[Rumor]

I still haven't seen a really good answer for Apple's decision to go with Intel. Right now AMD's are screaming compared to Intel. Plus with AMD being the underdog, wouldn't it have been more fitting for Apple (itself an underdog) to go with AMD?

[Dakar]

Portability.

[Rumor]

The AMD's suck too much juice for them to be truly effective in a laptop?

[Judge_Fire]

Hmm, I always thought one reason was AMD might not have the required production capacity.

Then again, Apple is not that big a customer.

J

[harrisjamieh]

In the words of Steve Jobs, AMD have some good stuff in the high end server range, but intel has a roadmap suited to what best fits apple

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by harrisjamieh

In the words of Steve Jobs, AMD have some good stuff in the high end server range, but intel has a roadmap suited to what best fits apple

Yup.

1) Intel had and has the best laptop chips, and that ain't going to change soon.
2) Intel has a good roadmap for desktop chips. In fact, it looks like that when Apple finally does go Intel in the towers, Intel will have a lead over AMD, both in terms of performance and in terms of power utilization.
3) Intel has a full complement of cheap integrated chipsets and would bend over backwards to help Apple with their initial board designs, which would make the transition for Apple easier.
4) Intel writes the fastest x86 compilers. There is no way Intel would be writing Mac OS X x86 compilers for AMD.

Plus, Intel is bigger company with more process expertise, and Jobs counts Intel execs as personal friends.

Basically, if Apple was going to go x86, the Intel choice was a no-brainer.

However, in the end, the beauty of it is that even if AMD takes a commanding lead both in laptops and desktop in 2008, then Apple can simply switch sides, without having to go through any sort of transition. By then, Apple will already be well-versed in the x86 hardware side, and the Intel compilers will already be working just great on OS X. And of course, OS X will work just as well on AMD x86 as it would on Intel x86.

[Salty]

Basically everything Eug said (go figure). Intel is the best initial partner, and if things fizzle with Intel for some reason there's still another prominent chip maker they can switch to with minimal effort.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Rumor

I still haven't seen a really good answer for Apple's decision to go with Intel. Right now AMD's are screaming compared to Intel. Plus with AMD being the underdog, wouldn't it have been more fitting for Apple (itself an underdog) to go with AMD?

Ummm.. I don't know where you've been looking, but the Core Duo absolutely kills anything mobile that AMD has, and the Core 2 Duo surprised everyone by ripping AMD's desktop chips a new one.

[greenamp]

I think it was Intel's cool new logo that sold the deal.

[Salty]

Don't forget, Steve wanted to really fubar our graphics cards

[ghporter]

AMD had a real edge on performance per watt in desktop chips for almost a year. Then Intel surged from behind, both in terms of performance per watt and performance per clock cycle. AMD is still dusting itself off.

I like AMD because for a long time, Intel was the 600 pound gorilla, and their processors were overpriced for what you got. That changed over the years; now the two companies are good competitors, keeping each other "honest" in terms of performance and value. AMD-based PC motherboards are still less expensive than Intel-based boards (for the most part), but even that difference is getting smaller and smaller.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by greenamp

I think it was Intel's cool new logo that sold the deal.

Heh. I like the fact that Apple disliked the logo enough to redesign it for them.

[Salty]

Yah they don't even use the same typeface.

[Tomchu]

Intel has only had a clean lead in the mobile market with the Core series. AMD's Turion is just as good as the Pentium Ms before that from what I've seen.

But yeah, it was roadmaps that won out in the end, not present product.

[Salty]

Turions are OK but... yumm... Core...

[vmarks]

Apple is an underdog and should go with an underdog processor? WHA?

I'm sorry, but no. The point was to get away from supply line problems. Problems like Motorola keeping Apple stuck at G4/400 for way too long. Problems like IBM not delivering on the iMac G5 in time for education sales, or the IBM-promised 3Ghz powermac, or the promised G5 laptop.

No thanks, AMD.

[Hal06]

Had Apple went AMD, no dull little boxes, dull little tasks ad

The Intel chip: for years, it's been trapped inside a PC…