If we told you AMD was already in
Apple's machines, well, it'd be (partly) right. Considering
AMD merged with ATi, there's a good chance that your
PowerMac has a dash of AMD sitting in the PCI-e slot, but Taiwan-based passive component makers are suggesting that Apple's
laptops may be AMD-powered before too long. While the
MacBook Pro (and subsequently, the
MacBook) took forever and a day to get suited with a
Core 2 Duo, it's a far off possibility that the next revision may see the idolized laptops rocking yet another kind of CPU. Component makers are "witnessing an aggressive increase in orders for high-capacitance multi-layer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs)," with most of the units being reserved "for use in an
AMD-based Apple notebook." Notably, AMD Taiwan declined to comment on the matter (a bit of Steve rubbing off?), and until we hear the final word from Cupertino, we're taking this one with a
dash bucket of salt.
[Thanks, Brett]
posted Nov 16th 2006 6:02PM
Those Canon ads REALLY SUCK. They pop up and prevent me from rerading the content of your site, which is the reason why I come here. If I can't read the articles because of some stupid pop-up ad, I will not come back here. Gizmodo doesn't do this, FYI.
Nah.. Apple fanbois are snobs and technophobic, they would never allow a 'lesser' processor to reside in their precious mac.
this better be a joke. amd is shit on windows.
AMD is the greatest of all time.
I'm not an expert ... but why should Apple do this? Aren't the Intel Chips the best on the market?
And I don't think Apple will allow Customers to choose between different CPU types.
Too much confusion. Apple wouldn't do something like this. I think.
Hell is my iMac G5 getting slow ... almost have to wait for the letters to appear ... ;)
AMD ftw... allthough c2d is leading right now... cant wait for amd to get back on top ;)
There wont be an option. Apple will either choose Intel or AMD. If they have both, then they will need 2 different motherboard configurations, and who knows what changes to Mac OS to optimize performance on the AMD chips. It would be nice to have a choice, just to say that there is a choice.
(lol...) I for one welcome our AMD powered laptop overlords...
Anyone who says AMD is a joke is a noob to computing.
AMD rocked the last gen, kicking the crap out of Intel, but now Intel, with their C2D, is doing well and AMD needs to pick it up to remain competitive.
ok this is to all the amd fanboys. amd is for the poor people that cant aford an intel processer. amd is slow. amd is junk. amd is a joke. get a real processer!!
Wow, you sir are an idiot. If AMD was not in the picture then we would all be using CPUs based on PIII architecture. AMD has pushed the envelope and Intel into better performing and better power consumption CPUs. While it is true that Intel is creating the better product right now, AMD has been on top for the past 5+ years. Originally AMD was a bit of a joke and just tried to be in Intel's wake. If AMD was such a poor processor then why did it take up a HUGE percentage of Business server market? Why did Sun, IBM, HP and others use the AMD Opteron chips? Maybe because they were far superior to the Intel counterparts. Businesses don't use inferior products, they demand proven technology, performance and lower power consumption. AMD delivered while Intel didn't and that is why they lost a huge market share. Intel has bested AMD currently with the Core 2 Duo line. I am no fanboy, if I am in the need of a new CPU then Intel is it right now. If AMD is the better performing then I'd buy AMD. Simply put AMD is no joke but you are.
Matt: you have just demonstrated how uninformed you really are. AMD may be falling a bit behind Intel lately with the current generation of multi-core CPUs, but the truth of the matter is, all markets need competition as does Intel need AMD in order to remain innovative and on the cutting edge. Good for you if you prefer Intel processors - but don't go degrading people by labeling those who buy AMD chips as 'poor' because it's clear that you either don't understand or do not appreciate AMD's role in the marketplace. Without AMD as competition, we most definitely wouldn't be seeing Intel Core Duo or Core 2 Duo chips for another few years and chances are they probably wouldn't be as affordable as they are today. The last thing we all need as consumers is an Intel monopoly as a monopoly only stifles innovation and unnecessarily inflates prices.
Guys, OS X already runs just fine on AMD. OSx86, that is. I really like the Core Duo in my MacBook, but having choice and therefore competition is always good.
The original Airport and the Airport Extreme both use AMD processors FYI.
This would be a nice segue into cheaper, sub 1000k Apple notebooks. But I don't see this happening any time soon.
well i still love intel because all the amds i have dealed with have been shit. buttttttt im not gonna lie sometimes intel processers are shit but not alot. intel ftw but you can have amd ftw for u cause i dont give a damn
BTW, my comment was a reply to Matt
Matt @ Nov 16th 2006 6:41PM
ok this is to all the amd fanboys. amd is for the poor people that cant aford an intel processer. amd is slow. amd is junk. amd is a joke. get a real processer!!
