say "Now their systems are the BEST because they use the FASTEST chips around, AMD's...." which would {censored} off the Mac audience, and hurt business.

Its early, so much of what I said may not make sense, but to me it did. Switch over to a new processor, people assume the other one was flawed, and they get pissed. OR, switch over to AMD, people assume its some knock-off crappy chip, and think Mac's now suck. One of the two would happen.

retroz... Apple isn't a Neck and Tie corporation?

I disagree. The Mac is that special, good looking company with a big presence in the corner of and store that sells them, even if few buy them.

Apple really can't be compared with the same terms as other companies.

They are both super-creative and super-sophisticated in image.

They are creating a new corporate plan that is a hybrid of Microsoft and Sony, thus entering territory that nobody has been in nefore.

Apple, in the end, is simply a "cool" company, with a cool logo and brand-power that rivals Nike and Coca-Cola. It is unjust to label them. Because no one else is like them, and they are litterally in a class of their own. Wether that class is better or worse than other companies is debatable.

Now then, back to Intel/AMD. I don't think the choosing of the brand was why Apple went with Intel. With Apple's image, they could transform AMD into the brand that everyone loves, and pit all AMD and Apple lovers alike against Intel. But that isn't what hapened.

AMD is still far away from Intel, in many categories. They have been impressive in the last round of processors, but the Core 2 is an unrivaled chip and architecture, and benchmarks keep proving it. That's not to say AMD sucks, just that Intel can spit out anything they want thanks to a near-limitless bank account.

But there is a lot more. There's EFI: Intel's baby. There's integrated graphics, whih continue to improve. There's the fact that they make their own motherboards, and are quite good at it. There's the fact that upcoming processors will (apparently) keep getting cooler. And there's the ultimate factor that made Intel the obvious choice: getting all these from one company costs infinetly less than buying the processors from AMD, the motherboard from ASUS (with an outdated BIOS!), and the cheap graphics card from Nvidia.Plus their getting special pricing beyond the saving from getting those from one entity.

Money makes the world go round.

While I think this might actually be a good idea in the long run for all parties involved (Apple sells more hardware, Intel sells more hardware, AMD sells more hardware, the consumer has a wider choice, etc), unless AMD decides to make chipsets for their own processors again, I'll never touch any computer that isn't using a straight AMD CPU with chipset.

After so many years of fixing computers with AMD processors of all kinds and VIA/SiS/Nvidia/ATI/etc chipsets - the real heart of the problem - I've learned, and this was an easy lesson, that Intel is where it's at today not because of a monopoly, but because their hardware works without issues.

I can't stand VIA/SiS/Nvidia/ATI/etc chipsets, and I never will. So for me, it's Intel ftw!!! Across the board and all the way around.

AMD makes fantastic processors: powerful, amazingly cheap compared to Intel (had to be honest there), and good for all sorts of applications, but the supporting chipsets - since AMD got out of the chipset business - are total and absolute {censored} compared to straight Intel hardware, at least in my experience.

Let's hope AMD takes a crack at chipsets again, because we'll all be better off if they do.

bb

Don't be surprised if Steve announces something like this someday at WWDC:

"Yes, it's true! Mac OS X has been living a secret double life for the past years.

As a matter of fact, this system I’ve been using here is running on an AMD processor."

Actually I am going to say it. Apple will not use AMD.

At least not until AMD can offer what Intel offers Apple now.

Intel chipsets + Intel CPU's + Intel's EFI + TPM allow Apple the "hardware lock" they want (need?).

As we've seen with the newer kernel versions (that none of the hack boxes are using) Apple has gotten even further in bed with Intel at the kernel level.

Simply put, while AMD can offer a decent performance CPU to Apple right now, they cannot deliver the whole package that Apple requires at the moment.

Apple has no reason to look to AMD. It's not going to be a cost saver to them and in fact with the route they have taken would actually up their development costs.

and to br0adband above me.. that is the same reason I only use Intel as well. From end to end.

After so many years of fixing computers with AMD processors of all kinds and VIA/SiS/Nvidia/ATI/etc chipsets - the real heart of the problem - I've learned, and this was an easy lesson, that Intel is where it's at today not because of a monopoly, but because their hardware works without issues.

 

I can't stand VIA/SiS/Nvidia/ATI/etc chipsets, and I never will. So for me, it's Intel ftw!!! Across the board and all the way around.

Where did you fix these computers? I worked for 3 years in a school district that was Intel on about 1500 computers and AMD on about 500. Now, I realize there were 3x the intel systems, but the AMD's NEVER had problems. Intel's had more problems than i could count. First off, we had over 100 Dell Optiplex system's with Intel mobo's die in a 3 MONTH SPAN. And other problems were related usualy to motherboard problems, or the fact that they overheat because intel doesnt know how to cool, at all. Granted AMD isnt any better, AMD's seem to have a way higher heat tolerence level.

So my friend, from the stand point of someone in IT/Systems Management, Intel stuff blows, plain and simple.

The current position of C2D will be affected soon as next gen AMD come out (IPC improved, SSE 128bit engine -> like what Intel has done with Core 2), but the most important idea is Torrenza.

The EFI is not Intel's only anymore, it is open standard. It means that if there are need from the market, AMD or Intel support board with EFI will come from Asus, MSI, gigabyte,....