Is Apple falling off with AMD? The worst decision Apple has ever made.

[BluAffiliate]

I used to be a PC guy, and Apple's switch to Intel processors was the kicker that actually got me into trying Macs out and I've loved it ever since. My background is in computer hardware and the switch to Intel was a great choice because hands down, Intel creates the best (stable & fast) processors.

Now Apple has made another choice that is definitely not a good one: switching to AMD (ATI) video cards.

As a hardware guy, let me give you a quick rundown of what AMD/ATI is and why this is a horrible move for Apple. AMD & ATI are budget versions of Intel and Nvidia, respectively. The whole business model of AMD & ATI is to wait for Intel or Nvidia to release a quality product and then create a budget version (with almost identical specs.) of the same product for cheap. They are essentially almost knock offs of Nvidia and Intel for processors and video cards. The specs of the processors and video cards are the same as their real counterparts, so people buy them thinking it's the same thing but cheaper. WRONG, as these products routinely under-perform or break down before time has come.

It was no surprise for me when ATI effectively almost went bankrupt and was bought up by AMD a few years ago: their products were crap. They were unstable and always failed. They were only good for one thing: buying cheap hardware and overclocking it. I guess a good analogy would be imagining Nvidia/Intel as a well made Mercedes Benz, with ATI/AMD products as a Honda Civic that has had its engine replaced with some supercharged V12. Or how about Nvidia/Intel as the American space program versus the Russian space program, with spaceships held together with duck-tape and rubber bands.

I don't know what Apple is thinking and I hope this is for this generation only because I can NOT stand this choice! Apple is putting in budget video cards into their new notebooks, who ever made this choice needs to get fired ASAP. If this keeps up welcome me back to the PC realm because this is complete BS. Ask anyone with experience with PC hardware and they will agree. How does Apple get away with putting a POS hardware into their flagship products? Why don't we have an Nvidia option anymore

Why aren't more people seeing this?

 

[yusukeaoki]

In my opinion performance AND product wise, I loved the NVIDIA over the AMD now I have in my MBP.
I would still pick the old NVIDIA 330M with 512MB over the AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 1GB. The only wish for NVIDIA was if they can make the 512 to 1GB.

 

[Brigrat]

you're kidding right? Do you really believe ATI is a budget version of Nvidia? How old are you?

I used to be a PC guy, and Apple's switch to Intel processors was the kicker that actually got me into trying Macs out and I've loved it ever since. My background is in computer hardware and the switch to Intel was a great choice because hands down, Intel creates the best (stable & fast) processors.

Now Apple has made another choice that is definitely not a good one: switching to AMD (ATI) video cards.

As a hardware guy, let me give you a quick rundown of what AMD/ATI is and why this is a horrible move for Apple. AMD & ATI are budget versions of Intel and Nvidia, respectively. The whole business model of AMD & ATI is to wait for Intel or Nvidia to release a quality product and then create a budget version (with almost identical specs.) of the same product for cheap. They are essentially almost knock offs of Nvidia and Intel for processors and video cards. The specs of the processors and video cards are the same as their real counterparts, so people buy them thinking it's the same thing but cheaper. WRONG, as these products routinely under-perform or break down before time has come.

It was no surprise for me when ATI effectively almost went bankrupt and was bought up by AMD a few years ago: their products were crap. They were unstable and always failed. They were only good for one thing: buying cheap hardware and overclocking it. I guess a good analogy would be imagining Nvidia/Intel as a well made Mercedes Benz, with ATI/AMD products as a Honda Civic that has had its engine replaced with some supercharged V12. Or how about Nvidia/Intel as the American space program versus the Russian space program, with spaceships held together with duck-tape and rubber bands.

