Apple could use custom x86 SoC made by AMD

Almost 99% sure this won't happen. Apple designs and sells a premium product, no way are they going to use a lesser processor to save a buck without people getting up in arms about it. Say what you want about apple, their build quality and design is always top tier.
 
I'm sure this is just a way to put pressure on Intel to give them better pricing. And seriously, ARM? The reason x86 is more expensive is its much faster per clock.
 
That would be a huge win for amd IF it happens. That is a giant IF. Good for amd if it does. We all know that could use the money.
 
I can see them being in discussions. Weather anything comes of it is another story. Though for sure AMD is pushing licensing for their custom SOC solutions and Apple could very easily shop out production for them out afterwards. Having AMD already supplying GPUs, Apple knowing Jim Keller also worked on their upcoming Zen CPUs probably count for a bit, and then add in AMD has actual working production HBM silicon and I can see them being attractive to Apple. Especially as AMD will probably bend over, backwards, and sideways for them.

Intel left Apple in a bad lurch so it's normal for them to be evaluating their options. It'll be interesting to see.
 
Apple almost put the Llano in their MacBook Air. I wouldn't consider it a leap to think Apple would consider using the new Zen SoC. AMD has been far more willing to create a custom CPU than Intel and they have also charged a lot less as well. Also, with Intel's delay in 10nm, AMD may have a 10nm CPU before them.
 
Apple almost put the Llano in their MacBook Air. I wouldn't consider it a leap to think Apple would consider using the new Zen SoC. AMD has been far more willing to create a custom CPU than Intel and they have also charged a lot less as well. Also, with Intel's delay in 10nm, AMD may have a 10nm CPU before them.

I doubt amd will have 10nm before Intel. Intel has the best fabs on the planet.
 
Until AMD is actually PRODUCING a product worth buying, I see this more as fappening than happening.
 
It is not wild speculation but it is somewhere out of the ballpark for me at least, Apple got saved by Intel that is why they left PPC and went x86.

I'm wondering if it is even possible for Apple to switch, if they do switch to AMD then that would be something I wouldn't get to exited about. Wouldn't make me buy Apple products :)
 
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If apple did switch over I'm sure intel would be pissed. Things like thunderbolt and early access might disappear.
 
Apples priorities with mobile lies solely with power efficiency, unless AMD delivered a product to them that is with in their scope I don't see it happening. That's not to say Apple wouldn't pick AMD they have used their products in the past, just not their cpu.
 
Say what you want about apple, their build quality and design is always top tier.

Can't tell if trolling or just out of touch with reality.

Let's take a look at the long history of terrible Apple machines released because they wanted to cut corners.

1980 - Apple III
1985 - Macintosh XL (Lisa 2)
1989 - Mac Portable
1990 - Mac Classic
1991 - Mac LC II (tons of variations that used the motherboard from this model)
1992 - Macintosh IIvx (Performa 600/600CD)
1993 - Macintosh TV

1995-1997 - Power Macintosh 52xx - 53xx, Performa 6300-6320
These models are so terrible, you can read about the hilariously terrible design here:

http://lowendmac.com/2014/power-mac-and-performa-x200-road-apples/

I think Apple engineers were hitting the crack pipe pretty hard when they came up with these machines.

1998 - iMac G3 Tray loading - Crippled video, capacitor plague, limited expandability.
1999 - Mainstreet Powerbook G3/233
1999 - Power Mac G4 (Yikes!) - basically a G4 hobbled onto a G3 motherboard
2005 - Power Macintosh G5 - These machines are notorious for motherboard failures due to faulty soldering compound.

And getting to their current products, they're down right anti-consumer. Soldered on memory, SSDs and glued in battery cells in laptops and their few remaining desktop machines are extremely difficult to service without special tools and a service manual 1000 pages long.

Apple is in the business of extorting as much money out of hipsters as possible every year, not making reliable or intuitive products. If they cared about anything, their products wouldn't have a 90% profit margin.
 
Can't tell if trolling or just out of touch with reality.

Let's take a look at the long history of terrible Apple machines released because they wanted to cut corners.

