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Apple To Use Intel Chips

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I saw this on the news services. I'm curious as to whether Apple is planning a change to I86 or to an Intel RISC processor.


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Not to move away from the topic, but just curious as to why they don't go with AMD? I thought AMD is "cheap and fast".
 
> ...why they don't go with AMD? I thought AMD is "cheap and fast".

They already had some problems with IBM; they are probably looking for better "accommodations".
 
Major suppliers like Dell and Apple won't use AMD because AMD doesn't have the capacity to guarantee high volume production.

AMD doesn't have the capacity to guarantee a high volumne of production because they can't get a contract with the major suppliers.

Its a sort of chicken-or-egg problem for AMD.
 
Which is not to say that Apple won't use Opterons in their XServe rack-mount computers, as they sell in much lower volume than their desktop PCs. Plus Opterons have higher performance for server apps than Intel's Xeon (because of their NUMA architecture).

Just so that everyone understands, Intel != PC in this situation. Apple will continue to use their OpenFirmware and not a PC-style BIOS. So don't expect to buy a Dell with OS-X on it, as Apple is not opening up their hardware -- it will continue to be proprietary (which is a good thing, IMO).

Chip H.


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I happen to be contracting for Dell right now. Dell is about the only company out there that is not using AMD processors. Other "major suppliers" are using AMD. From what I have heard, the explanation for Dell not using AMD is a schoolyard spat that occured between Hector Ruiz (AMD's CEO) and Michael Dell.

Shockingly enough, I have seen from remote access controllers that actually do have AMD chips on them. It's not the CPU, but it was somewhat of a surprise.

 
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