Apple is looking more and more likely to be ditching long-time partner Intel in favor of using NVIDIA chips in the forthcoming new MacBook range. That’s despite a recent admission that some previous NVIDIA-powered MacBooks have been faulty.

As my colleague Ronald A. Carson reported last week, speculation about the switch began with reports that NVIDIA was showing off the new MacBooks to its employees. AppleInsider is now reporting the change will be made official at a media event tomorrow.

The main reason for the change appears to be that NVIDIA’s product is a single chip, as opposed to the dual chip Intel system. That would be a handy space-saving measure in the MacBook. The MCP79, the NVIDIA chip in question, also has some neat features, such as DriveCache, a flash-based storage system that can make start-up quicker.

There could be particularly good news for Mac gamers as the rumor mill also has it that the new MacBook Pros will have high-end NVIDIA graphics capability. Hardcore gamers probably won’t be trading in their desktop PCs, but it could make serious gaming at least viable on an Apple notebook.

In some ways, the (expected) announcement wouldn’t come at the best of times. Just a few days ago, Apple finally confirmed that some MacBook Pros made between May 2007 and this past September were faulty, with the culprit being an NVDIA graphics chip which also caused problems in HP and Dell machines.

According to Apple, NVIDIA had assured it back in July that Macs weren’t affected by the fault, which appears to be due to overheating causing the solder connections on the chip’s packaging to fail. Apple now says some MacBook Pros were definitely affected and is offering free repairs to affected customers, even if the warranty on the computer itself has expired. It will also compensate customers who’ve had to get third-party repairs.

Related:

Entry was posted on Monday, October 13th, 2008 at 9:40 am under Apple, Games, MacBook, Macbook Pro, Rumors.  Print This Post

Read more entries by John Lister.
Stumble It!