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Apr 12, 2001
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NVIDIA announced yesterday the GeForce® 9400 and 9300 motherboard GPUs which offer desktop equivalents to the NVIDIA mobile chips adopted by Apple in their new notebooks:
“These new mGPUs give NVIDIA a big advantage over other integrated graphics chips,” said Dr. Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie Research. “By doing so much parallel processing on a single chip, they can accelerate the new visual computing applications people are getting, and at a reasonable price. The GeForce 9400 and 9300 mGPUs set a new standard for what users should expect from today’s more mainstream desktop systems.”
It's not clear if this technology would find any use in future Apple Macs. Apple has traditionally based their iMac around the same chips and technology that power their notebook computers, while using server-class technology in their Mac Pros. In the past, Apple has not used Intel's desktop offerings.

Article Link: NVIDIA Introduces Desktop Chipset for Intel Processors
 
This is very cool - at least a slight improvement over integrated graphics as we know it.
 
Could an integrated NVIDIA graphics chip like this be even fathomably comparative to the low-end card in the iMac right now - the 2400XT?
 
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Oh yeah, Mac Mini needs these!
 
Any integrated graphics chip from NVIDIA is still quantum leaps ahead of Intel's offerings over the past 2 years.

I wouldn't mind horribly if the low end iMacs had these and we saw the return to a $999 entry price point.
 
I hope to see one of these in a new Mac Mini coming out within the next month.

I also hope to see the iMac incorporating this, and dropping the price at the low-end (20") due to a lower component cost (single chip chipset vs. two chip chipset and discrete GPU with its own memory). Hopefully the higher specification iMac will still utilise a discrete GPU.
 
If the 9400 is half the speed of the 8600 GT in the old Macbook Pro then I'm pretty sure its about the same as the iMacs 2400XT.

Put this in the low end iMac and drop the price to $999 yes please.
 
The switch to Intel processors is making more sense with each passing day.
 
In the past, Apple has not used Intel's desktop offerings.
Yeah, because Apple doesn't offer a "normal" desktop. They have the Mac mini and the iMac, which are such a small form factor that they need to use mobile GPUs. On the other hand, the Mac Pro is basically a server so it uses better-than-desktop quality parts.

*hint* *hint* Apple should begin using these desktop GPUs by introducing a desktop for the masses...y'know...something the size of my G4 with a couple of PCI (or PCIe) slots that doesn't cost a fortune...
 
All of a sudden, the Mac Mini has nearly become that mini-tower people wanted. Aside from drive bays and all that (get some externals), it'll be a great purchase. Will probably be all black and glossy too.
 
They could license mainstream desktop offerings to Psystar. That would give them a larger sale base and probably take soem sort of profit share from psystar.
 
Hasn't the imac always used a dedicated graphics card. Isn't this report about an integrated graphics chip?
 
I believe that the low end iMac ($899-$999 can't remember) had an integrated graphic chip for a short period around the Intel switch over.

Going over to Everymac.com to double check.
 
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