“The Macbook Pro has had switchable graphics since the late 2008 models, however those units required the user to log out and login again to their user account to make the change. The system incorporated in the latest Macbook Pro launched earlier this week, “toggles seamlessly” between Intel’s integrated graphics and Nvidia’s 320M/330M GPU chips, much like Nvidia’s Optimus.Nvidia has confirmed to us that the technology in the Macbook Pros isn’t Optimus and that the switching technology incorporated in Apple’s latest high-end laptops was all its own work, presumably with help from the firm’s new employees.”
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Exclusive: ASUS Core Unlocker to offer six Phenom II cores for the price of four @ HEXUS
- Light Peak is an unlikely USB3 killer @ The Inquirer
- Intel’s Patsburg to replace X58 in 2011 @ SemiAccurate
- Six Obscure Web Browsers You Might Love @ Techspot
- Does Windows Phone 7 Stand a Chance Against the iPhone? @ Digital Trends
- Tool sniffs OSS binaries for sweet smell of license compliance @ Ars Technica
- TSMC alarmed by rising inventory levels, say sources @ DigiTimes
nVIDIA’s future with Apple does not look Optimustic
nVIDIA is rightly proud of it Optimus technology, a rather smooth way to save battery life and still offer graphical performance when needed thanks to a GPU that can disable its self. They also had reason to be proud to be supplying GPUs to Apple for their various systems. But then suddenly Apple releases their new Macbook Pro which features a GPU that can be enabled and disabled on the fly that does not use nVIDIA’s Optimus Technology. It would seem that Apple’s antipathy towards exclusive relationships with suppliers is still strong. The Inquirer also voices an opinion that perhaps the pair of AMD engineers that recently moved to Apple still have a strong instinct to stick it to nVIDIA.