Wednesday, September 13, 2006

When will Apple switch to AMD?

That's the next question we should ask. Steve Jobs is smart. He will make the right move at the right time. My guess is that Apple will make the switch when Bulldozer is ready.

I suggest Hector to give him a signup bonus. AMD's cost is lower any way. The x86 market is a battlefield, you are either quicker or dead. One more AMD chip sold is one less Intel chip sold.

38 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"We think Intel's technology will help us create the best personal computers for the next 10 years," Steve Jobs, the head of Apple, said.

“Our goal is to provide our customers with the best personal computers in the world, and looking ahead Intel has the strongest processor roadmap by far,” said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO.

If AMD's future chips are going to be so great, why did Apple go Intel in the first place?

1:12 PM, September 13, 2006  
Blogger Sharikou, Ph. D. said...

If AMD's future chips are going to be so great, why did Apple go Intel in the first place?


Because Jobs don't always tell the truth. In the PowerPC days, Jobs claimed Mac is 2x faster than Pentium 4. Now he says Pentium 4 is 2x faster than PowerPC.

1:30 PM, September 13, 2006  
Blogger core2dude said...


Now he says Pentium 4 is 2x faster than PowerPC.

When did he say that? He doesn't have a single product with Pentium 4.

1:32 PM, September 13, 2006  
Blogger Ho Ho said...

"Now he says Pentium 4 is 2x faster than PowerPC."

No, he sais CD/C2D is twice as fast.

1:38 PM, September 13, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As far as I remember Apple doesn't use Pentium 4.

Core Solo
Core Duo
Core 2 Duo
Woodcrest

So why/when would he say that "Pentium 4 is 2x faster than PowerPC"?

1:41 PM, September 13, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sharikou, I really, really respect that you are so enthusiastic about AMD's products(even more then our marketing ppl are to be quite honest) but unfortunately Apple won't switch anytime soon.

AMD'er

1:52 PM, September 13, 2006  
Blogger Sharikou, Ph. D. said...

unfortunately Apple won't switch anytime soon.


Then apple machines will be half the speed of DELL's AMD machine.

1:53 PM, September 13, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sharikou said...

"Then apple machines will be half the speed of DELL's AMD machine."

So K8L will be twice as fast as Core 2 Duo?

It will make up the 10-20% in gaming, 20-30% in everything but a memory bandwidth banchmark, plus another 70-80% in everything including gaming which only utilizes two threads (as of now)...lmao

2:02 PM, September 13, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

sharikou is right!
in the keynote when jobs introduce the developer kit, it whas based on the Pentium 4.
And jobs say it's much more fast then PPC chip.

2:44 PM, September 13, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Remember, Apple is the best company in the world for picking DOOMED chip architectures/companies for "Mac".

Motorola 68K -- dead
PowerPC -- dead
IBM PowerPC -- dead
Intel -- struggling to survive

So, Steve Jobs picking Intel is really the mark of death.

2:58 PM, September 13, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sharikou got it wrong. As Apple was switching CPU the biggest worry is compatibility issue. So, it's prudent to go with the main-stream CPU (Intel) first. Until people get comfortable with the new Apple box with x86 chip in it, Apple might entertain the AMD chip later.

-Longan-

--------------------------
Sharikou, Ph. D said...
If AMD's future chips are going to be so great, why did Apple go Intel in the first place?


Because Jobs don't always tell the truth. In the PowerPC days, Jobs claimed Mac is 2x faster than Pentium 4. Now he says Pentium 4 is 2x faster than PowerPC.

3:02 PM, September 13, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

>>unfortunately Apple won't switch >>anytime soon.

>Then apple machines will be half the >speed of DELL's AMD machine.

you are over optimistic....yeah, we have some great products coming in the next 12 months but mind you that they will have to face processors AFTER Core 2 Duo.

For all of non-AMD fans and people who are concerned about Intel's current advantage:make no mistake, performance crown sooner or later will be back in Sunnyvale but 50% advantage is an awful lot ;)

3:24 PM, September 13, 2006  
Blogger Bradley Coleman said...

i think apple seems to be more interested in mobile chips. they do a lot of laptops.

if bulldozer is as good as it could be, they will likely have to have it. bulldozer is a laptop chip designed from the ground up for power, about 14 watts. thats bad ass. ATI and mabye nvidia will likely make a sweet low power chipset with integrated graphics. AMD is working on a laptop platform, yamoto?

i bet it will be awesome, because everything AMD builds is awesome - at least for the first few years... and i bet that APPL will use it.

btw, APPL went with intel because intel gave them lots of $$$$$ to help them make the switch, that much more than their chips.

