Posted on Friday, December 10 2010 @ 20:37 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Word is going around that Apple will dump NVIDIA and stick with Intel's integrated graphics for the next generation of MacBook laptops, and for the MacBook Pro lineup the company will reportedly use some of AMD's GPUs.
One key reason why Apple may be kicking NVIDIA to the curb is Intel's promise to change. More precisely, Intel has pledged to push OpenCL -- a GPU computing language -- out for Sandy Bridge in the near future. Apple's Snow Leopard's performance is boosted by OpenCL, so many had thought NVIDIA -- long the only producer of OpenCL products -- was a lock for future Mac notebooks.
Another reason may be economics. AnandTech chief Anand Shimpi is quoted in CNET as stating, "I'd say...we can expect (about) 2x the performance of [Sandy Bridge's] graphics. At that level of performance, I don't see a need for discrete [standalone Nvidia or Advanced Micro Devices] graphics at the very low end."
Source: DailyTech
