Countering rumor says Apple and NVIDIA "doing just fine"
Just as soon as one rumor has suggested trouble in the relationship between Apple and NVIDIA, a conflicting report now claims that the two are still on good terms.
The supposed discussion with NVIDIA insiders on Friday follows earlier concerns that the electronics giants were at odds with each other over their long-term partnership for developing Mac graphics technology.
After its investigation, Fudzilla was convinced that the two were "doing just fine" and that Apple is still snapping up system chipsets and other components as it has in recent weeks. The relationship is believed so strong, in fact, that NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang personally has "a lot of respect" for Apple and subsequently gets that respect out of the company as a whole.
Murmurs of a spat began on Wednesday and centered on possible fallout over the chronic graphics failure problems that affected the GeForce 8600M in 2007 and early 2008 MacBook Pros, gradually "cooking" the notebook graphics chips until they either display corrupted video or none at all. In the now disputed account of events, Apple had alleged that NVIDIA wasn't being honest regarding the quality of certain parts and was reputedly arrogant in what it thought it could negotiate from the other firm.
A reversal of Apple's attitude would be a sharp one as NVIDIA graphics are fundamental to its current Mac lineup. All MacBooks, the Mac mini and the iMac use a GeForce 9400M to provide better-than-average integrated graphics without damaging battery life. It moreover provides hardware acceleration for H.264 video and will eventually give even low-end systems acceleration of non-visual tasks using the OpenCL standard found in Mac OS X Snow Leopard.
Neither Apple nor NVIDIA has stepped in to settle the question.
The supposed discussion with NVIDIA insiders on Friday follows earlier concerns that the electronics giants were at odds with each other over their long-term partnership for developing Mac graphics technology.
After its investigation, Fudzilla was convinced that the two were "doing just fine" and that Apple is still snapping up system chipsets and other components as it has in recent weeks. The relationship is believed so strong, in fact, that NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang personally has "a lot of respect" for Apple and subsequently gets that respect out of the company as a whole.
Murmurs of a spat began on Wednesday and centered on possible fallout over the chronic graphics failure problems that affected the GeForce 8600M in 2007 and early 2008 MacBook Pros, gradually "cooking" the notebook graphics chips until they either display corrupted video or none at all. In the now disputed account of events, Apple had alleged that NVIDIA wasn't being honest regarding the quality of certain parts and was reputedly arrogant in what it thought it could negotiate from the other firm.
A reversal of Apple's attitude would be a sharp one as NVIDIA graphics are fundamental to its current Mac lineup. All MacBooks, the Mac mini and the iMac use a GeForce 9400M to provide better-than-average integrated graphics without damaging battery life. It moreover provides hardware acceleration for H.264 video and will eventually give even low-end systems acceleration of non-visual tasks using the OpenCL standard found in Mac OS X Snow Leopard.
Neither Apple nor NVIDIA has stepped in to settle the question.
Comments
The drop will be in the next major revisions in the product lines. It won't be before they get a comparable solution from AMD or Intel and will probably coincide with a major change away from Core 2 Due to a new generation.
Nvidia is not stupid enough to lose a big account like Apple. They will bend over backwards to give Apple what it needs. Every company that deals with Apple does, even Intel.
Until Apple walks away from Nvidia, we will never know the truth. Apple is the king in this relationship. As far as Intel is not kicking Nvidia to the poor house, Apple will stick with Nvidia.
Nvidia is not stupid enough to lose a big account like Apple. They will bend over backwards to give Apple what it needs. Every company that deals with Apple does, even Intel.
I’m half expecting to hear that Apple was pinnacle in getting Nvidia a new license that includes Intel’s QPI interconnect.
I?m half expecting to hear that Apple was pinnacle in getting Nvidia a new license that includes Intel?s QPI interconnect.
QPI is really only relevant to the Xeon processors in the Mac Pro (and Core i7 which Apple will never use), and an Nvidia integrated graphics chipset adds nothing to the high-end workstation.
