why doesn't Apple use AMD cpu's?

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

i was just wondering what might be the reason Apple doesn't use AMD cpu's in any of their systems. 

it would make sense for something like a Mac Mini refresh. i'd much rather have an AMD apu than intel graphics.

[PopsicleHustler]

Maybe they got an agreement/partnership  between them and Intel.

[NelizMastr]

They made the switch to Intel in 2006, and sticking to one CPU manufacturer minimizes the amount of configurations to support and produce, which saves cost. It's either all AMD or all Intel. 

Also, at the time, AMD was losing market share and they couldn't really compete that well with the Core 2 chips. They were always a bit behind on efficiency.

[Tabs]

4 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

i was just wondering what might be the reason Apple doesn't use AMD cpu's in any of their systems. 

it would make sense for something like a Mac Mini refresh. i'd much rather have an AMD apu than intel graphics.

AMD didn't have a modern platform or a competitive CPU architecture until recently. The amount of time Apple has been using Intel means they would need a VERY good reason to change. AMD has no mobile CPU's of volume worth a damn, and the desktop-class APU's all use too much power for the Mac Mini form factor. 

 

Intel has proven their parts to be reliable, if not competitive, for the last 8+ years. Apple knows Intel can deliver if it asks them for a million CPU's. Time to market and development of a new platform makes AMD a very costly business strategy for Apple, with very little in the way to gain.

[LAwLz]

Probably a few reasons but there are three that comes to mind:

 

1) They have a pretty good relationship. Companies like Apple don't buy their components from the likes of Newegg, so the relationship between companies plays a very important role. Things like special prices, help with development of the product, special SKUs tailored for the OEM's need and so on are all very valuable assets. A long term relationship like the one Apple and Intel have is very strong and valuable. It is possible that AMD can't match Intel in a lot of areas because of their smaller size, such as engineering help, support or keeping up with Apple's very large support demands.

 

2) Some software such as Final Cut heavily relies on Intel-specific things such as QuickSync. While AMD offers similar similar technologies, it has historically not been as good in terms of codec support and general polish, with AMD completely scraping their APIs at one point a few years ago, breaking compatibility with existing software.

There is also a bit of work and risk associated with getting all the stuff like the EFI working with AMD processors and chipsets. Shouldn't be too hard, but a lot of small things like that add up.

 

3) They don't really have any reason to. When something works you usually stick with it. Changing to AMD could pose quite a few challenges and while it might be too hard to do the extra work to get it working, you need to have a good reason to spend the time, effort and take the risk in doing so. The alternative has to be significantly better for the investment to be worth it.

[Peskanova]

12 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

i was just wondering what might be the reason Apple doesn't use AMD cpu's in any of their systems. 

it would make sense for something like a Mac Mini refresh. i'd much rather have an AMD apu than intel graphics.

Well now Intel graphics are great from hd 600 till now

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

9 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

They made the switch to Intel in 2006, and sticking to one CPU manufacturer minimizes the amount of configurations to support and produce, which saves cost. It's either all AMD or all Intel. 

Also, at the time, AMD was losing market share and they couldn't really compete that well with the Core 2 chips. They were always a bit behind on efficiency.

ok that makes sense. 

 

8 hours ago, Tabs said:

AMD didn't have a modern platform or a competitive CPU architecture until recently. The amount of time Apple has been using Intel means they would need a VERY good reason to change. AMD has no mobile CPU's of volume worth a damn, and the desktop-class APU's all use too much power for the Mac Mini form factor. 

 

Intel has proven their parts to be reliable, if not competitive, for the last 8+ years. Apple knows Intel can deliver if it asks them for a million CPU's. Time to market and development of a new platform makes AMD a very costly business strategy for Apple, with very little in the way to gain.

i thought ryzen mobile was a thing? but yeah i get it. intel is just a lot bigger. 

 

8 hours ago, Peskanova said:

Well now Intel graphics are great from hd 600 till now

they don't perform on the level of current apu's right?

 

8 hours ago, LAwLz said:

2) Some software such as Final Cut heavily relies on Intel-specific things such as QuickSync. While AMD offers similar similar technologies, it has historically not been as good in terms of codec support and general polish, with AMD completely scraping their APIs at one point a few years ago, breaking compatibility with existing software.

There is also a bit of work and risk associated with getting all the stuff like the EFI working with AMD processors and chipsets. Shouldn't be too hard, but a lot of small things like that add up.

i didn't know that. that makes a lot of sense. 

 

<removed>

Edited August 3, 2018 by SansVarnic

[AngryBeaver]

25 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

ok that makes sense. 

 

i thought ryzen mobile was a thing? but yeah i get it. intel is just a lot bigger. 

 

they don't perform on the level of current apu's right?

 

i didn't know that. that makes a lot of sense. 

 

please stop

It isn't just about size. It is until recently AMD was not even competitive. They were almost out of the game entirely except for budget based builds. The a6-a8-a10 stuff was used fro the mobile platform and they just weren't that good. I mean the APU wasn't bad, for light gaming, but you gave up a lot of CPU horsepower by going with an AMD chip.

