Peace Through Technology

Long time rivals AMD, Apple and Intel working together to build you the best laptop money can buy? That’s the rumor that is floating around by way of tech review site Engadget. If you’d asked me about this possibility three years ago, I’d have told you to lay off reading The Inquirer for awhile, but today the idea is not so far-fetched.

It started with the Apple-Intel alliance, where Apple became so fed up with heat and production issues of the latest IBM-based PowerPC processor that it finally followed the prophecy of former Apple CEO John “...turning down x86 was one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made…” Scully and joined forces with Intel.

Next came the acquisition of ATI by AMD, filling the chipset gap in AMD’s product line and driving Intel CPU-based notebook makers into a quandary. Not to mention the decision point that Apple is now at: Continue to sell ATI, now AMD graphics paired with Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs (presuming they will get along) or switch to Nvidia graphics. Uh, in case you’re thinking the Intel graphics will work here, forget it. Intel makes integrated graphics solutions, not dedicated graphics processors, and lest you forget, Apple fans are all about great graphics processing. And switching from Intel CPUs to AMD-based designs as some suggest will happen is likely to be a challenge for Apple, requiring a new board design to support the hypertransport bus. But imagine it, if you will: The fastest Intel processors paired with the best graphics from AMD wrapped up in the Apple coolest designs! Sounds so good it almost makes me weep!

Via Engadget