@pciii
You do realise that the Core architecture is based on the Pentium M... which incidentally is a heavily modified Pentium 3. Get your facts straight before you start bashing people.
Further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_Duo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_M
hm. very very interesting. maybe apple and AMD are racing to produce the cpu/gpu combo on a die. very interesting indeed
I doubt that AMD will make it in to an Apple notebook in the near future. However, I could see an AMD chip powering the iTV or iPhone so that Apple will not have to deal with Intel's supply issues.
love the question mark. what is this, Fox News?
"George Bush: The Greatest President Ever?"
no he sucks ass :)
reminds me of january, my grandfather in a hospital bed telling me to get a mac, and me telling him "i'm building my own computer because apple doesnt use AMD chips!" then he goes and buys me AMD stock. if mac pro FX62 becomes available, i'm gonna find a rich person and ask for one.
@Neils : wikipedia said that the pentium m is a mix between p3 and p4 so both of you are partly true but this doesnt change the fact that AMD outperformed Intel in the last cpu generation but now Intel has taken the lead nobody cant deny that.....I also think Matt deserved to be bashed....
@Matt : Why am I not even surprised to see someone who cant even spell Processor correctly write this kind of thing? AMD for poor people? Sure maybe because "poor" people care more their money and try getting more fore less or maybe you've already ordered that quad-core XPS rig cuz ur just sooooo rich and other people are sooo worthless....sigh...Retard.....AMD slow? I wonder if gathering all the money for your UBER-computer took you that much time that you forget to inform yourself on what happened to the P4 series of CPU......Dumbass...And between wich is more a piece of junk and a joke between AMD and you....I'm sure you beat AMD on that domain hands tied in the back pretty easily.....But I can give you a good advice, continue making this kind of comment : bashing you relieved me and this is the only utility I can find to ur post....
since this article is about MOBILE computers i think the AMD vs. Intel discussion should really focus on the MOBILE processors of said manufacturers.
and seriously people, in mobile computers AMD has not exactly done anything outstanding lately (or ever) compared to Intel mobile CPUs. unless they bring any new kind of technology on the market which would reduce power consumption in a laptop (there sure are some exciting news around) that deal is pretty much off.
mh, regarding the power consumption levels of Intel and AMD processors are nearly identical on average. Typically, Intel mobile processors tend to be better at power management at full-load (processors maxed to 100%), while AMD mobiles are better at low- to mid-load situations. What's the better situation to optimize for? Depends on what you do with your laptop while running on battery power. If you need to run something like Prime95 while running on battery power, then maybe Intel would be the best choice. Otherwise, AMD is fine.
anyone else startled at first by the "(a little bit of Steve rubbing off)"?
Scared the heck out of me :/
Matt you are dumb.
I'm sure the poor people who were buying 800 dollar amd chips (fx-55 when they were new) were living on welfare.
There were AMD chips back in some of the Apple ]['s. What's all this fuss about?
@neil, it may be true to what you say but you do know it was AMD who force Intel into that direction. They were planning on using the P4 Netburst architecture till they've reached 10Ghz, but P4 was very inefficient in IPC and such high power consumption that they had to look elsewhere to compete against AMD. Ever since the release of Athlon family from AMD, AMD has taken the performance crown from Intel several times. If it was for AMD, Intel would still be pushing Itanium for 64 processing and Pentium for 32bit. Intel had to add the 64 bit extension to the Pentium line. ^4bit extension to the x86-32 which AMD had been working on for years, and Intel constantly said that extension was not needed, but what happen when AMD released it, and start taking market share? They starting building pentium family with 64bit extension, using AMD developed instructions. AMD's are know to have better IPC than Pentium family, and much lower power consumption. If it wasnt for AMD Intel would not have given a crap about improving performance per cycle, or power consumption, and all Intel would do is increase the clock speed without improving performance and power.
@MAtt, which AMD have you used over the years? K6? just because AMD chips are usually cheaper does not mean they are inferior. AMD USUALLY have a better price/performance ratio than Intel. If you actually paid attention to prices, in the past year all the Top AMD processors cost more than Intel. AMD just had to cut prices to compete with Intel's massive price cuts due to Intels massive production abilities. I must admit the C2D is a great architecture and I'm glad intel went this direction. It would increase competition and better performance for us in the future.
Why would they want to take a huge leap backwards by using AMD processors? They finally saw the light and moved away from the PPC, and now they are thinking of moving to those god awful AMD procs? What the hell is wrong with Apple?
What the hell is wrong with you people?
I am no AMD fanboi. I have used Intel processors for the last 5-6 years.
HOWEVER:
AMD makes an amazing product. For the last 5 years AMD has been embarressing Intel to no end. Also, from a marketing standpoint, AMD + Apple makes more sense. Both are underdogs who survive not by massive production, but innovation.