1980 - Apple III
1985 - Macintosh XL (Lisa 2)
1989 - Mac Portable
1990 - Mac Classic
1991 - Mac LC II (tons of variations that used the motherboard from this model)
1992 - Macintosh IIvx (Performa 600/600CD)
1993 - Macintosh TV

1995-1997 - Power Macintosh 52xx - 53xx, Performa 6300-6320
These models are so terrible, you can read about the hilariously terrible design here:

http://lowendmac.com/2014/power-mac-and-performa-x200-road-apples/

I think Apple engineers were hitting the crack pipe pretty hard when they came up with these machines.

1998 - iMac G3 Tray loading - Crippled video, capacitor plague, limited expandability.
1999 - Mainstreet Powerbook G3/233
1999 - Power Mac G4 (Yikes!) - basically a G4 hobbled onto a G3 motherboard
2005 - Power Macintosh G5 - These machines are notorious for motherboard failures due to faulty soldering compound.

And getting to their current products, they're down right anti-consumer. Soldered on memory, SSDs and glued in battery cells in laptops and their few remaining desktop machines are extremely difficult to service without special tools and a service manual 1000 pages long.

Apple is in the business of extorting as much money out of hipsters as possible every year, not making reliable or intuitive products. If they cared about anything, their products wouldn't have a 90% profit margin.

Shitty business practices, but definitely the smartest executives in the world.
Everyone needs to learn from Apple, they are the definition of marketing.
They can sell a small bag of human shit for $599, people will still buy it.
they don't rely on any type of reviews, probably the only company in the world that doesn't give 2 shits about their products getting any type of bad reviews / press.
they will still outsell everyone.

As much as i hate them, they are definitely the most Genius company on the planet.
 
Until AMD is actually PRODUCING a product worth buying, I see this more as fappening than happening.

This would most likely be a customized Zen CPU. They would need to design the thing first to Apple's needs before they could produce anything.
 
It is not wild speculation but it is somewhere out of the ballpark for me at least, Apple got saved by Intel that is why they left PPC and went x86.

I'm wondering if it is even possible for Apple to switch, if they do switch to AMD then that would be something I wouldn't get to exited about. Wouldn't make me buy Apple products :)


That wasn't the reason, Apple used itunes to save them, after that iPhone, although Steve Jobs is not the most likable guy, he was great at predicting marketable products and knew how to get them marketable. By leveraging itunes by locking peoples music to Apple music players and this was able to corner the music market and then Iphone came and cornered the app market by locking in users which in turn gave their PC business a boost. Still they are reaping the benefits of their apps. More people pay for apps on App then any other platform by a large degree.

The iphone was originally made to be the ipad, but was too expensive to make for general consumers at the time, Steve Jobs was the guy that said lets make a phone out of it and it took off.

I am not so keen on apple products but I would have to say their mac towers prior to the cylinder (intel versions only) were probably the best built pc systems to date.
 
This would most likely be a customized Zen CPU. They would need to design the thing first to Apple's needs before they could produce anything.

Apple has a history of recycling old hardware designs to bodge newer CPUs on, even though it was a very bad idea and was disastrous to their reputation. Here's two that I recall off hand.

Performa 6320:
Used a Quadra 605 motherboard designed for a 32 bit 68040 @ 25 MHz. Apple somehow managed to shoehorn a 64 bit PowerPC 603e @ 120 MHz onto it. I had one of these and it was painful doing just about anything. It wasn't until years after I tossed it that I figured out why.

Power Macintosh G4 (Yikes!):
Basically a B&W G3 tower motherboard with a G4 shoehorned on it.

It wouldn't be beyond them to recycle a current design and bodge an AMD Zen part in it.
 
Apple has a history of recycling old hardware designs to bodge newer CPUs on, even though it was a very bad idea and was disastrous to their reputation. Here's two that I recall off hand.

Performa 6320:
Used a Quadra 605 motherboard designed for a 32 bit 68040 @ 25 MHz. Apple somehow managed to shoehorn a 64 bit PowerPC 603e @ 120 MHz onto it. I had one of these and it was painful doing just about anything. It wasn't until years after I tossed it that I figured out why.

Power Macintosh G4 (Yikes!):
Basically a B&W G3 tower motherboard with a G4 shoehorned on it.

It wouldn't be beyond them to recycle a current design and bodge an AMD Zen part in it.

