Apple Hires AMD's Trinity Engineer John Bruno

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I dont know what to say about the last part. that would require amd to make mobile parts that are at least on par with entry level i7, so i dont believe that speculation to be true. i just think apple reaallly doesnt like samsung that much. Though I can see AMD in the Tablet market and he could help with that greatly. Meanwhile its sad to see that amd is cutting valuable resources from the crappy failed ideas of cory read from loss of profits. At this rate AMD will never pay a dividend.
 
Not sure whats the point of this, but AMD are lack of cash now, Apple can make use of its cash to give AMD some resource "help" at the same time demanding AMD to design "special" x86 APU for apple/mac alone, completely dropping hackintosh. After all Radeons are far better than crappy Intel GPU anyway.

I see this as a gain from both sides if they ever wanna go for it. suck to kill hackintosh but hey.... if the cash does help AMD to stay more competitive to Intel, Why not.
 
As long as Apple can continue to place two year old hardware in a pretty white package, people will buy up whatever they are selling. It doesn't matter who's working there or what technology is in the Apple machines.

Kudos to the employees of the Apple marketing engine. They are the best on the planet.

 
[citation][nom]Tomfreak[/nom]Not sure whats the point of this, but AMD are lack of cash now, Apple can make use of its cash to give AMD some resource "help" at the same time demanding AMD to design "special" x86 APU for apple/mac alone, completely dropping hackintosh. After all Radeons are far better than crappy Intel GPU anyway. I see this as a gain from both sides if they ever wanna go for it. suck to kill hackintosh but hey.... if the cash does help AMD to stay more competitive to Intel, Why not.[/citation]
This isn't an AMD-Apple partnership, at least not from the article. It's simply ex-AMD exec goes to Apple.
 
Based on the rules that are usually attached to these people as they move between companies, he wouldn't be allowed to give Apple any specific info on what AMD is working on without an actual deal with AMD, otherwise he and Apple would face a lawsuit over whatever it is Apple gained from his info. What he can and probably will do is offer Apple guidance in how to leverage existing products/products as they come to market, and possibly (what I think the writer may be getting at there at the end) design architectures that work better for them than Intel currently offers and try to market them to actual chip makers.
 
[citation][nom]DRosencraft[/nom]Based on the rules[/citation]

Yeah, because history has shown us just how much apple execs, and large corporations in general, care about laws and rules.
 
[citation][nom]ojas[/nom]This isn't an AMD-Apple partnership, at least not from the article. It's simply ex-AMD exec goes to Apple.[/citation]
True, that's not what the words of the article say. But what's interesting is considering the fact that Apple approached AMD for using their llano/APUs in the macbook air (and I would assume other laptops in their lineup), but AMD couldn't commit to the volume Apple was requesting. I wonder if AMD has more confidence in their trinity production (questionable, given recent literature on AMD), and Apple has approached them again.

Using the APU makes slight sense given Apple's "end-to-end" unification theme, and the fact that not all of Intel's Ivy Bridge processors will get the competent HD4000 gpu.

I would like it for AMD if this hiring of an ex-engineer at Apple meant that Apple wanted the competency in their company for integrating AMD processors. But as it stands, there's nothing to support that idea just yet.

Interesting news regardless.
 
[citation][nom]andy_newton[/nom]Trinity is overpriced for a desktop CPU with that performance but to run iOS, it's crazy fast.Then again, why not go Intel?[/citation]
This makes no sense. Why would Apple look to use AMD's APUs in portable devices? AMD hasn't even engineered any of their APUs to function outside of the desktop/laptop application. The CPU footprint is giant compared to the current (overpowered for iOS) ARM processors used, and is entirely outside of the pricepoint for mobile device processors. In addition, the entire iOS ecosystem is designed to run on Apple's ARM processors--a re-work of the hardware platform would essentially cause the ecosystem to go back to page 1. Plus Apple has a huge dedicated engineering group for ARM processor development for their iOS devices. While they currently sub-contract/purchase desktop/laptop processors from vendors.

If (IF) Apple is interested in working with AMD, it's almost certainly for their Air and regular Macbook lineup.
 
This guy may bring the AMD curse to apple.... :)

"2 year old tech in apple computers"? Huh? Apple is shipping out products with i5-3k CPUs. You are on crack.

Important note: Apple *DOES* own a CPU design company.
 
[citation][nom]uglynerdman[/nom]I dont know what to say about the last part. that would require amd to make mobile parts that are at least on par with entry level i7, so i dont believe that speculation to be true.[/citation]

Why does AMD have to match an i7 in performance? I don't think people buy Macs for speed and performance, rather perceived stability, Mac OS and accompanying software, and sometimes status *eyeroll*. I mean give a typical Mac user an i5 and an i7 MB, strip off the Intel label, and they probably can't tell the difference.
 
[citation][nom]ojas[/nom]This isn't an AMD-Apple partnership, at least not from the article. It's simply ex-AMD exec goes to Apple.[/citation]it is an idea has nothing to do with the article, as moving an ex-AMD exec are not so much to warrant a news.


 
[citation][nom]ubercake[/nom]As long as Apple can continue to place two year old hardware in a pretty white package, people will buy up whatever they are selling. It doesn't matter who's working there or what technology is in the Apple machines. Kudos to the employees of the Apple marketing engine. They are the best on the planet.[/citation]

What are you on? Do you check what the specifications are in Apple laptops? I own the 17" and I would like to see an equivalent laptop that has the 2820qm i7 was the best one at the time beside the 2920xm (overpriced extreme edition) less than 1" thin and has a 93 w/h battery and achieves 7-8 hours on a charge. Besides all the specifications mentioned, one that isn't aesthetically ugly either.

