Could NVIDIA chipsets replace those from Intel in next-gen Macs?

2

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  • Reply 21 of 57
    ksecksec Posts: 1,569member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jameskatt2 View Post


    Apple should buy NVidia.



    Think about the potential.



    NVidia's graphic processors are supercomputers.



    It would put Apple far ahead of their competitors to have nVidia in their fold making custom processors for the Mac.



    They can still make GPUs for PCs - just as Filemaker makes software for Windows.



    But... nVidia is a hardware company. And Apple is a hardware company. It would be a marriage made in heaven.



    nVidia is also worth less than 7 billion dollars.



    Apple can easily buy a majority of nVidia's stock with it's $20+ billion in cash in the bank.



    Then would turn Intel into its enermy.



    I think if AMD and ATI is worth less then 4 Billion then Nvidia is only worth about 5 at most. Therefore i think Apple could buy it all up if Nvidia drop below 5 billion.



    And their Tegra would also make sense for iPhone as well.
  • Reply 22 of 57
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    is that most of Apple's design projects that reach the level of rumors have been in the design and development process for at least 3 years.
  • Reply 23 of 57
    aheneenaheneen Posts: 75member
    I am on the "Apple should buy nVidia" bandwagon, too.
  • Reply 24 of 57
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Targon View Post


    Im inclined to call everything reported here and a few days ago fanciful BS. Nothing more than sensationalist drivel to help fill in the the void when there is nothing else going on to report on.



    1) Intel's Nehalem is a SOC design, it is due early 09. I doubt Apple will not use Nehalem nor likely Apple will do a major overhaul before Nehalem.



    2) Nvidia's chipset in question wont be ready till later this year, not in 4 weeks time when new MB/MBP's are due.



    3) Nvidia have a history of unreliable, non-functional and buggy NForce chipsets, Apple can't risk getting involved with such problems which may exist.



    4) Nvidia and Intel do not have a good relationship, Intel denying Nvidia some key licensing due to their competitiveness in some markets.



    5) Apple would seriously p!ss Intel off if they did a 180 and began using 3rd party solutions so close to their own technology soon to be released. Additionally Intel are far more open when it comes to development source and documentation. Nvidia OTOH has a repressive closed source development policy.



    1) Nehalem integrates the memory controller onto the CPU, but it is not in any way, shape, or form a SoC design. It requires a northbridge and southbridge (which will themselves eventually be integrated into a single chip) for many functions.



    2) I don't know anything about Nvidia's or Apple's release schedule, so no comment.



    3) NForce has indeed sucked more than it hasn't. Mostly the problems have stemmed from Nvidia's inability to write stable drivers. And MCP79 is supposed to be 55nm, so it may not have heat problems like all their other current NForce chips.



    4) Yep, like I said earlier, Nvidia wants QPI and Intel wants SLI. Deadlock. However, mobile Nehalem may not be out for a year, who knows what Q3 '09 will look like.



    5) Additionally, I don't think Intel is too hung up on the northbridge used as long as their processors are front-and-center. The CPU is what the customer sees on the spec sheet.
  • Reply 25 of 57
    roderode Posts: 7member
    "including a version with integrated graphics that could possibly be powerful enough for a MacBook Pro without the need for a discrete GPU"



    OK this part I don't like. And I certainly hope this isn't true integrated graphics suck. Be it from Intel or NVIDIA. The MBP needs a dedicated GPU and not some crappy integrated piece of crap.



    Hopefully Apple sees it my way. And stays with dedicated graphics on the MBP's.
  • Reply 26 of 57
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Targon View Post


    2) Nvidia's chipset in question wont be ready till later this year, not in 4 weeks time when new MB/MBP's are due.



    3) Nvidia have a history of unreliable, non-functional and buggy NForce chipsets, Apple can't risk getting involved with such problems which may exist.



    Apple already uses nVidia GPUs in their products, e.g., the 17 inch MBP I'm using for this reply, and the 17 inch Powerbook G4 that it replaced.



    At the very least, the Apple engineering teams would likely be looking at both solutions to see which one is better (including the pricing structure).



    Yes, I've seen developmental nVidia chips have bugs, but they work out, just like a lot of engineering first takes. Sounding standard, I'll neither confirm nor deny how I've seen them...



    The Intel Integrated graphics are limited for Apple users. Several higher end games, e.g., the EA conversions, don't support them. It was really sad that my copy of Command and Conquer 3 had to sit around my house until April when I got this MBP. (I had G4s and MBs in the house, but no MBPs or Mac Pros.) By getting a non-Intel GPU into the MBs, the customers will have more useful machines.



    Oh, and a thought on the name MCP79. Does it sound like the evil program in Tron? The movie came out in 1982, though.



