Apple shows nVidia the door
This week’s iMac already shipping refresh saw the all-in-one receive significant internal upgrades. Likewise, the Mac Pro got big under-the-hood changes that will deliver a huge performance boost to the desktop when it ships in August. However, conspicuously absent in all of this is nVidia.
Tuesday’s iMac and Mac Pro update saw Apple move solidly away from graphics chips built by nVidia. In last year’s iMac line up, only the entry-level model used nVidia, an integrated solution that shares system RAM — Cupertino’s all-in-one is now 100-percent of nVidia chips.
Now, the iMac features three discrete GPU choices — Radeon HD 4760 with 256MB, 5670 with 512MB and 5750 with 1GB — all of which are quite capable.
For his part, BareFeat’s Rob Art Morgan in his first look at the new iMac describes the all ATI discrete GPU upgrade as “the most significant update” Apple included.
Gone, baby, gone
Whereas the 2009 Mac Pro came with nVidia GPUs as the default configuration with ATI parts as BTO options, Apple has made the 2010 pro tower a 100-percent Radeon HD affair. There’s no question the GPUs chosen will boost performance, especially the Radeon HD 5870 with 1GB, which AMD graphics division product manager David Baumann says delivers up to 50 percent better performance.
So, should we be worried about a return to the bad old days of technology monoculture at Apple? In a word, no.
nVidia parts can be found in every Mac portable and there’s nothing stopping Apple changing its GPU product mix. Seriously, it’s not unusual for Cupertino to roll out mid-product cycle GPU updates for the Mac Pro and that could already be in the works.
Are you concerned about Apple’s 100-percent embrace of ATI on the desktop?
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July 29th, 2010
Not concerned at all, you want Apple to use the best available GPU’s in their top line products. Now if AMD gets to where it wants to go the biggest change could be a switch to AMD processors in the Macs which will further improve graphics performance and most importantly the bottom line!
July 29th, 2010
It’s all good as long as the desktops continue to perform as well as they have in the past (if not better).
July 30th, 2010
ATI is good for Apple. nVidia always sucked.
July 30th, 2010
Lol who cares, Apple Macs are over-priced crap anyway, my company just ditched 100′s of Apple Mac’s, for PC’s.
July 30th, 2010
Any upgrades are always welcome…Though I wish they would get rid of the mac mini and make a more affordable mac that we can switch out components on….kind of like a mini Mac pro or something like that.
July 30th, 2010
@Steve– LOL, what a troll! Care to post the company name so it can be verified? No, I thought not.
July 30th, 2010
Great move for Apple. It just keeps getting better. Maybe overpriced, but you pay what you get for. You must be serious retard to ditch MAC for PC.
July 30th, 2010
@Steve…
What a shame… It is really bad when businesses goes backwards… Well, kiss innovation and productivity good bye my friend…
And welcome back to the OLD and NIGHTMARE times fo Winnnddooowwsss… Uhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
Cheers…
August 30th, 2010
My my… the fanboys are out in force I see.
I agree with Devon. Upgrades are always good, but if they’re not affordable they might as well be absent. What exactly is it about a Mac Mini makes it worth 600 clams? I can build a computer that’ll whip the pants off of Apple’s offerings at a fraction of the cost, and video cards be damned.
Boutique purchases never made sense to me.