3:49 PM, September 13, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It took him years to switch to x86, now that Intel is superior in performance, I don't see why they would go AMD. It's a pride/performance thing.

3:59 PM, September 13, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Performance isn't everything when how many times do we have to say it lets face it only a 12% difference. Price and wattage is everything.

Why would I buy a E6300 that consums 65watts that costs $200 with a $120 mobo? When I can buy a X2 3800+ that only costs $150 with a $70 mobo with better features and barly a speed difference. On sandra it says a E6300 is only 14512 wile my X2 is 149351 in 64bit mode.

I know I just got the better deal even tho my cpu is sipose to be not as good, I just saved a lot of money and in the long run have a cpu that runs at 1.0v really consumes only 32watts at full load 25C and consumes 2 times less the power. Better for my eletric bill and my quite system. Besides I haven't even overclocked yet. Hello you can't tell me that DUO2 Core is sipose to be a better deal then AMD.

5:43 PM, September 13, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

in the keynote when jobs introduce the developer kit, it whas based on the Pentium 4.
And jobs say it's much more fast then PPC chip.


He NEVER said that. What a load of utter crap. What he said, exactly, was this: "When we look at Intel, they've got great performance, yes, but they've got something else that's very important to us. Just as important as performance, is power consumption."

When he talks about low power consumption it's clear he's referring to the Core Duo and Core 2 Duo processors, since Apple would have seen all that stuff long before it was available to people like us.

6:47 PM, September 13, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I dunno about all of you, but power consumption ranks right up on my list of important things with "Learning to mambo", "Watching sports", "Dan Quayle", and "Taking out the garbage".

Means nothing to me, nor to any person I've ever spoke to about buying a DESKTOP. You may all say things about how power consumption translates into efficiency and less electron migration and higher performing CMPT2D algorithms or whatever the hell you want (hey, YOUR choice!), but it really doesn't mean jack to most people.

Argue with me if you want, but only geeks, environmentalists, laptop pansies, marketing whores, and chip architects give a damn about power consumption. Or people who can barely pay their power bills. I WILL however mention that with the exception of chip architects and SOME geeks, all of the above mentioned individuals can rightly join the Atari ET game cartridges in their resting place (psst, take your lattes with you).

To be blunt:
IE: power consumption factors != DESKTOP sales

I emphasize DESKTOP sales because in the past day here already, Mr. Sharikou and I have already had our issues with NOT READING MY POSTS COMPLETELY ~and~ TAKING ME TOO SERIOUSLY. He may even come right out and say I'm...*gasp* wrong!

8:20 PM, September 13, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would also like to add that Apple is worthless and owning a Mac is akin to admitting that you're just a ridiculously flamboyant poser.

I think that we, as PC enthusiasts, need to send a message to Steve Jobs. Start up your pirated copies of Outlook and fill in the blanks:

To: steve.jobs@apple.com
cc: Seattle
Subject: Sup bro

Hey Steve-O, Dan here [insert your name instead of mine]! Remember back in high school when we used to go out and party and bag chicks together? Yeah, that was me. Check your yearbooks.

Anyways, myself and my distinguished colleagues got around to talking about things, and you know, we always get around somehow to talking about Mac's and iPods and stuff somehow because they are such a key figure in everybody's life.

The subject came up about color schemes. I know that we've talked about this before, you and I (the '94 turtleneck convention ring a bell?). But my colleagues and I eventually came to the conclusion that this whole 'white' scheme of yours sends the wrong message to the world if you know what I mean (think Missouri, 30's).

We think that maybe you should let go of the whole issue and maybe eventually get around to offering up some funky paint jobs, or maybe just even evaluating the benefits of corners and squared edges in your designs somewhere.

While we're at it, we thought we would tell you that you've done a good job getting away from the RISC deal and moving into the mainstream a bit further with the Intel thing. I know, you've got all sorts of bigwigs around telling you the same thing and praising you constantly, but I thought it would mean a lot more coming from me. You made a good decision.

Say, how's about checking out this little company called AMD? I read somewhere on the net that they ALSO make processors, but I haven't heard much about them. I do know enough though to say they're not like Phys-X or anything, it's real.

