Rumor: Apple to Switch Back to Nvidia for 2012 GPUs

[rpp]

[citation][nom]CaedenV[/nom]Apple will always choose the perceived winner in the pro markets for their products no matter their performance. AMD had a strong name just a year ago on their GPU and APU lines, and so they were willing to work with them. After the bad press of bulldozer (whether true or not), AMD will now be ejected from apple products because they are afraid that their elitist customers may think twice about buying something with an AMD label on it. OS-X may not even be susceptible to the issues of bulldozer (as Win8 supposedly isn't), but the media says AMD=fail, and that is all that apple customers are going to care about.[/citation]
just tell the stores to remove the amd label

 

[jdwii]

This is why Amd is switching to TSMC for more and more things because GF Sucks with a Capital s.

 

[schmich]

[citation][nom]dirtyferret[/nom]putting a gaming video card in a mac is like putting a cocktail dress on a fat chick, it's not attractive and only good for a laugh[/citation]
Except mobile GPUs are crap, even more when you get the low/mid-range ones.

 

[captaincharisma]

[citation][nom]schmich[/nom]Except mobile GPUs are crap, even more when you get the low/mid-range ones.[/citation]

thats all you need for gaming for macs anyway. not many games on them that would require a powerful GPU

 

[amuffin]

I THINK I WILL PAY 1000+ FOR A LAPTOP THAT CAN'T PLAY DECENT GAMES!

 

[Guest]

The only thing that can still save AMD is selling their most powerful multisocket Opterons for cheap.

 

[ta152h]

[citation][nom]captaincharisma[/nom]i wonder too. they admitted defeat in the mhz race a few years ago and changed there nameing scheme for there CPUs to show that, the phenom CPU was a big mess out of the gate and now the same thing is happening to the bulldozer. OH! im sorry we will have to wait for a new OS to truly see how BD performs. soory fanboisface it the only success AMD has now is because of ATI. while there dollar store CPUs continue to declineFAIL[/citation]

Well, for what it's worth, AMD should win the MHz race with Bulldozer, based on the design. Of course, they still have to execute on it, but I don't think MHz matters so much anymore. Back in the days when the Coppermine and Athlon ran roughly equally at the same clock speeds, people paid more attention to it. Now, with different IPCs, and weird model numbers, it's not as important a yardstick.

AMD surrendered to Intel in performance when they sold their fabs. Intel can integrate the two in a way AMD now can not. I hate absolutes, so we it's unwise to say never, but the chances of AMD ever outperforming Intel again are very, very slim. People point to the Athlon 64 outperforming Pentium 4, but that's when AMD had fabs, and Intel was selling a processor that was designed without much insight into the power and thermal restrictions that would suffocate it.

All that being what it is, it's not very important. The world doesn't revolve around kiddies shooting space aliens, but does revolve around money. Bobcat is a very good product, and is attractive for a huge market. It's a little heavy on the GPU side, but that's about the only negative you can say about it. It's very small, has decent performance (unlike the Atom), uses low power, and has a high level of integration. They did a great job on the technology, and did a great job in positioning it into a huge market. It's more important in a positive way than the Bulldozer is in a negative way.

Also, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the Bulldozer's high level design. The implementation obviously leaves a lot to be desired, but I wouldn't be too surprised if the next iteration at least exhibits decent performance. I don't think anyone believes it will ever match Intel in single-threaded performance, but, in certain workloads, assuming a decent improvement in the next iteration, it could be useful. No doubt it's a failure now, but, like the Pentium 4, there are some good ideas there that might show themselves in better implementations.

 

[nebun]

[citation][nom]captaincharisma[/nom]looks like apple smells death off of AMD too[/citation]
could be ....it kind of sucks but maybe it's a good thing. AMD made a big mistake when it acquired ATI, because now it can't really concentrate on improving their cpus

 

[molo9000]

Why is there always a discussion about Bulldozer whenever there is news about AMD?

Apple has absolutely no interest in AMD desktop or server/workstation CPUs.
All desktop Macs except the Mac Pro use mobile CPUs and the Mac Pro will probably use Xeons until hell freezes over.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]amuffin[/nom]I THINK I WILL PAY 1000+ FOR A LAPTOP THAT CAN'T PLAY DECENT GAMES![/citation]
Newsflash retard: unlike you, people use computers for shit besides playing games and jacking off to porn.

 

[mobrocket]

[citation][nom]heavenly[/nom]Newsflash retard: unlike you, people use computers for shit besides playing games and jacking off to porn.[/citation]

add internet browsing to the list and those are the top 3 reasons people have PCs in their home..

 

[Guest]

"You can not play games on a mac" What a incredible piece of bullshit.
This indicates that most of the people just yell about everything, without doing their research.

The Apple Hardware is really powerful, you can buy Apple desktops with more then 8 cores for almost 6 years, while regular hardware is still on 4 or maybe 6 cores.
Mac's support things like SLI for years, you can run Windows on it like a regular desktop and play the games you want to play, you can run Linux on it and run everything you want to do on there.
So the only difference between a Desktop/Laptop and a Mac, is that you can not run Mac on a Desktop system (without doing weird things), and you can on a Mac!

I agree that Apple hardware is a little pricier then regular hardware, but my 2000 euro mac rig can outperform your desktop 2000 gaming rig every day.

 

[DroKing]

I dont want AMD/Ati to be associated with such pile of garbage therefore I am quite happy.