    P.S. Gosh, it's been almost four years since I've logged in around here (at least according to the board info in the upper right corner. I've been looking at the news much more often then that, but I guess I hadn't posted in a while.
  • Reply 27 of 57
    quinneyquinney Posts: 2,528member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Targon View Post


    Intel are far more open when it comes to development source and documentation. Nvidia OTOH has a repressive closed source development policy.



    That sounds like a reason Apple would choose Nvidia over Intel
  • Reply 28 of 57
    NVIDIA just release a note saying a severe issue could cause G84s/G86s fatal problems was found and will cost the company 200 to 300 millions to settle the problem.



    NVIDIA's GPU & Chipset totally rely on TSMC's fab, so far their progress over to 55nm is not doing well, G92 G94 G96 suffered and GT200 is the BIGGEST flop in years of its own history. And also 55nm G9X is not much cooler, can't reach a much higher speed, the only pro visible is the smaller footprint thus the lower cost.



    NVIDIA's IGP is not that impressive either. Better than Intel's of course. But last time I checked, the fastest IGP is still ATI's 780G.



    NVIDIA's MCP sucks, period. It's so hot I have to install a rediculously big copper heatsink with a 4cm fan to keep it running, otherwise my mobo might melt for heaven's sake.



    Talking about OpenCL, did anyone remember who's on the same boat with Apple? Yeah, not Intel, it has larrabee x86 codeset, not NVIDIA, it so caught up in its own CUDA dream, but AMD/ATI, it gives OpenCL a full frontal bear hug - emmm, I wonder what would actually happen over the next few months.
  • Reply 29 of 57
    The green team is in some pretty hot water. Previously, reported only a small bunch of bad gpu's allocated to HP. Now Dell is complaining. And the problem isn't small at all...



    http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquir...fective-nvidia



    Of course, the solution, as I've read, is a BIOS fix that basically cranks up the fans on your laptop. Waste battery power and make the computer annoying with the hopes that the gpu will survive till' warranty expiration.



    Poor execution.



    Regarding the story's writing about AMD lacking top-shelf cards, AMD is exceptionally competitive with their $300 top range card. And not many people care to spend upwards of $700 on a top range NVIDIA card to eek out a few more points in some benchmark. But as far as either making Apple more competitive in the gaming arena, it's not likely to happen. MS is too dominant with DirectX. Apple can only push from the OpenGL side and possibly invest in some GL game developers -exclusive title, perhaps.



    I wouldn't drop a dime on NVIDIA. Instead, I'd take a harder look at ATI/AMD. They now have the finest integrated graphics solution -far ahead of Intel or NVIDIA- with 780G (in desktop variant). Will be interesting to see what they do with portable... Plus the red team could probably be purchased for a song. It's too bad they let their cpu's slip up so much...
  • Reply 30 of 57
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    If I've said it once, I've said it a million times... Nvidia 2008. FTW.
  • Reply 31 of 57
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Integr8d View Post


    The green team is in some pretty hot water. Previously, reported only a small bunch of bad gpu's allocated to HP. Now Dell is complaining. And the problem isn't small at all...



    http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquir...fective-nvidia



    Of course, the solution, as I've read, is a BIOS fix that basically cranks up the fans on your laptop. Waste battery power and make the computer annoying with the hopes that the gpu will survive till' warranty expiration.



    Poor execution.



    Regarding the story's writing about AMD lacking top-shelf cards, AMD is exceptionally competitive with their $300 top range card. And not many people care to spend upwards of $700 on a top range NVIDIA card to eek out a few more points in some benchmark. But as far as either making Apple more competitive in the gaming arena, it's not likely to happen. MS is too dominant with DirectX. Apple can only push from the OpenGL side and possibly invest in some GL game developers -exclusive title, perhaps.



    I wouldn't drop a dime on NVIDIA. Instead, I'd take a harder look at ATI/AMD. They now have the finest integrated graphics solution -far ahead of Intel or NVIDIA- with 780G (in desktop variant). Will be interesting to see what they do with portable... Plus the red team could probably be purchased for a song. It's too bad they let their cpu's slip up so much...



    Nvidia has been very aggressive with their products and expansion. The bad GPUs are an unfortunate slip up. ATI still does well but how long can it push forward with AMD holding it down? (I refer to AMD's almost-there-but-not-quite catchup with Intel)...



    As long as Nvidia manages good operations and improves in these areas, they've got a stunning range of products for many industries. Gaming GPUs, Chipsets for PC and Mac. Open GL has always been their strength - so Open GL or maybe Open GL ES plays to their advantage. We're talking Physics (PhysX) which will probably be integrated into Open CL / CUDA / Etc.



