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Why Apple Picked Intel Over AMD
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. "
Maybe massive, cost-saving volume discounts were a factor too?
I think this is the first time I have seen the words "practical" and "pragmatic" in the same sentence with "Steve Jobs". Remember the reality distortion field?
Said that it is worth while to mention that IBM is not incompetent. Their embedded cores which are custom designed are even more energy efficient. But again they are expensive (and task specific) and cost drives the market.
It's all about the mobile processors. Intel's PentiumM's are FAST, low power usage and did I mention FAST? Seeing as how Laptop purchases are rising faster than desktop purchases, and since Apple's laptops are the most long in tooth, I'm betting that the first new Apple Intel box will be a laptop.
If AMD comes out with a better chip in terms of power usage, Apple can switch anytime. As such, going with Intel at the start implies no committment. If Intel starts treating them like dirt, they can go over to AMD, or even perhaps VIA. That's a choice they didn't have before with the PPC architecture.
When will people ever learn. Ok now lets think for a minute. Apple can use Intel or AMD. Intel is able to guarantee more volume than AMD at the moment. This will change when AMDs new fab comes online this year. Intel also promised Apple a taste of the ol' MDF pie. MDF (Market Development Funds) as they like to call it helps Apple compete better with the likes of Dell in this space. MDF also guarantees that Apple will use only Intel CPUs. Now unless our heads have been buried under rocks for a while we all know that AMD technology is superior to Intel in sevral ways at this point. But Apple chose the inferior technology because Intel promised it massive $$$ kickbacks. Intel basically "buys" its customers. This is not rocket science folks. My prediction. After the move to x86 is stabilized Apple will then be free to use AMD as a tool to get better deals from Intel as Dell currently does. Due to their volumes they will not be able to get the prices that Dell gets so they will unlike Dell introduce a line of AMD cpus in the future. For two reasons. To have the MAC daddy of all X86 PCs and to stick it to Intel.
Did anybody else notice that Jobs in his keynote addressed why they're switching to Intel, and now however many weeks later the analysts put pen to paper and write down what he said as the reason they think they're switching?
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A lot of ink has been spilled on why Apple chose Intel over AMD. I think it's all a bit of a waste of time.
Unless Apple uses some proprietary Intel instruction set, it can add AMD offerings to its lineup whenever it feels like.
My guess is that Apple chose Intel for their arch switch because:
1) It was easier to pick a single chip partner to do the switch with.
2) Intel likely offered incentives to go with them alone. There may be contracts involved in this, but they won't last forever.
3) Like it or not, Intel is the x86 brand with mindshare in the public eye.
4) AMD probably can't handle the volume of bringing all of Apple's products over to them at the moment.
The fact is that as soon as OS X is x86 it can benefit from the Intel/AMD competition in the same way that Windows and Linux users do today.
The hurdle is converting from PPC to x86. Going from Intel to AMD later on may not even be noticeable. In fact, if you think of the G4/G5 branding in the current Apple world, most consumers don't even know that their G4 is a Motorola chip and their G5 is IBM. They don't care, so long as there's an Apple on the side of the box.
Considering that AMD's chips are generally faster, cooler, and more efficient than Intel's chips, the choice of AMD would seem like a nobrainer without the Pentium M.
Apple seems to be moving hard toward mobile computing now anyway, so going for the Pentium M is a smart move all around, and it doesn't take much imagination to see those in Mac Mini's and the like in the future.
Myself, I'd have split the difference and gone with AMD for the 64 bit server chips. I think that descision is going to do good things for Sun.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Intel have a public roadmap into 2007, so their private roadmap must extend even further.
AMD have a public roadmap into 2006, but nothing long term. Privately, it may be different.
IBM have a roadmap into next week if you're lucky. Privately it may be different, but 3GHz G5s?
AMD has Intel beat at the moment on power consumption on the desktop, we all know that. However Yonah and Merom (and server variants thereof?) are what Apple are interested in. Yonah will come in many variants, with an ULV single core at 5.5W, and dual-core LV at 15W alongside the 35W dual-core standard processor. AMD have Turion however, and it isn't that bad in comparison with the current Pentium M, and 65nm should help them along even more.
It will be interesting to see how next year's processors compare. I think that AMD will remain leading in terms of performance at the high end, but the mobile arena will become very interesting with dual-cores from both company, new 65nm processors, and more to boot.
Sure, AMD holds the top-end. Not by an all that huge margin (say 20% on average to be generous) compared to how CPU wars have played out in the past. While AMD has gone from being the absolutely clear bang-for-the-buck manufacturer with the K7 to being the top-end holder with the K8 however Intel has really improved the rest of their product lines. A much overlooked chip today is the (new) Celeron D. 64-bit capable, solid performance, rock-bottom price. I would personally say that Intel offers better budget solutions at the moment.
