Apple Silicon: a dark future for AMD and NVIDIA on Mac

Our colleagues at Apple Insider raised an interesting point recently concerning the upcoming transition for Macs to an in-house architecture, instead of the Intel architecture.

This change, falling within the framework ofSilicon projectwas announced during the last WWDC conference, on Monday June 22, 2020. The article in source highlights that in addition to Intel processors, abandoned in favor of ARM processors, the other components which could leave Apple aside would be the graphics chips previously supplied by AMD and NVIDIA.

Indeed, if we look at the summary sheet of the Apple Silicon project, provided by the Californian firm, we see that for the GPU part of Apple Silicon Macs, it is indicatedApple GPU.

Conversely, on the side of Macs with Intel processors, for GPUs, Intel, NVIDIA and AMD chips seem to be supported, as is currently the case.

We can therefore imagine that with the transition to ARM processors, Apple also wants to free itself from third-party graphics chips. Already on mobile, for example, ARM chips from the Ax series are equipped with in-house graphics coprocessors.

Nothing confirms this hypothesis for the moment, however. In addition, Apple has made it clear, several Mac computers with Intel processors are still planned for the coming months. Let us add that Macs with Intel processors, and therefore third-party GPUs, will work for many years under future versions of macOS, thanks in particular to the Rosetta 2 emulator.

But we believe, just like the journalists at Apple Insider, that with the Apple Silicon project, in the long term, AMD and NVIDIA GPU chips will join Intel processors in the Mac exile club.

Concerning external GPUs, however, usable via Thunderbolt, the question remains unanswered. But logically, at this stage there are no real reasons  that Apple cuts this compatibility. It is possible that they will therefore remain supported by Macs with ARM chips.

Editor-in-chief for iPhon.fr. Pierre is like Indiana Jones, looking for the lost iOS trick. Also a long-time Mac user, Apple devices hold no secrets for him. Contact: pierre[a]iphon.fr.