RUMOR: Apple in advanced discussions to adopt AMD chips

“Intel has served as Apple’s sole source for the microprocessors used in its notebook and desktop personal computers since the company began its transition away from PowerPC in 2006, but that may soon change given the company’s recent talks with Intel’s chief CPU rival Advanced Micro Devices,” Kasper Jade and Prince McLean report for AppleInsider. “Representatives for the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD have recently been seen on Apple’s Commuter Coach buses, and executives for the chipmaker have been spotted on their way out of meetings with members of Apple’s top brass, according to people familiar with the matter.”

“The meetings have reportedly included briefings by AMD that have since enabled Apple to begin working with AMD processors in its labs as part of an initiative to position the chips inside some of the company’s forthcoming products,” Jade and McLean report. “While AMD offers a variety of embedded processors, Apple is believed to be investigating the chipmaker’s workstation and notebook class CPUs.”

Jade and McLean report. “It is believed that Apple is working with AMD to expand its potential sources for CPUs in order to increase its flexibility and broaden its competitive options, but also likely in response to problems it has encountered with Intel. These issues include limited availability of new processors (which is rumored to have slowed Apple’s notebook refreshes) as well as new chipset designs imposed by Intel that have blocked the Mac maker’s plans to continue a partnership with NVidia to deliver a standardized chipset for use with its Intel processors across all of its consumer computer offerings.”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “jax44” for the heads up.]