Other than that however, I have said it before and I'll say it again; Intels desktop Pentium M roadmap can no doubt look great. The Pentium 4 did not work out as they wanted, but Intel has a lot of great engineers (just look how well the Pentium 4 has carried on competing despite the setbacks the design has seen), when they with the next big iteration are freed from the old P4 there will no doubt be a lot of interesting stuff coming from Intel.
Another interesting point is that Intel really is the only CPU maker that actually does more than one product-line at once. AMD kept the K7 around for a budget-line and stripped down the K8 a bit for laptops, but Intel has not just two, but actually three current designs ongoing (the P4, the Itanium and the Pentium M). An Intel roadmap may also contain a lot of goodies directly deriving from the fact that they have the design manpower to actually work on more than one path at once.
When Apple announced the switch, the roadmap has the transition beginning with "value" Macs and portables in mid-2006, with the rest of the line transitioning over the next year.
Basically, they will replace G4-based systems first (eMac, mini, portables), since the G4 Macs are currently the most clock-speed restrained. G4 processors are pretty low on power consumption but top out under 2GHz.
The G5 desktop roadmap is good enough to keep going for a while, with small clock speed improvements and a probable move to dual-core G5 chips. Apple also makes their highest profits on the G5 desktops, so they've got an incentive to push that as gently as possible. Look for the switch there to be right to dual-core x86-64 processors. Right now, G5 processors are still competitive with their x86 counterparts, so that's the other reason to concentrate on the G4 models first.
Hopefully they'll change Xserve last. Those things are pretty darned slick as-is.
Vista is currently due at the end of 2006 (about when Apple plans to release Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard"), so Apple should be well into the transition by then. If Vista slips any further, Apple could even be most of the way through the whole process.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
They're analysts. They're smarter than us. Examples:
"I believe this is a purely negotiating move by Apple to grab some attention and headlines and to point out that they're feeling underappreciated by IBM" - Evin Krewell, editor in chief of the Microprocessor Report, quoted in the Mercury News, May 24, 2005, a few days before Apple announced a switch from IBM to Intel processors.
"You just wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do something that disruptive.'' - analyst Tim Bajarin, quoted in the Mercury News, May 24, 2005, a few days before Apple announced a switch from IBM to Intel processors.
"Stick a fork in 'em - this Apple is cooked." Robert Thomson, Financial Post, 2/20/2003
"For those who love Apple's products, this is all just so typical. This company has made an art of innovation -- from the personal computer itself to the point-and-click operating system -- only to invariably surrender the high sales ground to the boring knock-off artists who copy Apple's best ideas into a new and slightly cheaper model. So it's not surprising Wall Street is already bracing for another disappointment." - Steve Maich, Macleans.ca, 2005/05/09
Count David Goldstein, president of the Dallas-based growth-strategy consulting firm Channel Marketing Corp., among the critics of Apple's retail plans. "It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for them to open retail stores," he says. - May 01, 2001 Macworld Magazine
I collect quotes like these, to remind myself why trusting analysts about anything is generally unwise.
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Apple isn't just going to Intel for CPUs. Intel has all kinds of other chips and technologies, and at last they have a PC-making partner that will actually use cutting-edge stuff.
... CPUs.
And don't forget EFI. I doubt Apple's going to want a crufty old BIOS designed for 8086 machines. Intel has been working on superior alternatives to BIOS (although perhaps not as good as OpenFirmware, but still...).
AMD makes
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It's simple...
Intel has vast software and development resources specifically to help assist in migration to it's processors from rivals. (Although this may be the biggest such case.)
Their resources in the software, compiler, etc. arenas is unparalled. AMD might be pumping out some great chip designs but I seriously doubt they could offer the transition resources of Intel.
However, once Apple is transitioned to x86 and their exclusive contract (5-10 yrs I would guess) with Intel expires. They will then be in place to take opportunity with whichever manufacturer has the better offer at the time.
So essentially, it was a wise long term strategy. Choose the one who can offer the easiest transition as in 2-4 yrs (after they fully transition) who knows who's chips will be faster/cooler/cheaper? After that time. If there is a better alternative chip it would be minimal work to allow for using an AMD x86 as opposed to an Intel x86.
Plain, simple, intelligent....
And Intel has better laptop processors. That's why SJ chose Intel as a primary supplier. When AMD gets its act together wrt laptop processors and kicks Intel's butt there, I won't be surprised to see AMD chips in Apple products side by side with Intel (unless Intel cut them a really hefty discount in return for exclusive contract).