Apple Drops Intel For NVidia Graphics

In a surprise move, Apple has decided to stop using Intel graphics chips in favor of NVidia. NVidia has remained silent about the change as well. According to Appleinsider the announcement for the change is planned to be announced tomorrow.

I have read in some of the forums, that some users are dissatisfied with the bulit in Intel gaphics chips as well. Many of these complaints happened after Microsoft released Windows Vista. I believe it was a lack of support by Intel for some of the graphics chips that were on systems running Windows XP, and that Intel failed in upgrading the drivers for Vista.

According to the article ite states that:

While the performance may not compete with most dedicated mobile graphics hardware, the update potentially addresses a common complaint of sluggish video performance with Apple’s 13-inch systems.  These entry-level portables are often excluded from the requirements for certain demanding games and are even ruled out entirely from Apple’s own Final Cut Studio 2 suite, which depends on faster video acceleration to drive visually intensive apps such as Color and Motion.

Moving to NVIDIA’s higher quality integrated graphics would also line up with Apple’s plans for Mac OS X Snow Leopard, the next-generation operating system aimed for release next summer. NVIDIA has already touted support for Apple’s proposed OpenCL parallel computing standard, a feature of Snow Leopard, in its recent integrated graphics chipsets.

The use of NVIDIA’s higher performance integrated video chipset would give Apple’s new line of entry level MacBooks both improved general hardware acceleration via OpenCL, as well as making the systems more viable as basic gaming machines. Existing MacBooks can’t even run the EA games Steve Jobs promoted at Macworld a year ago.

I personally see the change as a benefit to Apple users and a good slap in the face to Intel. Intel is another of those companies that should be considered a monopoly and detrimental to our economic well being. Jut my two cents. But do I live by what I preach? Yes I do. The new laptop I just bought comes with an AMD CPU.

Comments welcome.

Source.