Now, don't get me wrong Steve, I'm not telling you how to run your company or anything. But I think that with a few minor tweaks to your brand identity you could truly work some magic. For example, your customers need to know that not shaving, making music videos, and podcasting them all over the place will NOT help them get laid. This is just what we thought here.

Another thing, maybe lower your prices. Just a bit, nothing major. Maybe shave off some bucks by not putting the transparent plastic coating on top of the paint job or whatever. You'll know better than I about the costs.

Jonesie - he's my neighbor and works at the purchasing department in Target so you KNOW he's got good ideas - also came up with an incredible idea! Maybe stop investing so much into the ads? You know...the one with the 'chubby nerdy guy' and the 'cool, slick, worldly, and affable' guy? It kinda makes everyone cringe...not in a bad way, just more...of a..."what a load of..." way.

Anyways, I'd better go. Hey, give me a call someday soon, we'll get together just like old times and throw on our AC/DC turtlenecks and score up some loose women. Since you're doing so well though, you're buying the whiskey and crack this time (I bought last time - '94 remember?). Kidding about the crack part! (unless you're into it and can score some for us?)

Ciao,
Dan
[put your own name in there]

P.S.
Maybe the iPod thing is getting out of hand? Consider it at least....

9:24 PM, September 13, 2006  
Blogger Eddie said...

The message in "Investor Village" you link to doesn't have the links to your blog because that is a reply to the message I think you intended to link.

My message is #1093, but the link is to #1114

10:03 PM, September 13, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jobs at Apple was talking about Core Duo when he said Intel's chips are 2x faster. At that time none of Core 2 Duo was available.

Before Apple switched to Intel, Jobs used to say PowerPC faster than any x86 processors.

The truth: Jobs is a lier.

BTW, Apple won't switch to AMD any time soon, because it is the new "Dell". If Dell could have taken the largest PC sales, Apple easily can, too. Just wait for Apple to release its low-price Macitosh (after Intel ramp up Core 2 Duo, of course).

10:10 PM, September 13, 2006  
Blogger core2dude said...

K8L will not be coming out until 08. What is coming out next year is Rev G, which essentially is the same K8 cr@p with shared L3 cache. Now that is not compelling enough for Apple to switch to AMD. By 08, K8L will already be late, as Intel will be coming out with Nehalem, the AMD killer!!

11:08 PM, September 13, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The truth: Jobs is a lier.

I don't know about that. When the G4 first came out, it beat them P4s hands down. The problem was that IBM did not continue improving the G4 whereas Intel and AMD both worked on their offerings. The G5 suffered the same fate.

It would have been better imho if Apple had gone AMD whether Jobs is lying or not. Mac OS X being a mach-based OS, it would benefit from AMD's better scalability, something that Intel has yet to solve. Of course, I am not sure on the MacBook front but it would appear to me that the Turion would have been a good offering. Probably no random shutdown problems due to a buggy C2D.

12:49 AM, September 14, 2006  
Blogger 180 Sharikou said...

Intel would have thrown hundreds of engineering resources to Apple to help them make the transition. Something AMD would not have been able to do. Apple would have made some commitments to Intel based on that. But more than that, Otellini has been personally courting Jobs for years.. For Intel, it's not about the revenue w/ Apple - it's about the prestige and the opportunity to align with someone who has a focus on the consumer side that is very aligned with their digital home strategy. And I think Steve appreciates those facts too. He's a guy with a personal opinion not driven only by the need to save 10 bucks on his BOM cost.

http://sharikou180.blogspot.com
(A more balanced point of view)

12:51 AM, September 14, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

nyx has a lot of this story right -

Apple didn't drop PPC for performance, or even supply issues. As for heat, the first iteration of the G5 was tough to cool, but that was mainly b/c the die size was so small - about half a typical Intel or AMD or Freescale CPU (the 970/G5 was only something like 65mm). IBM took great pains to maximize what it was getting out of as few transistors as possible, in order to increase wafer yields (which took a little pressure off in the 'die shrink wars'). But the unintended consequence was a fairly typical amount of heat coming off an incredibly concentrated point. It was that 'laser beam' effect that caused all the cooling challenges.

