Apple switching to AMD GPU for new iMac 5K

[humbug]

Lets have a look at how much a 27" iMac costs:

http://i.imgur.com/FhLZkWu.png



Its more or less likely a 5K iMac is going cost even more.

So AMD will be in the TWO MOST expensive Apple desktops SKUs.

Since AMD is obviously doomed as being in the most expensive Apple desktops,Nvidia is not.

Wait a second.



Nvidia is in all the cheaper iMacs and so is Intel.

Oh noes! They are Doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooomed!!!!

Apple is squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezing all of them!!

Sorry only AMD when they are selling their GPUs in the most expensive and overpriced desktops that Apple are going to sell.

Dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooomed

 

[Gerard]

Dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooomed

 

[MagicBoy]

AMD and Nvidia fans may have their fights but who buy's an apple product?

Me.

 

[FrankJH]

Well as they stuck a pair of 280X in the new Mac Pro and re-named them FirePro's so the fanboys would pay through the nose for them (and it worked) I reckon they will use the latest AMD mobility chip-sets with a different name ot make them sound more expensive

you know the FirePro brand has been around for a while and are not just rebadged retail gpu's?

 

[smogsy]

Not sure what uber is on about either

 

[MagicBoy]

you know the FirePro brand has been around for a while and are not just rebadged retail gpu's?

Never let the facts get in the way of a flame bait post.

 

[LambChop]

Lets have a look at how much a 27" iMac costs:

http://i.imgur.com/FhLZkWu.png



Its more or less likely a 5K iMac is going cost even more.

So AMD will be in the TWO MOST expensive Apple desktops SKUs.

Since AMD is obviously doomed as being in the most expensive Apple desktops,Nvidia is not.

Wait a second.



Nvidia is in all the cheaper iMacs and so is Intel.

Oh noes! They are Doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooomed!!!!

Apple is squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezing all of them!!

Sorry only AMD when they are selling their GPUs in the most expensive and overpriced desktops that Apple are going to sell.

Why whenever someone says anything against AMD do you have to bring Nvidia and Intel into it ?

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Apple screw their suppliers, so whilst new sales avenues will be welcome news for AMD, margins will likely be low or perhaps even loss-leading. AMD have won a lot of OEM business recently (Sony, MS, Apple) yet one wonders how far they have pulled their trousers down to obtain these deals?

People really need to stop with the "low margins" thing. It's just become something people say, with no research.

Apple's last reported gross profit margin was 39.36%. As Apple do not manufacture much of anything themselves, they either a). screw their suppliers, b). screw their customers, or c). screw both to achieve such results.

AMD are in a pretty desperate situation financially and Apple are not in business to be nice to anyone. Apple would have squeezed AMD (and all of their supply chain) as much as possible, and AMD will have been more desperate for Apple's custom than visa-versa. Everyone is entitled to their opinions but business is business and the most successful companies are successful because they are cut-throat, not because they are ethical. AMD share price has fallen 10% within the past week so investors are also unhappy/uneasy about something.

So Nvidia must have been squeezed,Intel must have been squeezed,Samsung must have been squeezed,etc??

Because Nvidia and Intel would not be rushing out parts for Apple if they were not decent money makers would they??

So where you in the other threads about Nvidia and Intel being squeezed with their Apple deals??

Wait,your not. Only OFC AMD,isn't it??

All those companies are wanting Apple's business and one of the reasons the GM107 was launched so early was so Nvidia could try and claw back some lost design wins in iMacs and Macbooks from Intel Iris Pro IGPs.

The reason AMD won those design wins is since they are invested in OpenCL even more than Nvidia,and Apple is massively behind it. What you don't understand is that Adobe CS for OS X moved almost entirely to OpenCL acceleration due to Apple,and outside the GK110 parts(and to a lesser degree the Maxwell parts),the AMD chips tend to do better.

Plus your panicking over the stock price means nothing - its probably because Nvidia have their new GPU range and we have not seen a response from them to the GM204. AMD stock price has been popular for shorting for years and has swung up and down throughout the year. Not that anybody cares as this is an enthusiast forum. You sound like those lot on the American forums with vested interests.

But I like you also ignore on PURPOSE,that the Apple laptops and desktops COST more. Samsung,HP and Lenovo sell cheap laptops which make up a huge percentage of their sales including £200 to £300 netbooks. They sell desktops from £300 onwards,ie,commodity computing.