I don't think how stuff from the 80s is relevant here,
Apple is not what it used to be, it is the most powerful company in the world period,
It probably has shitty practices towards its suppliers too, but if a company like AMD gets a deal with Apple, it can be only good for them (given the situation they are in).

But the thing is, will hipsters buy macbooks with AMD CPU? bad marketing?
i3 i5 i7 - pretty much everyone knows these trademarks, people who don't even know what what a CPU is.
 
I don't think how stuff from the 80s is relevant here,
Apple is not what it used to be, it is the most powerful company in the world period,
It probably has shitty practices towards its suppliers too, but if a company like AMD gets a deal with Apple, it can be only good for them (given the situation they are in).

But the thing is, will hipsters buy macbooks with AMD CPU? bad marketing?
i3 i5 i7 - pretty much everyone knows these trademarks, people who don't even know what what a CPU is.


Most *profitable public* company ;)
 
I don't think how stuff from the 80s is relevant here,
Apple is not what it used to be, it is the most powerful company in the world period,
It probably has shitty practices towards its suppliers too, but if a company like AMD gets a deal with Apple, it can be only good for them (given the situation they are in).

80s? What are you talking about. The 6320 was a late 90s machine and the G4 was 2000s.

But the thing is, will hipsters buy macbooks with AMD CPU? bad marketing? i3 i5 i7 - pretty much everyone knows these trademarks, people who don't even know what what a CPU is.

Yes, Hipsters will buy a macbook with an AMD CPU in it. Apple could bodge a 6502 in a Macbook from 1975 and still sell millions of them.

The iphone was originally made to be the ipad, but was too expensive to make for general consumers at the time, Steve Jobs was the guy that said lets make a phone out of it and it took off.

More like they didn't want to get any less than $700 for their widget. Remember where I said Apples profit margin was 90%? I'm not making that up, they really do make that on some of their products like the garbage Beats headphones for $300.

The iPhone 6s has a 69-74% margin and their other products have equally high margins.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/...least-69-per-cent-report-20140924-10ld37.html

Apple doesn't want to be associated with the common peasant, they want to be associated with the hipster crowd / rich assholes.
 
80s? What are you talking about. The 6320 was a late 90s machine and the G4 was 2000s.



Yes, Hipsters will buy a macbook with an AMD CPU in it. Apple could bodge a 6502 in a Macbook from 1975 and still sell millions of them.



More like they didn't want to get any less than $700 for their widget. Remember where I said Apples profit margin was 90%? I'm not making that up, they really do make that on some of their products like the garbage Beats headphones for $300.

The iPhone 6s has a 69-74% margin and their other products have equally high margins.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/...least-69-per-cent-report-20140924-10ld37.html

Apple doesn't want to be associated with the common peasant, they want to be associated with the hipster crowd / rich assholes.

What i am saying is, it is irrelevant what the OLD APPLE did, as apple is not a computer company anymore.
They probably don't even care what tech enthusiasts think about their macs.
Computers are a tiny fraction of their revenues.
And i think most know they sell their stuff at insane margins, but the thing is, any company would love to do that, if they could.

Apple has built a brand for itself that will feed them for years to come, they will have to screw up in a very major way as a brand to lose sales.
The quality of their products is irrelevant to their sales #s.
iPhone bends, no problem, still sell a million in a day
Apple watch gets horrible reviews, no problem, still sold like 5 million.
Macbook has no port? guess what? its revolutionary

But every company in the world would do this if they could.
So seeing the word AMD instead of Intel Inside, it probably will hurt that image, don't know if enough to lose sales.

But if people saw AMD chips in Apple products, that is probably the best thing that can change the common man's perception of their brand. (if it is in a macbook, it must be the best CPU in the world)
 
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Apple usually compares their new models to their older models to showcase their improvements. As long as a new AMD CPU would be X amount faster than the previous Intel CPU, Apple would be quite happy IMO. Add in a massively faster (i)GPU and Apple marketing is Golden.
 
Apple usually compares their new models to their older models to showcase their improvements. As long as a new AMD CPU would be X amount faster than the previous Intel CPU, Apple would be quite happy IMO. Add in a massively faster (i)GPU and Apple marketing is Golden.

