AMD Makes A Play For the Mac Platform, But It's Not What You Might Think

Advanced Micro Devices is seeking its share of the hot-and-growing Mac platform ecosystem, and on Wednesday it makes a move in that direction. The company says it is making a version of its ATI TV Wonder 650 Combo USB product available for Macs, after it had previously made six different products in that line available for the PC.

In its announcement, AMD says:

The ATI TV Wonder 650 Combo USB for Mac transforms Mac desktops and notebooks alike into ultimate TV entertainment systems, with full personal video recorder functionality. With the included ATI tvPORTAL TV application for Mac, users can watch, pause, or record high definition TV1. Even analog TV is made brilliant on the Mac as the ATI TV Wonder 650 Combo USB for Mac produces sharp, true-to-life analog TV images.

AMD is pricing the product at $149, and it will be a retail play. Digital home integrators have in recent years had mixed success in deploying the ATI TV products, but the devices have seen success at the consumer level.

In addition to the TV Wonder, AMD said it is "powering the new 20 and 24-inch iMac models with the amazing graphics power of ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT, including 128MB of GDDR3 video memory, and the ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO, featuring 256MB of GDDR3."

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company has been mostly left out in the cold when it has come to Apple's strong, steady growth this year while rival Intel has been supplying processors for new Macs built since 2006. In fact, the Mac's recent growth spurt in the marketplace just about coincides with its switch to the Intel platform.

Of late, AMD has been losing money but its processor lines, including the quad-core Barcelona, have won strong reviews. Barcelona is supposed to ship in volume in the middle of this quarter, according to AMD executives.

Tweet