The cheapest Apple laptop in the UK is £750 and their cheapest desktop is £899.

Apple makes money since they charge premium prices. This is why they make decent margins and since they have a limited range there are economies of scale,since they don't have a bazillion SKUs.

Spin it as much as you want.

Lets have a look at how much a 27" iMac costs:

http://i.imgur.com/FhLZkWu.png



Its more or less likely a 5K iMac is going cost even more.

So AMD will be in the TWO MOST expensive Apple desktops SKUs.

Since AMD is obviously doomed as being in the most expensive Apple desktops,Nvidia is not.

Wait a second.



Nvidia is in all the cheaper iMacs and so is Intel.

Oh noes! They are Doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooomed!!!!

Apple is squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezing all of them!!

Sorry only AMD when they are selling their GPUs in the most expensive and overpriced desktops that Apple are going to sell.

Why whenever someone says anything against AMD do you have to bring Nvidia and Intel into it ?

Instead of reacting to what I said and ON PURPOSE ignoring what he said,maybe you should read the thread.

Both my desktops use Nvidia graphics ATM and Intel CPUs(so try harder with your stupid strawmans) and instead of trying to help your mate read the thread.

He is the one going on about margins and yet you and him are OK about pulled out of air stupid claims like:

"AMD is not making low margins on the Apple deals, EVEN when they are in/going to be in the two most EXPENSIVE Apple desktops".

People like him do exactly the same thing on Anandtech. EVERY AMD thread whether its to do with games,hardware ends up with people derailing it into something similar.

However,when the claims are questioned start playing the victim or just ignore it.

Yet,I like how you deflect that he by extension is also saying that Nvidia and Intel ARE MAKING decent margins on CHEAPER Apple desktops.

Nvidia has stated they try and not do "low margin" work.

Great internet logic there.

Yet where you and him criticising Intel and Nvidia when they won iMac and MBP deals??

I bet nowhere.

Its the same with the AMD Physics thread - the Nvidia equivalent was fine and everyone(including me) were contributing and it went fine. The AMD one just got derailed and buried by fools arguing about bloody Mantle for 1000th time(I am sick of the billion threads about it).

I expect you will NOT to be able to back up his statement about the Apple deals and neither will you. You will just try and argue something else or say I hate Nvidia or Intel or Ferrets or something. Yet I bet I have made Intel and Nvidia more money than you have ever done,through the 100s of systems I have helped spec on multiple forums in over 8 years,dozens of builds I have done for friends, the build guides I have done and the systems in academia which I have helped spec for multiple labs,including multiple Quadro based systems.

 

[555BUK]

Funnily enough Apple squeezes all of it's suppliers very very hard. How far they can be squeezed depends upon how desperate they are for Apple's business, and how desperate Apple in-turn are for their product. If there is only one possible supplier, or if one supplier has a decisive lead over the opposition (Intel Desktop & Laptop CPU's for example) they will have a strong starting position. If there are multiple suppliers offering similar products (AMD vs NVidia GPU's), then Apple, Sony, Dell, MS etc will play them off against each other until one can go no lower.

It is a fair assumption that both AMD & NVidia tendered for this contract. As AMD do not hold a notable lead over NVidia within performance, efficiency or technology, it is also fair to assume that AMD won this deal based upon price, or perhaps available production capacity if NVidia's fabs are fully loaded. Whilst I am sure that NVidia would have loved Apple's business, maybe there wasn't enough profit in it for them, or too much risk in dropping pricing further.

I do not work or have allegiance to any of these companies but I do work for a pretty big Global Technology company. We typically have 4 or 5 vendors tendering for our projects, and the one that wins is typically the cheapest who can meet technical specifications and deliver on-time.

All I am saying is that few of Apple's (and the big boys) suppliers make high margins. One of Apple's biggest suppliers & manufacturers (Foxconn) typically makes 3% gross margin, and (allegedly) have to employ child labor and work them 12 hours per day to do so. Apple of course are not the only company who use Foxconn.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Funnily enough Apple squeezes all of it's suppliers very very hard. How far they can be squeezed depends upon how desperate they are for Apple's business, and how desperate Apple in-turn are for their product. If there is only one possible supplier, or if one supplier has a decisive lead over the opposition (Intel CPU's for example) they will have a strong starting position. If there are multiple suppliers offering similar products (AMD vs NVidia), then Apple (Sony, Dell, MS etc) will play them off against each other until one can go no lower.