    In the desktop, portable and even mobile space, Nvidia has a lot to offer Apple. As long as quality control is maintained.
  • Reply 32 of 57
    meelashmeelash Posts: 1,045member
    lol, Are you sure you're not a little biased, mr. nvidia2008?

  • Reply 33 of 57
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AllenKids View Post


    NVIDIA just release a note saying a severe issue could cause G84s/G86s fatal problems was found and will cost the company 200 to 300 millions to settle the problem.



    NVIDIA's GPU & Chipset totally rely on TSMC's fab, so far their progress over to 55nm is not doing well, G92 G94 G96 suffered and GT200 is the BIGGEST flop in years of its own history. And also 55nm G9X is not much cooler, can't reach a much higher speed, the only pro visible is the smaller footprint thus the lower cost.



    NVIDIA's IGP is not that impressive either. Better than Intel's of course. But last time I checked, the fastest IGP is still ATI's 780G.



    NVIDIA's MCP sucks, period. It's so hot I have to install a rediculously big copper heatsink with a 4cm fan to keep it running, otherwise my mobo might melt for heaven's sake.



    Talking about OpenCL, did anyone remember who's on the same boat with Apple? Yeah, not Intel, it has larrabee x86 codeset, not NVIDIA, it so caught up in its own CUDA dream, but AMD/ATI, it gives OpenCL a full frontal bear hug - emmm, I wonder what would actually happen over the next few months.



    The manufacturing problems you mentioned are faced by everyone trying to get below 65nm. Intel had problems with Penryn ramp ups which saw the delays to the Penryn MacBook Pros. ATI and AMD do well in certain situations but their future is far from rosy. Intel's Montevina chipset may be causing issues which is the whole point of these past few articles. Intel's integrated graphics, 2 years past and a few years in the future, would be underperforming by all estimates compared to an 8600M GT 512MB.



    Nvidia is facing a few hundred million bucks worth of problems with their GPUs. AFAIK, it hasn't spread to many other GPU lines.



    The latest 9-series and G-series are not groundbreaking in and of themselves, because they're evolutionary variants of what Nvidia worked hard on in the 8-series.



    I'm not saying their perfect, I'm saying from Apple's point of view everyone, such as AMD, ATI, Intel, Nvidia are really hitting walls right now with the performance-space-power demands of high performing portable computing. That's why Apple is hedging its bets with ARM, PA Semi, and so on from the other side.



    Don't forget ATI's significant failure in the iMac 20" Radeon 2400 which had serious overheating issues.



    All companies above are facing all these challenges with regards to Moore's Law. The thing is, who can pull through the best? Who is/are the best partner(s) for Apple?



    How is Apple hedging its bets? What is their strategy with regards to ARM, OpenGL ES, Gaming (remember the iPhone and iPod Touch is now a huge gaming platform in the mobile space), CUDA, Physics, PhysX, OpenCL..? Video and Photo processing? Web page processing?



    In my opinion, Nvidia, Intel and ARM are the ones that are most likely to pull through, and provide the strongest partnership and flexibility for the range of demands Apple is going to pose to them over the next five years. And we know, these demands from Apple can sometimes be impossible ones. Intel has "legacy" challenges that may hinder it slightly in the mobile, ultra-portable and high-end-GPU space, though of course it's CPU strategy is well above par right now.



    Chipsets are a tricky thing because it also depends on the implementor. If you take an Nvidia chipset delivered by Gigabyte for example, with good mobo heatpipes, passive cooling, solid-state capacitors, these certainly give Intel and AMD/ATI a run for their money.
  • Reply 34 of 57
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by meelash View Post


    lol, Are you sure you're not a little biased, mr. nvidia2008?





    Just as biased as anyone on these forums with an "i" or "mac" in their username.
  • Reply 35 of 57
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    The manufacturing problems you mentioned are faced by everyone trying to get below 65nm. Intel had problems with Penryn ramp ups which saw the delays to the Penryn MacBook Pros. ATI and AMD do well in certain situations but their future is far from rosy. Intel's Montevina chipset may be causing issues which is the whole point of these past few articles. Intel's integrated graphics, 2 years past and a few years in the future, would be underperforming by all estimates compared to an 8600M GT 512MB.



    Nvidia is facing a few hundred million bucks worth of problems with their GPUs. AFAIK, it hasn't spread to many other GPU lines.



    Of course you believe nV's excuse for all the faulty G84s/G86s, I can totally understand.



    But from the recent HP/Dell announcements, there are something much bigger than nV's portrait to say at least. Look how many modes are affected! Sorry for my lack of confidence in nV.



