notbThat's a very simple question. Because someone buys them.

Unfortunately. Some people probably think that it's a 6-core CPU since the current desktop ones are..

I'm already terrified by the Apple profit margin on this. I'm sure they will charge as much as for Intel which means extra 50% in the bag.

ypsylonI'm already terrified by the Apple profit margin on this. I'm sure they will charge as much as for Intel which means extra 50% in the bag.

Don't be, unless someone is going to use your money to buy them:roll:

Maybe also keep in mind AMD does have experience in customizing SoCs for its clients. Good chance Apple will be looking for some of that and if so AMD is obviously a better partner.

yep, MS and Apple will use special models designed for them by AMD.

Ryzentosh has been going on for a while now in the hackintosh community, so I bet those folks are really excited if Apple made it official.

Think about the performance uplift if MacBook Air gets 4800U and MacBook Pro 13 gets 4800HS...

HwGeekThink about the performance uplift if MacBook Air gets 4800U and MacBook Pro 13 gets 4800HS...

The Macbook Air is Apple's lower end laptop. It would be unlikely that they'd use one of AMD's best mobile CPUs. If anything, I think Apple would use a Ryzen 3 4300U, since it is an upgrade over whatever the Air is using today (my guess is the dual core Core i5-8210Y) and TDP wise is still kind of manageable (Core i5's 7 W vs the Ryzen's default 15W, configurable between 10-25 W), although graphics-wise is still a bit of a mystery (I could not find benchmark data for this one, only know that it has 5 graphics cores, though it is likely that it performs better than Intel's IGP)

Yes for first release they will use only Ryzen 3 and will upgrade it next time, to keep Refreshing every year for more money.
Also for now the Air is low end but with those new 7nm part apple could make new Premium Ultra light notebook for higher price- they will love the margins :-).

Vayra86Maybe also keep in mind AMD does have experience in customizing SoCs for its clients. Good chance Apple will be looking for some of that and if so AMD is obviously a better partner.

Totally. If you look at Apple's devices, there have been constant improvements with battery life. Some of that's the hardware directly, but some of that is because of space saving and being able to commit more space to battery. Things like OLED screens and custom SoCs make that kind of thing possible. I've always felt that the best mobile device will be one that has everything, including system memory, on the same package as the CPU and GPU. Even removing DRAM from the PCB and packaging it with the SoC could save space and AMD knows all about packaging a GPU and HBM together on the same package. That isn't to say that Intel doesn't (Crystalwell back in the day was a great example,) but AMD has kept up with it.

If Apple thinks that they can save money and improve battery life at the same time, while keeping all other things equal, I'm sure they'd consider it.

ratirtDo Apple really need to move from Intel to AMD. They can get both CPUs stuck in their products and make more performance wise tiers of laptops. And the x86 arch doesn't necessarily eliminate ARM. Apple can still make stuff with ARM powered CPUs.

Everyone seems to have forgotten their philosophy that underpins their OS is minimalism which allows for a lean unbloated OS. Yes supporting both isn't supporting everything supporting everything under the sun but it's still bloat.

TotallyEveryone seems to have forgotten their philosophy that underpins their OS is minimalism which allows for a lean unbloated OS. Yes supporting both isn't supporting everything supporting everything under the sun but it's still bloat.

Not sure what are you after here.
no one says support everything but people saying, and I'm one of them, better be prepared and have some hardware on-board. when something happens or one becomes obsolete (whatever it would be) you can easily switch to the one that leads the pack and reduce costs. hope you get what I'm sayin'

How they pass such powerful chips?

this little 35W part performs better in this bench then my old 2700X!

This is pretty meaningless in and of itself, the author hasn't done his homework.

Apple has a long history of doing some basic testing of their OS on different chips, even different architectures. Technically MS did this for a long time too. I would imagine both companies have their OS' running on ARM in a lab somewhere. There are little indicators in the metadata / config files and such for both companies. This allows them to stay 'light on their feet' if the market suddenly shifts or their favored supplier has a failure, like if Intel were to get stuck on the same process node for 6 years...

Intel jabs aside, I've seen a lot of these kinds of articles over the decades and 95% of the time they are meaningless. This is just Apple being prepared to shift direction, not actually doing it.

Most likely Apple is just preparing in case Intel's failures continue into 2021 and leads to a truly large performance and market shift towards AMD. The main message here should be that Apple is not completely confident in Intel's ability to hold market dominance and/or the perception of the performance leader. And yes, outside the techie forums most people still think Intel is the performance leader. It's still pretty close in reality too.