Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Cyberius

macrumors newbie
Jul 13, 2008
8
0
It seems to me like intel has been at least a step ahead of amd for quite some time now, and amd is always playing catchup.

True, but these things are cyclical and it wasn't too long ago when the AMD Athlons kicked the pants off their Pentium counterparts. Also, AMD won the 64-bit war and Intel licenses x86-64 from them.
 

MacDawg

Moderator emeritus
Mar 20, 2004
19,823
4,504
"Between the Hedges"
Put me in the Intel column
I have no interest in an AMD Mac

Woof, Woof - Dawg
pawprint.gif
 

DoFoT9

macrumors P6
Jun 11, 2007
17,586
100
London, United Kingdom
oh god dont make me laugh!!! a phenom mini!!! hahahahahahahaha thats the funniest thing ive heard all week..

im sorry but AMD are too far behind the times lately. cheaper they may be, but you compromise that for performance.

apple would also have to code EVERYTHING from scratch. no thanks.

oh btw, why dont you just put leopard onto your AMD? (i.e. hackintosh). best of both worlds for you :)

This isn;t true anymore. Just wait for AMD to release their 45nm mobile chips. They are matching the core 2 quads in performance now, with eh added bonus of having a memory controller, so lets see what they can do in the mobile market. I believe that we may all be surprised with how the next generation turions do. AMD has the cheapest chips with memory controller on them out there, and apple exploited those on their website by posting memory bandwidth benchmarks for their new mac pro, so they could do the same for their macbooks or macbook pros.

I also have a feeling that mobile version of core i7 or core i5 are a long ways away based on their current power consumption.

hhhmm well the corei7 desktops look blazingly fast, especially for video encoding :). i sure hope that your turion processors (whenever they are released that is) will be able to flogg the crap out of them and be cheaper, otherwise there wont be that much interest in them..
 

netdog

macrumors 603
Feb 6, 2006
5,760
38
London
The most important answer to your original question is that Steve Jobs doesn't think that Apple should make an AMD computer.

End of story. Apple isn't a democracy.
 

gnasher729

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,566
You don't have the right perspective. You look at things from an end user perspective. You are going to buy one processor, and you would like to buy Intel or AMD, and buy whatever is best today. Tomorrow the other brand might be better, and then you buy the other chip. Intel and AMD don't care.

That's different with Apple. Apple is right now Intel's number one priority customer. When Apple says "jump", Intel says "how high". On the other hand, when Intel wants to know what its customers want, Apple has some top developers who spend real time to give Intel answers that are really useful. For Apple to buy AMD chips would mean to throw all this away. They would be stuck with AMD for a very long time. If they wanted to go back to Intel, they would find themselves at the back of the queue. No more special designs for MacBook Air. No more faster clock rates than everyone else. No more Nehalem one month before Dell gets them.

A switch to AMD would only happen if Intel falls seriously behind and there is no way that they can catch up or come close for the next year. That is not the case at the moment. In most people's judgement, including mine and most likely Apple's, Intel is far ahead. AMD is trying to improve as fast as possible, but Intel actually has developments they haven't published yet, because they are so far ahead.
 

iMacmatician

macrumors 601
Jul 20, 2008
4,249
55
They are matching the core 2 quads in performance now,
Here comes Nehalem.

with eh added bonus of having a memory controller, so lets see what they can do in the mobile market. I believe that we may all be surprised with how the next generation turions do. AMD has the cheapest chips with memory controller on them out there, and apple exploited those on their website by posting memory bandwidth benchmarks for their new mac pro, so they could do the same for their macbooks or macbook pros.
So that's why the Core 2 was beating the Athlons…

I also have a feeling that mobile version of core i7 or core i5 are a long ways away based on their current power consumption.
Q3 2009 for 35 W Clarksfield (25 W in Penryn terms). The clocks aren't high but still. Core i7 won't have a mobile version though.
 

jaw04005

macrumors 601
Aug 19, 2003
4,571
561
AR
I firmly believe the only reason Intel released the Core architecture instead of continuing the uber-flawed Netburst architecture was in great part because of AMD. Therefore, I hope AMD stays around simply to provide competition to Intel.

However, I wouldn't purchase an AMD system today. Intel's technology is just superior in performance and power management.

From personal experience, AMD's mobile (Turion) and budget (Sempron) processors are just sad. I haven't used an Athlon-based machine in years. The Turion-based notebook I use at work is dog slow and has poor battery life. And Intel's Celeron blows the Sempron away in terms of performance. I use a relatively new Sempron in my home server, and I honestly believe my 6 year-old Pentium 4 is faster.

AMD needs to get its act together. They should have left ATI alone, and continued to focus on their strengths.
 

