Apple dumps NVidia from the Macbook Pro

[3DVagabond]

With the great efficiency of Maxwell, I really dont understand why Apple went back to AMD, unless like others said it has to deal with open GL vs CUDA. Either that or there is something political going on behind the scenes.

The great efficiency is only in games. OpenCL, which is Apples baby, AMD is more efficient.

 

[ViRGE]

It wasn't really full 5K - they said 5120x2160. Full 5K would be 5120x2880. I can't find the link, but I think someone did the math and found out that 5120x2160 @ 60 Hz is just within the bandwidth limits of DisplayPort 1.2.

I just did the math and it seems that this is the case:
60 fps * 24 bits per pixel (8 each R,G,B) * 5120 * 2160 = approximately 15.9 gigabits per second. DP 1.2 is rated for up to 17.28 Gbps.

You have to account for a bit of overhead from CVT timings, but using Reduced Blanking, you'll end up at around 17Gbps, which is just small enough to fit in DP1.2.

 

[Genx87]

Apple invented OpenCL.

Apple is part of the group that created OpenCL. This group includes AMD, Intel, ARM, and Nvidia. That doesn't mean they push the technology. In 5.5 years since the finalized specs came out they have migrated Final Cut Pro and some photo editing application. Anything else? 2 applications in 5.5 years doesnt feel like a push to me. /shrug

 

[greatnoob]

Apple is part of the group that created OpenCL. This group includes AMD, Intel, ARM, and Nvidia. That doesn't mean they push the technology. In 5.5 years since the finalized specs came out they have migrated Final Cut Pro and some photo editing application. Anything else? 2 applications in 5.5 years doesnt feel like a push to me. /shrug

They've pushed it into some of their APIs too where applicable, that is by far the best thing that could be done since now developers from every skill level and consumers are benefitting from faster processing when they're touching photos for example. There are certain workloads that can be offloaded onto the GPU, OpenCL and GPU compute are not for everything so your /shrug is uncalled for unless you yourself are an active contributor of OpenCL. (Which you aren't obviously)

 

[destrekor]

Apple is part of the group that created OpenCL. This group includes AMD, Intel, ARM, and Nvidia. That doesn't mean they push the technology. In 5.5 years since the finalized specs came out they have migrated Final Cut Pro and some photo editing application. Anything else? 2 applications in 5.5 years doesnt feel like a push to me. /shrug

They've pushed it into some of their APIs too where applicable, that is by far the best thing that could be done since now developers from every skill level and consumers are benefitting from faster processing when they're touching photos for example. There are certain workloads that can be offloaded onto the GPU, OpenCL and GPU compute are not for everything so your /shrug is uncalled for unless you yourself are an active contributor of OpenCL. (Which you aren't obviously)

It's also highly favored in many other production applications. All Adobe apps that offer GPU compute have moved to OpenCL. Remember that not only does Apple offer creative production applications, but OS X tends to be the favored production environment.

 

[Phynaz]

Apple is part of the group that created OpenCL. This group includes AMD, Intel, ARM, and Nvidia. That doesn't mean they push the technology. In 5.5 years since the finalized specs came out they have migrated Final Cut Pro and some photo editing application. Anything else? 2 applications in 5.5 years doesnt feel like a push to me. /shrug

OpenCL was initially developed by Apple Inc., which holds trademark rights

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL#History

 

[Genx87]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL#History

Yeah and then submitted to Khronos that then worked on it for a release product.

 

[ocre]

This is great news for AMD. I cant understand why there as to be crazy theories and all these huge imaginations. I guess its typical these days to try to make something bigger out of it.............

-it must be this or that.....
-AMD is just better than nvidia at..........
-this must be because of nvidia's lawsuit..........
-This is because of freesync..........
-AMD best nvidia in performance per watt in OpecCL.......
-<insert nine other imagined advantages you can think of> *made up out of thin air

W-H-A-T-?

All looks like unsubstantiated gibberish to me.

People keep claiming AMD marketing is such a fail but it seems to really have take foot around here well enough. How does marketing bullet points have any room in this discussion?

Is this not a direct result of a business deal? Do you really think that the apple board was just sitting in their office with a check sheet out trying to decide on what GPU they would use and freesync (etc,etc,etc) tipped the scales so they call up AMD and set up an order? Do you think that they were sitting around the table and one of them said, "you know nvidia has that lawsuit so lets not use them" and they all high five and fist bump each other, like "we will show those guys!"?????

Do people really thing that is how big business deals work? Millions of dollar contracts? yeah, okay.

This is great news for AMD, they secured a decent revenue stream. No need to make up crazy theories cause I am gonna let you in on a little secret. AMD is actively pursuing streams of revenue. They are working with OEMs and trying to push their products. With nvidia gross margins now approaching 60%, I dont think it would be too hard for AMD to slip in and win some contracts.

With Nvidia marketshare over the 75%, they probably dont need to be as aggressive. those things are obvious.