AMD + Apple would be a match made in heaven.
Matt and all you other anti-AMD people simple are showing yourselves to be clueless. It's rather pathetic that somebody who surfs Engadget could be so misinformed about processors.
Why does it have to be a laptop? That iTV thing should be going into production if Jobs plans to unveil it next January. Did you see any "Intel Inside" stickers at the sneek peek? Me niether.
First of all, the Intel C2D is the top of the line right now. I didn't see anyone dispute that thus far, but I wanted to point that out myself. However, I read an article somewhere a while ago about it and the C2D is basically 2 Core Duo's slapped together on a single chip. They are not fully integrated. The reason AMD is down right now is because they are taking the time to create a true quad-core chip. When AMD releases its quad core (I believe it is set to do so sometime in early to mid 2007, but don't quote me on that), it will be far more efficient than the C2D. From that alone it makes sense that Apple may go with AMD chips in the future, such as when they release their quad core.
Getting back to the article, it also makes perfect sense to use AMD chips in laptops. The article only talks about laptops. Since they run on batteries, battery life is obviously an important issue so we can all see (except maybe ill-informed morons like Matt and xxdesmus) how using power-efficient AMD chips would be a huge plus.
That said, bravo to all the people who bashed Matt and I hope I've shed some light on this.
God I hate the Mac... and Apple for that matter but who really cares what brand of microprocessor your computer has?
As long as the computer is fast enough for your needs that should be enough. You don't see anyone agonizing about who makes the hard drive!
First of all, everybody here obviously cares what brand their processor is or they would have never read the article, let alone respond to it. I found that pretty obvious, so either I'm a genius or you can't read. Also, people do agonize about what brand every component of their computer is, including hard drives. (I would very much love to get my hands on a WD Raptor if I had the money as opposed to any lesser brand of hard drive out there.) Also, CPUs are much more important than hard drives so people care about them more. Don't go around comparing dissimilar objects trying to sound smart.
People, please keep your mouths and let people think you're stupid rather than opening them and removing all doubt. That saying's cliche, but ever so true!!
AMD's CPU and Northbridge are technically superior in many respects to Intel's design (old, stale design WTF are they thinking). Ever wonder why AMD's CPU's run at a lower clock rate? Why, because they are slower? LOL, no. AMD's L1/L2 and RAM access design is so superior Intel has to bridge the performance difference by using a much higher clock rate. Even with Intel's higher clockrate single core to single core AMD performance is still 10-20% better depending on the application. I did a RAM benchmark the other day between an Intel P4 3.2 and an Opteron 2210 1.8 and found an almost 50% difference in performance in favor of the Opteron.
AMD has been the true techie choice for awhile now. Intel isn't as effective at fooling ppl as it wants to be.
The reason why Apple might want to begin selling AMD notebooks boils down to only one reason: a requirement to increase its marketshare. It's the same reason why all PC makers go with AMD. All you have to do is look at how HP recently usurped Dell as the #1 world PC maker, by going with an AMD lineup, and now how Dell hopes to prevent further marketshare losses by also adopting a full AMD lineup. You just have to look at retail stores and see that AMD is now the king of the consumer laptop market, it has more than 50% marketshare in that market. AMD laptops typically cost $200 less than Intel ones, which typically means you can either take the $200 savings, or go with $200 worth of upgraded features. They're aren't cheaper simply because the AMD processors sell for less money, but because of the many built-in features of AMD processors typically mean manufacturers spend less money having to buy external components to match those features.
So why is this relevant to Apple? Because eventually Apple is going to want to move out of the single-digit marketshare figures and move into double-digit regions. That means it's going to have to sell to "normal" people, not just to diehard Mac fanatics. It's never going to get there selling Intel laptops.
You guys are just thinking about AMD in the present, but forgetting about AMD in the future. Now that AMD has bought ATI, they are now working on incorporating the GPU directly into the CPU. I personally don't like this idea in a desktop, but it's totally feasible in a laptop. I do have my doubts of it happening, but I won't dismiss it totally either.
I would never buy a mac with a AMD processor. Most people Prefer intel and i would never buy a Amd. Ive seen people with Amds yeah right i would never use that.
why would apple do this? the ppc was x64, then they made the x86 for intel, now switching back to x64 again? if they do then rewriting os x was a waste of time.
TJ, PPC was *not* x64, it was completely different architecture. x64 is the short for "x86-64", or the 64-bit version of x86. PPC did not conform to the x86 instruction set, either in 32-bit or 64-bit modes. AMD's x64 is exactly the same as Intel's x64, in fact, it was AMD that invented the 64-bit extensions, and gave it to Intel to use.