Intel Chipsets To Stay, Larrabee GPU In Apple's Future?

Larrabee is one year away, so the the next models might still use nvidia chips or they might go with centrino 2 as earlier speculated.

The discrepency is obvious.

Apple intends to use Intel CPUs and chipsets in desktops and laptops.

Apple intends to use costom chipsets in embedded devices such as iPods, iPhones and set-top boxen.

I want an iPhone NOT nano! I need 2-5x battery life and I can stand more size and thickness. I am an old, fat, blind, white guy. Okay color doesn't matter. :)

I used to carry a BRICK called an analog cellular telephone! I could use less of a size downgrade!

Rocketman

I think Apple will continue the use of nVidia chips until this Larrabee GPU. There is no need to go to ATI for a revision.

There's been speculation that early Larabees will be strictly GPUs and GPGPUs, but that it will eventuall replace the CPU, giving you a CPU and a GPU on the same die.

Apple seems interested in GPGPUs with OpenCL. Maybe Macs will be the perfect platform for Larrabee to take over the CPU.

Too early for Larabee, however when ready one year from now (hopefuly), it'll make hell of a lot of sense and as a previous poster suggested, Macs are a perfect venue to roll out such a dramaticaly new model of computing. Both Intel and Apple knows full well they are going for it - when ready.

nVidia chipset makes sense for the moment, replacing two-chip chipset with a single-chip solution of similar qualities but with far better integrated graphics (and hence GPGPU capabilities) not only saves space and allows for further shrinking of form factor, but is also a natural progression towards single chip chipsets as Intel will be rolling out new processor architecture with integrated memory and PCI-E controller (the bulk of north bridge's taks in a two chip chipsets) and I bet Intel itself is going single-chip with the debut of Nehalem.

Generally I'm really looking forward for the upcoming refresh :apple:

i can has sooper computer in pocketz?

well, if you believe wikipedia (or its sources), it says Larrabee will be mounted in a 49.5mm×49.5mm package, will be available on a PCI Express 2.0 card, and will have a TDP greater than 150W or further down in the more recent information section Fudzilla has posted several short articles about Larrabee, claiming that Larrabee may have a TDP as large as 300W. :eek:

This isn't exactly a chip to put in a portable in its current, rumored form.

I think perhaps BOTH RUMORS are correct. Until just recently, Intel was the only one making motherboards/chipsets for their mobile CPUs. Then during the 1st quarter of this year, info was released that NVIDIA was planning on finally competing with the Centrino platform with their own mobile chipsets for Core 2, but they were being secretive and never really showed off a roadmap which was strange. So when I heard the Apple rumor, it totally clicked. I think this is going to turn out to be true.

And how do you reconcile this new rumor saying Apple will continue to use Intel chipsets and eventually Larabee? Well, AFAIK, Larabee is going to be desktop only first since it will consume so much power. Perhaps Intel is going to continue using Intel Chipsets for the Mac Pro (and possibly the iMac if they start using desktop components) and other potential/future desktop models.

Or perhaps this nVidia switch is going to be a temporary solution until Apple can test out Larabee and new Intel chipsets, and use it as a negotiating tactic in teh future with Intel.

Either way, the advantages for going with NVIDIA mobile chipsets are pretty clear as Intel's mobile chipsets aren't exactly the most power efficient in the world and have long been known for poor integrated graphics. The latter is becoming more important with the future release of GPGPU-capable Snow leopard, not to mention increasing competition with other laptop manufacturers, and the fact that Apple's customer base is growing and diversifying. Another potential benefit to having NVIDIA integrated graphics would be their HybridPower technology, where a Macbook Pro could have BOTH a high performance discrete graphics card and power efficient integrated graphics, and switch between them as desired. So you can get great gaming/3D performance when you need it, and enjoy long battery life and cool operation when you don't!

I'm interested in the rumours going round that Nvidia has been awful quiet lately and that reeks of Apple involvement. If Intel can deliver, they'd certainly have potential with Larrabee.

From a previous Snow Leopard angle on Larrabee here - using DailyTech source from here

Larrabee
- marks an intention for Intel to get into the graphics market in 2009.
- An integrated graphics platform that can natively execute CPU x86 code. i.e. when not rendering 3-D graphics, it can donate processing cores for general CPU work
- not a GPU, but a multi-core die capable of any stream processing task.
- 2006 schematics indicate 16 cores, with Larrabee apparently scalable to >1,000 cores, sharing much of the same research as Intel's Tera-scale project (which has so far developed the Teraflops Research Chip, an 80 core processor prototype).
- Larrabee will support OpenGL, DirectX & ray-tracing instructions.
- Larrabee samples will be ready Q4 2008, shipments in 2009, with initial launch apparently only for "discrete computing".

Seeing as IDF is coming up, Apple may well give some more info out on Snow Leopard by MWSF to get developers ready for coding prior to Snow Leopard launch, so programs will be Grand Central enabled at launch ~WWDC 2009.

I think perhaps BOTH RUMORS are correct. Until just recently, Intel was the only one making motherboards/chipsets for their mobile CPUs. Then during the 1st quarter of this year, info was released that NVIDIA was planning on finally competing with the Centrino platform with their own mobile chipsets for Core 2, but they were being secretive and never really showed off a roadmap which was strange. So when I heard the Apple rumor, it totally clicked. I think this is going to turn out to be true.

And how do you reconcile this new rumor saying Apple will continue to use Intel chipsets and eventually Larabee? Well, AFAIK, Larabee is going to be desktop only first since it will consume so much power. Perhaps Intel is going to continue using Intel Chipsets for the Mac Pro (and possibly the iMac if they start using desktop components) and other potential/future desktop models.

Or perhaps this nVidia switch is going to be a temporary solution until Apple can test out Larabee and new Intel chipsets, and use it as a negotiating tactic in teh future with Intel.

Either way, the advantages for going with NVIDIA mobile chipsets are pretty clear as Intel's mobile chipsets aren't exactly the most power efficient in the world and have long been known for poor integrated graphics. The latter is becoming more important with the future release of GPGPU-capable Snow leopard, not to mention increasing competition with other laptop manufacturers, and the fact that Apple's customer base is growing and diversifying. Another potential benefit to having NVIDIA integrated graphics would be their HybridPower technology, where a Macbook Pro could have BOTH a high performance discrete graphics card and power efficient integrated graphics, and switch between them as desired. So you can get great gaming/3D performance when you need it, and enjoy long battery life and cool operation when you don't!

You make some good points. This just out on AppleInsider may also give a clue:
"As expected, Apple on Thursday afternoon provided developers with the first pre-release builds of Mac OS X 10.5.5, but warned developers not to use the software with Macs that contain integrated graphics chips." :Appleinsider.