Why not offer an AMD option?

[tuna]

AMD is behind in terms of performance. Apple has good relations with Intel so why to break them by using inferior CPUs?

But thats the thing. I'm not sure that Apple and Intel have the best relations right now. Intel SCREWED Apple over with the mandate that their current line of laptop chips would have integrated Intel GPUs. Intel knew that Apple was implementing powerful nVidia integrated GPUs across their line, and having to use Intel integrated graphics, with all their performance deficiencies, was terrible. It has forced Apple to stay with the older Core 2 architecture in the MacBook, MacMini, and 13" MBP (because there isn't enough room in those models to add discrete graphics on top of Intel integrated). And it has forced major cuts to battery life in the 15" models (because the Intel integrated graphics isn't even powerful enough for general use and people are having to turn on their discrete graphics a lot).

This current generation of 15" MBPs in particular is a worse design than the previous one (relative to its time). All because of the Intel integrated graphics. They couldn't even offer a low end 15" with only integrated graphics, as they previously had.

And there's nothing wrong with AMD performance, even in the CPUs available now. Yes, performance per watt Intel is still the clear winner, but in terms of overall performance AMD offers some very powerful chips that are more powerful than, for example, the Core 2 Duos and Core i3s that Apple is currently using across many of its computers. And AMD offers much better performance per dollar. Which is why a few months ago when this Intel integrated graphics issue was hot, we heard a lot of stories about AMD executive teams visiting Cupertino and a lot of speculation about Apple implementing future AMD CPUs in some of its desktop models where performance/watt isn't at as high of a premium.

And yes, Apple likes even its desktops to run cool and quiet, but modern AMD chips are not the Pentium 4. They might produce a little more heat than a comparable Intel chip, but a $100 savings on the CPU lets Apple spend a little more on getting... a quieter motor for the fan or something that could negate any downsides.

Besides, from a strategic standpoint, with the market power that Apple has, I don't see how it makes sense to let AMD languish and have Intel become more and more of a monopoly. If AMD offers a viable product, then Apple should really adopt it to keep Intel honest and to keep them from screwing them over again. I honestly believe that if nVidia integrated graphics were available with the Core i5s used in the 15" MBP, they would be much better computers overall with significantly better battery life.

 

[Hellhammer]

*snip*

Apple knew about the IGP ages ago. The IGP seems to be the future, even AMD is going to use it in next gen. I agree that the current gen's IGP ain't that great but has rev A ever been? Besides, the Intel IGP is as fast as 9400M but the drivers suck. That is not just Intel's fault, it's Apple's too. Unless Sandy Bridge's drivers will be screwed up, it will be more than sufficient for most users. It even beats the discrete low-end AMD chips.

People used to say that 9400M sucks when they had it so I've come to a conclusion that they just want better and better.

Before May 2010, AMD's best mobile CPU was what, 2.4GHz dual core? Come on, we had faster C2Ds in 2007! Currently AMD does offer better chips (up to 3.1GHz dual and 2.3GHz quad) but they are still behind in clock for clock performance. In laptops, AMD hasn't been able to fight against Intel. If you look at laptops that are being sold now, most of the better laptops have Intel CPUs. Fusion may change the game but in the past Intel has dominated the higher-end laptop market and I think Apple laptops are count as higher-end (+1000$ price tag...)

Better performance per dollar can be debated. Yes, AMD will offer you more cores and bigger frequency but if you look at benchmarks, Intel's chips will win in most of them even though they have less cores and lower frequency. This depends on the models you compare but generally, AMD isn't better, especially on the mobile segment which is the main market for Apple.

The reason why Apple switched to Intel was to get chips on time and no more empty promises. Remember that 3GHz promise Steve made? That never happened. I'm afraid that this would be the case with AMD. In the past, AMD hasn't cared much about higher-end laptop market and that's exactly where Apple is at. Again, Fusion may change the game but even if it was successful, what is coming after that? AMD has been quite slow in die shrinks and micro-architecture updates compared to Intel. AMD's K10 architecture has been around since 2007. Now AMD is adopting 32nm a year after Intel. Would Apple use the same CPUs for 2-3 years and see how Intel is coming up with new and even faster chips?

IMO AMD just doesn't have enough solid plan about their future components, the same issue what IBM had. Their update cycle is too long. Intel has clear plans of their future chips and they are already developing chips that we aren't going to see for years. I'm sure AMD is developing something and they just remain quiet but still, 4 years between micro-architecture updates just sound so cruel. Intel does two updates in that time.

