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AppleTV to get AMD Fusion instead of ARM?

Hellhammer

Hellhammer

Moderator emeritus
Original poster
Dec 10, 2008
22,165
582
Finland
TechPowerUp! and DigiTimes are reporting that the next gen AppleTV will use AMD Fusion. Those chips are sufficient to provide 1080p playback.

Sorry for short post but it's 1.30am so I have to get some sleep
 
DoFoT9 said:
interesting. why would they opt for this rather then developing a new ARM CPU for this purpose?

i wonder if its going to cost $100 :p
Click to expand...

Because ARM can't provide the performance Apple wants I guess. It has IGP and Northbridge so it's "single-chip-solution" and as usual, it's pretty cheap for what you get.
 
Hellhammer said:
Because ARM can't provide the performance Apple wants I guess. It has IGP and Northbridge so it's "single-chip-solution" and as usual, it's pretty cheap for what you get.
Click to expand...
from what i understand, apple was working on a dual core solution of ARM - which would supposedly provide enough power (at super low voltages) for an apple TV upgrade. no need for full HD decoding, as apple provides cruddy HD movies anyway :rolleyes:
 
I don't buy this rumor for a minute. It makes no sense for Apple to take on another chip for an iOS device. The iPhone 3GS played back full HD video.
 
But the actual video decoding wasn't done on the CPU anyway, there's a hardware h.264 decoder on the SOC right? And there are plenty of chips out there that are beefier, not to mention that the AppleTV doesn't have the same power and space requirements of an iPhone.

Not to mention all the benefits of having a unified iOS platform on the ARM architecture.
 
sammich said:
But the actual video decoding wasn't done on the CPU anyway, there's a hardware h.264 decoder on the SOC right? And there are plenty of chips out there that are beefier, not to mention that the AppleTV doesn't have the same power and space requirements of an iPhone.

Not to mention all the benefits of having a unified iOS platform on the ARM architecture.
Click to expand...
on what CPU? the apple tv? the P4 did all the decoding for that, the 7400Go card did nothing :rolleyes:
 
DoFoT9 said:
on what CPU? the apple tv? the P4 did all the decoding for that, the 7400Go card did nothing :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

My bad, on the iOS devices all the decoding is done off the CPU. If the ARM core doesn't do the decoding of the video, then you just need a more powerful h.264 decoding chip, or two.
 
more likely in macbooks

People have eloquently stated the reasons why IMO the new AppleTV won't use AMD Fusion.

However, Intel is being a**holes about integrating low performance GPUs into their low end CPUs. So Apple just might decide to send Intel a message by using AMD in the Macbook and in the 13" Macbook Pro. Or perhaps in a Macbook Air, but I don't know offhand if AMD's silicon is low enough in power consumption for the Air.
 
Phantom Gremlin said:
People have eloquently stated the reasons why IMO the new AppleTV won't use AMD Fusion.

However, Intel is being a**holes about integrating low performance GPUs into their low end CPUs. So Apple just might decide to send Intel a message by using AMD in the Macbook and in the 13" Macbook Pro. Or perhaps in a Macbook Air, but I don't know offhand if AMD's silicon is low enough in power consumption for the Air.
Click to expand...
not a bad thought. i wonder how dedicated the deal is between Intel and Apple - Apple hasnt really been getting "exclusive" deals with Intel like in the past...
 
Apple would never use an x86_64 based cpu for an iOS device. Because somehow, some clever hackers will get linux or mac os x running on it and break out of Apple's "walled garden". Apple knows that.
 
The only way the AMD rumor makes sense is if Apple wants to keep the Apple TV Mac OS X-based to maintain parity with Front Row.

The Apple TV and Front Row team are/were the same. X86/Mac OS X is so much more complicated though. I don't see it happening. iOS wasn't ready in 2007 when the Apple TV was launched. It is now.
 
Phantom Gremlin said:
However, Intel is being a**holes about integrating low performance GPUs into their low end CPUs. So Apple just might decide to send Intel a message by using AMD in the Macbook and in the 13" Macbook Pro. Or perhaps in a Macbook Air, but I don't know offhand if AMD's silicon is low enough in power consumption for the Air.
Click to expand...
Quad-core Llano is expected to have 30 W variant while dual-core Llano is expected to have 20 W variant.
 
DARKJ3DI said:
Apple would never use an x86_64 based cpu for an iOS device. Because somehow, some clever hackers will get linux or mac os x running on it and break out of Apple's "walled garden". Apple knows that.
Click to expand...

Don't bet the farm on that. I'm willing to bet a significant amount that Apple has (and has for quite some time) iOS running on x86. Makes perfect sense given their switch to Intel in the last few years and the promising mobile chip solutions Intel has on the horizon. There's no reason they couldn't have iOS running on both ARM and x86 -- just as they had OS X running on PowerPC and x86.
 
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