Apple Migrating to NVIDIA Chipsets in new MacBooks

MacRumors · Oct 11, 2008, 11:05 PM

Appleinsider reports that they have "confirmed" that the new MacBooks will utilize NVIDIA's new MCP79 platform. While Intel will continue to supply the main processor for Apple's notebooks, the underlying support chips will be made by NVIDIA:

Quote:

Kept uncharacteristically secret by NVIDIA for most of the year, the MCP79 platform is so far considered a substitute for Intel's Centrino 2 "Montevina" platform, offering support for the same 1066MHz front side bus, optional DDR3 memory and PCI Express 2.0 interfaces.

AppleInsider lists several design advantages over Intel's chipset, including:

- Smaller physical size using one chip rather than two
- DriveCache, which uses Flash storage to speed up boot times
- Hybrid SLI which switches from discrete to integrated graphics when battery is low

Apple may or may not choose to take advantage of these technologies, but the option exists. The biggest advantage in using the NVIDIA chipset, however, will be its enhanced graphics capabilities.

NVIDIA is believed to use a new set of GeForce 9300 and 9400 series integrated GPUs which "will theoretically blow past" the Intel integrated graphics chipsets that currently power Apple's MacBooks. Still, the integrated graphics chipsets will lag behind the dedicated ones that are used in Apple's higher-end notebooks. The use of NVIDIA chipsets will also be of importance when Apple releases Snow Leopard, which will be able to offload general processing onto GPUs.

While there had been speculation that Apple might adopt NVIDIA's chipsets, MacSoda first reported confidently that the chipset would be NVIDIA's.

Article Link

Eidorian · Oct 11, 2008, 11:06 PM

Must wait until it hits the refurb store to buy one...

Clayne · Oct 11, 2008, 11:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eidorian

Must wait until it hits the refurb store to buy one...

Haha, can you do that?

I don't think I can wait..

Orlandooo · Oct 11, 2008, 11:09 PM

Ooooh how sneaky, deleting my post and correcting the mistake!

Anyway, this sounds like the update should be worthwhile, even if one of the main improvements (general processing on GPUs) is only evident when Snow Leopard arrives!

ChrisN · Oct 11, 2008, 11:11 PM

Sounds awesome and do you think you could run some year old games like TF2 at a decent framerate like 50-60 maybe 70?

ChrisN

Eidorian · Oct 11, 2008, 11:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChrisN

Sounds awesome and do you think you could run some year old games like TF2 at a decent framerate like 50-60 maybe 70?

ChrisN

Half-Life 2 gets about 30 FPS at 1280 x 800 and Medium/High settings on my GMA X3100. Keep in mind I'm using Intel's latest drivers.

MasterNile · Oct 11, 2008, 11:15 PM

This is very interesting and probably the best reason (for me) to get a new MB

EDIT-but I'll probably wait to get it refurbished as well

ChrisN · Oct 11, 2008, 11:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eidorian

Half-Life 2 gets about 30 FPS at 1280 x 800 and Medium/High settings on my GMA X3100. Keep in mind I'm using Intel's latest drivers.

Does TF2 run the same or does it take more power, but 30 on X3100 sounds good so on a Nvidia hopefully 50

ChrisN

Merkuryy · Oct 11, 2008, 11:15 PM

Good!!!! That mean we'll have MB as Tony Parker, and MBP as Lebron James. MB does not got as much power and strength as MBP, but got enough speed to do things well, While MBP　ｓｔｉｌｌ　ｇｏｔ　ｐｏｔｅｎｔｉａｌ　ｐｏｗｅｒ　ｔｏ　ａｃｈｉｅｖｅ　ｍｏｒｅ　ｄｕｔｙ

blashphemy · Oct 11, 2008, 11:20 PM

wow, big diss to Intel :P I can't understand how Apple can do this, considering Apple's big thing has been "our things just work", not "high-performance" - nVidia had that big manufacturing flub with a rather large number of their chips including, as I recall, some that were in MacBook Pros? Intel has been making extremely reliable chips for some time now.

portishead · Oct 11, 2008, 11:20 PM

It would be great to see Apple move away form integrated graphics. I hope they do the same for the Mac Mini.