Of course, what all the fanbois conveniently forget is that IBM was all the while investing a lot in materials technology & transistor design to mitigate that problem, and came out with a major - and cooler - revision of the 970 literally a month after The Switch was announced. Also, that the low power 970FX and the new e600 core G4 (which matches the Yonah in every feature) are competitive, or use LESS juice per clock tick, with anything Intel makes. And finally, Apple wasn't only given the opportunity to work on 'mainstreaming' Cell; they also had inside track on cooperating with Nintendo's Broadway chip back before a final design was decided upon (take a look at Wii's formfactor and tell me that's not cool-running CPU in there), AS WELL AS with PA Semiconductor - the new startup founded by the designers of the Alpha CPU (the ones who didn't go to AMD, that is) who courted Apple intensely as they began designing a high speed, low power, 64bit PPC design. They should have something on market by the end of this year/early next, even without Apple's help & patents.

So, it's patently false to say that performance - no matter how you want to measure it - was the deciding factor. No - the dirty little secret behind The Switch is this:

Jobs was strong-armed into it.

He had already (back then) been negotiating with Hollywood for years, trying to get content from the major studios, and they basically laid down the law to him that they wouldn't even consider a deal unless his hardware was 'DRM'd' to their satisfaction. And what satisfied them most was a hardware-based solution that was likely to become an industry standard. Intel, maker of 80% fo the CPUs in the world, and their TPM chips, was what Hollywood wanted. So Jobs - in what was at that point a desperate attempt to keep his plan for replicating the success of iTMS in the video sphere from going off the rails - agreed.

That's it - that's the only reason for the switch to Intel. It was for their DRM technology.

Doubt it? Think for a minute. Any person with a reasonable grasp of CPU architecture - if they really believed x86 was the future of computing - would never have considered Intel to be in better performance position (long term) than AMD, especially 2 years ago. AMD also had plenty of productive capacity at the time (which has only grown since). So, what would have made Jobs pass them over? What was the only thing Intel had that AMD didn't?

An integrated hardware DRM technology - those pesky little Trusted Platform Modules.

And since neither AMD nor IBM nor anyone else are working on such a thing (so far), it is likely Jobs will ride Intel all the way to the BK court before he drops them. If you're an Apple fan, it's really pretty sad, but true nonetheless.

The only possibility of change, is that Jobs finally wakes up to how f**ked up hardware DRM is - that reasonable prices and a 'better mousetrap' are the best DRM there is - and he finally decides that kowtowing to the suits in Hollywood just isn't worth it. That's very possible IMO - just look at the Unbox fiasco. Making DRM concerns the primary driver of it's implimentation have killed it in it's crib. The privacy rights issue alone is enough for me to hate TPM 'spy chips', but for Jobs he'll probably respond more to the lost revenue aspect.

It was his overwhelming desire to be the King of All Video that got him to adopt Intel in the first place. It could very well be that the realization Intel isn't the kingmaker he thought they were could get him to drop them before their own financial problems become a drag on Apple too.

1:46 AM, September 14, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Apple should make an easy switch to AMD, as it used HyperTransport for its PowerPC G5 procs before. It actually went a step back when it went Intel and used the 70s-technology frontside buses again.

1:58 AM, September 14, 2006  
Blogger Ho Ho said...

"The truth: Jobs is a lier."

Technically, no. As there were only laptop CPU's availiable and he was talking about those he was mostly right.

Power4 used in macbooks were rather good in SIMD-heavy stuff and was often considerably faster than some Netburst CPU's, at least when comparing clock-to-clock.

As new CoreDuos were dualcore they instantly became twice as fast as a single core solutions. Combining that with better efficiency than Power4 and you easily get 2x speedup.

3:50 AM, September 14, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why would I buy a E6300 that consums 65watts that costs $200 with a $120 mobo? When I can buy a X2 3800+ that only costs $150 with a $70 mobo with better features and barly a speed difference. On sandra it says a E6300 is only 14512 wile my X2 is 149351 in 64bit mode.

Hey fanboy. Just picked this of Newegg (perhaps lower prices elsewhere too):

In Stock -E6300
$185

In stock -ASRock ConRoeXFire
$83

You get a processor that matches an amd equal x2 4400+, and a processor that is certain to overclock to 2,8ghz+ stock voltage.

5:08 AM, September 14, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Urr.. when a large buyer of desktop pc's for a school I work (IT) at said "I'm not getting any more P4's as they are too noisy and run way too hot" that might show a slight buck in your trend. Others have mentioned that too.


That almost sounds like SOMEONE we know around here with the name that starts with Shar and ends with ikou... anti-P4 people!