    And they ain't even gonna recall these bad chips, instead they leave their dear costomers with a time bomb only set off a few months hoping the explosion happens after warrant expired. It's sooooo not OK. Of course you can say it's HP or Dell's fault, but I say after all, it is nV's chip, and nV isn't going to pay for the recall.



    As for the chipset aspect, no your analogy isn't good. a hot chip is a hot chip, if Apple have to apply extra heat conduct or make a laptop consumes more watts than the Intel counterpart, no it's not good enough. No matter how fancy your mobo looks like or How cool your kickass heatsink designed. More TDP is a BAD BAD thing for Laptop, period.



    So why Apple should turn to nV for the chipset solution? I can only see one reason - montevina G45 G43 turn out sucks royally, Apple have no choice but go with nV. But... is that really happening? I don't think so.



    Oh, about MCP79's IGP, we better forget it, no way it's gonna get near 8600M’s performance, its USs will be cut back so much its mother won't recognize it. BTW: Should DX10 matter on a MacBook? PV3 is interesting though, but Apple have to make its own darling QuickTime Framework compatible with PV3's video accelerate ability first. and I don't see it happening soon either.



    AMD's Chipsets and GPU lines are much stronger than last season with the new hot cake RV770 and the beloved 780G, but their CPU line will keep boringly underperforming unfortunately. Yes Apple won't adopt their CPUs or Chipsets anytime soon. But a new ATI Powered video card which also can do some GPGPU work under OpenCL framework? Totally.
  • Reply 36 of 57
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aplnub View Post


    Why has Intel not purchased NVIDIA? If this is true, I bet Intel is loving Steve about now.



    Why hasn't Apple purchased them ... ??
  • Reply 37 of 57
    aplnubaplnub Posts: 2,605member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lukevaxhacker View Post


    Apple already uses nVidia GPUs in their products, e.g., the 17 inch MBP I'm using for this reply, and the 17 inch Powerbook G4 that it replaced.



    At the very least, the Apple engineering teams would likely be looking at both solutions to see which one is better (including the pricing structure).



    Yes, I've seen developmental nVidia chips have bugs, but they work out, just like a lot of engineering first takes. Sounding standard, I'll neither confirm nor deny how I've seen them...



    The Intel Integrated graphics are limited for Apple users. Several higher end games, e.g., the EA conversions, don't support them. It was really sad that my copy of Command and Conquer 3 had to sit around my house until April when I got this MBP. (I had G4s and MBs in the house, but no MBPs or Mac Pros.) By getting a non-Intel GPU into the MBs, the customers will have more useful machines.



    Oh, and a thought on the name MCP79. Does it sound like the evil program in Tron? The movie came out in 1982, though.



    P.S. Gosh, it's been almost four years since I've logged in around here (at least according to the board info in the upper right corner. I've been looking at the news much more often then that, but I guess I hadn't posted in a while.



    I would say you have just been conservative in your public opinions, but 1 post in 4 years is something.
  • Reply 38 of 57
    vineavinea Posts: 5,585member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    All companies above are facing all these challenges with regards to Moore's Law. The thing is, who can pull through the best? Who is/are the best partner(s) for Apple?



    I'm thinking that Intel remains Apple's best partner moving forward as they have thier own fabs and commitment to move past 45nm. Granted AMD is part of IBM's fab alliance but Intel is going to be more agile in some ways than an alliance. For example, IBM's sticking with gate first is due in part to difficulties and cost in getting the entire alliance into gate-last/gate replacement. Intel is going gate-last and doesn't need to coordinate with anyone but itself.



    AMD's problem is that most of the smarts live at IBM and not AMD. Intel has high-k at 45nm. AMD is waiting on IBM for high-k...they might get there but given the 2 year cycle it may not mean a whole lot. Announcements for 45nm high-k in early 2007 have not translated into anything but a bit of dancing on the part of AMD in 2008.



    Foundries like TSMC are likely to see growth and production pains as even major players like TI go to them and other foundries beyond the 45nm process node. But there you're depending on someone else's engineering prowess and capacities.
  • Reply 39 of 57
    I terms of nVidia's quiet on their upcoming mobile chipsets, I think it might be indicative of a pullback rather than a secret deal with Apple. With the problems in the G84/G86 lines, the rush to put out a 55nm shrink to make the 9800GTX+ to compete against ATI's 4850, and the need to push out a 55nm shrink of the GT200 series to cut costs, it's quite likely that engineers have been pulled off their mobile chipsets to address other problems.
  • Reply 40 of 57
    Does this mean we'll see one of the new CUDA-supported, (for hybridpower) integrated-graphics-including 9700M GT through 9800M GTX+ in the new MBPs?
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