See, AMD should be fighting to gain marketshare. They need a massive push. I really really dont care how this came to be. I am just glad to see such positive news for AMD. There needs to be a heck of a lot more of it. AMD has to win some large contracts to turn this thing around

 

[Stuka87]

This is great news for AMD. I cant understand why there as to be crazy theories and all these huge imaginations. I guess its typical these days to try to make something bigger out of it.............

-it must be this or that.....
-AMD is just better than nvidia at..........
-this must be because of nvidia's lawsuit..........
-This is because of freesync..........
-AMD best nvidia in performance per watt in OpecCL.......
-<insert nine other imagined advantages you can think of> *made up out of thin air

W-H-A-T-?

All looks like unsubstantiated gibberish to me.

People keep claiming AMD marketing is such a fail but it seems to really have take foot around here well enough. How does marketing bullet points have any room in this discussion?

Is this not a direct result of a business deal? Do you really think that the apple board was just sitting in their office with a check sheet out trying to decide on what GPU they would use and freesync (etc,etc,etc) tipped the scales so they call up AMD and set up an order? Do you think that they were sitting around the table and one of them said, "you know nvidia has that lawsuit so lets not use them" and they all high five and fist bump each other, like "we will show those guys!"?????

Do people really thing that is how big business deals work? Millions of dollar contracts? yeah, okay.

This is great news for AMD, they secured a decent revenue stream. No need to make up crazy theories cause I am gonna let you in on a little secret. AMD is actively pursuing streams of revenue. They are working with OEMs and trying to push their products. With nvidia gross margins now approaching 60%, I dont think it would be too hard for AMD to slip in and win some contracts.

With Nvidia marketshare over the 75%, they probably dont need to be as aggressive. those things are obvious.

See, AMD should be fighting to gain marketshare. They need a massive push. I really really dont care how this came to be. I am just glad to see such positive news for AMD. There needs to be a heck of a lot more of it. AMD has to win some large contracts to turn this thing around

Do you actually think the Apple board made this deal? You seriously think the engineers that did the design and testing had no say?

The board has no clue what these parts mean or how they perform. Engineers make the decisions on what should be used. Price does come into play for sure, but its not the #1 deciding factor for Apple.

 

[Enigmoid]

I think people greatly overestimate the effect that this has on AMD.

The number of 15" MPBs apple sells is trivial compared to the number of airs and 13" pros. The number of high end 15" MBPs apple sells is a small fraction of the total number of 15" MBPs sold.

If you want a m370X in the macbook pro the starting price is $2500 (in canada $3050). For a 13" air or MBP the price is around $1100-1500 USD.

AMD really isn't selling a ton of chips (neither was Nvidia with the 750m). Its more of a halo product.

 

[freeskier93]

I think people greatly overestimate the effect that this has on AMD.

The number of 15" MPBs apple sells is trivial compared to the number of airs and 13" pros. The number of high end 15" MBPs apple sells is a small fraction of the total number of 15" MBPs sold.

If you want a m370X in the macbook pro the starting price is $2500 (in canada $3050). For a 13" air or MBP the price is around $1100-1500 USD.

AMD really isn't selling a ton of chips (neither was Nvidia with the 750m). Its more of a halo product.

It does get AMDs foot further in the door with Apple. If AMD hits it out of the park with Zen I'd love to see a Zen APU with HBM in a MacBook Pro. Then we could have some proper integrated graphics in the 13". Apple is already soldering memory to the motherboard so HBM is a logical next step and would allow them to shrink the motherboard even more.

 

[RussianSensation]

-it must be this or that.....
-AMD is just better than nvidia at..........
-this must be because of nvidia's lawsuit..........
-This is because of freesync..........
-AMD best nvidia in performance per watt in OpecCL.......
-<insert nine other imagined advantages you can think of> *made up out of thin air

W-H-A-T-?

All looks like unsubstantiated gibberish to me.

So you think Apple just chooses GPUs out of thin air and doesn't even look at features?

1. Can NV GPUs do this at any price?

"Support for up to 5120 by 2160 resolution at 60Hz on a single external display (model with AMD Radeon R9 M370X only)"

2. How good are NV's GPUs at Final Cut Pro X? I don't know but AMD GPUs are very good.

"Testing conducted by Apple in April 2015 using preproduction 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based 15-inch MacBook Pro systems with 1TB of flash storage, 16GB of RAM and AMD Radeon R9 M370X graphics. Tested with Final Cut Pro X using a 10-minute Multicam clip with 16 streams of ProRes 422 1920x1080p24 media and simultaneous unique 10-minute clips of ProRes 422 1920x1080p24 media. MacBook Pro continuously monitors system thermal and power conditions, and may adjust performance as needed to maintain optimal system operation."

Apple doesn't site this capability for the $1999 MacPro model with Intel graphics.

Gaming performance increase over 750M is good enough, between 50-70% faster than 750M per Apple's claims.

