No Arrendale For Macbook Pro Line

[sullyy34]

I Have reason to believe that Arrendale Processors will not be coming to the Macbook Pro line anytime soon. As you all may know Apple is currently using NVIDIA as its primary chipset. If apple was going to transition to Arrendale (nehalem) processors, they would likely use NVIDIA as their primary chipset. BUT there is a battle between NVIDIA and Intel (because of licensing) and Intel will not let NVIDIA make chipsets for its Nehalem micro-architecture, So if Apple was to transition to Arrendale they would likely have to use Intel's chipset (which is also their intergraded graphics) or they will have to stick with Penryn as their processors and use keep using NVIDIA as their chipset.

 

[maratus]

I Have reason to believe that Arrendale Processors will not be coming to the Macbook Pro line anytime soon. As you all may know Apple is currently using NVIDIA as its primary chipset. If apple was going to transition to Arrendale (nehalem) processors, they would likely use NVIDIA as their primary chipset. BUT there is a battle between NVIDIA and Intel (because of licensing) and Intel will not let NVIDIA make chipsets for its Nehalem micro-architecture, So if Apple was to transition to Arrendale they would likely have to use Intel's chipset (which is also their intergraded graphics) or they will have to stick with Penryn as their processors and use keep using NVIDIA as their chipset.

1. nVidia has license for making chipsets with DMI.
2. Arrandale will have integrated graphics on-chip.
3. Arrandale most likely won't be compatible with conventional chipsets with integrated graphics.
4. 9400M is nice, but I wouldn't call it true power saving solution.
5. GT240 (PCIe x16) may work fine with 15/17
6. G210M (PCIe x16) may work fine with 13/15
7. From mine desktop experience, Intel chipsets are far more stable than nVidia ones.
8. Penryns are maxed out and there's no room for future upgrades.

 

[Tallest Skil]

/thread



Bang on, man.

 

[parapup]

1. nVidia has license for making chipsets with DMI.
2. Arrandale will have integrated graphics on-chip.
3. Arrandale most likely won't be compatible with conventional chipsets with integrated graphics.
4. 9400M is nice, but I wouldn't call it true power saving solution.
5. GT240 (PCIe x16) may work fine with 15/17
6. G210M (PCIe x16) may work fine with 13/15
7. From mine desktop experience, Intel chipsets are far more stable than nVidia ones.
8. Penryns are maxed out and there's no room for future upgrades.

Yep - to add to the fun the graphics is switchable at runtime (discrete/integrated) and the memory controller is built in to the GPU!

#7 - Wholeheartedly agreed and new chipset is looking like a very nice upgrade.

Given that Nvidia is the new Via - it would be hard to convince that Intel will give them a free ride. Given that Nvidia still does not have a license, it is even harder to believe that they will put up a Nehalem compatible chipset in time for Apple to take advantage of the latest and greatest Intel CPUs.

But it is easy to solve for Apple - just switch to the Intel chipset, and use Nvidia GPU as the discrete one and Intel's as the integrated. Given that may be the only solution (barring AMD/ATI producing a 45nm Radeon HD4xxx series mobile GPU) - that's the likely one to be real.

But who knows - surprises are not hard to come by.

 

[m1stake]

Apple would have no choice but to use the new chip with the new chipset. I wouldn't even consider a Macbook Pro if it's competition was using superior hardware. The price difference I can stomach, but that's it. I'd like Apple to go back to Intel chipsets, because Nvidia's run hot even without a tiny aluminum enclosure. I don't know what ATI's mobile graphics offerings look like at the moment, but I would like a real upgrade from the 9600GT instead of a rebranded chip.