A lot of my thoughts above are based on something in the past so everything is still open. Maybe AMD will focus more on the higher-end laptop market and I definitely hope they will. Intel's monopoly has to be defeated. It's just when I look at the past, AMD doesn't look something that Apple would use. I hope I'm wrong but I'm eagerly looking forward on Fusion. Both, AMD and Intel have their own pros and cons anyway. This is probably one of the hardest topics to be unbiased. I admit that I looked the world with Intel goggles when I wrote this I could write another post with AMD goggles

 

[DoFoT9]

IMO AMD just doesn't have enough solid plan about their future components, the same issue what IBM had. Their update cycle is too long. Intel has clear plans of their future chips and they are already developing chips that we aren't going to see for years. I'm sure AMD is developing something and they just remain quiet but still, 4 years between micro-architecture updates just sound so cruel. Intel does two updates in that time.

i agree here. AMD is trying really hard, however i feel that their architecture is just lacking something. the IBM POWER architecture is MUCH more stable - and looking at the latest POWER7 architecture (and PPC A2 consumer chips), apple would be kicking themselves. they absolutely flog Intel chips.

 

[tuna]

...A lot of my thoughts above are based on something in the past so everything is still open. Maybe AMD will focus more on the higher-end laptop market and I definitely hope they will. Intel's monopoly has to be defeated. It's just when I look at the past, AMD doesn't look something that Apple would use. I hope I'm wrong but I'm eagerly looking forward on Fusion. Both, AMD and Intel have their own pros and cons anyway. This is probably one of the hardest topics to be unbiased. I admit that I looked the world with Intel goggles when I wrote this I could write another post with AMD goggles

Yeah I mean first of all you're talking a lot about laptops but if you go back and reread my post you'll notice that I acknowledge that Intel has a definite edge in performance/watt. I only really mentioned implementing AMD in desktops, and even among desktops it would probably only be in iMacs because Apple could make a smaller Mac Mini with an Intel chip and Intel chips are probably favored in the pro-level Mac Pros. At least for now. For a while AMD's Opterons were actually the dominant server chips.

Also, I'm positive that AMD is currently offering better performance for the price. If you've shopped Newegg recently, you've seen that Intel's prices for the popular upper-mainstream chips have gone way up. If you read the "gaming PC component guides" from reputable sites like Tom's Hardware and Anandtech, they basically say that for low to middle end gaming rigs, AMD is the definite and obvious choice, you get much more performance per dollar.

So I agree that whatever this Bulldozer/Bobcat business is that are AMD's plans for the future, that may or may not turn out to be something significant for AMD like the Core architecture was for Intel. However, they already offer chips suitable for the whole iMac line where we could get the same performance and maybe save a $100 or get some extra features because Apple saved big on the CPUs.

 

[Hellhammer]

Also, I'm positive that AMD is currently offering better performance for the price. If you've shopped Newegg recently, you've seen that Intel's prices for the popular upper-mainstream chips have gone way up. If you read the "gaming PC component guides" from reputable sites like Tom's Hardware and Anandtech, they basically say that for low to middle end gaming rigs, AMD is the definite and obvious choice, you get much more performance per dollar.

For gaming, Intel is far superior. Look at these benchmarks, Intel wins in all of them. Pay attention to i5-750 and i7-860 as they compete with 1055T and 1090T in price. AMD mobos may be little cheaper but we aren't talking about huge differences. It would help if you could link those "gaming PC component guides" to prove that they are actually saying so. Benchmarks show that for example i5-750 is one of the best bang for buck CPUs atm.

So I agree that whatever this Bulldozer/Bobcat business is that are AMD's plans for the future, that may or may not turn out to be something significant for AMD like the Core architecture was for Intel. However, they already offer chips suitable for the whole iMac line where we could get the same performance and maybe save a $100 or get some extra features because Apple saved big on the CPUs.

It would be useless for Apple to go through all the hassle and use them just for iMacs. Plus Intel might be bitchy and stop giving special access. Quite big price for nothing. Performance wise, there is no big difference either. See the benches I linked above, Intel wins in some and AMD wins in some. It would be 1-1 situation. AMD CPUs may be cheaper but 50$ this or that way in 2000$ computer doesn't mean much. Besides, Apple would just put the difference in their pocket.

You talked about the IGP and MBPs, thus I talked about lappies too. For desktops, the IGP is irrelevant. Even though AMD offered one lineup that is stronger than Intel like they did when Pentium 4s came and Intel screwed up, that wouldn't make them better than Intel. Intel has provided strong lineup after each other for years. That's why Apple abandoned IBM and went Intel so they could get decent CPUs year after year.