If AMD provided them 370X at a good price, and the GPU fit inside the power envelope, there was no reason to go NV. To say that performance and features are "arbitrarily" made up factors why Apple chose AMD is a bold claim on your part. The capability to support 5120x2160 resolution display by AMD's card could have knocked out any Maxwell card out of contention. Since Apple is pushing pixels as part of its marketing (5K iMacs), it's probably a better marketing point.

Since none of us works for Apple, no one can say for sure which 1 killer feature was a factor in Apple's decision but your post dismisses all such factors as trivial/non-important. I don't think it's that simple.

 

[ocre]

Engineers make the decisions on what should be used.......

Haha. Sure

Anyway.

I guess AMD isn't actively out there working to secure contracts and striking deals with OEMs. It must have been apple engineers that pitched and sold AMDs products for them. Well I guess that worked out for them. Maybe AMD can get lucky and more random OEM engineers will see amd marketing bulletpoints. You know, engineers that run their companies and make all the business decisions.

That would be great. But I would much rather AMD be out there pushing their product and making deals. That's a far better strategy than just hoping.

 

[3DVagabond]

Haha. Sure

Anyway.

I guess AMD isn't actively out there working to secure contracts and striking deals with OEMs. It must have been apple engineers that pitched and sold AMDs products for them. Well I guess that worked out for them. Maybe AMD can get lucky and more random OEM engineers will see amd marketing bulletpoints. You know, engineers that run their companies and make all the business decisions.

That would be great. But I would much rather AMD be out there pushing their product and making deals. That's a far better strategy than just hoping.

Sorry, I missed whatever point you are trying to make. Why do you think Apple went with AMD over nVidia, if not for any of the reasons mentioned?

 

[Silverforce11]

Sorry, I missed whatever point you are trying to make. Why do you think Apple went with AMD over nVidia, if not for any of the reasons mentioned?

Apparently because AMD undercut NV.

But even when AMD undercut AMD with the R290/X, people still buy the 960, 970 and 980..

"But why Apple.. Apple.. why did you forsake nVidia?!"

"How could you put inferior tech in your uber machines?!"

Sounds about right?

 

[soccerballtux]

I cant believe they are charging $500 to upgrade from intel iris to a lowly M370X. They are basically shaving $100 off the cpu cost and adding a $200 gpu for a total net cost of $100 and gouging the heck out of the consumer for $400.

you must be new to Apple's business model

 

[Stuka87]

Haha. Sure

Anyway.

I guess AMD isn't actively out there working to secure contracts and striking deals with OEMs. It must have been apple engineers that pitched and sold AMDs products for them. Well I guess that worked out for them. Maybe AMD can get lucky and more random OEM engineers will see amd marketing bulletpoints. You know, engineers that run their companies and make all the business decisions.

That would be great. But I would much rather AMD be out there pushing their product and making deals. That's a far better strategy than just hoping.

Both AMD and nVidia go forard and say "here is what we have" and then typically prototypes with each are made. And then the engineers decide which one is better, and then pricing is worked out.

I used to own a whole bunch of prototype apple hardware. Including several PowerBook G4 Titaniums. Each had a label with the hardware that was in them. Each one was different than the others. Everything from different PMU's, HDDs, optical drives, video cards, etc.

 

[Azix]

It could just be that AMD offered more features, better performance at a lower cost for this product. There's a reason they are in all the consoles as well. Companies aren't dumb like consumers and won't just buy off a name alone.

what is in this m370x

 

[ocre]

+1

Absolutely.

So much simpler. Can you believe some of the made up reasons in this thread. huge imaginations

 

[IEC]

Final Cut Pro X/Adobe Premiere and other production apps benefit from AMD's leading OpenCL performance.

I'm sure they (Apple) are also getting better margins by using the AMD part versus a nVidia part as well.

 

[Abwx]

+1

Absolutely.

So much simpler. Can you believe some of the made up reasons in this thread. huge imaginations

Indeed, it requires an oversizely inflated imagination to think that Apple enginers are less informed about GPU specs and perfs than the average forum junky, you should apply for a job there, sure that they ll need your "insight"...

 

[jpiniero]

AT got confirmation that it is indeed Cape Verde as the dGPU option in the higher end 15" Macbook Pro.

Like I said, the lawsuit is why they are removing nVidia when they get updated.

 

[Enigmoid]

Lots of apple users are not going to be happy. Over the 750m its really a marginal update. When you pay $2500 for a laptop there is no reason to settle for a cheap component.

 

[monstercameron]

Lots of apple users are not going to be happy. Over the 750m its really a marginal update. When you pay $2500 for a laptop there is no reason to settle for a cheap component.

Do you have performance numbers?

 

[Arachnotronic]

AT got confirmation that it is indeed Cape Verde as the dGPU option in the higher end 15" Macbook Pro.

Like I said, the lawsuit is why they are removing nVidia when they get updated.

Seems like a plausible explanation.