Apple to ditch Intel?

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If they were to acquire the license, they should be free to do that. TBH, I would wager
that even ARM is just a stepping stone in Apples view. Eventually, they will want to
design their own chips. So long as they continue to be profitable anyway.

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I remember 386 / 486 chips with coprocessor. Maybe the history repeats with x86 and ARM chips, who knows.

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If you think about it, ARM is the perfect way for Apple to set themselves up for their own chips
actually. They can use it to create almost all of the infrastructure necessary to bring their
own chips to market down the road. Almost without skipping a beat...

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Yep, it's not the first time we see Intel "delaying" chip generations for their own economic benefits.

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discoDSP wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 9:58 am I remember 386 / 486 chips with coprocessor. Maybe the history repeats with x86 and ARM chips, who knows.
I remember the (80)286 could be extended with a 287 coprocessor, but the 386 had it fully integrated afaik.

Up until Skylake there was an ARC processor for the Intel Management Engine on every x86, which since then is replaced by,,, a x86!
So there's always an extra lightweight core for the ME.

Source: http://blog.ptsecurity.com/2017/04/inte ... s.html?m=1
Last edited by BertKoor on Sun Jun 02, 2019 11:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Apple is using T1 chips for the touch MacBooks, IIRC those are some kind of ARM chips.

Edit: They have been making more SoC generations like the T2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple-des ... s#Apple_T2

Those chips sound like a coprocessor to me.

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discoDSP wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 10:21 am Apple is using T1 chips for the touch MacBooks, IIRC those are some kind of ARM chips.

Edit: They have been making more SoC generations like the T2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple-des ... s#Apple_T2
You mean... that thing that have been f...ing the Macs since it appeared? Yeah, Apple is on the right path :hihi:
Fernando (FMR)

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fmr wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 3:22 pm You mean... that thing that have been f...ing the Macs since it appeared? Yeah, Apple is on the right path :hihi:
:lol: still using early 2013 iMac so can’t speak about it.

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Intel was an ARM licensee at an earlier stage but they decided to stick to their knitting and push their own designs. The whole Atom caper was part of their attempt to establish lines of lower power chips for portable devices. They invested quite a lot into mobile phone/tablet oriented processors and chipsets the same way MS put lots of capital into their whole Windows phone business model - which had multiple iterations and ended up with them owning Nokia for a bit there. It looks like these behemoths see competitors in another field (egs Netscape, the iPhone), get threatened and try to bust in on the action but typically make eye-watering losses and eventually withdraw. They may take some paint off their competitors in the process or secure some other gains/cover contingencies in the short term so there may be some logic to all of this even if it is not immediately apparent to outsiders.

Intel were quite serious about trying to compete on 5G modems for all manner of mobile devices but IIRC they have canned that as well just lately. It seems that it is quite hard to beat the established players in a given niche even with Intel's financial clout and huge numbers of engineers.

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egbert wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 4:57 pm Intel were quite serious about trying to compete on 5G modems for all manner of mobile devices but IIRC they have canned that as well just lately. It seems that it is quite hard to beat the established players in a given niche even with Intel's financial clout and huge numbers of engineers.
5G is a mattwre where chienese (especially Huawei) got a decisive advantage, as far as I read, and that's one fo the reasons of the attack led by Trump towards them.

So, that isn't a field where just Intel lost. ALL american companies lost - they are far behind the international competition. I don't see what that has to do with ARM or Apple or their chips.
Fernando (FMR)

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Another poster suggested that Intel could license ARM and build chips. I pointed out that they did this at another earlier stage and then dropped the idea. Their attempts to enter various markets and then abandon them was what brought me to the 5G modem caper since it was only weeks back that they abruptly changed course there. BTW Huawei don't and won't have the whole 5G ecosystem to themselves. Read some articles on how much "US only" tech is in the latest Hu%*ei phones and I don't just mean Android - I'm talking hardware.

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@fmr
Here's a further development on Intel's 5G modem venture (built on their acquisition of Infineon). I think the potential relevance of this to Apple is pretty clear now ;-)

https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/ne ... biz-rumour

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In the meantime, a case could be made again for AMD's Ryzen 3 as a potential transition step. I know, this is being discussed all the time in forums and takes on almost religious proportions for some.

But it looks like they have their stuff together right now. Including the production process. And power consumption/thermal envelope.

Also, the CPUs are said to be half price at equal or superior performance*. Which could improve Apple's baseline without raising prices. I would certainly take a Mac Pro with that 'inferior AMD junk' CPU and a less powerful GPU if it cuts the base price to 3k. I just need CPU and low latency performance.


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*) I know, I know, show me the benchmarks or it doesn't exist. Show me the 1 Mil batch pricing or I'll discredit anything you say.
..off to play with my music toys - library music production.
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medienhexer wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2019 11:07 am Also, the CPUs are said to be half price at equal or superior performance*. Which could improve Apple's baseline without raising prices. I would certainly take a Mac Pro with that 'inferior AMD junk' CPU and a less powerful GPU if it cuts the base price to 3k. I just need CPU and low latency performance.
You know Apple prices have nothing to do with cost of components right? :roll:
Fernando (FMR)

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AMDs new 3950 is kicking some Intel keister in gaming bench marks at a bit over 1/3 the price.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-r ... 39640.html
https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/ne ... benchmarks

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