SimD

macrumors regular
Apr 15, 2008
151
0
I don't think it has anything to do with Intel being better than AMD, I think it's more for the sake of innovation.

Apple is a company that tries to innovate with concept (iPod, Macbook Air, iPhone, etc.), meaning they already have their hands full.

Intel is a company that tries to innovate with technology (see Core i7).

The Apple/Intel collaboration is, IMO, the best of both world. Concept meets Technology.

AMD, in no way being inferior, is just not huge on the R&D (sure they developed a few things before Intel) compared to Intel.
 

blackhand1001

macrumors 68030
Jan 6, 2009
2,600
37
I don't think it has anything to do with Intel being better than AMD, I think it's more for the sake of innovation.

Apple is a company that tries to innovate with concept (iPod, Macbook Air, iPhone, etc.), meaning they already have their hands full.

Intel is a company that tries to innovate with technology (see Core i7).

The Apple/Intel collaboration is, IMO, the best of both world. Concept meets Technology.

AMD, in no way being inferior, is just not huge on the R&D (sure they developed a few things before Intel) compared to Intel.

Intel innovates but core i7 was just a copy of the phenom architecture. True quad core, 3 level cache, memory controller combined with their existing core 2.
 

Rodimus Prime

macrumors G4
Oct 9, 2006
10,136
4
No.

AMD is the bargain-bin of processors. They're worthless and sinking fast.

not always. I quite following the 2 a little while ago but when I built my computer 4.5 year I was looking over the history and AMD and intel trade off who is better all the time.

I build my computer back when the athons were king. They where kicking the snot out of anything intel had to offer. I was using an Athon 3000+ and in test after test that chip was beating an intel cheap that cost 2-3 times as much.

Now when the core duo came out they dead the same to AMD as the Athon had been doing to intel.

I might like to point out that the 64 bit techology in Intels chips is AMD handy work. The experts in the field said it was very clear it was reversed engineered off of AMD. Mind you a lot of it comes the cross licensing agreement between the 2 companies regarding X86 so you are not going to see law suits over it.

In the next year I will be looking at the 2 chips closely yet again as I will be building a new PC tower.
 

michael.lauden

macrumors 68020
Dec 25, 2008
2,326
1
This isn;t true anymore. Just wait for AMD to release their 45nm mobile chips. They are matching the core 2 quads in performance now, with eh added bonus of having a memory controller, so lets see what they can do in the mobile market. I believe that we may all be surprised with how the next generation turions do. AMD has the cheapest chips with memory controller on them out there, and apple exploited those on their website by posting memory bandwidth benchmarks for their new mac pro, so they could do the same for their macbooks or macbook pros.

I also have a feeling that mobile version of core i7 or core i5 are a long ways away based on their current power consumption.

o mi gosh AMd rulez intel sukz so bade!

Apple isn't going to leave intel for AMD any time soon bud. if you think the AMD's are so much better you should build a hackintosh
 

Brien

macrumors 68040
Aug 11, 2008
3,828
1,408
AMD used to be great. Then they tanked.

Now they're on the rebound. I don't really care what's in my box as long as it's fast. :D
 

Rodimus Prime

macrumors G4
Oct 9, 2006
10,136
4
End of the day I feel AMD does by far better R&D with far less put into it. If you compare R&D budgets Intel has a much larger one and for the most part AMD is keeping pace and quite often doing better.

Something has to be said for quality over quantity. Intel view of R&D seem to be quantity. AMD is good at quality R&D.
 

MikhailT

macrumors 601
Nov 12, 2007
4,583
1,327
End of the day I feel AMD does by far better R&D with far less put into it. If you compare R&D budgets Intel has a much larger one and for the most part AMD is keeping pace and quite often doing better.

Something has to be said for quality over quantity. Intel view of R&D seem to be quantity. AMD is good at quality R&D.


Intel wouldn't be Intel today if it wasn't for AMD. Without AMD, Intel would be selling P4-D for 600$ today and there would be P4-M in laptops as well.

Intel needs AMD to be alive in order to keep pushing itself to the next level.

AMD is awesome for their engineers and their ideas but due to their budget and small RD, they are too slow to the market with new technologies. Every once in the while, almost like a cycle, AMD will come out with the best and awesome new technology and rule the market for a short while until Intel comes out with the same or improved technology and AMD goes back into a crappy "recession" until they come up with better technology.
 

Rodimus Prime

macrumors G4
Oct 9, 2006
10,136
4
If amd went under Intel would be slammed for being a monopoly like no tomorrow.

Chances are they would be forced to break up in to several companies.

