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What is the impact on Apple if NVIDIA were to buy ARM?

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They've left Motorola, PPC and Intel so they may eventually even leave ARM behind too.

The other important thing to remember is that they always have a contingency plan in place.

@trs96,
I understand but right now we don't have other Instruction Set Architecture except RISC, CISC available. Apple just moved to RISC. Making an instruction set is not easy task and if that easy Apple would have built one. Also making it successful like RISC & CISC in this short period time is a very difficult task.

Also according to the current deal Apple, Qualcomm, AMD and Intel will require guarantees that they'll be given equal access to Arm's current instruction set but what happens if ARM develops a new and better instruction set? Will Nvidia give it to the rivals?
 
right now we don't have other Instruction Set Architecture except RISC, CISC available
Apple does have other options already for using the RISC architecture in their chips. This article was from 2 years ago. They could go with RISC-V and not have to pay a nickel of licensing fees to make their own SoCs.

Here's what Macworld.co.uk said in April 2020:
RISC-V could be the salvation for Apple. The CPU architecture is under an open source licence, anyone can use it without a licence and adapt it to their own requirements. In the long term Apple could use it to develop all processors in all of its devices.

Apple loves to have full control over as many assemblies as possible and RISC-V would allow it to do just that. Sure, there is still a long way to go before RISC-V achieves the performance of the ARM architecture, and it may well be that the first “non-Intel Mac” comes with an ARM CPU, but in the long term RISC is likely to be too tempting for Apple to simply ignore this architecture. Who knows? Perhaps the Apple RISC-V processor is already ready in the Cupertino laboratories.
Apple has hired the best chip design engineers in the world so it would not be difficult for them to move to RISC-V from ARM at some point. If the Nvidia deal to purchase ARM even goes through it's going to take a long time to complete so in the shorter term they'll be staying with ARM. Whenever Apple has the chance to get more control and make more money they always opt for those options, it's just the way they operate.
 
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Sorry to seem so vindictive, but after Apple's treatment of nVIDIA I hope with everything within me nVIDIA purchases ARM and they snub Apple, just as Apple snubbed them and those of us who prefer nVIDIA graphics... not to mention those who have nVIDIA graphics in our Macs.

Apple, as usual, at various times in their history (Steve Jobs era excluded), decides to change to some proprietary Apple-only API or they decide to further isolate themselves from the rest of the computing world in some manner (software or hardware), and they expect -- like the petulant little children they are at times -- EVERYONE to succumb to their whims, and we witness their resulting temper tantrums when industry people do not ask Apple "how high" when Apple demands everyone "jump".

I love the Mac OS, but I hate Apple with a passion right now! At the least, I hope nVIDIA purchases ARM and forces Apple to beg them for usage, and then ONLY after Apple agrees to sign-off on ALL MacOS drivers for nVIDIA wares, old and new, and tells Apple THEY MUST COMPLY with nVIDA's needs instead of nVIDIA bowing to Apple's whims... Apple's proprietary "Metal" demands included.

Sorry for offending anyone (except Apple)... but long live nVIDIA, and SCREW Apple at this point as far as I'm concerned!

I truly hope this news doesn't turn out to be wishful thinking and false hope on my part. I have never SO had it with Apple... not even during their idiotic 90's decision making -- before Jobs came back and showed them how to be a real company who actually serves their customers' needs rather than snubbing them.

Then I prefer METAL!

CUDA Blef is just breaking down!

cheers!
 
Whenever Apple has the chance to get more control and make more money they always opt for those options, it's just the way they operate.

This is the most important part of your post, and it would do those pesky haters to read it... In addition, this has been apple philosophy since the beginning. This is not something Cook; Cooked up, this was something that Jobs left him with.
 
As 3d artist I just can not find value in Apple products for some time. Apple pushed more AMD GPUs due lower power consumption, but our industry was dominated with CUDA. Apple decide to ditch OpenGL and OpenCL, pushing their Metal, even though 95% of apps in our industry are highly OpenGL dependent. This year we got some render engines that are Metal, but without any significant benefits that would motivate me to switch back. Also Apple was pushing Xeons in pro machines even though AMD kicked Intel so badly, I think that 80% of 3d industry are on Ryzens/Threadrippers nowadays. Now it is ARM and I think it will be even longer period of waiting time. I like OSX, so will have one workstation as Hackintosh, but as it is non supported system I can not rely my business around it. Also what about Hackintosh future with t2 chips and Arm?
 
@craighazan,
It is highly unlikely that Intel would be interested in purchasing ARM, they have way too much invested in their CISC based (x86) architecture and switching to RISC based CPU's would make no sense at all.
All CPUs today are RISC (or a combination of RISC and CISC).
 
Sorry to seem so vindictive, but after Apple's treatment of nVIDIA ...
I understand the sentiment behind this but I don't see NVIDIA as the victim in this as much as Apple's customers. It's deeply problematic that the best GPU technology is barred from the platform and it calls into question the whole notion of the Mac as a serious high-end professional option. Metal is all well and good and it does reduce the gap between AMD/ OpenCL and NVIDIA/CUDA performance in an app like Resolve for example. The gap is not closed though and sometimes NVIDIA/CUDA is simply a better option. The sight of the Apple media and fanboys getting all excited over a mid-range gaming GPU like the 5700XT or an obsolete-but-passed-as-leading-edge GPU like the Pro Vega II is pretty alarming and unedifying in my view.
 
The sight of the Apple media and fanboys getting all excited ....
...while PC (mac&win) users simply use the perfomance right now :)
 
It is highly unlikely that Intel would be interested in purchasing ARM, they have way too much invested in their CISC based (x86) architecture and switching to RISC based CPU's would make no sense at all.
x86 is RISC based.
 
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