Job ads point to Apple turning away from AMD’s discrete GPUs
It seems that when it comes to Apple’s computers, there may soon be a switch in the company providing discrete graphics solutions, with Nvidia potentially set to step in.
While the majority of Macs simply run with integrated graphics courtesy of Intel’s processors, those beefier models (or custom configured affairs) which do boast a separate GPU have their pixel-shifting power provided by AMD these days, with Nvidia not having been near an iMac or MacBook Pro for some time now. But all that could be about to change according to some job listings.
Bloomberg spotted three adverts for positions at Nvidia which mention Apple, all pertaining to software development for the Mac, with the most telling being a job for a ‘Metal Compute and OpenCL Software Engineer for Mac’.
The blurb says the successful applicant will be working in partnership with Apple to “define and shape the future of Metal and OpenCL on Mac OS X”, (we think perhaps the future might be with macOS rather than OS X, mind you), and he or she will “help produce the next revolutionary Apple products”.
Mac driver team
Another of the listings apparently calls for a software engineer working in the ‘Nvidia Mac graphics driver team’.
And interestingly enough, we found a job listing in which Apple said it was ‘searching for world-class software engineers to join the Nvidia Mac graphics driver team and help produce the next revolutionary Apple products’, dating back almost six months.
So, it appears the search for staff has been going on for a little while now, and perhaps we could see Nvidia back inside Apple’s computers sooner rather than later. That said, a scattering of job listings is hardly concrete evidence for the switch.
But if this move is in the pipeline, it would certainly be a blow for AMD, as the company could well do without losing any turf to Nvidia.
Nvidia is the dominant force in graphics, and the clear leader when it comes to desktop PCs – the latest figures we’ve seen put the company on a market share of 77%, with AMD on 23%.
However, AMD did actually claw back some share in the last quarter to the tune of 2.5%, which might not sound like all that much, but it is significant in the fact that it’s the first gain AMD has made on its rival since 2012.
Sourse: techradar.com