I don't know what Apple is thinking and I hope this is for this generation only because I can NOT stand this choice! Apple is putting in budget video cards into their new notebooks, who ever made this choice needs to get fired ASAP. If this keeps up welcome me back to the PC realm because this is complete BS. Ask anyone with experience with PC hardware and they will agree. How does Apple get away with putting a POS hardware into their flagship products? Why don't we have an Nvidia option anymore

Why aren't more people seeing this?

 

[daneoni]

I personally i'm glad they went AMD. After the 8600GT fiasco, and their rebadging phase, i stopped being a fan. AMD is also currently whooping Nvidia's butt in the market.

 

[amarcus]

Could someone please enlighten me where this misguided loyalty is coming from?

 

[leman]

Your information is outdated. Right now, ATI has better mid-range solutions than Nvidia: cheaper, faster, more energy-efficient. Its also not true that ATI copies Nvidia. While I agree, that Nvidia is a more "creative" company which has more people who strive for radical innovations, ATI's current offerings are far from being "cheap" as you describe them.

 

[Criticalmass]

I used to be a PC guy, and Apple's switch to Intel processors was the kicker that actually got me into trying Macs out and I've loved it ever since. My background is in computer hardware and the switch to Intel was a great choice because hands down, Intel creates the best (stable & fast) processors.

Now Apple has made another choice that is definitely not a good one: switching to AMD (ATI) video cards.

As a hardware guy, let me give you a quick rundown of what AMD/ATI is and why this is a horrible move for Apple. AMD & ATI are budget versions of Intel and Nvidia, respectively. The whole business model of AMD & ATI is to wait for Intel or Nvidia to release a quality product and then create a budget version (with almost identical specs.) of the same product for cheap. They are essentially almost knock offs of Nvidia and Intel for processors and video cards. The specs of the processors and video cards are the same as their real counterparts, so people buy them thinking it's the same thing but cheaper. WRONG, as these products routinely under-perform or break down before time has come.



Why aren't more people seeing this?

Because a lot of this is opinion, based on outdated information. Intel and NVIDIA no longer play nice together, there are a lot of politics involved but what it comes down to is that Intel wants to push NVIDIA out of the market. NVIDIA had an advantage at one time because Intel and NVIDIA were in bed together, but this is no longer the case and hasn't been for a few years. As well NVIDIA is planning on pushing back with their tegra series of processors. Once they are powerful enough, nvidia wants to see them start appearing in netbooks and notebooks and replacing intel processors.

These two companies don't play nice with each other anymore. and haven't in about 3 years.

With recent fiascos such as the NVIDIA melt down of a lot of their older GPUs, I think Apple went with ATI for obvious reasons.

The biggest issue i've ever seen with ATI cards is that their drivers did not get updated enough, and that bugs in the drivers would linger for long periods of time. When AMD bought ATI up, they made a pledge to fix this issue.

 

[roadbloc]

I personally i'm glad they went AMD. After the 8600GT fiasco, and their rebadging phase, i stopped being a fan. AMD is also currently whooping Nvidia's butt in the market.

I was about to post exactly this.

 

[squeakr]

I don't totally agree with these views as a history NVidia has been better for gaming (which I am not a gamer), whereas ATI has better for Home Theater (I am into home theater though). They each have their on niche. I agree that the lines have been skewed recently, but it isn't always clear that the Nvidia version is better than the ATI. They leapfrog each other. One releases the king of the hill and the other releases a better and faster version shortly after.
I have been a huge Nvidia fan, but with the whole 8600 chip problem and recently I upgraded my home theater card and couldn't find a Nvidia card that would run stable in my system (Asus MB and Intel C2D processor), I have come to like ATI/AMD better (and I think AMD builds a better bang for the buck processor, but they are so inefficient I would only use them for desktops, not mobile computers where Intel is king IMO and yields better battery life with less heat given off).
Within the last month ATI released the fastest card with results to prove so (even though NVidia claims theirs is faster). The AMD/ATI CEO threw down the gauntlet for Nvidia to prove their claims with test results, but as far as I have known it has gone unanswered as of yet.

