Rumor: Apple might switch to AMD Zen over Kaby Lake

Link for @musicalmac

AMD’s Custom Zen Based SOC Could Be A Potential Candidate For Apple MacBook Pro

AMD is known to offer custom chips based on their latest Zen architecture in 2018. Apple could go that route if Intel is unable to meet their requirements in the graphics department. AMD can exploit this situation and round up a custom Zen based SOC featuring their latest GCN cores and a couple of HBM (cache/system subsystem) for Apple.

Such a custom chip could be a big win for AMD’s custom-SOC division. By 2018, such a chip would be very feasible to produce in terms of cost and volume as FinFET process would have matured enough and HBM2 yields would be ideal to supply to mass market.

Of course, we aren’t setting this in stone as if Apple is indeed going to feature a AMD chip inside their next gen laptop solution. But the possibility of it happening is high given the latest Intel roadmap leak. Intel is known for changing roadmaps from time to time so we might just see them slipping in a GT3 graphics chip under the H-series lineup. For more on Zen architecture, you can read an in-depth technical analysis over here.

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AMD Zen is slated for next year, and if Apple does go through with a change between Intel to AMD, this will be a big blow for Intel, but a big win for AMD.

amd needs a win, if this is true good for the company.

Typical apple, has the cheap interior sold in a expensive looking exterior

Everyone knows Intel > amd, nvidia > radeon

Nice, at least somone will buy AMD CPUs XD

But it's good, this way we might see better products from AMD.

Hopefully ZEN will also deliver excellent performance.

That has not always been true.....

Nor should it be in the future. Intel really needs competition. Though they increase their prices more slowly than nVidia. The Pascal cards are pricey.

I think this time Apple will use everything:

NVIDIA GeForce Making a Comeback to Apple?

:P