Rumor: Apple refuses to use Intel graphics

Link. So no switchable graphics for Macs, if this rumor were true (not likely).

 

Hmmmm...interesting stuff, but I'm taking it with a grain of salt nonetheless.
Though I do believe the part about OEM's looking for switchability in their new designs. That's one thing I'm looking forward too in a few months.

Thanks for sharing.

 

ughhh, I hate switchable graphics. It is the whole "jack of all trades, master of none."

 

For those who are reading the article and might miss it, I just want to point out the author added some more in the comments below:


RE: Apple and Arrandale by: Theo Valich on 12/5/2009
After publication of the story, we have received information that sheds new light on the situation.

We'll try to confirm, but it looks like Apple is going to wait for Sandy Bridge, coming later in 2010.

Ed.

 

Well at least they are making the switch to proper graphics. Nice to see.

 

Wow, really? Doesn't Apple know that Sandy Bridge has Intel graphics interconnected to the cpu even more than Arrandale? Not sure if I believe this. They will really wait out 2010.

Maybe Apple can get Sandy Bridge's released moved up...

 

What's wrong with switchable graphics. It lets you have integrated GPU power consumption to maximize battery and on A/C, a discrete GPU for games (assuming you use it like that).

 

It seems pretty obvious to me.

Apple is very cognisant of the fact that people who buy Apples - and I'm talking broadly here, and to a larger extent by percentage than PC's in general given the use they may be put to - don't know what they're buying, and if something they're trying to run fails to work they won't know why (at first, at least).

That, if anything, drives 'Apple's own way' - catering for the expectations of users in that class. An increasing part of what a computer is now expected to tackle as standard now is GPU bound. A 9400M tackles everything the average Mac user does. An Intel IGP doesn't - likely not even in the Arrandale guise. Apple wasn't looking to go backwards in that respect, because by now they're probably all too aware of what users will say.

I would gladly take Arrandale's IGP for runtime reasons, and I'm sure some users here will too as it would enable them to fanboi up Apple's runtimes even more (7 actual hours my ***). But your average user will never even go near the Energy Saver settings, and even if they do, they will expect it to 'just work' in terms of what they're trying to do.

 

hey, is the 9400m still more powerful than the upcoming intel x5700?

 

Only hearsay, but from another site: "The first tests indicate that Nvidia’s ION eats Arrandale's GMA HD graphics alive..."

Ion is basically a 9400M.

 

You could think of it as that Apple tries to cater to morons, and THAT is why they want Nvidia's more powerful 9400m in their notebooks and don't want to step down to an Intel part.

OR

You could just think of it as Apple not wanting to step down to a weaker gpu in their future products. That makes sense by itself. Of course, it must be deeper than this, and have a direct connection to all the "fanbois" who don't know what they are buying.

 

This is bad news. This means i will have to wait till later then Q1 to get a refreshed macbook

 

Well - you tell me. The point of having switchable graphics is that you have a miserly IGP for power saving, and a medium-to-high-end discrete for heavy lifting. If the Arrandale IGP gets a look in on a present-day Macbook Pro, anything else excepted, you can expect runtimes to increase by at the very least an hour in real life. You're looking at a true all-dayer even for those of us who actually use the runtime, not just the type who keeps it desked for the majority of the time and fanbois up the runtime for their fawningly worthless 'reviews'.

The reason why Apple switched from the X3100 to a 9400M was that it enabled a more versatile machine even for people who bought in at the low end, unaware of what they were buying - as I said. The hit on runtime was relatively unimportant to them and I can understand that particular decision where it's the sole GPU. Unless NVidia have a more power-sipping part to act as the IGP while maintaining or bettering the capabilities of the 9400M, the concept of a hybrid GPU using Arrandale would actually make more sense for informed buyers, wouldn't you say?

If we're talking about NVidia's mobile wares, we can extrapolate from the Ion example - their forthcoming Ion 2 will likely use the equivalent of what we know today as the 9600M as the IGP component, and TDP's will probably increase slightly if anything over Ion / 9400M, although not to the level of an actual 9600M.

