Wednesday, August 11th 2010
Next-Gen Apple TV to Use AMD Fusion APUs
Following AMD's recent announcement of a tie-up with Apple over supply of ATI Radeon graphics processors to be pre-fitted on iMac and Mac Pro product lines, news is surfacing that the engagement between the two will get even deeper. The next version of Apple TV will feature AMD's Fusion APU (accelerated processing units), making it the first Apple product to use an AMD processor. An APU is technically identical to the Intel Core i3 or Core i5 dual-core processors found in the market today (that have the CPU and an IGP in the same package), except that the first Fusion APUs will have the processor cores and an ATI Radeon GPU on the same die, and more importantly, the GPU will be DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.1 compliant, and have performance on par with the ATI Radeon HD 5500 series discrete GPUs.
For Apple TV this means that it will have a GPU that's powerful enough to run a more complex, higher resolution user interface, and make use of AMD's advanced HD video acceleration features, while literally 60% of the vital components are contained within one chip (CPU, IMC, GPU, northbridge). Apple TV is a device that plugs into HDTVs, providing interactive TV and video streaming features over the iTunes store service. It can also connect to your media collection over a wireless network.
Source:
DigiTimes
For Apple TV this means that it will have a GPU that's powerful enough to run a more complex, higher resolution user interface, and make use of AMD's advanced HD video acceleration features, while literally 60% of the vital components are contained within one chip (CPU, IMC, GPU, northbridge). Apple TV is a device that plugs into HDTVs, providing interactive TV and video streaming features over the iTunes store service. It can also connect to your media collection over a wireless network.
26 Comments on Next-Gen Apple TV to Use AMD Fusion APUs
Looks good, way overpriced, doesn't deserve your money
Honestly though, kudos to Apple cause they have created a brand, and thats all that people are buying into these days regardless of the product, they blindly buy Apple's products like rats to the pied piper, stupid consumers :banghead:
why don't us wait for benchmarks and review before we bash this product :rolleyes:?
its really interesting product if this thing use fusion CPU, it can be a really powerful HTPC
and i want to see how liquid metal is
Once you did that to them, they made awesome little workstations. The only problem was the single USB port, but with an Apple keyboard it turns that one into two, then use one for the mouse and leave the other open for whatever you need. Plus, the 160GB one for $190 makes it extremely cheap actually, you'd have a hard time even finding a PC workstation for that price(basically nettop equivalant).
I know there are Apple haters on TPU and I'm one of them but look at it this way: with Apple as a major client, it's more money for AMD to spend on developing their chips. Apple WILL sell lots of these and as a result AMD WILL get los of money.
EDIT: Oh, you meant the older model... that costs 270€ in here.
EDIT2: WTF? Specs say that it >requires< a PC or a Mac. How lame is that.
2./ There is ZERO learning curve to people who already know Windows
3./ Ease of remote managing an XP device. Tried remote managing OSX or mix and matching on the same network? www.dameware.com/products/dmrc/
4./ Malware? Lock it down and restrict user rights.
And installing XP on a modern machine instead of the bundled OS is stupid. If you can install OSX on this thing, do a WM instead.And there is the end of the "zero learning curve" thing.
I told you before and I'll say it again.. Apple will get rid of Intel and will shift to AMD soon !
AMD have what Apple wants a full Platform (CPU+GPU+Chipset) so they can lock OSX to there system more !
2.) There really isn't a learning curve to openning Safari and typing in the address, any Windows user can figure that out.
3.) There really wouldn't be a whole lot you would need to remote manage with these.
4.) You don't have to do that with OSX, and doing it with XP takes time, more time than it is worth.
But this is great news. Maybe Apple will bring these into the budget Macs as time goes. I used to recommend Apple to everyone years ago but since the switch I just find myself recommending PCs more. Steve has no desire to really bring OSX up to where it could be and the hardware is always behind in tech aside from the CPUs. The fine line between OSX premium and Windows is just getting blurred when I can build a better rig for half the price.
AMD is a great move. If Apple bumps Intel out of the budget Macs then we got a chance for some decent prices. Really if you look at the prices before and after the x86 switch, Apple totally increased their premiums.
Heck if Apple did make an AMD Mac, I'd prolly be the first to buy it. Course I'd load Windows on it right away ;D.