 

Then starting with sandybridge intel started adding graphics to their chips and it wasn't bad. It might not have been a gaming beast, but it was able to handle most tasks and even some light gaming moderately well if you were willing to sacrifice some prettiness. So that made this chip a no brainer for most companies. You got the huge CPU gains that were made by the I- line and then decent graphics capabilities baked in to the chip. From there they got faster and more energy efficient which grabbed them a massive amount of laptop market share. They were very strong chips so that grabbed them the gaming/enthusiast market share as well as that of the workstation and prebuilt pc market. AMD still had a place for budget builds and some prebuilt systems that focuses around being cheap, but until Ryzen they were mostly down and out.

 

Now that Ryzen is out they have gained a little market share with gamers and prebuilt systems, but faith in them still hasn't been restored. They still don't have an actual win over Intel, even though they are ahead in the price/performance ratio. The biggest challenge they are going to have now is the limited clock frequencies that Ryzen can push compared to intel... they just don't have the headroom that intel does. This will increase with the manufacturing improvements and move to 7nm, but even then it will just close the gap on the frequency war intel is currently winning. They are being forced to throw more cores on chips to stay competitive, but the problem is the market hasn't shifted into really supporting even 8 cores fully yet. So until the software industry shifts to match what hardware is doing they will not see the gains they want outside of a handful of programs/applications.

[mariushm]

Apple wants to move to their own processors based on ARM ,  which would allow running same app on iPhone and their Macs and make it possible to "move" running apps between devices etc..

 

Quote

i thought ryzen mobile was a thing? but yeah i get it. intel is just a lot bigger. 

it takes maybe 1y+ to engineer a product line and transition between processors and all the stocks related (cpus sockets boards parts stock for repairs)

i suppose it was much easier to keep going with intel and convenient integrated graphics until they get their own cpus working

[Tabs]

5 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

i thought ryzen mobile was a thing? but yeah i get it. intel is just a lot bigger.

 

They are, but to date they're only shipping in a few very low-volume prooducts. I'm willing to bet that the combined sales of every Mobile Ryzen-equipped notebook don't even come close to scratching the sales figures of the worst apple products. 

 

The range only includes two processors, and they haven't been updated to the Zen+ designs, which implies a lack of confidence (from OEM's) in the volume or capacity of the designs, or a lack of confidence (from AMD) that the microarchitecture improvements of Zen+ on those cpu's would be worth the cost of a tapeout.

 

I expect this to change when Ryzen 2 based parts start shipping, though.

 

Edited since it seems AMD does make Zen+ versions of Mobile Ryzen. I didn't know about them, and they weren't released or announced at the same time as Zen+ was so I completely missed it. My bad.

Edited August 3, 2018 by Tabs

[Mira Yurizaki]

2 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

i thought ryzen mobile was a thing? but yeah i get it. intel is just a lot bigger. 

The other part of it is that AMD doesn't have an extensive SKU lineup for a wide range of markets unlike AMD. They have Ryzen mobile, but the market range is smaller compared to what Intel can offer.

 

2 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

they don't perform on the level of current apu's right?

They don't, but we also have to consider the use case of most Apple users. That GPU performance isn't really going to be appreciated much other than the occasional acceleration in multi-media editing. I'd argue a majority of Apple's market share uses the computer like any other casual computer user.

 

[Stefan Payne]

3 hours ago, Tabs said:

AMD has no mobile CPU's of volume worth a damn

That is not true, 

They have the Ryzen 7 2700U and the Ryzen 5 2500U

And they are are 15W TDP parts with an optional 25W.

 

For example:

https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-7-2700u

 

They could easily be used with the Macboox Airs.

 

3 hours ago, Tabs said:

, and the desktop-class APU's all use too much power for the Mac Mini form factor. 

No, they don't use any more than the Intel ones do.

You don't seem to be too well informed...

 

And AMD also announced 35W TDP Parts, but Ryzen also supports the "cTDP", though its not implemented on end user/consumer Boards.

 

3 hours ago, Tabs said:

Time to market and development of a new platform makes AMD a very costly business strategy for Apple, with very little in the way to gain.

No.

and Apple can Ask AMD for semi Custom Chips according to their specification.

 

AMD Develops their Chips so that you can do that...

[Stefan Payne]

3 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

i was just wondering what might be the reason Apple doesn't use AMD cpu's in any of their systems. 

it would make sense for something like a Mac Mini refresh. i'd much rather have an AMD apu than intel graphics.

There might even be no reason for them.

 

They already use AMD Parts, so they have contracts with them. So it would be easy to do that. And they probably would prefer AMD Graphics anyway.

 

So the only reason for them to not do it is because they don't do it....

 

With the Problems they had with the i9 Thingy, its more probable to see AMD Parts in the Furture, especially next year.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Apple did muck about with AMD even after the switch to Intel. There might have been actually prototypes of the MacBook Air that were AMD based because at the time, Intel was late to show Apple engineering samples of the low power Core i5s that would've blown anything AMD could've given Apple. So Apple when that route in anticipation of those Core i5s but had to stick to the low power Core 2 Duos for the meantime. 

