Apple to use AMD Zen SoCs for future iMacs?

Apple has been working pretty closely with AMD over the last couple of years. You can find AMD's Fire Pro graphics cards in the Mac Pro, you can also find Radeon graphics chips in some of the new iMacs and now it seems that Apple may tap AMD again, this time for Zen powered custom processors for future generation iMacs.

AMD has proven that it is capable of building solid APUs or SoCs with the recent generation of consoles. Now, Apple may want similar chips for its next generation iMacs, according to new reports. This System on Chip will be based on the Zen architecture as well, which is currently on the roadmap for 2016.

While not all enthusiasts are fond of Apple, it is still the biggest company in the world, with potentially a lot of business to give. AMD has spent years working on its upcoming Zen architecture and with the company's current financial state, it needs to see a return on investment, something that Apple could easily help provide if it began ordering custom x86 SoC units for new products.

The initial rumours come from Wccftech, which claims that these AMD powered iMacs wouldn't hit the market until 2017 or 2018, so things are still quite a way off, though AMD CEO, Lisa Su, did admit in a recent quarterly earnings call that the company had secured “two new semi-custom design wins” and this could very well be one of them.

KitGuru Says: Apple is a huge company with a lot of money, so this could potentially be a big win for AMD and help generate some more money, though we have yet to see Zen chips out in the wild yet. During Q3 of 2015 AMD announced a financial loss of £127 million, so hopefully next year we will start to see that turn around. 

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