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Intel's FTC beating - Decent 13"?

L

littvay

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 1, 2008
47
0
Dear All

Does Intel's recent FTC beating mean that we can get an iCore CPU with a non-Intel integrated chip as we have now with the core2dup CPU? This would be huge for the 13" MBP, MB and MBA. (And I am in the market to get a 13" MBP and an MBA after the next update.)

Here is the news post I read:

http://www.dailytech.com/FTC+Intel+...om+Anticompetitive+Practices/article19265.htm

But I am not sure if it is cause for optimism yet as 1, NVidia might have halted development of the chip in question completely and it might be time consuming to revive. Also, 2, I am not sure if the FTC beating extends into this realm. I did not think the article explicitly or implicitly mentioned it. Does anyone have insight or thoughts on this?
 
Well. That does not mean that Intel is forced to license the technology for the iCore architecture chipsets. In fact, those two points only affect Apple negatively as they were never forced to use Intel, they chose it. (Despite rumors of talks with AMD.) In fact it means no perks for Intel exclusives.

But there might be other stipulations to the agreement.

What I am really interested in is if NVidia will be able to make chipsets for iCore architecture CPUs or not? If so, there is hope for a decent integrated video Macbook and Macbook Pro with up to date CPUs (that are not AMD). We know NVidia testified in the case. Were their concerns addressed?

It'd be nice to see a post on what this ruling means for Apple.
 
i dont think this will take effect within a short enough time frame to make anything of the 13" It might get things going for whenever sandy bridge comes along
 
Anandtech published a more detailed review of the settlement. To answer my own question, we are not helped out. In fact, this was one of the big things the FTC asked for but did not get. Find full article here:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3839/intel-settles-with-the-ftc

Relevant paragraphs are quoted:

GPU

Intel eliminated the future threat of NVIDIA’s chipset business by refusing to license the latest version of the DMI bus (the bus that connects the Northbridge to the Southbridge) and the QPI bus (the bus that connects Nehalem processors to the X58 Northbridge) to NVIDIA, which prevents them from offering a chipset for Nehalem-generation CPUs.

<...>

In fact there’s really only two things on the FTC’s list that they didn’t get: they didn’t get chipset licenses, and they didn’t get stronger protections for AMD and NVIDIA’s GPU divisions. It’s probably not a coincidence that both of these issues were primarily of importance for NVIDIA, as AMD does not make Intel chipsets and AMD is not currently locking horns with Intel over high performance computing using GPUs. For as much as the FTC got out of this settlement, it’s interesting that they did not get these last two items. It may very well be that NVIDIA has truly given up on making a DMI/QPI chipset, in which case the chipset requests would be rendered moot. But NVIDIA has claimed loudly to the FTC that Intel is hurting their business by making false claims about CPU and Larrabee performance versus GPGPU performance, and there’s nothing in this settlement about that.

It’s worth noting that NVIDIA did not release an official response to this settlement even though it has directly impacted them. There are a number of ways to interpret this, but the most likely interpretation is that the two companies are going to continue butting heads unabated. AMD and Intel may have peace, but right now it’s a safe bet that NVIDIA and Intel do not.
Click to expand...
 
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