[Tabs]

2 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

That is not true, 

They have the Ryzen 7 2700U and the Ryzen 5 2500U

And they are are 15W TDP parts with an optional 25W.

 

I specifically stated volume parts. AMD makes Zen and Zen+ versions of their mobile Ryzen chips, but they are in such short supply that they could never be used sustainably by Apple for anything but a low-volume product - and a new Mac Mini would not be a low-volume product.

 

2 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

No, they don't use any more than the Intel ones do.

You don't seem to be too well informed...

 

And AMD also announced 35W TDP Parts, but Ryzen also supports the "cTDP", though its not implemented on end user/consumer Boards.

 

The highest power part used in a Mac Mini is 28W.

 

2 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

No.

and Apple can Ask AMD for semi Custom Chips according to their specification.

 

AMD Develops their Chips so that you can do that...

 

This is an expensive and time consuming process, and one that AMD has only ever performed with low end parts. Specifically, high volume custom APU's for games consoles. Doing the same thing for a high performance part is not nearly the same thing. As I specifically stated, there is no business sense in Apple going this route, as they would never get a product from AMD worth their investment at this point in time.

 

Ryzen 2 will be a much more promising part, assuming their updated process node can scale to the kinds of volumes Apple would need. That is yet to be displayed, but I'm hopeful.

Edited August 3, 2018 by Tabs

[PlayStation 2]

A fair few reasons.

1. I bet money Apple has a good relationship with Intel. I'm sure that helps them get CPUs for cheaper or at least faster than anyone else really can.

2. OPTIMIZATION AROUND macOS. This one's a big one, especially since Apple's computers take great advantage of even paltry ass CPUs (newer Core 2 Duos) and GPUs (mediocre integrated graphics and older Nvidia GPUs) given to it from almost a decade ago to run the OS comfortably.

3. AMD might not have come to the plate to Apple with an offer. Not everything involves Apple going to whatever company, it can be vice-versa. 

4. Volume. This one ties into 1 in a sense, because AMD doesn't really offer their mobile Ryzen chips for mass-volume production. It's why they're usually only in mid-high tier thinner laptops, like HP's upper-end laptops. 

[Stefan Payne]

1 minute ago, Tabs said:

I specifically stated volume parts. AMD makes Zen and Zen+ versions of their mobile Ryzen chips, but they are in such short supply that they could never be used sustainably by Apple for anything but a low-volume product - and a new Mac Mini would not be a low-volume product.

Any proof of that claim? 
Links??

 

1 minute ago, Tabs said:

The highest power part used in a Mac Mini is 28W.

Yes, and??
In their Mac Book Pro they seem to use 45W TDP Parts...

SO there is nothing keeping them from using 35W TDP Parts in the MAC Mini at all.

 

1 minute ago, Tabs said:

This is an expensive and time consuming process, and one that AMD has only ever performed with low end parts. Specifically, high volume custom APU's for games consoles.

No, they aren't low end Parts at all, especially the APUs for one X and PS4 PRO.

The thing is that at the Time there was no alternative to Jaguar at the time, Bulldozer was too late for the deal.

And Sony couldn't wait with the Release of the PS4.

 

1 minute ago, Tabs said:

Doing the same thing for a high performance part is not nearly the same thing. As I specifically stated, there is no business sense in Apple going this route, as they would never get a product from AMD worth their investment at this point in time.

Is it?

Depends on what you want and how they do it.

And according to AMD, it is like Lego (well, a bit more).

 

Especially since we are talking more about low Power Parts than High Performance ones...

So if the Chip does 3,2GHz, that's enough, one Core or two might do 3,5GHz.

[SansVarnic]

-= Thread Cleaned =-

 

Lets keep the thread on topic.

If this topic becomes a troll line it will be locked.

[Mooshi]

They already have an established business model. If Apple wanted to use non Intel chips they'll use their own. Think of it why you see Coke some places and Pepsi in others. It's business.

 

[Coaxialgamer]

Apple switched to x86 in 2006, and since then they've only used Intel. Why is this? 

-intel arguably has a better track record than AMD. Despite being complacent, intel consistently has had the better chips. Before ryzen came out, AMD hadn't really had anything good since k8: phenom/k10 had a major bug, it's successor in phenom 2 was very power hungry, and overall performance was poor. Bulldozer was bulldozer, and it's derivatives didnt seriously challenge intel. And don't get me started on their mobile offerings. 

-Intel historically has been the leader in processor manufacturing, and they own/control their own fabs, which is a huge advantage in many aspects. 

-Thanks to many decades of "intel inside" advertisements, chips from team blue are easier to market

-Apple and Intel have a very good working relationship. Breaking that for no reason is foolish. 

-And most importantly : Apple is a huge customer for intel, and accounts for over 10% over their volume (intel's). That's a massive number of chips, and AMD likely cannot deliver that volume. 

 

[Underwrought]

I dont think anyone here can really and truely answer this question for you without it just being a guess.  However a lot of good and likely points.  Its more than likely whatever the reason is, it comes down to what makes the most business sense for them, and apple is greedy.