AMD would be the choice if Apple entered the mainstream market with ~500$ computers but since Apple has showed no interest on that market, I don't think there is need for Apple to use AMD. AMD would have to offer much better performance per dollar to be worth the hassle.

 

[tuna]

For gaming, Intel is far superior. Look at these benchmarks, Intel wins in all of them. Pay attention to i5-750 and i7-860 as they compete with 1055T and 1090T in price. AMD mobos may be little cheaper but we aren't talking about huge differences. It would help if you could link those "gaming PC component guides" to prove that they are actually saying so. Benchmarks show that for example i5-750 is one of the best bang for buck CPUs atm.

Thats not what I see. If you look at those benchmarks across multiple games, and if you look at the other pages of benchmarks, you see that the i5-750 and Phenom II X4 965 offer about the same performance (each one slightly better than the other at roughly half the benchmarks) and right now those CPUs sell on newegg for $195 and $165 respectively. So not a $100 difference, but AMD definitely offers somewhat of a better value proposition. If you save money on the motherboard then that adds too.

 

[andalusia]

I'm perfectly happy with my single button white Pro mouse In fact when my last one died I replaced it with the same one on purpose because I like it.

 

[Hellhammer]

Thats not what I see. If you look at those benchmarks across multiple games, and if you look at the other pages of benchmarks, you see that the i5-750 and Phenom II X4 965 offer about the same performance (each one slightly better than the other at roughly half the benchmarks) and right now those CPUs sell on newegg for $195 and $165 respectively. So not a $100 difference, but AMD definitely offers somewhat of a better value proposition. If you save money on the motherboard then that adds too.

Can you provide some sites then? I'm providing sources all the time and you just tell me that my sources are wrong and go to look at some other places. If you want to justify your statements, provide a reputable source for it. Phenom x4 II 965 is also 125W while i5-750 is 95W. That has significant impact on iMac so you would be looking at 945 instead which has a TDP of 95W. That's even cheaper but also slower than 965. Plus, there is i5-760 that sells for nearly the same as 750 and it's faster. For high-end, AMD can't provide chip that has TDP suitable for iMac and is faster than Intels. TDP is fairly important with iMacs and as you said, Intel provides better watt for watt performance.

 

[TMRaven]

I see the i5 750 slightly beating phenom II x4 965 out in a lot of the benchmarks, drastically beating it out in the dragon age benchmark and slightly losing to amd cpu in a couple others. The price difference is 30usd on newegg between the two, but the intel will be way cheaper overtime due to less power consumption. The amd cpu has to clock all the way up to 3.4ghz and 125tdp to even be in the same league as the intel cpu, which is pretty laughable. The i5 750 probably has way more headroom for overclocking than the amd chip as well, if you wanted to compare both when running at same clock/tdp.

Really isn't worth it to compare two chips with only 30usd difference (apple especially doesn't care because they'd buy both by the bulk, and chances are both are priced very close to each other when both are in bulk.)

 

[alphaod]

We as consumers just want cheap machines that do the job; the cheaper the better. However Apple doesn't not have that philosophy; Apple is about fast computers and doing it in style. It's like buying a Ferrari and you get a 2 litre engine. Don't forget Apple is aiming for the "premium" computer market and using low-cost processors isn't going to help that.

That's not to mention AMD processors do kind of suck right now in terms of performance per watt (which is what Apple cares about). If you note, Macs are thinner than their PC counterparts; the only way to do this to either use cheaper low performance parts or high performance per watt parts.

Seriously, if Apple wanted to make cheap computer Intel has a lot of low cost parts that kick AMD's butts.

Finally I think Apple is sticking with Intel because Intel can easily make custom configuration parts for Apple [seeing Intel has their own fabs]. (this is purely my speculation)

 

[Vylen]

Do AMD's still catch on fire or did they fix that years ago?

That is, to say, given the rather compact design of the iMac, won't an AMD in an iMac be disastrous if not designed with the utmost care? (Probably leading to machines with the same price as an Intel iMac anyway, as the price of cooling/design ups the price as a consequence)

 

[NicoleRichie]

Wikipedia begs to differ?

ahhh the Wiki reference... sad individuals are trusting let alone referencing information read on wiki...

 

[Vylen]

ahhh the Wiki reference... sad individuals are trusting let alone referencing information read on wiki...

While that may true in some cases, wikipedia is quite good when it comes to technical information since there is no room for "interpretation" with technical data - especially when things are properly referenced on the article. I don't take information I read lightly unless they're properly sourced (even then, I don't consider it to be solid fact till it's been tested against time).