 

[KelvinTy]

Interesting decision, selling the brand?
I thought AMD solutions are way more cost effective than Nvidia solutions.
But again, Apple takes branding way more serious than what the product can actually do.
With the help of lightpeak / thunderbolt, they could have made an universal external graphics solution and have fun.

 

[theconsolegamer]

[citation][nom]SirDude0Lot[/nom]"You can not play games on a mac" What a incredible piece of bullshit.This indicates that most of the people just yell about everything, without doing their research.The Apple Hardware is really powerful, you can buy Apple desktops with more then 8 cores for almost 6 years, while regular hardware is still on 4 or maybe 6 cores.Mac's support things like SLI for years, you can run Windows on it like a regular desktop and play the games you want to play, you can run Linux on it and run everything you want to do on there.So the only difference between a Desktop/Laptop and a Mac, is that you can not run Mac on a Desktop system (without doing weird things), and you can on a Mac!I agree that Apple hardware is a little pricier then regular hardware, but my 2000 euro mac rig can outperform your desktop 2000 gaming rig every day.[/citation]
Your $2000 Mac can be outperformed by a $1000 PC.

 

[Vladislaus]

[citation][nom]SirDude0Lot[/nom]"You can not play games on a mac" What a incredible piece of bullshit.This indicates that most of the people just yell about everything, without doing their research.The Apple Hardware is really powerful, you can buy Apple desktops with more then 8 cores for almost 6 years, while regular hardware is still on 4 or maybe 6 cores.Mac's support things like SLI for years, you can run Windows on it like a regular desktop and play the games you want to play, you can run Linux on it and run everything you want to do on there.So the only difference between a Desktop/Laptop and a Mac, is that you can not run Mac on a Desktop system (without doing weird things), and you can on a Mac!I agree that Apple hardware is a little pricier then regular hardware, but my 2000 euro mac rig can outperform your desktop 2000 gaming rig every day.[/citation]
What SLI has anything to do with Apple? It's a feature created by nVidia. Also the MacPro can't run SLI or Crossfire under Mac OS X, only under Windows.

The first Mac Pro with more than 8 cores was released in 2010. A bit of a far cry to say you could buy one with more than 8 cores for 6 years.

True that to install the mac os x on certain non mac hardware is a pain in the butt, but with some hardware you almost don't need any kind of hacking because the hardware is almost identical. A few Gigabyte boards come to mind.

Now the Mac Pro outperform a gaming rig depends on the task. If the task is gaming, even the most expensive Mac Pro will not beat a 2000€ gaming machine. A 2000€ gaming machine will most likely be packing two GTX580 or HD 6970 GPUs something that the HD 5770 that comes with the Mac Pro can't beat.

 

[verbalizer]

good for nVidia and no longer having heat issues, I'm a nVidia fan and wish them good business.
too bad I don't care about Apple..

 

[hpglow]

[citation][nom]fazers_on_stun[/nom]Yeah - the article is old news by now and has been discussed in several threads, but I agree - esp. the fact that AMD couldn't promise enough of the high-end Llano's due to yield problems with GF, has cost them a potentially pretty lucrative deal with Apple. According to some other rumors, AMD is pulling their 28nm production (Brazos updates anyway) from GF and going with TSMC. I dunno if the Southern Islands (AMD 7xxx GPUs) are affected or not, but if I were Rory Read, I'd pull those from GF as well, seeing as how some reports show TSMC's 28nm process to be around 45% higher performance than their 40nm process. I think AMD already knew this some time ago, and is one of the reasons for the recent 10% workforce layoffs. If they stay with GF as their fab, they're probably going to get in even more difficulty. So, time to pull the plug..[/citation]
When has GF produced an AMD GPU? That's right never. Tom's is so full of you people that run your mouth and know nothing.

Last I checked the 7000 series was still being scheduled for production in Tiwan.

 

[ap3x]

[citation][nom]alhanelem[/nom]why bother?Macs cant run games[/citation]

They run games just fine. What are you talking about[citation][nom]theconsolegamer[/nom]Your $2000 Mac can be outperformed by a $1000 PC.[/citation]

And the PC will take up twice the room, have at least 7 different cables coming out of the back and collect dust on the inside like a vacuum cleaner. Apple does not make a tower machine for the mid market. They make the IMac and then the Mac Pro which is a professional workstation and no, you are not outrunning that thing unless you use your computer for games only. You are comparing Aa\pples to Oranges. Personally, I like both but I would choose between the two based on how I expect to use it. At the end of the day it is a tool.

 

[andrewc513]

Well who didn't see this coming from a mile away back when they first announced AMD exclusivity?

 

[applefairyboy]

They could put a turd in for a video card and I still wouldn't know the difference. I buy Apple for social acceptance.

 

[captaincharisma]

[citation][nom]applefairyboy[/nom]They could put a turd in for a video card and I still wouldn't know the difference. I buy Apple for social acceptance.[/citation]

finally an apple fanboi who admits it

 

[Balle195]

The price will finally be over 9000 !!!!

 

[sceen311]

GOOOOD!

 

[sceen311]

[citation][nom]alhanelem[/nom]why bother?Macs cant run games[/citation]
Hey new guy, try rendering in After Effects with Nvidia instead of an amd card. Some people actually use computers for useful things not just playing games, they're called grown ups.

and I'm pretty sure diablo 3 runs fine on a mac.