DsurioN · Oct 11, 2008, 11:21 PM

Awesome! Bring on Tuesday 1 PM EST!

Firefly2002 · Oct 12, 2008, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChrisN

Sounds awesome and do you think you could run some year old games like TF2 at a decent framerate like 50-60 maybe 70?

ChrisN

What the hell's the point of 70FPS on an LCD display only capable of 60 Hz?

Kilamite · Oct 12, 2008, 02:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Firefly2002

What the hell's the point of 70FPS on an LCD display only capable of 60 Hz?

How do you know hes using a display that is 60Hz? Could be an external monitor.

AidenShaw · Oct 12, 2008, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Firefly2002

What the hell's the point of 70FPS on an LCD display only capable of 60 Hz?

Typically the "FPS" rating of a game is the average for a standard test run.

During difficult scenes the frame rate is much lower - so benching a game at 100 FPS is really much better than 60 FPS. Even though you won't see the difference in the fast scenes, the 100 FPS system can be much better in the slow scenes.

PeterQC · Oct 12, 2008, 03:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChrisN

Sounds awesome and do you think you could run some year old games like TF2 at a decent framerate like 50-60 maybe 70?

ChrisN

Looking at some branhcmark, the Nvidia 9300m is around 12x faster then Intel's GMA 900, and around 6x faster then Intel's GMA 3100.

Considering people can run TF2 and the like with a GMA 3100, I think you'll be able to play TF2 at least at medium.

hdhanani · Oct 12, 2008, 12:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eidorian

Must wait until it hits the refurb store to buy one...

I will have the money by mid December to buy one so I will go this route as well if I can find the right refurb model...

ventro · Oct 11, 2008, 11:36 PM

nvidia is unreliable. steer clear apple!

BigD58 · Oct 11, 2008, 11:38 PM

Awesome! This is great news. Could you imagine the possibilities.....good games actually come to mac??

scottintosh · Oct 11, 2008, 11:44 PM

The current video processor is one of the reasons I waited several months for this update.. Im excited!!

Aranince · Oct 11, 2008, 11:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigD58

Awesome! This is great news. Could you imagine the possibilities.....good games actually come to mac??

Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 are coming to Mac the same time it's coming to PC. Blizzard rocks!

elpenguino · Oct 11, 2008, 11:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigD58

Awesome! This is great news. Could you imagine the possibilities.....good games actually come to mac??

Seems like things are going that way. It looks like they're trying to get into gaming with the iPod Touch. Besides, why not get into the gaming market a little more seriously? In these times of woe and want, who doesn't want to forget their troubles by blowing stuff up?

DaveTheGrey · Oct 12, 2008, 04:36 AM

great news, finally we will get away from these integrated gma graphics!

Admonitor · Oct 12, 2008, 04:40 AM

I still think that with so many SKUs planned, we still may be seeing discrete over dedicated in some of the 13" models, whatever they may be categorised as.

Mr. Bubbles · Oct 11, 2008, 11:54 PM

this is interesting! I wonder if the consumer level video capabilities will now be equal to, or outpace my first gen MBP!

It makes sense that they would have more powerful chipsets to handle all that blu ray video! *crosses fingers*

Oct 11, 2008, 11:06 PM	#2
Eidorian macrumors G3 Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Indiana	Must wait until it hits the refurb store to buy one... __________________ MRoogle it! hikari T7500 2.2 GHz / 4 GB / 320 GB / GMA X3100 / 10.5.8 chobimaru Core i5 750 2.66 GHz / 4 GB / 640 GB / 4830 / Windows 7

Oct 11, 2008, 11:09 PM	#4
Orlandooo macrumors member Join Date: Jun 2008	Ooooh how sneaky, deleting my post and correcting the mistake! Anyway, this sounds like the update should be worthwhile, even if one of the main improvements (general processing on GPUs) is only evident when Snow Leopard arrives! __________________ "Thou shalt not covet" I think I'm on the wrong site...

