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Comment by mikece | Hacker News Reader

Any chance Apple will ever consider AMD chips for the MacBook Pro or any of their computers. I have to wonder how much of the $4k+ I just spent on my MacBook Pro went to pay for the Intel 8-core CPU...

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Its unlikely and I wouldn't hold your breath.

If Apple eventually move to their own CPUs (same as what they use for iPhone/iPad etc) then they'll spend time working on that instead. If it means sticking with Intel for another 2 years or whatever until its ready then its worth it for them.

Switching to AMD wouldn't make sense if its only short-term and not in their endgame.

Do you think Apple was "dumb" to "fragment" their OS market even further?

I know they are working on getting apps running on iOS + Mac OS by using the same APIs/libraries, but now iPad OS is a third instance of what I'm guessing is mostly the same kernel / libraries?

eh, I think it is fine, maybe even necessary.

iOS was looking a bit odd with the release of iPhone X as you now started having splintering at least initially (I'm not sure when it happened, but my older iPad started getting iPhone X-esque swipe down gestures for command center and notifications which was a nice touch). iPadOS looks to be iOS with extra add in features and it was kind of needed if they're going for the PC replacement angle now. I'm glad that my new iPad is getting (has, via beta) mouse support. I don't see any value in my iPhone X having it though (unless there were some kind of meaningful reason for docking), so it'd seem to be bloat at that point.

I thought both iPhone and iPad had mouse support now? And, it’s tucked away in the accessibility menu, so clearly not intended for general use, at least for now.

It may be part of iOS 13 proper, I was just giving it as an example of a newer feature that makes sense with a larger screen like an iPad whereas maybe not as much with a (relatively) small screen like the iPhone.

Regardless, iPadOS is shaping up to be the latest iOS release with some extra features that maybe don't make sense on iPhone (at least until they prove great in iPadOS and there's a push by users to include it in iPhone as well). It'll most likely get anything that iOS/iPhone gets but then has its own so they rebrand it as a new OS (seems iOS+ or something denoting they're inherently the same would be more helpful). Having iPad's home screen grid be limited to the number of icons the way it did was apparently keeping it in parity with iOS/iPhone. Allowing that aspect to be "extended" by iPadOS to include docking the notification widgets/Today View on the primary home screen (wish it could stay for all home screens, but I digress) is a net gain.

There were a lot of rumors recently about Apple working on custom desktop ARM CPU. I think that it's very likely that they'll introduce it into their macbooks at least. But powerful Macs is where it'll be really interesting. They recently released Mac Pros. Spending a lot of money on computer that might become kind of obsolete in a few years sounds not very good.

Overall my impression is that Apple does not care about compatibility. They'll just force every software developer to recompile their program with ARM instruction and pack it into installer and if you need some old program, you either out of luck or may be they'll implement some kind of translation (and if performance is bad, it's even better, because that would force software developer to release "optimized" build).

Less than $583. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/192990/...

$1999

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/189126/...

The XE is something a vanity chip however.

The HK maintains the same single core performance but obviously only achieves about half the multicore score.

https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/2585

Still very good value for money.

Read the thread again; MacBook Pros don't use XEs.

Apologies, for some reason I misread the hierarchy of your post.

The Ryzen mobile CPUs are quite far behind Intel's offerings at the moment - they're manufactured on a 12 nm process and use the Zen+ uarch, instead of 7 nm/Zen 2 the new desktop chips use.

They have the advantage in GPU performance, but Ice Lake chips are coming in the next couple of months and they should slightly surpass the performance of the Vega GPUs, plus the CPU itself should perform quite a bit better, at least in terms of raw IPC.

When are Zen 2 laptop CPUs supposed to come out?

Apple is probably going to switch to their own chips before they switch to AMD.

So from a recent standing start Apple are going to beat Intel and AMD - I could see Apple using their own cpu's for tablets and phones but for work stations I don't think so.

You're probably right. But don't underestimate Apple. They have $250 billion in cash reserves.

Supposedly a new 7nm fab in Taiwan is going to cost around 17 billion dollars just for the FAB.

Not sure Apple share holders will think trying to compete with intel and AMD is good use of their money

That's not relevant. Apple isn't going to be manufacturing its own chips, it doesn't do that currently. What the person was talking about was the same thing it does for the iPhone chips, which is design them and then get TSMC to fabricate them.

$17 billion is peanuts for Apple. However, Apple uses TSMC for fabrication and they are already at 7nm. No need to own fabs. AMD doesn't own fabs either. The Apple designed A12X Bionic processor contains 10 billion transistors and is already competitive with desktop processors from AMD and Intel. Do you think it would be that difficult for Apple to design a desktop or laptop version? They have more than enough money to hire all of the smartest engineers on the planet. The problem would be backwards compatibility, like the transition from PPC to x86 in 2005.

But it is the share holders peanuts - is a quixotic and expensive charge to over take AMD or Intel the best use of our money?

I thought I made this clear in my previous response. Apple is already highly competitive in processor design. The A12X matches the mid range processors from AMD and Intel. AMD does not own a fab. Apple doesn't need to own a fab either.

It turns out they are going ahead with this plan already https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/apple-is-...

What do you mean you “could see it”? Apple have been using their own cpus for iPad and iPhone, Apple TV, Watch and iPod touch, for a decade.

They’ve been calling them “desktop class performance” for a long time now, and they’ve included an Apple processor in their laptops in recent years for driving the touchbar and TouchID.

The A12X Bionic gets roughly the same Geekbench score as an Intel i5 8400 in both single and multi core benchmarks, and with an Nvidia Gt 1030 equivalent GPU performance and lower power use.

The idea of them switching entirely isn’t infeasible, it seems to me that they’re pushing hard to be able to have it as an option soon - a few years.

Ah true sorry I forgot

"Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs From 2020, Replacing Intel" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/apple-is-...

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