That would be the wet dream of AMD CEO, as AMD can't get better marketing than that. [Apple backing up the claim of an AMD chip being faster than an Intel]
 
What i am saying is, it is irrelevant what the OLD APPLE did, as apple is not a computer company anymore.
They probably don't even care what tech enthusiasts think about their macs.
Computers are a tiny fraction of their revenues.
And i think most know they sell their stuff at insane margins, but the thing is, any company would love to do that, if they could.

Apple has built a brand for itself that will feed them for years to come, they will have to screw up in a very major way as a brand to lose sales.
The quality of their products is irrelevant to their sales #s.
iPhone bends, no problem, still sell a million in a day
Apple watch gets horrible reviews, no problem, still sold like 5 million.
Macbook has no port? guess what? its revolutionary


But every company in the world would do this if they could.
So seeing the word AMD instead of Intel Inside, it probably will hurt that image, don't know if enough to lose sales.

But if people saw AMD chips in Apple products, that is probably the best thing that can change the common man's perception of their brand. (if it is in a macbook, it must be the best CPU in the world)


True, I think most people that buy apple products aren't buying them for the hardware capabilities but "coolness" factor and "ease" of use. How many people have you heard say Apple products have less bugs, or have less viruses, or have better stability? All of these are not true, its brain washing marketing at its best.

The reason why Apple went to Intel CPU's is because they didn't want to manufacture PPC anymore, the cost was too high to justify the lower performance.

Personally I hope they don't go make their own CPU's, that way Apple has best of both worlds for OS's and compatibilities for their PC's.
 
True, I think most people that buy apple products aren't buying them for the hardware capabilities but "coolness" factor and "ease" of use. How many people have you heard say Apple products have less bugs, or have less viruses, or have better stability? All of these are not true, its brain washing marketing at its best.

and the best part is, Apple hardly spends a dime on marketing.
It's all word of mouth which works better than a company like samsung who slam BILLIONS on it.
 
The reason why Apple went to Intel CPU's is because they didn't want to manufacture PPC anymore, the cost was too high to justify the lower performance..

Apple never made a single PowerPC CPU. While the AIM Alliance (Apple IBM Motorola) cooperatively worked on the PowerPC design, only Motorola and IBM had the fab facilities to make the chips. Towards the end though, only IBM was making the PowerPC CPUs for Apple.

Apple abruptly abandoned PowerPC in 2005, but it wasn't because the cost of the CPU was too high, it was because IBM couldn't deliver their promised 3 GHz+ Power PC 970 chips. The architecture couldn't scale that high without becoming unstable and drawing an even more ridiculous amount of power (some of the last G5s were water cooled because they cranked out so much heat.)

Steve Jobs actually made a public apology at one of the Apple conferences because they promised earlier that they'd have such chips available but IBM failed to deliver.

But despite not being able to break the 3 GHz barrier, the final G5s were still no slouch.
 
A good write up from WCCF Tech on the rumor.

AMD currently has at least 3 semi-custom designs in the pipeline in addition the the Xbox One and PS4, two x86 and one ARM. One of them is probably the new Nintendo console. It is always possible one of them is Apple.
 
Apple buys in huge quantities and the kind of deep discounts they get from Intel are not possible from AMD. There there is the issue of AMD being a crap product in comparison.

SO sure Apple could buy the more expensive poor performing product, but then no.
 
A good write up from WCCF Tech on the rumor.

AMD currently has at least 3 semi-custom designs in the pipeline in addition the the Xbox One and PS4, two x86 and one ARM. One of them is probably the new Nintendo console. It is always possible one of them is Apple.

Already confirmed as false. Zen hasn't taped yet, and K12 is "indefinitely delayed".
 
Apple never made a single PowerPC CPU. While the AIM Alliance (Apple IBM Motorola) cooperatively worked on the PowerPC design, only Motorola and IBM had the fab facilities to make the chips. Towards the end though, only IBM was making the PowerPC CPUs for Apple.

Apple abruptly abandoned PowerPC in 2005, but it wasn't because the cost of the CPU was too high, it was because IBM couldn't deliver their promised 3 GHz+ Power PC 970 chips. The architecture couldn't scale that high without becoming unstable and drawing an even more ridiculous amount of power (some of the last G5s were water cooled because they cranked out so much heat.)