It is a fair assumption that both AMD & NVidia tendered for this contract. As AMD do not hold a notable lead over NVidia within performance, efficiency or technology, it is also fair to assume that AMD won this deal based upon price, or perhaps available production capacity if NVidia's fabs are fully loaded. Whilst I am sure that NVidia would have loved Apple's business, maybe there wasn't enough profit in it for them, or too much risk in dropping pricing further.

I do not work or have allegiance to any of these companies but I do work for a pretty big Global Technology company. We typically have 4 or 5 vendors tendering for our projects, and the one that wins is typically the cheapest who can meet technical specifications and deliver on-time.

All I am saying is that few suppliers of Apple (and the big boys) make high margins. Apple's biggest supplier & manufacturer (Foxconn) typically makes 3% gross margin, and (allegedly) have to employ child labor and work them 12 hours per day to do so. Apple of course are not the only company who use Foxconn.

Which again is based on assumption after assumption after assumption.

I don't see you going into the other threads saying Intel and Nvidia are being pushed for margins either,which is highly suspect.

Look at OpenCL performance on the AMD GPUs - on average it is better.

Macs are used a lot in academia,especially biology and physics,and many design studios and photographers use Macs too. One of the main reasons has been for software like Adobe CS.

Plus I like how you are falling into the typical "AMD tech is inferior" so must be sold for peanuts and that Nvidia must have given it up.

What you again repeatedly ignore is the close links between Adobe,Apple and AMD on OpenCL integration into Adobe software.

There are MORE AMD certified cards for Adobe CS now than Nvidia ones. You do realise that,right??

The high end Apple "workstations" will be used mostly for high end video,design and imaging work - that is their target crowd. I should know since I have worked in academia and know people who worked in design companies.

Yet using your knowledge you come up with wonky maths that AMD is making less margins on Mac Pro and a 5K iMac which costs/will cost MORE than ANY of the Apple products which Nvidia supply GPUs for.

Sorry,but none of your assumptions really seemed to be based on anything.

Edit!!

Lets look at the Mac Pro:

http://i.imgur.com/N5NG7YV.png



The FirePro D300 is Pitcairn based,ie, HD7870 based.

The same GPU is used in £100 R7 265 cards.

I have a GTX660 and the HD7870 mauls it in OpenCL based work.

The same goes with the D500 and D700 which are Tahiti derivatives. Same thing compared to the GK104.

Yet,surprise,surprise,Nvidia with Maxwell has been attempting to bridge the gap as much as possible.

I wonder why??

 

[555BUK]

Which again is based on assumption after assumption after assumption.

I don't see you going into the other threads saying Intel and Nvidia are being pushed for margins either,which is highly suspect.


Look at OpenCL performance on the AMD GPUs - on average it is better.

Macs are used a lot in academia,especially biology and physics,and many design studios and photographers use Macs too. One of the main reasons has been for software like Adobe CC.

Plus I like how you are falling into the typical "AMD tech is inferior" so must be sold for peanuts and that Nvidia must have given it up.

What you again repeatedly ignore is the close links between Adobe,Apple and AMD on OpenCL integration into Adobe software.

Yet using your knowledge you come up with wonky months that AMD is making less margins on Mac Pro and a 5K iMac which cost MORE than ANY of the Apple products which Nvidia supply GPUs for.

I do not wish to prolong silly arguments, so this will be my final post within this thread.

I am not picking sides. If NVidia had won the Apple deal I would likely make exactly the same observations. I have also not said that "AMD Tech is inferior". What I did say was "AMD do not hold a notable lead over NVidia within performance, efficiency or technology" and that both GPU suppliers were "offering similar products".

Now, you point about OpenCL and many other tools that work better with AMD is valid, but Mac's are no longer just for Scientists, Universities, Media Editors and geeks who like to be different. Probably >95% of Mac's sold nowadays are aimed at household users who value compactness, prettiness and fashion more than scientific or professional data munching capabilities.

Your assumption that I am anti-AMD is wholly incorrect. Slightly biased against Apple perhaps, but not AMD.

