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Apr 9, 2001
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Spymac reports that Apple will have a major graphics annoucnement at MWNY:

Steve Jobs will shed some light on a long-planned project that will showcase Apple's commitment to the high-end graphics market.


In April, Architosh had discussed the possibiliy of an Apple branded video card. They also refered to a Studio Summit which revealed what the industry wanted to see from Apple. These included rackmount servers, dual/quad machines and 'best of breed' graphics performance.
 
hmm, i don't think we will see Apple based graphics cards.

Could Apple afford to buy nvidea? that would be cool, my PC bummin friends would just die.

Ensign
 
They wouldn't have to buy out Nvidia or ATI. They might just be cooperating: they could be paying a part of R&D for making a brand new card that is optimised for all the software-technologies Apple is using for their video and graphics...
If that might be true, gee man, that would speed things up beyond warpspeed (for those who can afford it of course...)
:cool:

numb_brain
 
Doesn't anybody remember the TWO REALLY BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS LIKE A DAY AGO? Silicon Grail and that other company, this announcement is software I think.
 
There seems to be more than just graphics cards. The SpyMac article is about as vague as it can be - something cool this way comes....whose initials are FE, I haven't a clue. But it will be worth watching, especially since we'll probably know in July.

I definity could see a bigger link between Apple and Pixar, especially now with the XServe, more hype added to the bonfire :D
 
Considering how both ATI and nVidia are selling the GPU chips to card makers, Apple could easily purchase the GPU's from either maker and put them into their own cards. This could allow Apple to use whatever GPU they want inside any of the systems and not depend on the card makers providing the cards ready for installation.

That could allow Apple to install more top end GPU's into more systems. Who wouldn't like to have a Radeon 8500 inside a TiBook?? :D
 
Originally posted by AlphaTech
Considering how both ATI and nVidia are selling the GPU chips to card makers, Apple could easily purchase the GPU's from either maker and put them into their own cards. This could allow Apple to use whatever GPU they want inside any of the systems and not depend on the card makers providing the cards ready for installation.

That could allow Apple to install more top end GPU's into more systems. Who wouldn't like to have a Radeon 8500 inside a TiBook?? :D

Isn't that how Apple has the graphics cards with their ADC port? Or does a specific card manufacturer make cards specifically for Apple?
 
My guess is that no hardware will come of this. I think Apple will release a peice of software that incorporates many peices of software including the companies they recently bought. They also will anounce that it will use Pixars rendering tech and such. It probably will come in a bundle with the server or the new powermac, and Jobs will announce that a bunch of the leading render houses buy a bunch of them which will almost double they're control of the already Apple friendly entertainment business. This will kick M$ and they're cohorts to only hold gaming in the innovation sector seeing that Apple controls almost all of the other sectors that generally push the industry forwards. Hows that for a big announcement. "Microsoft Windows the Gaming Machine" hmm i think that logo's been taken :D .
 
when you think you know somebody....

And I just picked up a $200 GeForce 4 Ti off eBay. Well, maybee I'll have to top of the line for a month.

-Thomas
 
Dual GPU (or more) cards that can either offload some of the CPU chores (ie Quartz Extreme) and/or split up major rendering jobs among the GPUs.

Or maybe some fruits of the workstation graphics end of the market.

Can't remember much else about those old rumors and tech purchases.
 
If there was a video card manufacturer purchased by Apple, my bets would be on Matrox. They've been in the video business awhile, are established in video and 2D by rep of being quality products, and are widely thought to soon lose major marketshare as nvidia begins targetting their markets. Their latest video card to be released in a few months had Mac OS X compatibility listed in PR info circulating PC sites previous to the official announcement but upon publically announcing it, that item was deleted from the same material. Why? Who knows?

Either way that would make the most sense to me but I seriously doubt it'll happen. The odds are in favor of software acquisition announcements with product announcements based off of them. No earth shattering rumors there...seems pretty obvious actually.
 
although Alpha's comments regarding a card sound very plausible and there certainly seems reason to have an apple gpu of some kind considering the stress osx can put on a machine's performance i would have to agree with shadow and spuncan. this is likely a software release of some kind. perhaps sound 3d app?
 
Originally posted by mr.w
are either of the 2 for sale???
Everything is for sale at the right price :)

I'd love to see Apple in graphics cards, but I don't think it will happen. As for OS X putting a lot of strain on a graphics card - I don't think so. A CPU can't handle it very well, but it really isn't very hard, even for a relatively old graphics card.
 
You know, we're all never going to figure it out.. I'm just going to enjoy the leadup to MWNY, and hope that TechTV carries the keynote, as I finally get the channel!
 
Could it be that they are coming out with software? Why hardware? I have never known of a rumor at Architosh to be right, so why now? I really don't think they have the resources to do this type of project, and why would they want to. What if it is an AutoCad type design software that can read, and write to AutoCad formats? That is an area that they could make massive strides in. I would rather see that than the video card.
 
Originally posted by canadianmacguy
You know, we're all never going to figure it out..
Unless Time canada spills the beans! :D

C'mon, guessing is 1/2 the fun. Actuall,y guessing is more like 9/10 the fun for me :)
 
Apple won't buy out NVidia - they are making the chips for the XBox; Microsoft would never let that happen.
 
software/hardware

My 2 cents:

Its too soon for Apple's new software companies to have been merged and come up with a new product-this takes time.

Nvida was talking some time back about how their share of the Apple market was to go up, so I'm guessing a collaborative effort.

MOM
 
Originally posted by Brent
Apple won't buy out NVidia - they are making the chips for the XBox; Microsoft would never let that happen.

First of all it would shock the whole industry for Apple to buy nvidia and probably do more harm than good.

Second of all word is that nvidia is out as far as the xbox 2 is concerned.
 
Re: software/hardware

Originally posted by MOM
My 2 cents:

Its too soon for Apple's new software companies to have been merged and come up with a new product-this takes time.

It's also not like they just decided at 4:55pm Friday that they would go out and buy them over the weekend. This could have been in the works for awhile and just had to negotiate the money. If Apple makes any product announcements off this last acquisition at Macworld that will pretty much tell you that this had been in the works for awhile and that they were negotiating. If they merely write it off as a business move, then it was fairly recent. People seem to forget that Apple could merely be after patents and engineers more than the products themselves.
 
JUst a thought:

Could Apple/PIXAR publicly challenge ILM?

Apple has got the hardware and software, PIXAR has the brains (in this field of special effects etc.) and the manpower.

Once people see a PIXAR film (Opening line: Made on an Apple Macintosh... and maybe Ending line too ;) ), which they think it's cool (well all PIXAR films are cool), they would think Apple is cool too (for those not knowing). And that would make these guys buy cool products from a cool company.

Any marketing guys here? How's that for a marketing scheme?
 
SGI competition?

Perhaps this is obvious, but it starts to sound as if Apple is going after SGI's territory:
Multi (dual/quad cpu w/ Altivec - eventual G5)
Unix OS
High End graphics cards
Alias/Maya already ported

I used to know the specs on Indigos, O2 etc - but it's been a while and I've been out of the loop
Can a Quad 1.4 or higher G4 give high end SGI workstations a run for their money - at maybe 1/4 the price?
http://www.sgi.com/workstations/comparison.html
High end O2 is Single or dual MIPS 64-bit R12000A 400MHz, R14000A 550MHz and 600MHz 2MB L2 cache
 
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