AMD shares jumped 6.43 percent Thursday on the news, up to $9.10. Curiously, Nvidia was also up 2.44 percent despite the fact Apple dropped it from much of its mobile lineup. However, Apple’s decision doesn’t simply boil down to Radeon shipments for new MacBooks. Analysts believe AMD’s relationship with Apple is strengthening and the deal could just be a sign of things to come.
Apple has carried AMD desktop GPUs for quite a while, but the mobile space has traditionally been reserved for Nvidia. However, over the next few months Nvidia GPUs will only be available in select MacBook Air SKUs. Of course, there is a always chance Apple might switch between AMD and Nvidia in future generations, depending on its needs and performance offered by future generations of mobile GPUs.
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