Post by aquamac on Aug 1, 2006 20:31:18 GMT
Here's the article from ZDNet:
AMD yesterday announced that they plan to acquire Canadian video chip maker ATI for US$5.4 billion. The deal needs to be approved by stockholders and regulatory agencies. Arch-rival Intel announced that they won't be renewing ATI's chipset bus license as a result of the deal.
The move leaves Apple in a bit of a quandary because ATI video subsystems currently power two of Apple's Intel-based Macs: the MacBook Pro and the iMac both ship with ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 GPUs. The Mac mini and MacBook use Intel GMA950 graphics.
ATI chips shipped in most Macs prior to the PowerMac G4 announced in 2001. Apple's move to chips from Santa Clara-based NVIDIA was believed by some to be punishment for an ATI leak in July 2000 that pre-announced new iMacs and Power Macs.
Apple's aging PowerMac G5 ships with NVIDIA graphics (GeForce 6600, 7800 GT or Quadro FX 4500) but the graphics chip supplier for the new "Mac Pro" desktop is rumored to switch to back ATI. The Mac Pro, which could be announced as soon as 06 August at WWDC, is rumored to ship with ATI Radeon X1600 Pro and X1800 Pro graphics.
Will Intel allow Apple to continue to working with ATI on graphics after the company becomes wholly owned by rival AMD? I think that we'll probably see Intel gently "suggest" that Apple switch to another vendor for graphics technology in 2007. Once the dust settles I bet that all Macs from here on out will ship with graphics from either Intel or NVIDIA.
So what does this mean for Apple? Will they be forced to go with nVidia cards and if they are, how will this affect the Macvidia project?
AMD yesterday announced that they plan to acquire Canadian video chip maker ATI for US$5.4 billion. The deal needs to be approved by stockholders and regulatory agencies. Arch-rival Intel announced that they won't be renewing ATI's chipset bus license as a result of the deal.
The move leaves Apple in a bit of a quandary because ATI video subsystems currently power two of Apple's Intel-based Macs: the MacBook Pro and the iMac both ship with ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 GPUs. The Mac mini and MacBook use Intel GMA950 graphics.
ATI chips shipped in most Macs prior to the PowerMac G4 announced in 2001. Apple's move to chips from Santa Clara-based NVIDIA was believed by some to be punishment for an ATI leak in July 2000 that pre-announced new iMacs and Power Macs.
Apple's aging PowerMac G5 ships with NVIDIA graphics (GeForce 6600, 7800 GT or Quadro FX 4500) but the graphics chip supplier for the new "Mac Pro" desktop is rumored to switch to back ATI. The Mac Pro, which could be announced as soon as 06 August at WWDC, is rumored to ship with ATI Radeon X1600 Pro and X1800 Pro graphics.
Will Intel allow Apple to continue to working with ATI on graphics after the company becomes wholly owned by rival AMD? I think that we'll probably see Intel gently "suggest" that Apple switch to another vendor for graphics technology in 2007. Once the dust settles I bet that all Macs from here on out will ship with graphics from either Intel or NVIDIA.
So what does this mean for Apple? Will they be forced to go with nVidia cards and if they are, how will this affect the Macvidia project?