Something I'm very aware of especially after doing a thesis.

Of course, someone else here could have posted a link to any particular website, and because it isn't wikipedia, some people will believe it to be gospel. i.e. there would be those that wouldn't question it.

And while you may not have meant it (or maybe you in fact did), I consider your particular post to be insulting as it is arguably targeted against me. Hence this relatively long reply.

Enjoy.

 

[alent1234]

But thats the thing. I'm not sure that Apple and Intel have the best relations right now. Intel SCREWED Apple over with the mandate that their current line of laptop chips would have integrated Intel GPUs. Intel knew that Apple was implementing powerful nVidia integrated GPUs across their line, and having to use Intel integrated graphics, with all their performance deficiencies, was terrible. It has forced Apple to stay with the older Core 2 architecture in the MacBook, MacMini, and 13" MBP (because there isn't enough room in those models to add discrete graphics on top of Intel integrated). And it has forced major cuts to battery life in the 15" models (because the Intel integrated graphics isn't even powerful enough for general use and people are having to turn on their discrete graphics a lot).

This current generation of 15" MBPs in particular is a worse design than the previous one (relative to its time). All because of the Intel integrated graphics. They couldn't even offer a low end 15" with only integrated graphics, as they previously had.

And there's nothing wrong with AMD performance, even in the CPUs available now. Yes, performance per watt Intel is still the clear winner, but in terms of overall performance AMD offers some very powerful chips that are more powerful than, for example, the Core 2 Duos and Core i3s that Apple is currently using across many of its computers. And AMD offers much better performance per dollar. Which is why a few months ago when this Intel integrated graphics issue was hot, we heard a lot of stories about AMD executive teams visiting Cupertino and a lot of speculation about Apple implementing future AMD CPUs in some of its desktop models where performance/watt isn't at as high of a premium.

And yes, Apple likes even its desktops to run cool and quiet, but modern AMD chips are not the Pentium 4. They might produce a little more heat than a comparable Intel chip, but a $100 savings on the CPU lets Apple spend a little more on getting... a quieter motor for the fan or something that could negate any downsides.

Besides, from a strategic standpoint, with the market power that Apple has, I don't see how it makes sense to let AMD languish and have Intel become more and more of a monopoly. If AMD offers a viable product, then Apple should really adopt it to keep Intel honest and to keep them from screwing them over again. I honestly believe that if nVidia integrated graphics were available with the Core i5s used in the 15" MBP, they would be much better computers overall with significantly better battery life.

Apple had to know about Intel's plans because Intel shares their roadmap with customers. and apple is a tiny customer compared to Dell, HP and Acer

 

[alent1234]

We as consumers just want cheap machines that do the job; the cheaper the better. However Apple doesn't not have that philosophy; Apple is about fast computers and doing it in style. It's like buying a Ferrari and you get a 2 litre engine. Don't forget Apple is aiming for the "premium" computer market and using low-cost processors isn't going to help that.

That's not to mention AMD processors do kind of suck right now in terms of performance per watt (which is what Apple cares about). If you note, Macs are thinner than their PC counterparts; the only way to do this to either use cheaper low performance parts or high performance per watt parts.

Seriously, if Apple wanted to make cheap computer Intel has a lot of low cost parts that kick AMD's butts.

Finally I think Apple is sticking with Intel because Intel can easily make custom configuration parts for Apple [seeing Intel has their own fabs]. (this is purely my speculation)

if apple is so premium then why are all iMac's shipped with i3's unless you upgrade? my cheapo Lenovo laptop came with an i5. except for the monitor, Apple computers haven't been premium for a while. only reason i'm still considering buying an iMac is the residual value and the fact they are UNIX

 

[Hellhammer]

if apple is so premium then why are all iMac's shipped with i3's unless you upgrade? my cheapo Lenovo laptop came with an i5. except for the monitor, Apple computers haven't been premium for a while. only reason i'm still considering buying an iMac is the residual value and the fact they are UNIX

The i3 in iMac is a lot faster than any mobile i5... IMO i5 (Clarkdale) is not worth the extra $ because all it provides is faster frequency and poor Turbo (only two multipliers). Macs have never had great performance per buck ratio and never will. Apple loves the profit

 

[TMRaven]

A good deal of it probably has to do with naming confusion and the incremental type of marketing apple wants to have with its lineup of iMacs.

The i3s in the iMacs are better variants of the wolfdale grade core2duos, so those cpus are very good.