I think it is too close to call at this time (although Nvidia has the better drivers in my opinion).

 

[aoaaron]

lol im in the ati camp.

and bang for buck desktop computer wise, AMD kills intel.

 

[brentsg]

Also..

Coke>Pepsi
Chevy>Ford

Nothing but cheap copies, those two..

 

[Dwalls90]

False, AMD has routinely and recently been beating NVIDIA, especially in price/performance.

Don't forget that the past few years have been filled with Nvidia chipsets failing ...

 

[mark28]

I used to be a PC guy, and Apple's switch to Intel processors was the kicker that actually got me into trying Macs out and I've loved it ever since. My background is in computer hardware and the switch to Intel was a great choice because hands down, Intel creates the best (stable & fast) processors.

Now Apple has made another choice that is definitely not a good one: switching to AMD (ATI) video cards.

As a hardware guy, let me give you a quick rundown of what AMD/ATI is and why this is a horrible move for Apple. AMD & ATI are budget versions of Intel and Nvidia, respectively. The whole business model of AMD & ATI is to wait for Intel or Nvidia to release a quality product and then create a budget version (with almost identical specs.) of the same product for cheap. They are essentially almost knock offs of Nvidia and Intel for processors and video cards. The specs of the processors and video cards are the same as their real counterparts, so people buy them thinking it's the same thing but cheaper. WRONG, as these products routinely under-perform or break down before time has come.

It was no surprise for me when ATI effectively almost went bankrupt and was bought up by AMD a few years ago: their products were crap. They were unstable and always failed. They were only good for one thing: buying cheap hardware and overclocking it. I guess a good analogy would be imagining Nvidia/Intel as a well made Mercedes Benz, with ATI/AMD products as a Honda Civic that has had its engine replaced with some supercharged V12. Or how about Nvidia/Intel as the American space program versus the Russian space program, with spaceships held together with duck-tape and rubber bands.

I don't know what Apple is thinking and I hope this is for this generation only because I can NOT stand this choice! Apple is putting in budget video cards into their new notebooks, who ever made this choice needs to get fired ASAP. If this keeps up welcome me back to the PC realm because this is complete BS. Ask anyone with experience with PC hardware and they will agree. How does Apple get away with putting a POS hardware into their flagship products? Why don't we have an Nvidia option anymore

Why aren't more people seeing this?

Are you kidding?

ATI > Nvidia at this very moment.

The fastest GPU on the planet is the ATI 6990, Nvidia is not able to beat it.

However, Nvidia has CUDA which is something that will be missed ( for me atleast ).

ATI has been dominating Nvidia for these past few years. Nvidia is now starting to crawl back with the 460 and with the 5xx series, but still ATI seems to have the edge.

Btw, Intel = corruption. They got a huge fine for it too.

edit: You can't beat AMD for budget systems btw. That's their market atm Especially backward compatibility is very great. With Intel you are forced to buy new motherboards if a new CPU comes out. With AMD, you can simply put the latest and greatest CPU in your old motherboard and it works fine.

 

[Kariya]

ATI > Nvidia

 

[apolloa]

I used to be a PC guy, and Apple's switch to Intel processors was the kicker that actually got me into trying Macs out and I've loved it ever since. My background is in computer hardware and the switch to Intel was a great choice because hands down, Intel creates the best (stable & fast) processors.

Now Apple has made another choice that is definitely not a good one: switching to AMD (ATI) video cards.

As a hardware guy, let me give you a quick rundown of what AMD/ATI is and why this is a horrible move for Apple. AMD & ATI are budget versions of Intel and Nvidia, respectively. The whole business model of AMD & ATI is to wait for Intel or Nvidia to release a quality product and then create a budget version (with almost identical specs.) of the same product for cheap. They are essentially almost knock offs of Nvidia and Intel for processors and video cards. The specs of the processors and video cards are the same as their real counterparts, so people buy them thinking it's the same thing but cheaper. WRONG, as these products routinely under-perform or break down before time has come.