Steve Jobs actually made a public apology at one of the Apple conferences because they promised earlier that they'd have such chips available but IBM failed to deliver.

But despite not being able to break the 3 GHz barrier, the final G5s were still no slouch.

Apple helped IBM/ Motorola quite a bit to design their CPU's, Apple had a CPU design team for quite sometime and then sold it off at soon after they dropped PPC architecture. It wasn't that IBM couldn't deliver it was that the design wasn't sufficient to get over the 3 ghz barrier.
 
Already confirmed as false. Zen hasn't taped yet, and K12 is "indefinitely delayed".
http://austininno.streetwise.co/2015/10/15/amd-q3-earnings-report-and-stock-price-movements/
Forecasts and Foreshadowing the New Zen Microprocessor

AMD's newest microprocessor, Zen, is expected to help the company win market share in coming years. We'll be watching to see what type of commentary AMD executives provide -- and whether the newly designed chip will start making an impact over the next year or two.

Su didn't provide additional details. But said the processor is on track for a 2016 release, and she said it could help the company gain market share among consumers.

Totally weird and when is Zen supposed to be finished ?

http://dresdenboy.blogspot.nl/2015/10/amd-zen-and-k12-arm-tapeouts-confirmed.html
 
Can't tell if trolling or just out of touch with reality.

Let's take a look at the long history of terrible Apple machines released because they wanted to cut corners.

1980 - Apple III
1985 - Macintosh XL (Lisa 2)
1989 - Mac Portable
1990 - Mac Classic
1991 - Mac LC II (tons of variations that used the motherboard from this model)
1992 - Macintosh IIvx (Performa 600/600CD)
1993 - Macintosh TV

1995-1997 - Power Macintosh 52xx - 53xx, Performa 6300-6320
These models are so terrible, you can read about the hilariously terrible design here:

http://lowendmac.com/2014/power-mac-and-performa-x200-road-apples/

I think Apple engineers were hitting the crack pipe pretty hard when they came up with these machines.

1998 - iMac G3 Tray loading - Crippled video, capacitor plague, limited expandability.
1999 - Mainstreet Powerbook G3/233
1999 - Power Mac G4 (Yikes!) - basically a G4 hobbled onto a G3 motherboard
2005 - Power Macintosh G5 - These machines are notorious for motherboard failures due to faulty soldering compound.

And getting to their current products, they're down right anti-consumer. Soldered on memory, SSDs and glued in battery cells in laptops and their few remaining desktop machines are extremely difficult to service without special tools and a service manual 1000 pages long.

Apple is in the business of extorting as much money out of hipsters as possible every year, not making reliable or intuitive products. If they cared about anything, their products wouldn't have a 90% profit margin.

sure sure, but quality of late is top notch. Apple hardware design and OSX are the two biggest things that keep me an Apple only shop.
 
If you go read her full response to one of the questions in the call. She clearly said that most of the processor designs on the new finfet process were finished in response to when zen will be ready. she didn't directly confirm it but she did say the design was finished. I have no idea where you see it's indefinitely delayed when they have been claiming 2016 to be the release year.

I think an all in one high performance graphics chip with hbm and cpu based on zen core is something apple will be interested in. They are all about design/performance. If they can find a good performing cpu with decent gpu with hbm memory all in one package with good power envelope they would be on it. Apple loves having least amount of parts in their systems. If they can get close to intel performance and way faster gpu it only makes sense for them.
 
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the likelihood of anything saving AMD is so low that I am, just out of spite of hearing about AMD failing, hoping they go under.
 
Apple almost put the Llano in their MacBook Air. I wouldn't consider it a leap to think Apple would consider using the new Zen SoC. AMD has been far more willing to create a custom CPU than Intel and they have also charged a lot less as well. Also, with Intel's delay in 10nm, AMD may have a 10nm CPU before them.

10nm In name maybe. Most of current 14/16nm processes are fancy names for 20nm with Finfets
 
the likelihood of anything saving AMD is so low that I am, just out of spite of hearing about AMD failing, hoping they go under.

Okay bro, so you want only competition cpu market to go under? I love intel but I don't feel like paying twice as much for same cpu if AMD didn't exist at all. I never hope for competition to go under. I hope zen brings competition as it is good for all of us.
 
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