Oh, and the reason the 5K Mac is more expensive than previous versions is because it is a new, improved Apple thingy. Mac Retail Pricing has little to do who actually manufactures the GPU, apart from the few cents or dollars difference in true component costs to AMD. Most users won't even know or care who AMD or NVidia are.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You could argue why not a GM204 instead of the similar TDP/power consumption Tonga which is slower in games??

This is a reason why:

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph8460/67225.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph8526/67745.png

Sony Vegas 12 uses both OpenCL and OpenGL. The GM204 cards have improvements in synthetic OpenCL benchmarks,but in realworld applications AMD still has the lead.





Plus the target crowd for Macs is not usually gamers - look at how long Steam for OS X took to actually get any games??

Also the everyday users,are buying Macs due to shinyness E-PEEN or since they like the UI and aesthetics.

If not Apple would not get away with selling a glorified low voltage,low clockspeed Core i3 in a £850 desktop with a £110 22" IPS display!!

They don't care about specs.

The higher end Macs are made for people doing the imaging/design/video work I mentioned,and are not the target of Joe and Jane Bloggs.

A 5K display iMac has a high resolution screen for such work(and also Halo marketing E-PEEN purposes too).

Edit!!

Regarding the price of the 5K iMac,it does not change the fact that being expensive means AMD is less likely to be pushed anyway.

OTH,it also means the "older" iMacs will get a price cut pushing the price down.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Isn't one of Apple's slogans "It just works"?
Nice to see they've decided to branch out by including AMD products in their, uh, products.

Maybe they can change there slogan to "It almost works, you just need 6 3rd party applications and a couple of driver updates!"

But I don't think most Macs are used for gaming so 5K is probably a lot less demanding for syncing your iPhone and browsing the web (or whatever people that don't play games do on a PC )

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I am not a Mac fan myself and I detest their use of the US patents system(which is even worse IMHO than similar attempts by other large companies),but at least when I used them they seemed mostly foolproof.

Its to be expected it uses a locked down OS with a very limited set of hardware specs - the Mac Pro,iMacs,eMacs,Mac Airs and MBPs I used over the last decade or so seemed to be fine irrespective if they used Intel,Nvidia or AMD graphics.A bit like consoles.

OTH,the grandiose claims of some of the Apple fans how great Macs were when compared to PCs,got grating after a while(yes you can catch viruses FFS!).

However,Windows has to cover more hardware,so there is greater chance of problems happening - but I am a gamer and a tweaker so,I would take Windows and Linux over OS X anyway.

 

[humbug]

Funnily enough Apple squeezes all of it's suppliers very very hard. How far they can be squeezed depends upon how desperate they are for Apple's business, and how desperate Apple in-turn are for their product. If there is only one possible supplier, or if one supplier has a decisive lead over the opposition (Intel Desktop & Laptop CPU's for example) they will have a strong starting position. If there are multiple suppliers offering similar products (AMD vs NVidia GPU's), then Apple, Sony, Dell, MS etc will play them off against each other until one can go no lower.

It is a fair assumption that both AMD & NVidia tendered for this contract. As AMD do not hold a notable lead over NVidia within performance, efficiency or technology, it is also fair to assume that AMD won this deal based upon price, or perhaps available production capacity if NVidia's fabs are fully loaded. Whilst I am sure that NVidia would have loved Apple's business, maybe there wasn't enough profit in it for them, or too much risk in dropping pricing further.

I do not work or have allegiance to any of these companies but I do work for a pretty big Global Technology company. We typically have 4 or 5 vendors tendering for our projects, and the one that wins is typically the cheapest who can meet technical specifications and deliver on-time.

All I am saying is that few of Apple's (and the big boys) suppliers make high margins. One of Apple's biggest suppliers & manufacturers (Foxconn) typically makes 3% gross margin, and (allegedly) have to employ child labor and work them 12 hours per day to do so. Apple of course are not the only company who use Foxconn.

No Apple chose AMD over Nvidia because they are much better OpenCL cards./

 

[555BUK]

No Apple chose AMD over Nvidia because they are much better OpenCL cards./

I wonder then why Apple chose NVidia within it's previous generation of iMac's? Did Apple only just discover that AMD had a long-term advantage with OpenCL, or has the feature only become of serious import now? Have millions of customers demanded OpenCL must be faster or else they'll go back to using PC's?

