nForce on Mac?

[MacRumors]

Seen on xlr8yourmac, FiringSquad has posted an article about NVIDIA's upcoming nForce chipset for PC's

Of note is this quote in the article:

Future platforms

Since it's based on the GeForce2 MX core, nForce's integrated graphics fully supports Apple's big endian byte ordering scheme. When we questioned NVIDIA if it was possible we could see nForce in the Mac, NVIDIA answered in the affirmative. In fact, the mobile space is another area NVIDIA would possibly explore in the future.

 

[Megaquad]

That's good.

correct me if i am wrong,this card is faster than geforce 3?
i mean,is it the next generation of nvidia's graphic cards?

 

[Pants]

err...no.

its a chip set meant for motherboards, integrating the graphics unit onto the motherboard.

nVidia - hmm....teh wanna be evil empire of teh graphics world? what of their powermizer feature that has 'suddenly' appeared just after ATis? no chance of them strangling their current mobile chips and 'releasing' the feature via a driver upgrade to drag out extra life/sales from it?

 

[jeffrs]

nVidia an evil empire...

.... nahhhh..... I just don't see it... having followed the graphics market for the last 5 or so years I can honestly say you don't stay on top without putting out top notch products on a regular basis which nVidia has been able to do with enviable consistancy. I think the key with nVidia is their main concern is not market dominance... it's building the best gpu possible and this is what has led them to market dominance.

 

[ezotyrik]

Nvidia may have the goodies...

I love my GeForce 3, and I've been very impressed with the innovation and execution demonstrated by Nvidia. That said, I have to agree that the recent ati-synchronized press releases for "powermizer" and "detonator 4" smacks of pure marketing evil.

Just because Nvidia has kicked *ss in the past doesn't mean that their overwhelming success won't cajole them into competing with marketing instead of innovation.

Nvidia would love to be the next Microsoft, Intel, etc.. and shephard their consumers to the fields of their choosing. Got competition? Simply release that hot technology you'd developed for just such an emergency, and drop prices until the opposition withers. Rinse and repeat.

Thank God for companies like AMD, who can play the foil to Intel. Because of AMD Intel has been aggressively cutting prices, and considering non-Rambus solutions. You can bet if AMD didn't exist, we'd be paying the Rambus premium, using Intel-only motherboards, and paying twice as much for the CPU.

<sigh>

-Ezo

 

[ezotyrik]

nForce is not a video card

nForce is an integrated chipset currently powering Microsoft's forthcoming Xbox, and soon to debut on AMD-compatible motherboards.

The integrated graphics component is equivalent to a GeForce 2 (not bad for built-in video)!


If nVidia's nForce can do for system performance what the GeForce 3 has done for my Unreal Tournament FPS, then to have this chipset used in the Mac platform would be simply phenomenal.

Perhaps it's the only way for Mac's to get DDR ram and decent memory bandwidth. That said I still love my dual-800 + OS X.


-Ezo

 

[guest123]

nForce is more than an integrated chipset..

There are so many features for it, just saying integrated graphics doesn't do it justice. it does real time Dolby encoding and is considered to be better than a PCI soundblaster live! card, Geforce 2 MX graphics with 8X AGP (external slot is still 4X) DUAL DDR ram channels (twice the bandwith) and it incorporates AMD's hyper transport where the bandwith is about 800MBPS.

 

[guest123]

I meant

800 mbps.. mega bits

 

[ezotyrik]

800Mb/s?

I liked your first answer better...

 

[Zippy]

Be happy!!

I thank god Apple went to the nVidia chipset and we all should. It is the best gaming card out there and hopefully going to be a standard, which Apple is supporting, hence more games for the Mac. ATI is only big on the Mac side so it acts as another burden for programmers to port games over to the Mac.

 

[DannyZR2]

i disagree

I have been researching these Nvidias, and the Ati's. espescially the new 7500 Radeon.. It appears that the GeForce 2 series cards are not compatible with Direct X 8.0, only 7 or lower.. The Radeon (including the one in the new TiBook) IS Direct X 8.0 compatible. Thisis very bad for gaming.. all the new good games are Direct X 8.0.. I say good for Apple for sticking with ATI.. they are worthy of Apple, not just a pop out of no where company like NVIDIA.. I think NVIDIA is just a fad and people are jumping on it now, but they will fail to continue to bring the goods over the duration of another year or two. ATI has been around. they know how to continue making good products.

my $.02