Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple to Adopt Alternative Chipsets for Next Laptops?
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
AMD's last Intel chipset was made before 1066MHz buses.
VIA's aren't as good as Intel or nVIDIA.
nVIDIA's nForce 700 series could be used by Apple, with the below tweaks:
-SLI could be disabled in favor of Apple's dual-card setup, although many people do run games on Mac Pro's-so SLI if OS X 10.6 builds supports in for SLI.
-Geforce 8200 for MB,Mac mini.
VIA's aren't as good as Intel or nVIDIA.
nVIDIA's nForce 700 series could be used by Apple, with the below tweaks:
-SLI could be disabled in favor of Apple's dual-card setup, although many people do run games on Mac Pro's-so SLI if OS X 10.6 builds supports in for SLI.
-Geforce 8200 for MB,Mac mini.
i hate it when people say that. Apples are PC's, PC means personal computers, Apple are personal computers. what u are trying to say when u say PC, is a computer that is not allowed to run OSX. fact is apple is much more generic that they used to be, and basically using mainstream hardware, and sony etc all make good competiting hardware, expect appls only trumphs because of OSX. so in my eyes the difference boils down to operating systems.
apple are smart for being flexible with different components, and as they said so long they stick with intel GPUs, they can still get a chipset with similar features, or they might held influence the design that using intels generic montenvina that will be used in most laptops by all the major laptop makers.
that is the major point. (almost) EVERYONE WILL BE USING MONENVINA. if apple want to be truly innovative i can see them needing to look future afield for features that support their direction better.
has apple ever been one to stick with all the crap that the PC market has been using. they used g4 etc for ages, and now you expect the best plan of action is use generic parts every other manufacturer will be using
SIGH
flexibilty and going out side the standard PC hardware market is what apple is best at.
That used to be true until around the mid-nineties. IBM-compatible computers are called PCs today and while you may not agree with it, it might be easier to go with the flow rather than convince a few million people otherwise.
Joshua.
Tell Apple, and their "Mac vs PC" commercials that
. Its just an easy way to differentiate a windows-based computer and a Mac OS X based computer.I'm not to sure I'd support Apple choosing a different (and possibly inferior) chipset for the sole purpose of being different. Intel is on top right now, and if Apple wants to remain as powerful as their PC counterparts, I can't see them supporting anything else. I don't know that I would classify Intel's offerings as "generic" as that denotes them as something of lower quality, when in fact they are the best you can get. Apple wants the best right?
Having switched to MBP after having worked on a Vaio-Vista combination, I can only tell you to NOT DO IT!!
There will always be a cooler Mac around the corner. If you need a laptop and a good one, than buy a MBP and be happy. They have great resale value, so even if you want the new one when it comes out, scores of people will be looking for the old one on Ebay etc..
Well, I'd taken the references to a product transition during the recent earnings report to mean that the iPod family would move to touch screens, with the exception of the iPod Shuffle. Given this report, however, that transition could refer to a movement away from Intel's chipsets. Whether this would deliver performance benefits is unclear, and I'm sure that annoying Intel isn't good for business, but it ought to make cloning a new Mac much more difficult. That said, I don't think Apple is really that worried about clones and changing your architecture for this would be close to pointless.
Odd but interesting news. It'll be interesting to see where this one goes...
Odd but interesting news. It'll be interesting to see where this one goes...
please correct me if I'm wrong, but this switch can't be due to increasing cost efficiency and increase margins on their computers. The extra testing and development necessary woulod make these motherboards more expensive than the pure intel ones right?
So I'm guessing that Apple is going for better reliability, security or more functionality.
What do you think?
So I'm guessing that Apple is going for better reliability, security or more functionality.
What do you think?
Tell Apple, and their "Mac vs PC" commercials that
I'm not to sure I'd support Apple choosing a different (and possibly inferior) chipset for the sole purpose of being different. Intel is on top right now, and if Apple wants to remain as powerful as their PC counterparts, I can't see them supporting anything else. I don't know that I would classify Intel's offerings as "generic" as that denotes them as something of lower quality, when in fact they are the best you can get. Apple wants the best right?
i was attempting to infer, that choosing something outside intel may allow them to have more control development and features. hence they might be able to get a chipset that better suits their needs, eg, better integrated graphics for openCL, or better processing of multitouch for example.