Strangely, NVidia's current Maxwell generation is actually rather competitive within OpenCL benchmarks, even besting AMD occasionally. See Anands's write up.

edit: I lied and posted again.

 

[humbug]

I wonder then why Apple chose NVidia within it's previous generation of iMac's? Did Apple only just discover that AMD had a long-term advantage with OpenCL, or has the feature only become of serious import now? Have millions of customers demanded OpenCL must be faster or else they'll go back to using PC's?

Strangely, NVidia's current Maxwell generation is actually rather competitive within OpenCL benchmarks, even besting AMD occasionally. See Anands's write up.

edit: I lied and posted again.

AMD have sat on their backsides in the past with OpenCL, however in the last two years they have worked hard on it, they have gone around to productivity app vendors and worked with them to improve OpenCL, including adding GCN exclusive features to Adobe products and the like....

 

[ubersonic]

Nvidia is in all the cheaper iMacs

Just for the late 2012/2013 generations, Apple wanted to make the new iMacs thinner and AMD didn't have anything that could meet their size and heat requirements while out performing the 2011 iMacs so Apple had to go with Nvidia, AMD would have been their first choice as usual.

you know the FirePro brand has been around for a while and are not just rebadged retail gpu's?

Yes I know, but the ones in question are re-branded retail GPU's that was the issue. I have a re-branded Firepro in this laptop, its a Firepro m8900, which is basically a HD6970m with a different BIOS (I have flashed mine back to a Radeon for extra FPS).

The thing I was complaining about is that Apple were charging triple price for R280X cards just because they had got them re-flashed and using different drivers. In fact I don't even know it they bothered re-flashing them as if you put that OS on the Mac Pro towers then drop a 280X in it will pick it up as a D700 and use the professional drivers.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I kind of suspected that trying to fit a full HD7970 equivalent card in the iMac was not very viable,especially with the need for the huge amount of RAM chips in the cards due to the 384 bit memory controller,which would have made the logic board bigger too. The Mac Pros tended to have AMD cards still IIRC.

Plus the AMD switching mechanism,between IGP and dGPU was flawed in 2012 and had many problems. This alone was a reason to go Nvidia at the time.

Regarding overpriced upgrades,Apple tends to do that ubersonic - some of the prices for the RAM upgrades on their Mac Pros were just taking the mickey last time I checked.

The base Mac Pro has dual HD7870 equivalent cards(!),so its even worse than you said in reality.

But regarding the GPUs,all the current AMD and Nvidia ones which are FirePro and Quadro parts have retail versions.

If you look at the Quadro K5000 its basically a GTX680/GTX770 4GB but priced at £1500+ it seems.

What you pay for are the extended hardware and software support,and better drivers for certain software(things like viewpoint acceleration and rendering image quality is usually better,but IMHO less important for the market Apple is targeting),and also the fact since these are sold to businesses usually they can get away with ripoff pricing.

AMD/ATi do pretty much the same.

This is why the Geforce Titan cards are considered good value in some circles,since you get the full Quadro hardware(well almost full as there is less RAM),without the software support but at like less than one third the price.

 

[N19h7m4r3]

Its to be expected it uses a locked down OS

As locked down as any POSIX UNIX OS, with full terminal access, with an open source core like Darwin, and the Mach micro kernel.

Well as they stuck a pair of 280X in the new Mac Pro and re-named them FirePro's so the fanboys would pay through the nose for them (and it worked) I reckon they will use the latest AMD mobility chip-sets with a different name ot make them sound more expensive

Since when does the 280x have ECC memory, and 10-bit pixel format support?



My only issue is that the latest 14.9 AMD drivers now show the cards as 7900's, but still have all the FirePro specs, and FirePro Control Centre. If they were simply renamed 280X/7970's they wouldn't have FirePro features.

The thing I was complaining about is that Apple were charging triple price for R280X cards just because they had got them re-flashed and using different drivers. In fact I don't even know it they bothered re-flashing them as if you put that OS on the Mac Pro towers then drop a 280X in it will pick it up as a D700 and use the professional drivers.

OS X uses unified drivers, there are no separate FirePro or Radeon, and if you have 280X installed in the older Mac Pro it'll just show as Tahiti Prototype, 79xx or R9 280X depending on OS X 10.9 or 10.10; while in windows it only has access to Radeon Catalyst drivers, no ECC, no 10-bit, and no FirePro control centre.