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Why did Apple switch to AMD GPUs?

Billy Pilgrim
By Billy Pilgrim
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I recently noticed that a few years ago apple stopped putting Nvidia GPUs in their products and started using AMD ones.

Why was this?

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1 minute ago, Billy Pilgrim said:

Could you give a few examples?

AMD cards are always cheaper than their Nvidia counterparts for similar performance. 

An example: RX 580 is very comparable to a 1060 6gb. see this: https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-1060-6GB-vs-AMD-RX-580/3639vs3923

 

580 for nearly $190 https://pcpartpicker.com/product/MBGxFT/msi-radeon-rx-580-8gb-video-card-rx-580-8g-v1

 

1060 6gb for $260 https://pcpartpicker.com/product/vVWrxr/msi-geforce-gtx-1060-6gb-gaming-video-card-geforce-gtx-1060-gaming-6g

 

There are tons of 580's going for less than $130 at the moment too on a few websites. And these are consumer prices, the savings on a contract with someone like Apple has to be extremely low. 

 

Also note that these are the full size GPU's and not the ones intended for Macs and laptops. 

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9 minutes ago, DVA said:

Cost efficiency. 

Nvidia also didn't like Apple screwing with their drivers.

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4 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Nvidia also didn't like Apple screwing with their drivers.

What did Apple do?

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8 minutes ago, DVA said:

There are tons of 580's going for less than $130 at the moment too on a few websites. And these are consumer prices, the savings on a contract with someone like Apple has to be extremely low. 

If the savings are low, then why are they so important?

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Just now, Billy Pilgrim said:

What did Apple do?

Apple has to do a bunch of driver modifications to get the drivers to work the way Apple wants them to, and Nvidia apparently didn't like that.

Quote or tag me( @Crunchy Dragon) if you want me to see your reply

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Just now, Crunchy Dragon said:

Apple has to do a bunch of driver modifications to get the drivers to work the way Apple wants them to, and Nvidia apparently didn't like that.

How does Apple want their cards to work?

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Just now, Billy Pilgrim said:

How does Apple want their cards to work?

I don't know the specifics.

 

macOS is supposed to be really really well optimized, so I guess modding GPU drivers is part of how Apple achieves that level of optimization.

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Just now, Crunchy Dragon said:

macOS is supposed to be really really well optimized,

Is it, or is it just "supposed to." I do know however, that Final Cut Pro is well optimized, as well as iPhones in IOS 12 when compared to IOS 11.

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1 minute ago, Billy Pilgrim said:

Is it, or is it just "supposed to." I do know however, that Final Cut Pro is well optimized, as well as iPhones in IOS 12 when compared to IOS 11.

I've heard it handles RAM better than Windows.

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Apple has been using AMD graphics for a super long time, all the way back to original mac pro using radeon firepro stuff, and I'm sure it goes even further back than that. Seems Nvidia just lost support rather support switching to AMD

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Just now, fasauceome said:

Apple has been using AMD graphics for a super long time, all the way back to original mac pro using radeon firepro stuff, and I'm sure it goes even further back than that. Seems Nvidia just lost support rather support switching to AMD

But at least a few 15" MacBook Pros used Nvidia graphics, as well as iMacs.

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1 minute ago, Billy Pilgrim said:

But at least a few 15" MacBook Pros used Nvidia graphics, as well as iMacs.

There have been many more apple devices using AMD graphics rather than Nvidia, so maybe it just didn't work out. Either Apple couldn't secure stock for cheap, or it's an optimization issue, but it seems Nvidia doesn't play nice with MacOS.

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Draws 400 watts under max load, for reference.

 

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Just now, fasauceome said:

There have been many more apple devices using AMD graphics rather than Nvidia, so maybe it just didn't work out. Either Apple couldn't secure stock for cheap, or it's an optimization issue, but it seems Nvidia doesn't play nice with MacOS.

ok, that makes sense

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Really it’s Nvidia’s contract expired and it didn’t make commercial sense to go with them again. Maybe Nvidia wanted a bigger cut then they were getting, but either way they compete with AMD for the contract of Apple, not Apple choosing one for increased performance etc. That’s why they haven’t switched to Nvidia when the 10 series came out, but they get exclusive AMD GPUs.

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7 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Apple also doesn't really care about gaming performance because that's not what they design their laptops for. Usually for the cost, AMD GPUs offer more raw compute power, so maybe they're leveraging on that.

I think it's also because historically they are always been commercial partners, also I would be curious to see the driver performance compared to Windows if there is some really focus on the MacOS drivers, excluding the OS difference 

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Multiple reasons:

  • Cost. Nvidia charges EVERYONE a premium for their GPUs.
  • Control. Apple's extremely picky about what goes into their machines, hardware and software. Nvidia refused to let Apple rewrite their drivers.
  • Performance. AMD cards have, for a long time, been on par with Nvidia cards (if not better) for various compute uses outside of gaming.
  • Reliability. The GPUs and designs Nvidia sold to Apple haven't exactly been as reliable as they should have been.
  • Various forms of acceleration. Apple doesn't need or want what Nvidia is pushing.

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1 hour ago, Drak3 said:

Multiple reasons:

  • Cost. Nvidia charges EVERYONE a premium for their GPUs.
  • Control. Apple's extremely picky about what goes into their machines, hardware and software. Nvidia refused to let Apple rewrite their drivers.
  • Performance. AMD cards have, for a long time, been on par with Nvidia cards (if not better) for various compute uses outside of gaming.
  • Reliability. The GPUs and designs Nvidia sold to Apple haven't exactly been as reliable as they should have been.
  • Various forms of acceleration. Apple doesn't need or want what Nvidia is pushing.

Nail on the head right here.

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A couple things:

  • The bumpgate incident of the late 2000s put Nvidia on Apple's naughty list. 
  • Nvidia didn't want Apple to tinker with their drivers and kept them as a black box
  • CUDA is a proprietary ecosystem while OPENCL is "open" and can work on multiple devices (plus apple has a stake in it. 

 

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14 hours ago, Billy Pilgrim said:

But at least a few 15" MacBook Pros used Nvidia graphics, as well as iMacs.

and how old are these Apple devices?

 

its been a while since Apple put Nvidia inside of anything

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4 hours ago, GoldenLag said:

and how old are these Apple devices?

 

its been a while since Apple put Nvidia inside of anything

2009 I bet.

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