Anyways, this person you're talking about obviously didn't consider the lower heating costs in the building as a benefit of the P4, nor did he read the studies on how background noise increases student productivity that are posted all around the web. I can't give you any references of course because I just made it up here on the spot but when I find something close to that I'll interpret it my own way and let you know.

Okay, some people do consider power consumption. Maybe I was wrong. However, -I- would never factor power consumption into buying a desktop PC, and obviously I represent the feelings of pretty much everybody that is sane and rational in this world. So there's proof of my claim.

In fact, I'd like my CPU to consume MORE power, and the reason for that is that electrical consumption obviously means that the CPU is working harder - working harder to bring me my internet 'pictures' and ehrm 'home videos' and allowing me to game twice as fast as if my cpu consumed half the power.

Just like a big engine, sucking up the gasoline, I expect PERFORMANCE and POWER from my Chevrolet big-block Pentium 50mhz machine.

So that's that. Please carry on. I have nothing more to say.

7:20 AM, September 14, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

usually apple will switch its processor after 10 years..thats their way...amd use better technology in their processor now than intel..i guess most probably apple might switch to amd after 10 years..if amd continues with their way now..

7:55 AM, September 14, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

btw, APPL went with intel because intel gave them lots of $$$$$ to help them make the switch, that much more than their chips.

Bollocks. Apple went with Intel because Intel was able to provide an entire platform solution and has a very good roadmap. I don't think you have any evidence that this is true. If so, you should provide a link to that. If not, then shut your piehole.

8:54 AM, September 14, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Probably no random shutdown problems due to a buggy C2D.

God people on this forum are stupid or just malicious. Probably just stupid though. First, MacBooks don't use Core 2 Duos. Second, Other Macs that use the Core Duo are not experiencing shutdown issues so logically one could argue that the problem is not the processor but the accompanying design. Most likely this is a thermal related problem. For some analysis read here

9:12 AM, September 14, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

God people on this forum are stupid or just malicious. Probably just stupid though. First, MacBooks don't use Core 2 Duos. Second, Other Macs that use the Core Duo are not experiencing shutdown issues so logically one could argue that the problem is not the processor but the accompanying design. Most likely this is a thermal related problem. For some analysis read here

yeah core duo is just too hot that causing thermal problem..

12:26 PM, September 14, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"As new CoreDuos were dualcore they instantly became twice as fast as a single core solutions. Combining that with better efficiency than Power4 and you easily get 2x speedup."

Oh yes, and P4's 3.8GHz surely is "faster" than all other x86 processors!

So Core Duo is 2x faster now, while Power4 was fastest (for SIMD or whatever) just last month?

A lier is a lier, no matter how you spin the facts.

3:31 PM, September 14, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

When will Apple switch to AMD?

When Job feels like it. It really isn't the compelling reason one buys a MAC whether INTEL or AMD is inside. The volumes for Apple are miniscule to INTEL and maybe pint size to AMD, but there were worth a lot to IBM. At some point I doubt IBM was making any money and putting up with Jobs is a bear if you aren'tmaking money.

INTEL can afford to throw engineers, VPs ( they got lot of them ) to keep Jobs happy. And they get a lot of press...

AMD they got none of that.


In the end its the one with the biggest bank account that won Jobs... that is INTEL.

INTEL BK in 5 quarters right Sharikou?

11:01 PM, September 14, 2006  
Blogger Altamir Gomes said...

http://www.engadget.com/2006/01/10/steve-jobs-keynote-live-from-macworld-2006/

"1:30 PM - PowerPC: 0.23 rating for performance per watt. Core Duo: 1.05, more than four times better. "Today we are introducing ... the MacBook Pro"

1:31 PM - "It's a new name because we're kinda done with power, and we want the Mac name in our products." The same dual-processor as the iMac in every model. "This is hard to believe: 4-5x faster than the PowerBook G5. These things are screamers.""

No matter how you look at it, Steve Jobs picks and touts a side for his own convenience.

He's a true ph. d, or has at least a doctorate in "spinmeistertism". One cannot deny Steve Jobs' ability to screw his customers' minds, it ranks high.

5:35 AM, September 15, 2006  
Blogger Altamir Gomes said...

Note: AMD shouldn't support Apple and Jobs for its own sake. It'd hurt AMD's public image too much.

8:27 AM, September 15, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Apple is just bunch of retards who makes kids toys, forget em!

9:38 AM, September 18, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The answer is : NEVER
Unlike you Jobs is smart.

8:16 PM, October 02, 2006  

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