Core Due can thank AMD athon for being around and it uses very heavily the techology from the athon in it cheaps. X86-64 are AMD design and AMD holds the patents on it.
 

thejadedmonkey

macrumors G3
May 28, 2005
9,240
3,499
Pennsylvania
No.

AMD is the bargain-bin of processors. They're worthless and sinking fast.

Agreed. But thanks to Apple's crap industrial design and inability to dissipate heat when the ambient air is 85º, I get better frame rates running WoW on my custom PC (which uses a $20 AMD processor, and integrated 3200HD) then I do on my 2007 MBP.

Plus, AMD's sinking bargain-bin processors allowed me to put my computer together for about $300 less then a comparable intel system.
 

foothead

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 15, 2009
134
0
in a house
oh god dont make me laugh!!! a phenom mini!!! hahahahahahahaha thats the funniest thing ive heard all week..

im sorry but AMD are too far behind the times lately. cheaper they may be, but you compromise that for performance.

apple would also have to code EVERYTHING from scratch. no thanks.

oh btw, why dont you just put leopard onto your AMD? (i.e. hackintosh). best of both worlds for you :)

I am considering that, but my motherboard doesn't have a supported OS X driver. I already did it on my core duo when I built my phenom rig, but the install was very difficult because I had to find almost every driver for it, and then dual boot it, and manually insert the drivers. I couldn't find one for my phenom though.
 

DoFoT9

macrumors P6
Jun 11, 2007
17,586
100
London, United Kingdom
I am considering that, but my motherboard doesn't have a supported OS X driver. I already did it on my core duo when I built my phenom rig, but the install was very difficult because I had to find almost every driver for it, and then dual boot it, and manually insert the drivers. I couldn't find one for my phenom though.

oh, well that sucks.. i wonder what the performance of the top Phenom would be compared to a reasonably configured quad core MP. would be interesting to see..
 

foothead

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 15, 2009
134
0
in a house
oh, well that sucks.. i wonder what the performance of the top Phenom would be compared to a reasonably configured quad core MP. would be interesting to see..

Not really sure, but I would like to see also. I have the phenom 2.3 and it is 20% faster than my friend's Q6600 clocked at 2.4, so I think it would hold up. Anyone have the mac pro or the top phenom model, feel free to post speed ratings. I know that AMD has OC'd the phenom 2 to over 6.2 GHZ, while remaining stable, and it is possible to get 4.5 with stock cooling, so they're pretty fast. Plus, their stock has gone up 60% in the last 5 weeks, so apparently others agree.
 

DoFoT9

macrumors P6
Jun 11, 2007
17,586
100
London, United Kingdom
Not really sure, but I would like to see also. I have the phenom 2.3 and it is 20% faster than my friend's Q6600 clocked at 2.4, so I think it would hold up. Anyone have the mac pro or the top phenom model, feel free to post speed ratings. I know that AMD has OC'd the phenom 2 to over 6.2 GHZ, while remaining stable, and it is possible to get 4.5 with stock cooling, so they're pretty fast. Plus, their stock has gone up 60% in the last 5 weeks, so apparently others agree.

thats quite impressive! sounds like AMD are starting to get their act together. 6.2GHz sounds like a nice number! haha! i wonder what the results from nitrogen cooling would yield. :cool:
 

foothead

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 15, 2009
134
0
in a house
thats quite impressive! sounds like AMD are starting to get their act together. 6.2GHz sounds like a nice number! haha! i wonder what the results from nitrogen cooling would yield. :cool:

IDK, but they used a mineral water cooling system that only costs like $100, because they wanted it to be something that anyone could redo, unlike intel, where they use the most advanced cooling available for their tests.
 

DoFoT9

macrumors P6
Jun 11, 2007
17,586
100
London, United Kingdom
IDK, but they used a mineral water cooling system that only costs like $100, because they wanted it to be something that anyone could redo, unlike intel, where they use the most advanced cooling available for their tests.

well thats intel for you, they are becoming much like other companies that aren'y really interested in what the consumer wants (i.e. power at affordable prices) - AMD seems to be pulling that off well at the moment.

i am not that mainstream with AMDs products nor am i comfortable building a machine with their CPU - i might just have to soon but :):)
 

foothead

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 15, 2009
134
0
in a house
well thats intel for you, they are becoming much like other companies that aren'y really interested in what the consumer wants (i.e. power at affordable prices) - AMD seems to be pulling that off well at the moment.

i am not that mainstream with AMDs products nor am i comfortable building a machine with their CPU - i might just have to soon but :):)

Go for it. I've had nothing but good experience with AMD. Plus their x4 is cheaper than c2d's so it is worth it. BTW if its a major build, go with the AM3 with phenom 2. It costs more, but it is worth it for media. the 3.0 is more than comparable to an i7 IMO.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.