By the way, 'don't know what they're buying' is different to 'moron'. It means people unequipped to make an informed decision to make the purchase. Now in the case of Apple buyers in particular, many of those who still don't know what they're buying and yet make their opinions of 'better' heard loudly are compounded by a case of the Dunning-Kruger effect - but that's outside the scope of the discussion.

Or, Apple could stick with the 9400M / whatever approach. After all, runtime is already being praised to the rafters without genuinely being better than many removable-battery notebooks by actual morons.

 

i just flatly disagree with the premise here.

intel's x4500 is primarily meant to be *cheap*. So among all the areas laptop GPU's have goals to strive for: compatibility with modern standards, performance, power draw, (heat output) , price

intel literally puts low cost first, then worries about power draw, then the rest

nvidia is still concerned about the cost of their chip so they can compete, but they worry a lot more about performance and compatibility than intel and are willing to accept a higher cost / chip to increase performance while maintaining low power draw.

So, while both chips cost almost nothing, it is important to note that the nvidia chip still costs a lot more. I also believe the 9400m and x4500 have very similar power draw under both IDLE AND LOAD conditions. This means the 9400m should not reduce battery life compared to the x4500, even if comparing battery life during load, and yet the performance of the 9400m will be much better in games.

Forgive me if I am just blind to Apple's continuing sinister deeds, but, aside from wanting better hardware in their machines, I just don't see it (based on the decision to want decent integrated graphics in their bottom end machines).

 

I was under the impression that the Nvidia ION>9400m

 

Ion is the 9400 GPU/southbridge for netbooks primarily, just Nvidia recylcing their technology over and over again as usual.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Ion

 

Gaming is something you entrust to the discrete in a dual-GPU setup, no?

TDP is TDP, not power draw - i.e. useful in terms of when I point out that the Macbook Pros may be Flamebook Pros when the QC i7 is shoehorned in with the present cooling - but the 4500MHD does have lower power draw in general use, irrespective of what NVidia may claim - and we all know they are, rather like Apple but possibly in an even sneakier way if that's possible, masters of bull, but usually in a less appealing way. And an integrated IGP in Arrandale promises even less power drain.

Now as I said, TDP isn't a measure of power draw - and I'll outline this briefly.

The GM965 has a 13.5W TDP, and that combined with a 17W TDP T7700 forms the basis of the MBA '08. Compare and contrast with the SL9600'd - also 17W TDP - '09 MBP, combined with the MCP79MX, with a TDP of 12W.

The '09 Macbook goes for at least a half-hour less than the X3100 '08 in the ekeing use I refer to in my battery review. And I've compared machines with near-identical specs between X3100 and 4500MHD - and the 4500 goes for longer. Extrapolation of the results therefore should be pretty simple. You have to understand that TDP is not runtime - it's Thermal Design Power, and even if you're going to do it on paper - as opposed to actual experience (try it sometime) - you can't compare the similar TDP's of the GS45 against the MCP79 as a yardstick of runtime.

 

Ok. I just don't trust you more than any three of the corporations we are talking about. I would rather try to find the power draw numbers from a trusted review site that is just focused on the numbers, so, as you said, this will have to be a paper exercise for me, rather than relying on your experience.

The thing is, you are so biassed. I don't know where the motivation comes from, but it makes it impossible for me to take anything you say seriously. You always make jabs at people who enjoy apple products (and soon nvidia?) and write in undertones to get your anti apple point across. I should note I Also can't take mac prolifics seriously either. But don't forget- I'm still foaming from the mouth.

Anyway, I understand the difference between tdp and power draw. Tdp is more of an exercsize for the engineers, although you could experience some negative results from it... But power draw has a basically 1:1 connection to battery life. Or, more specifically, the power draw funtion and tdp funtion should
be enough to deduce battery life cost.

 

I read about this this morning and got more of a buzz off it than today's first cup of coffee.

Apple vs. Intel...let the hilarity ensue!


Honestly, as much as I don't like Intel's IGP, in this case I hope they take the hard line and don't cave in to Apple. Seriously where does Jobs think he's gunna go with this if Intel doesn't accept.

Sticking with Monty will cause Apple to lose sales.

Going with AMD+ATI will cause Apple to lose sales (but would be great for AMD sales which I'm for).

