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Why Apple Picked Intel Over AMD

Posted by Zonk on from the low-power-and-made-of-chocolate dept.

An Anonymous Reader writes "Macworld has a piece looking at why Apple chose Intel chips over AMD's offerings when it decided to move away from IBM." From the article: "The reason, industry analysts say, is that Jobs has a clear goal in mind: innovative designs. And such designs require the lowest-voltage chips, which IBM and Freescale were not going to make with the PowerPC chip core--and which AMD has not yet perfected 'This is a practical, pragmatic Steve Jobs decision,' says Shane Rau, Program Manager, PC Semiconductors for market research firm IDC. Intel serves up the most complete line of low-power chips for mobile and small form factor computers, and a good-looking future roadmap for it. Also, Intel's mammoth production capacity erases any supply worries. "

1 of 376 comments (clear)

  1. Of course the reason for Intel and not PPC is shit by NekoXP · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Problem in the reasoning: I know the article is about why Intel over AMD, but they repeat that quote that Intel have a roadmap with processors of diminutive power ratings that "Freescale and IBM weren't going to have".

    ABSOLUTELY TOTALLY WRONG AND BULLSHIT.

    Freescale and IBM already have processors which scale the sub-watt handheld line running PowerPC code, and processors from 400MHz to 1.7GHz taking from 3 to 20W for higher performance code, dual core PCI-Express, Gigabit LAN integrated chip is around the corner. This is undercutting Intel's power margins right now for more functionality.

    There is arguably a performance difference: if Intel are running 2GHz dual core chips and Freescale are only pushing out 1.5GHz at the same time, but there are plenty of benchmarks using SSE and AltiVec which show plenty of performance improvements by going via PowerPC than Intel code (see MacSTL at www.pixelglow.com) including Freescale versions of algorithms which Intel also provide in their proprietary math libs and compilers.

    So. We know they chose Intel over AMD because of financial might and R&D budgets. I'm afraid saying "IBM and Freescale weren't going the same places" is saying that IBM and Freescale would be throwing away their entire established market. Remember Freescale alone has a revenue mere millions lower than Intel's, and IBM's R&D budget outclasses Intel's. Combined they are a larger force. POWER is on the rise.

    The real reason: let's recap. Jobs is a control freak and a nutjob, who's sole purpose in life is to be in the public's eye with "impossible" products and "chic" solutions. Processor architectures aren't chic anymore, Macs sell because of case design and user interface improvements. Performance, certainly not power consumption, doesn't come into it for consumers.