Apple is rumored to be planning to ditch the cooperation with NVIDIA when it comes to supplying graphics for its 13″ MacBooks. The pixels will instead be formed by Intel through the integrated graphics circuit inside the new Sandy Bridge processors, that has shown promise.
Intel has been the first choice when it comes to processors for Apple’s products, but the graphics solutions hasn’t really been able to keep up wit the rest according to Apple. With Sandy Bridge where there graphics portion is finally a part of the silicon package Intel has managed to speed things up, which NVIDIA – that is currently supplying Apple with mobile graphics circuits – is hanging by a thread.
Sandy Bridge lacks supports for OpenCL, which has been a big hinder for Apple, but Intel now says that it will support OpenCL to some extent, which together with the improved performance and has opened the doors again. Intel’s built-in graphics portion doesn’t support OpenCL natively, but there is talk about a hybrid solution where Intel’s CPU will assist with OpenCL calculations, which will be enough to make Apple happy.
MacBook Pro 13″ may be without NVIDIA components next year.
If the source is correct it is likely that Apple will be using Intel’s integrated graphics with its smaller notebooks initially. A given candidate is Apple’s 13″ models of MacBook and MacBook Pro that currently use Intel’s Core 2 Duo processor and a NVIDIA GeForce 320M GPU. Intel Sandy Bridge will with the same power consumption offer remarkably better CPU performance, while the integrated graphics will be capable of performance on par with NVIDIA GeForce 320M.
The larger models are still up for discussion since these have space and battery power to house more powerful discrete solutions, but if the information is correct NVIDIA’s share of the market looks to take a hit next year, as expected.
Source: Ars Technica