What about a laptop that exceeds 1880p resolution? Ok so Apple laptops are behind? No you troll
 
[citation][nom]shardey[/nom]What are you on? Do you check what the specifications are in Apple laptops? I own the 17" and I would like to see an equivalent laptop that has the 2820qm i7 was the best one at the time beside the 2920xm (overpriced extreme edition) less than 1" thin and has a 93 w/h battery and achieves 7-8 hours on a charge. Besides all the specifications mentioned, one that isn't aesthetically ugly either. What about a laptop that exceeds 1880p resolution? Ok so Apple laptops are behind? No you troll[/citation]

I'm not aware of a laptop, be it a Macbook, a Windows computer, a Linux computer, or anything else, that has an 1880p resolution display. However, you do have a point. Apple hasn't been using much outdated hardware for the time in at least several years, especially in Apple's top-end models. They are still more expensive than a similarly specced Windows/Linux computer, but they are modern nonetheless.
 
[citation][nom]teh_chem[/nom]Using the APU makes slight sense given Apple's "end-to-end" unification theme, and the fact that not all of Intel's Ivy Bridge processors will get the competent HD4000 gpu.[/citation]Not to mention that not all HD4000 GPUs have the same clocks. You know, the kind of stuff that requires a different model number for Nvidia or AMD? Nah, not Intel - they act like all HD4000s will perform the same.

But the fact is that GPU Turbo clocks are all over the map, and in the 17W models (which are used in these kinds of Ultrathin-type designs) the base HD4000 clocks are crap (slightly more than half a 35W model) and the Turbo isn't as fast or reliable - thermal limits kick the crap out of the 17W parts when you push them hard. Whoops! Typical of them to hide everything behind marketing numbers.

So next time someone bashes Trinity for having "Too many GPU models" keep in mind that they differentiate by model number, if there's any significant difference in performance whether due to GPU clocks, memory clocks, cores, etc. Intel still has these deviations in performance, but they just don't care.
 
[citation][nom]eddieroolz[/nom]So, we may see a fusion-like chip on ARM architecture from Apple in about 5-10 years?[/citation]

All AMD's APUs are is a chip with a CPU and a beefy GPU to back up the CPU. Mobile CPUs tend to already have GPUs, so that's that. This guy might help with the designs and such, but it's not like the APUs have some sort of architecture that separates them from any other CPU with an on-die GPU that uses the same CPU and GPU architecture(s). It's just a name for marketing to trumpet around, like how Apple doesn't want us referring to their Macs as PCs. The name might have come from the concept of letting the GPU act as an incredibly high performance FPU, but any GPU can do that if it's programmed for it.
 
sure that guy will bring curse to apple "what amd is facing now "..heheheeeee
 

The only reason why AMDs APUs appear to be nothing more than a standard CPU with an on-die GPU is because current x86 software architecture isn't written to take advantage of the APUs architecture differently than it does for standard x86-64 CPUs. The (current) inherent architectural advantage to the APU is removing the physical link required between a CPU and a discrete graphics card, allowing for GPGPU-enabled functions/processes to be executed even faster. The problem is getting software development support for GPGPU things. That's the problem. The APU/integrated components is undeniably a more efficient route in terms of less silicon requirements, better power efficiency for overall performance, and smaller form-factors/footprints, but it's just not architecturally supported yet to the point where its architecture nets proportional performance gains. Things will change though, especially since we're nearing the practical limit of the linearity with which current CPUs process threads.
 
[citation][nom]teh_chem[/nom]The only reason why AMDs APUs appear to be nothing more than a standard CPU with an on-die GPU is because current x86 software architecture isn't written to take advantage of the APUs architecture differently than it does for standard x86-64 CPUs. The (current) inherent architectural advantage to the APU is removing the physical link required between a CPU and a discrete graphics card, allowing for GPGPU-enabled functions/processes to be executed even faster. The problem is getting software development support for GPGPU things. That's the problem. The APU/integrated components is undeniably a more efficient route in terms of less silicon requirements, better power efficiency for overall performance, and smaller form-factors/footprints, but it's just not architecturally supported yet to the point where its architecture nets proportional performance gains. Things will change though, especially since we're nearing the practical limit of the linearity with which current CPUs process threads.[/citation]

That benefit that you mentioned is basically the lower latency between the GPU and the CPU, something that has nothing to do with architectures and is purely because of the GPU and CPU being so close together on the same die. My point still stands.
 
[citation][nom]varun270588[/nom]sure that guy will bring curse to apple "what amd is facing now "..heheheeeee[/citation]

Curse? AMD is doing poorly overall mostly because they have gotten screwed over (illegally, granted they have since settled) by Intel, had very poor yields with the fab companies that make their processors (and having to deal with GF over this), and have gotten lazy, possibly intentionally, with their CPU designs. None of these issues are relevant to Apple, nor are the other more minor issues that AMD has had.
 
[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]That benefit that you mentioned is basically the lower latency between the GPU and the CPU, something that has nothing to do with architectures and is purely because of the GPU and CPU being so close together on the same die. My point still stands.[/citation]
Your point doesn't still stand. It's not just that. Getting rid of the latency/interconnects is only half of it--Integrating a full graphical chipset (with the instruction set support) enables you to take advantage of acceleration with those. While the HD4K is a supreme advancement for Intel over their previous iGPUs, they still lack a lot of the instruction set support at the hardware level. Not saying that they'll be that way forever, but architecturally-speaking, the APU is more advanced while intel's CPU's undoubtedly reign king in (unnecessary) CPU power for the average user.
 
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