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The Possibility of an AMD MacBook


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It was almost gonna happen with the MacBook Air had AMD been able to provide Llano APUs in volumes according to this article: http://goo.gl/DVS67L

 

Other than the volume issue, the CPU in the Llano APU won't be able to give much performance. With AMD's new generation Kaveri APUs with apparently a different architecture than the old Trinity and Richland line (which used Piledriver) and even better GPU tech, the odds of an AMD MacBook Air is quite good for both budget and power for Apple users since Mac Pros will be running 2 FirePro GPUs. 

 

To be clear, I do like the Intel Macs and I am strongly against having AMDs on iMacs and MacBook Pros but having them on the MacBook Air could really be something awesome (although I am again strongly against it if they throw in an A4 MacBook Air).

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Apple builds AMD based systems every year for various testing and to make sure that Intel listens to what they are looking for. Its nothing new. The real shock at the time was when Apple went to Intel and not AMD as at that time AMD CPUS were much faster and stronger then Intel's offerings at that time. 

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Is that true? Wow. If Apple does throw in a Mac with an AMD processor it would balance the flavors of Macs like Microsoft OEMs get balanced out. A line with Intel processors and the exact same line with the AMD equivalent of processors that way there's one for the budget market and one for the high-end market.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Apple builds AMD based systems every year for various testing and to make sure that Intel listens to what they are looking for. Its nothing new. The real shock at the time was when Apple went to Intel and not AMD as at that time AMD CPUS were much faster and stronger then Intel's offerings at that time. 

 

IIRC when Jobs announced the switch to Intel he said that Intel's roadmap was the reason why they went with Intel instead of AMD. They knew Core Duos (32 bit) were gonna get introduced.

 

I shouldn't have to say this because this should be common knowledge, but Core Duo really took AMD out of the race. AMD has been playing catch-up ever since.

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IIRC when Jobs announced the switch to Intel he said that Intel's roadmap was the reason why they went with Intel instead of AMD. They knew Core Duos (32 bit) were gonna get introduced.

 

I shouldn't have to say this because this should be common knowledge, but Core Duo really took AMD out of the race. AMD has been playing catch-up ever since.

 

That is incorrect. AMD AM2 chips failed (much later) to meet what AMD wanted to do due in part to a design flaw. Apple and AMD had no idea that there would be a design flaw in the AM2 chips at the time the decision between who chips to use was made. People always like to forget what really took place... The fact is Intel took a lost per CPU sold to Apple for the first year to use it for advertising and AMD could not match that. 

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That is incorrect. AMD AM2 chips failed (much later) to meet what AMD wanted to do due in part to a design flaw. Apple and AMD had no idea that there would be a design flaw in the AM2 chips at the time the decision between who chips to use was made. People always like to forget what really took place... The fact is Intel took a lost per CPU sold to Apple for the first year to use it for advertising and AMD could not match that. 

 

My bad

 

It happened 8 years ago, so memories do get screwed up

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  • 3 weeks later...

Look at it like this too.

 

For years Dell would only use Intel CPU's and actually continues this trend now(an AMD machine released by them every so often). Why? Intel gives Dell a discount on their CPU's for not using AMD. As also said above, Intel could afford to take a loss on their CPU's. AMD is now finally in good financial status after years of bad quarterly results.

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