Lower-end Nehalem processors, which Apple will use everywhere else next year, will employ DMI, not QPI, as their external interface. Nvidia has all the rights it needs to make DMI chipsets. There will be Nvidia IGPs in Macs for years to come.
QPI is really only relevant to the Xeon processors in the Mac Pro (and Core i7 which Apple will never use), and an Nvidia integrated graphics chipset adds nothing to the high-end workstation.
Lower-end Nehalem processors, which Apple will use everywhere else next year, will employ DMI, not QPI, as their external interface. Nvidia has all the rights it needs to make DMI chipsets. There will be Nvidia IGPs in Macs for years to come.
Good to know. Thanks.
Nvidia has important role in defining OpenGL and OpenCL. Their upcoming ION2 will be even more powerful then todays 9600M discrete Graphics.
Good to know. Thanks.
I should say, Nvidia claims it has all the rights it needs to make DMI chipsets. Intel may dispute that.
The next rumor will be: "Apple and NVIDIA are merging due to the high synergy of their product line-ups and patents."
I'm waiting for the news that Intel is buying out NVIDIA.
Would be nice to have Apple buy them out though, would give Apple the chance to push more graphics chip design around OpenGL & would make dealings in the PC market interesting.
I figure the truth is somewhere in between the two reports. It?s not a secret that Jen-Hsun Huang has blamed Apple for the problems with their GPUs in MBPs.
Not to mention Apple hired to senior GPU design leaders from AMD very recently.
I'm waiting for the news that Intel is buying out NVIDIA.
Would be nice to have Apple buy them out though, would give Apple the chance to push more graphics chip design around OpenGL & would make dealings in the PC market interesting.
CUDA would be dropped immediately, by either Intel or Apple.
QPI is really only relevant to the Xeon processors in the Mac Pro (and Core i7 which Apple will never use), and an Nvidia integrated graphics chipset adds nothing to the high-end workstation.
Lower-end Nehalem processors, which Apple will use everywhere else next year, will employ DMI, not QPI, as their external interface. Nvidia has all the rights it needs to make DMI chipsets. There will be Nvidia IGPs in Macs for years to come.
Well that's not really the whole truth. The thing is if nvidia doesn't get a QPI licence they are out of buisness.
It ist true that the next generation mobile nehalems only connect everything on the die with the rest via DMI, but the rest isn't very much.
Intel integrates on die a memory controller, a GPU (G55) and PCIe x16 links in one Chip and as a second chip on the same die sits the chip with the two westmere cores. Both of these chips are connected via QPI. There ist absolutely no reason to use a nvidia southbridge over an intel one, thus there needs to be a special edition with only the Intel cpu on die and a nvidia chipset that connects with the CPU via QPI and provides all the remaining functionality.
If this edition doesn't come and/or nvidia mustn't make something with QPI, we end up with an Intel plattform where nvidia can only provide the switchable dedicated grafics. The onboard CPU will be a Intel G55.
It doesn't matter if nvidia can build a chipset using the dmi link, because that would be almost worthless unless they build a super low power version.
PS: I think we'd have already heard anything if there was some nvidia nehalem chipset in the making. The 32nm Nehalems will launch around Christmas and there is just not enough time to do anything but provide the dedicated GPUs for nvidia with all the legal things still not sorted out.
Maybe this means there will be dedicated GPUs in the 13" Model since Apple's marketing propably doesn't want to explain that the newest Models have less GPU Power. The G55 will be about 2 times as fast as the G45 which is closer but still not at the level of a 9400m.
It doesn't matter if nvidia can build a chipset using the dmi link, because that would be almost worthless unless they build a super low power version.
Unless NVIDIA also make their low/mid-range "discrete graphics" also handle system I/O operations. With HDMI support, audio is obviously going to be included. Add a few SATA controllers, USB controllers, etc, and you've got a discrete GPU that also does I/O, saving a chip on a motherboard. Stick in wireless, bluetooth[, gps] and firewire3200, and you've got something that can seriously benefit Apple.