Could AMD Fusion chips be coming to Macs?
Ever since Apple finally abandoned the PowerPC platform in favor of the x86 architecture, Macs have been exclusively powered by CPUs from Intel. Throughout that time, however, there has been speculation that Apple could dual source and use some of AMD's chips as well; that may have just been posturing in order to get a better pricing deal from Intel, though. So far, AMD's only inroad at Apple has been through its ATI graphics division, which has supplied Radeon GPUs for an array of Macs over the years.
The AMD speculation has flared up again in recent days following an analyst meeting to discuss the company's new Fusion chips. Fusion is a platform that AMD has been working on ever since it bought ATI several years ago. The Fusion chips combine the CPU and a GPU onto a single die, and one of the slides in the AMD presentation featured a lineup of iMacs and a Mac Pro. The slide apparently went by without discussion, and neither Apple nor AMD has made any announcement about Fusion chips appearing in future Macs. AMD has begun providing Fusion samples to hardware partners for testing, with full production due to start in early 2011. It would be a shock if Apple doesn't at least test AMD chips, but seeing them in production will likely require a very positive combination of performance, power consumption, and pricing. We'll just have to wait and see.
[The source on this was incorrect, and the speculation is merely that -- there is no mention of AMD powering the CPU's of future Macs in this presentation - Ed.]
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Ever since Apple finally abandoned the PowerPC platform in favor of the x86 architecture, Macs have been exclusively powered by CPUs from...
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Apple would have a huge advantage going with these fusion procs over Intel's for mobile devices. Has anyone seen the Zacate demo? They had it up against an i5-520m, that was twice the size, twice the power requirements, twice as hot, and almost twice the frequency, with less performance - a fair bit less (with very limited testing mind you). They were even gaming Batman AA on the chip. Not bad for a 18w part about the size of a penny. Who wouldn't want that in a mobile device? Sandy Bridge will have to be spectacular to compete with Fusion at the mobile level. Desktop level is another story, but that's why AMD is working on the non-fusion high end "Bulldozer" part.
I can tell the age of some poster's here by their perceptions of AMD/Intel relationship. AMD was created as a sister company by Intel for legal, apparently "non-compete" reasons (yup, way back then even). AMD became a formidible competition in the early 2000's and Intel has been trying to make them go away.
BTW Intel has AMD technology in every single one of their 64 bit capable processors - AMD x64 technology is "leased" to Intel, just like SSE is "leased" to AMD -- it is quite surprising how much technology they use of each other's, but their motivation is only competitive advantage, whoever get's there first with something truly innovative gets to sell the tech to the competitors.
what kind of "analysts" see this slide and make no comment? That would be like blackberry showing a new phone with WinMo7 on the screen and no one making a peep!
November 12 2010 at 2:12 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI think that apple will continue to just use the radeon graphics chips and dont use a amd CPU
November 12 2010 at 12:50 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyAMD Fusion chips would probably make sense in the Mac mini, MacBook Air, and the MacBook, but I doubt the Pro lineup would see it as long as Intel has the performance advantage.
November 12 2010 at 12:20 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyAgreed, with both on a single die there's potential space savings here. The more compact devices are the more likely candidates.
November 12 2010 at 1:28 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyFrom what I've seen so far, AMD's Fusion platforms seem to perform better than Intel's current Core i7 desktop offerings. Obviously, pitting newer, unreleased technology isn't really fair, but the performance I've seen from the "Llano" APU (one of the Fusion laptop platforms) bests the Core i7 with a lot less power draw. I'm extremely excited to see the "Bulldozer" cores in action!
November 12 2010 at 4:51 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyChances are this is just an image from Apple's press site and AMD is just hoping to see a stock jump by making people think Apple is going to use their CPU's.
November 12 2010 at 12:01 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyError!
The line:
speculation that Intel could dual source and use some of AMD's chips as well
Should read:
speculation that Apple could dual source and use some of AMD's chips as well
Does anyone actually proofread at all? Do you have editors on TUAW. Come on!
Hmmm... I did not know that 2006 was 'several years ago' :p
November 12 2010 at 11:11 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWhen is TUAW getting Disqus comments?
November 12 2010 at 9:57 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWho cares who manufactures the chip that runs in your computer. You don't really interface with a chip. My G5 iMac bit the dust last week and I replaced it with a new iMac. Of course the new one is faster and quieter. I never gave the chip much thought while surfing the internet or writing a letter. Everything runs just fine on the new one as it did on the old iMac. Whatever you buy today will be leap frogged by faster, more core's or whatever within six months. But the front end that we interface with is still OSX.
The real changer in computing has already happened on the iPad and it is going to happen to the Mac with Lion.
Dude, you're reading an Apple blog.
November 12 2010 at 10:07 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyYou are right in most respects but there are performance differences to consider. The problem is it is getting harder and harder to compare processors these days. They each have strengths that beat the other or different approaches to a problem, it is very easy to make one look very good with respect to another.
Zacate is interesting because of its extremely low power for what you get. Performance though is not fully understood as AMDs demos so far have been carefully crafted. However the chip seems to have huge potential in Apple products. Especially AIR like machines, the problem being announced run frequencies. You are right in one sense, people for the most part don't care about chip brand, they just want a fast machine. If AMD gives them that with a longer battery lifetime then all the better.
One other thing we care about is copetition. If AMD can wage a viable champaigne against Intel in mobile space we will all win. Like it or note using bleeding edge processors from Intel adds significant expense to Apples products for no reason.
We ARE aware, are we not, that Apple uses AMD GPUs? Yes? OK. Moving on.
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TUAW (or The Unofficial Apple Weblog) is a website devoted to tips, reviews, news, analysis and opinion on everything Apple.
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