To everyone who is ripping their collective hair out because Apple will be "losing favored status" with Intel or because Apple will need a complex array of drivers or because Apple will lose its competitive advantage, keep in mind that Apple is using custom chipsets in all of its currently shipping models. All currently shipping Macs have custom wireless technology, which is not part of the standard Intel Centrino platform. So this rumor is hardly news; it is simply suggesting that everything will be business as usual at Apple.
Obvious
It's obvious, why Apple wants to use another chipset from a 3rd party supplier.
The 3d core in intel's chipsets are not useable in their "GrandCentral" api solution - that's why they're interested in nvidia/amd's integrated solutions - which have the required hardware muscle to support GrandCentral.
And ofcourse a better hardware decoding of wmv/mp4 files.
That's my bet!
It's obvious, why Apple wants to use another chipset from a 3rd party supplier.
The 3d core in intel's chipsets are not useable in their "GrandCentral" api solution - that's why they're interested in nvidia/amd's integrated solutions - which have the required hardware muscle to support GrandCentral.
And ofcourse a better hardware decoding of wmv/mp4 files.
That's my bet!
Ehm, what have YOU been smoking? Since when do you upgrade chipsets?
Oh, wait. I'll just desolder the one in my Mac mini and throw in a new one... Oh, wait, it wasn't pin compatible...hmm. Better just buy a new mini.
That is what you do when you upgrade chipsets, you buy a new motherboard or in the case of Macs, a new computer!
Asus
And how would you run OS X on that?
Unfortunately for me, no updated mac means no mac at all. Asus, here I come
And how would you run OS X on that?
Yea, because what developer couldn't wait to write code optimized for a hybrid x86 platform with a custom PowerPC-variant co-processor?
Though I know you are right, a developer easily could care less, as long as Apple provides the proper APIs in Snow Leopard. Think about CoreServices, and then, say, a dedicated coprocessor (be it RISC or CISC) to do all this, say, sorting stuff in CoreData.
Though you won't see a general improvement in processing power, you could speed up certain tasks. Just think about a dedicated coprocessor in use for Spotlight indexing and sorting (you know, the BOOM in the demo, that never came to the wild - at least on no system I use).
And maybe that is the reason for PPC resources in SnowLeopard. I doubt, there will be a PPC version of SnowLeopard, so my take would be, that PPC-specific parts of SnowLeopard may see the light of day as part of OpenCL and Core Services.
Not that big a deal
Apple is not going to drop the Intel chipsets. That would be silly. Its most likely that they will add a few of their own additions (stuff learned from designing the iphone etc) such as a specialized H.264 chip, which will make decoding and encoding on the mac much faster (and with far less power consumption) and better than any other computer provider.
Imagine being able to sit in an 8 hour flight, and watch movies continuously without having to pull out a second battery for your laptop (probably an exaggeration, but you get my drift).
Also, being a rumor, the "nothing to do with Intel" is more likely to mean that the additions (or changes) to the basic Intel chipset were created independently.
Apple is not going to drop the Intel chipsets. That would be silly. Its most likely that they will add a few of their own additions (stuff learned from designing the iphone etc) such as a specialized H.264 chip, which will make decoding and encoding on the mac much faster (and with far less power consumption) and better than any other computer provider.
Imagine being able to sit in an 8 hour flight, and watch movies continuously without having to pull out a second battery for your laptop (probably an exaggeration, but you get my drift).
Also, being a rumor, the "nothing to do with Intel" is more likely to mean that the additions (or changes) to the basic Intel chipset were created independently.
True - and plus, if there was a move to create a chipset, Apple would have to licence the right to create a compatible chipset from Intel - and it would have been known long ago.
What we might see is a break out video box with a dedicated processor which can compress video on the fly and saved to the laptop itself - using either USB or firewire connector.
The Breakout Boxes are already out there from BlackMagic and Pinnacle and others.
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/videorecorder/