AMD Raven Ridge APU (Ryzen-Vega Combination) is Apple’s Biggest Weapon Inside MacBook Pro 2017

Raven Ridge is AMD's latest APU (accelerated processing unit), a combination of Ryzen CPU and Radeon Vega GPU chipsets on a single chip. Since the combination reduces latency and simplify board designs, Apple is reportedly choosing Raven Ridge to come up with a thinner MacBook Pro 2017.

MacBook Pro 2017 to Host Raven Ridge APU

Aside from the CPU and GPU roadmap, AMD also reveal their APU roadmap during the Game Developers Conference in which they presented the Raven Ridge which consist mainly of Ryzen-branded chipsets for CPU and Vega-based chipsets for GPU. According to Market Realist, these chipsets will be packed in a single silicon through the use of Intel's Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge packing technology.

Since integrating CPU and GPU in a single silicon has an advantage such as latency reduction and simple board designs, Apple is reportedly considering Raven Ridge for MacBook Pro 2017 model and beyond to produce a thinner portable machine. If Apple adopt the said technology for their future macs, other PC makers are expected to follow the Cupertino giant's footsteps.

Raven Ridge is originally planned to be released in 2018; however, a change in AMD roadmap shows a 2017 launching and release for the new APU. MacBook Pro's performance is expected to leverage with Raven Ridge APU most especially when it uses the Vega-based GPU chipsets which have bigger leaps on machine learning and Artificial Intelligence.

AMD Moves to Dominate CPU, GPU and Server Market

While Raven Ridge moves to devour NVIDIA's market for lower-end discrete GPU, the rumored GPU licensing deal between Intel and AMD also implies that the latter has the possibility to devour the former in CPU market. And AMD's emerging dominance does not only end in PC and mobile industry, it also threatens the major players in the server market upon the release of Naples.

It seems like 2017 is a good year to start for AMD because aside from the recently released products, the major chip manufacturer is also reportedly working on interesting products for 2018. Zen 2 and Zen 3 are reportedly under development, Forbes reported.