Apple Keeps Intel in New Powerful PC (AAPL, INTC, AMD)

If you have been keeping up with trends from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), it is no secret that the company is trying and trying to do what it can to have its own technology inside its popular products.  After all, if a company has 50% profit margins in the products that are the guts of your key products, why not.  Apple has announced its newest and “most powerful” iMac with a new processor architecture and faster graphics for its all-in-one computer.  Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) is included here, but so is its distant number-two rival Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE: AMD).

As far as Intel is concerned, it offers the Intel Core i3, i5, and i7 processors with an advanced architecture and new benchmarks for the iMac performance with quad-core power based on the 32-nanometer process technology.  For AMD, its ATI Radeon graphics processors are independent of the CPU and there are various models here.

Intel has been one to watch because the processors for iPads and iPhones are not using Intel processors.  Apple has been designing its own architecture for processors in a grow-your-own model.

Apple has 4 models being launched: 21.5 inch with a 3.06 GHz at $1,199.00; 21.5-inch with a 3.2GHz at $1,499.00; 27-inch with a 3.2GHz for $1,699.00; and 27-inch iMac with 2.80 GHz at $1,999.00.

There are some who have speculated that Apple will one day use its own architecture and own processors for most of its products.  Whether or not that ever comes to be the case is another matter.  For now, Intel is still getting to benefit from at least some of Apple’s product growth.

JON C. OGG