Oct 11, 2008, 11:11 PM	#5
ChrisN macrumors 65816 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Demarest, NJ	Sounds awesome and do you think you could run some year old games like TF2 at a decent framerate like 50-60 maybe 70? ChrisN __________________ 24" iMac Alu 2.8GHz, 13" MacBook White 2.0GHz, 8Gb iPhone 1st gen day 1, 8Gb iPhone 3G, 8GB iPod Nano 4G Orange.

Oct 11, 2008, 11:15 PM	#7
MasterNile macrumors 65816 Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: San Antonio, TX	This is very interesting and probably the best reason (for me) to get a new MB EDIT-but I'll probably wait to get it refurbished as well __________________ 24" Alu iMac, 2.8GHz C2D, 320GB 7200RPM HDD, 2GB RAM; White MacBook, 2.0GHz C2D, 500GB 5400RPM HDD, 4GB RAM; Jailbroken 32GB 2nd Gen iPod Touch

Oct 11, 2008, 11:15 PM	#9
Merkuryy macrumors regular Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Shanghai, China	Good!!!! That mean we'll have MB as Tony Parker, and MBP as Lebron James. MB does not got as much power and strength as MBP, but got enough speed to do things well, While MBP　ｓｔｉｌｌ　ｇｏｔ　ｐｏｔｅｎｔｉａｌ　ｐｏｗｅｒ　ｔｏ　ａｃｈｉｅｖｅ　ｍｏｒｅ　ｄｕｔｙ __________________ MBP 2.2ghz iPod Nano 4G(1G) iPod 5G(30G),iPod Shuffle(2G),Sony NW-E407,Creative Muvo2 (4G),iPod Mini(4G),YP-T10(2G),iPod Touch(8G) ,iPod 6G(80G)now

Oct 11, 2008, 11:20 PM	#10
blashphemy macrumors member Join Date: Dec 2006	wow, big diss to Intel :P I can't understand how Apple can do this, considering Apple's big thing has been "our things just work", not "high-performance" - nVidia had that big manufacturing flub with a rather large number of their chips including, as I recall, some that were in MacBook Pros? Intel has been making extremely reliable chips for some time now.

Oct 11, 2008, 11:20 PM	#11
portishead macrumors member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: los angeles	It would be great to see Apple move away form integrated graphics. I hope they do the same for the Mac Mini. __________________ Late 2008 MBP 2.4 4GB 32GB SSD

Oct 11, 2008, 11:21 PM	#12
DsurioN macrumors regular Join Date: Jan 2007	Awesome! Bring on Tuesday 1 PM EST!

Oct 11, 2008, 11:36 PM	#18
ventro macrumors 6502a Join Date: Sep 2006	nvidia is unreliable. steer clear apple!

Oct 11, 2008, 11:38 PM	#19
BigD58 macrumors regular Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: North Carolina	Hooray! Awesome! This is great news. Could you imagine the possibilities.....good games actually come to mac?? __________________ Macbook Pro (Unibody) 2.4Ghz, 4GB DDR3 RAM, iMac (Current Model), iPhone 3G 16GB Black

Oct 11, 2008, 11:44 PM	#20
scottintosh macrumors member Join Date: Jun 2008	The current video processor is one of the reasons I waited several months for this update.. Im excited!! __________________ Late 2008 MBP 2.4 ghz Powermac G5 1.6 ghz. iMac G4 1 Ghz 17inch. iMac G3 233 Mhz (Bondi Blue)

Oct 12, 2008, 04:36 AM	#23
DaveTheGrey macrumors 6502a Join Date: Dec 2003	great news, finally we will get away from these integrated gma graphics! __________________ M$ you're coming to a sad realisation, cancel or allow? flickr twitter

Oct 12, 2008, 04:40 AM	#24
Admonitor macrumors regular Join Date: May 2008	I still think that with so many SKUs planned, we still may be seeing discrete over dedicated in some of the 13" models, whatever they may be categorised as.

Oct 11, 2008, 11:54 PM	#25
Mr. Bubbles macrumors member Join Date: Dec 2007	this is interesting! I wonder if the consumer level video capabilities will now be equal to, or outpace my first gen MBP! It makes sense that they would have more powerful chipsets to handle all that blu ray video! crosses fingers

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