At least with Arrandale they can go with a low end 40-nm discrete GPU in the MB or MBP and add something like Broadcom's Crystal HD chip in the MBA to compensate for Intel's suck IGP.

If Apple is that dedicated to Nvidia's chipset then let them go release a Tegra based netbook.

 

Maybe they are pushing for Nvidia's MCP89 chipsets, which would be the succesor to the 9400M?

 

And stick w/ C2D then?

 

Oh no, I don't think you're one of the foaming ones. Just one without sufficient relevant comparative experience to be able to put things as authoritatively as you may do...

...as illustrated by your post telling me back what I told you, to indicate that you knew what I told you before you posted the post which indicates you didn't know what I told you. ( "Yes Minister", I loved it )

Everyone is biased. It's the scope of their actual experience that's the telling point.

That's basically Ion2 isn't it? If that's the case as I said before it would effectively bring a 9600M to the table as the IGP, but runtime will probably decrease.

 

Ion 2 is also a die shrink. Double the cores but expected to have the same power consumption and cooling requirements.


It would also require Apple to stick with Core 2 though unless Intel gives them special permission to do otherwise.

 

Yes indeed - it wouldn't be possible otherwise. I'd still however be very sceptical to see the same power draw as the 9400M in the projected improvements for the Ion2, given the rumours about the mobile GT220 (apparently a rebadged 9600M) forming the IGP core.

 

ok. so in the end is it or is it not sinister of apple to include better hardware in their machines?

at the end of the day, do you seriously think it is better for apple to include intel integrated graphics cards over nvidia ones?

that just makes no sense...

i think that if they put intel chips in, you would find a reason to hound apple for not including decent graphics chips that meet reasonable gpu standards.

that is all i have to say on the matter.

 

If sticking with Nvidia's chipset means not upgrading to Arrandale CPUs then yes it is absolutely better for Apple to include Intel's integrated graphics.

They'd lose more sales with the alternatives.

 

we actually hadn't even gotten that far. we are literally just comparing nvidia integrated graphics to intel integrated, for the current round of CPUs, so arrandale is a separate story.

 

Well you need to catch-up then because the real issue here is what it means for Apple to refuse Arrandale because it has an IGP on die.

Nvidia's IGP being better than Intel's IGP is a given and doesn't need an in-depth discussion. What warrants discussion is if Intel has the pair to tell Apple to take Arrandale or leave it and what the alternatives are for Apple considering Nvidia can't, and won't, make chipsets for Nehalem-based CPUs.

 

Personally, for the above reasons I hope Apple takes Arrandale with the on-die IGP, even assuming, given the X3100 situation, that drivers are of NVidia-quality (i.e. historically not as stable and not as good in terms of making use of the hardware as ATI - certainly as far as OS X is concerned).

You seem to have looked at this stuff for longer than I have, I assume that there are no problems integrating Arrandale to NVidia discretes? Because that seems like a win-win for me. A truly miserly IGP which may actually get 7ish hours with real-life, minimum brightness use with the current sizes of cells, combined with a reasonable discrete.

 

Arrandale supports switchable graphics between the on-die IGP and a discrete GPU...Nvidia's or ATI's as long as the drivers/OS support it.

Nvidia and AMD both also have low power discrete options currently available in several 13" notebooks that Apple could use for their MB and MBP 13. ASUS UL30vt uses a GT210M while both HP's Envy 13 and Acer's Timeline 3810tg use the Mobility HD4330.

 

We've already established that, and also that those alternatives - as chef and I have been ping-poinging back for a few posts, have higher power draws than Intel IGP solutions.

 

Well duh.


But if this rumor is true and Apple doesn't choose Arrandale and a discrete GPU where else are they going to go? Monty and Ion2 until Sandy Bridge? AMD and HD4200?

Both are worse options so who does Jobs think he'd be fooling? Intel shouldn't be afraid.

 

Or go back to PPC. LOL
PPC will always welcome Apple with open ARMs

 

It could just be that they're arm-twisting of course.

 

man, if only this logic were valid... Whole semesters of my education just wouldn't have been necessary. And then I could have taken golf 101 or something...

I can dream.

 

I think this is the case.


Boy this thread reeks of fanboys.