InsideMacGames spoke with ATI regarding the inclusion of the ATI Radeon X1600 series in the new Intel Macs. The new graphics hardware is a welcome boost to Apple's hardware line.
According to ATI, they've been working closely with Apple to get the ATI hardware working alongside the new Intel Macs.
Close work was done alongside Apple during development, and features such as the color depth display engine and the VIVO technology were greatly influenced by Apple's input. It was also a scramble to make sure that all of Apple's professional applications ran with the new ATI hardware in time for the unveiling at Macworld, with the closed firmware of Apple's latest machines making things more difficult.
Meanwhile a Mac running an X1800 graphics card was reportedly on display at ATI's conference room. This card hasn't been officially released for the Mac.
The new X1600 offers accelerated MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and H.264 decoding.