SemiAccurate claims that Apple had late stage AMD Llano based MacBook Air prototypes last spring and had been "on the verge of production".
If you are wondering why the Air wasn’t really revamped much this last time, it is because you are looking at plan B. Plan A was basically a low power Llano in an Air shell, and that would have been a really tasty machine.
This AMD based design would reportedly have had much more graphics (GPU) power, and lose only a little CPU power as compared to what was ultimately released. The "Llano" is part of the AMD Fusion platform which offers a combined CPU/GPU hybrid system:
Forget about the CPU (Central Processing Unit). Chipmaker AMD would like you to think instead about what it calls the APU, its Accelerated Processing Unit. The combo product uses a single die to contain, according to AMD, "a multicore CPU, a powerful DirectX 11-capable discrete-level graphics and parallel processing engine, a dedicated high-definition video acceleration block, and a high-speed bus that speeds data across the differing types of processor cores within the design."
Graphics (GPU) performance has been a stumbling block for Apple in pushing its laptop designs further. The MacBook Air was stuck on previous generation Intel chips for an extra revision due to the relatively poor performance of Intel's integrated GPUs. Apple finally upgraded the MacBook Air to Intel's Sandy Bridge processors in July.
Earlier this year, Apple had reportedly threatened Intel that they would abandon Intel's chips if the company was unable to improve their power consumption profile. AMD would be the logical alternative to Intel, and it makes sense that Apple would have fully explored its options at that time.
According to SemiAccurate, one reason Apple chose not to adopt AMD's solution was AMD's inability to supply enough of the required parts to Apple. SemiAccurate had previously claimed that Apple was also looking into moving from Intel processors to ARM processors in the future.
Perhaps they did, but I am not surprised they didn't move forward. Thunderbolt is part of Apple's product strategy. AMD≠no thunderbolt. I'm not sure that Intel is licensing the technology to other vendors.
The Hudson FCH supports USB 3.0 on die but that would leave the Air as the only Apple product without ThunderBolt. I still consider ThunderBolt to be dead on arrival though.
Perhaps they did, but I am not surprised they didn't move forward. Thunderbolt is part of Apple's product strategy. AMD≠no thunderbolt. I'm not sure that Intel is licensing the technology to other vendors.
but still x86 is outdated cpu technology that manged linger from the 70's. Intel's has Microsoft to thank for that. ARM is the future.
You're young aren't you.. The word "superior" is mentioned a lot these days, usually by young people who just want to show they know something.
x86 is not "outdated cpu technology".. it's outdated when something replaces it, and nothing has replaced the architecture that powers 90%+ of the worlds consumer PCs. We've just (finally) got some decent competition.
Wednesday April 24, 2024 2:05 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
Saturday April 27, 2024 12:41 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
There are widespread reports of Apple users being locked out of their Apple ID overnight for no apparent reason, requiring a password reset before they can log in again. Users say the sudden inexplicable Apple ID sign-out is occurring across multiple devices. When they attempt to sign in again they are locked out of their account and asked to reset their password in order to regain access. ...
Apple used to regularly increase the base memory of its Macs up until 2011, the same year Tim Cook was appointed CEO, charts posted on Mastodon by David Schaub show. Earlier this year, Schaub generated two charts: One showing the base memory capacities of Apple's all-in-one Macs from 1984 onwards, and a second depicting Apple's consumer laptop base RAM from 1999 onwards. Both charts were...
On this week's episode of The MacRumors Show, we discuss the announcement of Apple's upcoming "Let loose" event, where the company is widely expected to announce new iPad models and accessories. Subscribe to The MacRumors Show YouTube channel for more videos Apple's event invite shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Apple CEO Tim...
In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman outlined some of the new products he expects Apple to announce at its "Let Loose" event on May 7. First, Gurman now believes there is a "strong possibility" that the upcoming iPad Pro models will be equipped with Apple's next-generation M4 chip, rather than the M3 chip that debuted in the MacBook Pro and iMac six months ago. He said a ...
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Top Rated Comments
it wouldn't be a different processor architecture.
You're young aren't you.. The word "superior" is mentioned a lot these days, usually by young people who just want to show they know something.
x86 is not "outdated cpu technology".. it's outdated when something replaces it, and nothing has replaced the architecture that powers 90%+ of the worlds consumer PCs. We've just (finally) got some decent competition.