Apple reportedly to use a custom AMD SoC for future iMac

Apple reportedly to use a custom AMD SoC for future iMac

 

AMD has powered several of Apple’s recent products on the GPU side, from Apples current Generation 5K iMac and Mac Pro, but now it looks like Apple is looking get more out of it’s relationship with AMD and use a custom AMD SoC for future products, which will likely be used for a future iMac. 

 

 

 

Right now custom AMD SoCs are used in both Sony’s and Microsoft’s current generation consoles and AMD currently has 3 other semi-custom SoCs in the works. One of these SoC’s is likely for Nintendo’s upcoming NX console, though nobody outside of AMD know the people who will use the other AMD custom SoCs. 

 

 

The advantage of using a custom SoC is that the SoC can be made to suit the requirements of the buyer, AMD has a very unique position for making custom SoCs like this as they make both x86 CPUs and powerful GPUs, meaning that an AMD custom SoC can utilise both. 

An AMD custom SoC makes a lot of sense for a product like an Apple iMac as instead of cooling a separate CPU and GPU a single cooler could be used to cool an AMD SoC which contains both a CPU and an APU. This will be very similar in concept to both the Xbox One and PS4 consoles.

 

 

 

One other advantage that AMD can bring to the table for Apple is HSA, which allows both CPUs and GPUs to work on the same workload. If Apple push in this direction Heterogeneous compute Apple could greatly increase the productivity of their devices under certain workloads, giving Apple devices a great selling point until software catches up on other devices.

With AMD’s Zen Architecture just around the corner the prospect and uses of future AMD custom SoCs is a topic of great interest, potentially paving the way for more powerful consoles and highly specified x86 based products. 

  

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