It was no surprise for me when ATI effectively almost went bankrupt and was bought up by AMD a few years ago: their products were crap. They were unstable and always failed. They were only good for one thing: buying cheap hardware and overclocking it. I guess a good analogy would be imagining Nvidia/Intel as a well made Mercedes Benz, with ATI/AMD products as a Honda Civic that has had its engine replaced with some supercharged V12. Or how about Nvidia/Intel as the American space program versus the Russian space program, with spaceships held together with duck-tape and rubber bands.

I don't know what Apple is thinking and I hope this is for this generation only because I can NOT stand this choice! Apple is putting in budget video cards into their new notebooks, who ever made this choice needs to get fired ASAP. If this keeps up welcome me back to the PC realm because this is complete BS. Ask anyone with experience with PC hardware and they will agree. How does Apple get away with putting a POS hardware into their flagship products? Why don't we have an Nvidia option anymore

Why aren't more people seeing this?

What a crock of crap. It's almost a flame bait troll post? I have been secretly wanting ATI as they are awesome products plus they don't go and piss of Intel that ends in a lawsuit and then have to close an entire section of their business (chipsets) down!!!

Yeah, nvidia are the best.......... You DO realise that if Nvidia didn't argue with Intel so much that we would still have Nvidia GPU's right?

 

[wordoflife]

To me it sounds like you are a nvidia fanboy.
Apple isn't stupid. ATi had the upperhand in cards this time. They always switch between the two, it's nothing new.

 

[Dalton63841]

My desktop PC has a pci-e ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro. Its been in that desktop since that card was brand new, which was what, about 4 years ago? Still performing like a champ, and is perfectly capable of playing all of my games easily. (DMC4, RE4, GoW 3, MW4). Thats not to mention the 1st gen AMD Phenom X4 9600 BE CPU thats behind it.

 

[Angelo95210]

As a hardware guy

What's that? I have always had AMD cpus and they never failed. They are far cheaper and as reliable as the Intel ones.

 

[vanvalkinburgh]

I don't even try to argue with intel or nvidia fanboys. Not worth it.

 

[Manacit]

So basically, you're saying that EVERY AMD product is WORSE then NVIDIA. Let's just go ahead and say that all Muslims are terrorists while we're at it.

AMD's graphics offerings are incredibly competitive, and often edge out NVIDIA for the price, and they have been for quite some time now.

Discounting the new GPUs just because they're made by AMD is very stupid, illogical, and a mistake. But I guess there's no point in arguing with pointless bigotry and misguided loyalty..

 

[theSeb]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

Apple should hire guys like the op for their product strategy. How could the apple engineers have missed the obvious facts that the op has kindly pointed out? You almost have to wonder how these companies make billions when they have such incompetent people working for them and making bad decisions with no thought behind it. Hardware guy, please submit your CV and sort it out, post-haste.

 

[vipergts2207]

Sorry OP, but if Apple had gone with nvidia this time, we probably would have gotten the 525M, which would not perform nearly as well as the 6750M. AMD was the smarter choice this time around.

 

[teddat]

Living in the past almost always never gets you farther than where you were. ATI has changed alot.

OCZ has been very bad in the past as well. but its starting to look better for them as they are more transparent and responsible.

clearly up for debate but things now in tech can't be compared to things 4-5 years ago.

 

[DesmoPilot]

With awesome products like their APU Fusion line up and bulldozer on the horizon. AMD is looking quite a bit more promising then nVidia (lol Tegra). AMDs mobile graphics line-up is also quite a bit more power efficient then nVidia's. Price/performance there is no beating AMD (in CPU or GPU).

 

[iLog.Genius]

LOL I hate to say this but you all got TROLLED! But seriously, what everyone has said, ATI has seriously stepped their game up and for cost/performance, I think they're ahead.