Apple can thank their lucky stars they chose Intel.
Imagine what a laughing stock they would have been when Bulldozer came out.
Don't be ignorant... If Apple choose AMD instead of Intel in 2005 which is in period when AMD was ahead of Intel. If Apple choose AMD over Intel, they would get better performance per watt as you say so how is that not computing? Even when AMD was ahead of Intel, they were still cheaper.
Money that AMD could have earned from Apple would have allow them to invest more into foundries and not risking into a debt. Yet again, Apple made same mistake as Microsoft did, choose Intel over AMD and that's how Half Life 2 ran like garbage on original Xbox despite AMD had capability to deliver a CPU which is more than twice as powerful. If Microsoft have chose AMD then Half Life 2 would't ran like garbage and it would't be weaker than Gamecube.
The first Xbox had a reasonably powerful NVIDIA GPU and could easily pull better graphics than GC/PS2. They wouldn't be able to run Half Life 2, Doom 3, Far Cry, Conker Live and Reloaded, Halo 1 and 2 and a bunch of titles like the Xbox 1 did. If anything the GPU and limited RAM (64MB) were the major bottlenecks in later gen 2004-2006 titles, not the CPU. Anyway, that's 100% off-topic.
AMD wasn't far ahead of Pentium M and Core Duo (Yonah) performance and performance per watt and by the time Apple ditched IBM and used Intel in actual products (early 2006) Conroe was right around the corner for desktops.
Rare was contacted, and confirmed that StarFox Adventures does indeed display massive amounts of bumpmaps, and realtime reflection/refraction effects by directly manipulating GCN hardware. When asked about one of the largest areas in the game (Krazoa Palace) regarding fillrate and polygonal display, Rare actually stated this was one of the easier levels to get running on the GCN."
Apple can thank their lucky stars they chose Intel. Imagine what a laughing stock they would have been when Bulldozer came out.
Apple can thank their lucky stars they chose Intel.
Imagine what a laughing stock they would have been when Bulldozer came out.
Pretty sure Intel is who they are today in part because of Apple. If Apple had went AMD, AMD would not be the same today either.
And on topic, Apple can let go of Intel and go straight ARM. Apple, unlike Intel, is a world wide recognized brand with a huge demographic that knows what it is from children to adults.
The people who buy Apple products don't care if Intel is inside.
(I don't buy Apple products. But a super AnX SoC full featured Mac OSX on a laptop sounds interesting to me.)
Only thing going for Xbox is that it was easy to develop for, best looking games in 6th generation home consoles are on Gamecube and Factor's 5 Star Wars Rogue Squadron 3 holds world record for 6th generation home console game pushing over 20 million polygons with primitive/improvised Ambient Occlusion(CG level stuff vs DirectX 8.1 GPU on Xbox) and Factor 5 confirmed that they are able to muster 30 million polygons on Gamecube with every effect that was native for it to do.
Apple ditched IBM in 2005, 2006 and 2007 AMD still had the lead...
I don't even...
I've never seen anything on GC impress me more than the Xbox except maybe Rogue Squadron. P3s were powerhouses, and the amount of physics driven gameplay in many Xbox titles trumped most of the GCs library by a pretty large amount. And as said by someone else, HL2's problem more likely stemmed from limited RAM, not the CPU. Also, the AMD chip originally set for the Xbox was no faster than the P3, however AMD did design the north bridge if I remember correctly, and it ended up still being used in the system.
Who cares about polygon count alone. Xbox multiplatforms destroyed GC/PS2 counterparts visually thanks to the superior Nvidia NV2A GPU and to me Rogue Squadron graphics don't hold a candle to the late gen Xbox titles I mentioned. Heck, Carmack himself told Doom 3 wouldn't be possible on the slower GC/PS2.
By the way, I don't to start an off-topic discussion about personal preference of console graphics.
Perhaps if history had changed a tad, Apple could have been designing the cpu architectures for AMD, then have access to their graphics and other such goodies while AMD releases said CPU arch under their name.If Apple choose AMD over Intel then history would be a lot different, Bulldozer would't exist or at least AMD would't rush it, it would came out earlier and it would be like Piledriver in worst case scenario.
Bulldozer happened because AMD got f'ed up by one of executives that finally got kicked then new CEO Roy has done things to improve situation and thus we have GCN GPU's, console wins for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, Nintendo still using AMD's GPU's, AMD low power CPU's are more and more competitive, etc...
Going ARM is a bad idea, everything would need to be rewritten or use iOS stuff, but people would be mad. Its better for Apple to go with AMD with Zen and increase profit margins.
Only Rogue Squadron impressed you on Gamecube? Really? You should have payed attention though I can't blame, you since you're one of people that don't pay attention to visual detail...
Tell me why AMD would't be able to make a very competitive CPU in terms of instructions per clock/performance, power consumption and price?
While Intel will of course have lower power consumption, the gap won't be anywhere as big as it was with 32nm FX vs 22nm iCores. AMD beat Intel once in 1980's then had a 7 year reign over Intel from 1999 to 2007 or even 2008.
Bulldozer happened, so what... Pentium 4 happened to Intel.
While Intel will of course have lower power consumption, the gap won't be anywhere as big as it was with 32nm FX vs 22nm iCores. AMD beat Intel once in 1980's then had a 7 year reign over Intel from 1999 to 2007 or even 2008.
Bulldozer happened, so what... Pentium 4 happened to Intel.
Perhaps if history had changed a tad, Apple could have been designing the cpu architectures for AMD, then have access to their graphics and other such goodies while AMD releases said CPU arch under their name.
Your history is badly lacking perspective.
The P4 spent considerable time lauding it over the K7, it was only when AMD got K8 sorted, did AMD have the edge, and that ended in August 2006.
Apple ditched IBM in 2005, 2006 and 2007 AMD still had the lead...
If Apple have chose AMD instead of Intel then AMD would have been still ahead due to additional revenue that would been invested into R&D.
No they werent. AMD were charging premium prices for their chips when they overtook Pentiums performance. Conroe fortunately forced them back down to reason.Don't be ignorant... If Apple choose AMD instead of Intel in 2005 which is in period when AMD was ahead of Intel. If Apple choose AMD over Intel, they would get better performance per watt as you say so how is that not computing? Even when AMD was ahead of Intel, they were still cheaper.
Going ARM is a bad idea, everything would need to be rewritten or use iOS stuff, but people would be mad. Its better for Apple to go with AMD with Zen and increase profit margins.
Intel CFO Stacy Smith states that Apple would "have to take a big step off performance to step off our architecture"
With over 10 years of cooperation, Intel have been a mainstay in Apple hardware - taking over from Apple's co-designed chips with PowerPC due to them reportedly having issues with slimming down their laptop range, turning to the processor giant for some help.
n a recent interview with Business Insider, Intel's CFO Stacy Smith stated "for a customer like Apple you'd have to take a big step off performance to step off our architecture. That is what in essence enables us to win across different customers."
This is a rather big statement from Intel, but lets be honest here - Intel is at the top and it will stay that way for a long period of time no matter what happens.
There has been some rumors that Apple are looking to move on from Intel in order to utilize ARM architecture in their products, however nothing tangible has come to light as of yet.
Read more at http://www.tweaktown.com/news/43529/intel-claims-apple-lost-without-chips/index.html