3 ms·
It would have been better for Apple to switch between Intel and AMD whenever one is better than the other, than to go with the M-series, for the market and the
by sudosysgen 4y ago
It would have been better for Apple to switch between Intel and AMD whenever one is better than the other, than to go with the M-series, for the market and the end-user.
Most of the performance advantage of the M-series comes from exclusivity on the latest nodes; a significant part of the rest could have been done by asking Intel/AMD to put RAM in the package.
- Someone 4y agoAsking wouldn’t have been enough. They also would have to do it, for a fairly small fraction of the CPUs they build (Apple sells about 30 million systems a year in a total market of 340 million (https://www.canalys.com/newsroom/global-pc-market-Q4-2021 https://www.canalys.com/newsroom/global-pc-market-Q4-2021), and that excludes CPUs running in data centers). I’m not sure adding “and, by the way, we’ll switch manufacturers at will if we can get faster gear elsewhere” will help there.
- sudosysgen 4y agoThat is not true. AMD and Intel both routinely make custom chips with far more of a modification than on-package RAM for far smaller orders. See for example supercomputers where they will make custom SKUs for barely a million units. Switching manufacturers when they get faster gear is a normal practice.