The GigaOM Network: Cleantech | Tech Insider | Gadget Gurus | Online Video | Open Source | Web Life | Research | Live Events | About | Contact

NVIDIA Halts Chipset Development Until 2010

Written on October 09, 2009 by Liam Cassidy and 2 people have commented

NVIDIA, makers of graphics chips for Apple’s range of iMacs and MacBooks, has announced that it is putting its Nforce chipset development on hold until the conclusion of a legal dispute with Intel, expected to be reached in 2010.
At the core of the matter is the claim by Intel that its four-year deal with NVIDIA [...]

ATI Returning to Mac With 4000-Series Graphics Cards

Written on August 31, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 7 people have commented

Poor NVIDIA — it looks like your honeymoon with Apple is over. There hasn’t been an official announcement from Cupertino yet, but a glance at the customization options for high-end iMacs (the ones that use discrete graphics) and Mac Pros reveals that ATI Radeon HD 4000-series cards are already available as new configurable alternatives to [...]

Apple/NVIDIA Rift to Spark Major Component Changes?

Written on July 02, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 11 people have commented

If you bought a MacBook Pro between May 2007 and September 2008, you might be painfully aware of NVIDIA’s major screw-up in providing fundamentally faulty 8600M GT graphics processors for Apple computers, as well as others. Apple no doubt still remembers that, too, since the warranty extension and repair refund policy is undoubtedly costing it [...]

Apple Extends MacBook Pro NVIDIA GeForce Service Policy to Three Years

Written on June 01, 2009 by Charles Moore and 21 people have commented

Addressing what evidently is a common defect in the NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT graphics processor units used in the May 2007 and Early 2008 revisions of the original MacBook Pro (remediation of which involves replacing the entire logic board), Apple has announced that it will lengthen coverage of its extended service program for this defect for [...]

NVIDIA GPUs to Take On More in Snow Leopard, Improve Efficiency

Written on April 27, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 1 person has commented

Generally speaking, if your not using your Apple computer for graphics-intensive purposes, that NVIDIA GPU that you have if you bought your computer recently isn’t doing much. Definitely not earning its keep, you might say. In fact, you could think of it like your unemployed cousin who crashes on your couch and expects to be [...]

NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 Coming to Apple Mac Pro

Written on April 21, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 2 people have commented

Last month Apple updated its entire desktop lineup, from the Mac mini to the Mac Pro. Next month, Mac Pro users will have even more to get excited about when NVIDIA starts selling its new Quadro FX 4800 graphics card for Mac. The new card is supposed to be designed specifically for the unique requirements [...]

Graphics Problems Surface With 17″ MacBook Pro

Written on March 06, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 13 people have commented

At this point, it seems like having some graphics issues is more of a “coming of age” thing for a new Mac product than something that surprises or worries us, though I’m sure if you have one of the affected MacBook Pros, you think otherwise.
Users are reporting in an Apple Support thread that the recently [...]

Will This Be the Brains Behind the New Mac Mini?

Written on February 11, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 5 people have commented

Apple’s current chipset bedfellow, NVIDIA, has just announced that the first iteration of its upcoming Ion platform will come in desktop form, and should be expected this upcoming Spring.
The new architecture integrates Intel Atom processors with the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics card, making it a good candidate for netbooks, as many suspected the chipset’s [...]

Why Apple’s NVIDIA GPU Extended Service Program is Inadequate

Written on January 14, 2009 by Charles Moore and 12 people have commented

A tip of the hat to fellow TheAppleBlog contributor Clayton Lai in his recent column NVIDIA Killed My 2007 MacBook Pro, and the people who commented with similar tales of premature hardware failure woe, for finally convincing me to cross the late 2008 MacBook Pro off my short list of candidates for my next system [...]

NVIDIA Killed My 2007 MacBook Pro

Written on December 29, 2008 by Clayton Lai and 37 people have commented

In mid 2008, amid growing evidence, NVIDIA acknowledged that a significant number of its previous-generation GPUs (graphics processing unit) and MCPs (media and communications processors) for notebooks are failing at higher-than-normal rates. For readers who are not aware of this story, TheAppleBlog covered this piece of news back in October.
Three weeks back, I was [...]

MacBook Air Acting Up, Just in Time for Holidays

Written on December 08, 2008 by Darrell Etherington and 18 people have commented

The launch of Apple’s new unibody aluminum Macs hasn’t been the smoothest ride, for both the company and its loyal customers. There was disappointment over what didn’t (Firewire) and what did (HDCP) make it into the new machines. The innovative new trackpad design nearly underwhelmed thanks to a glitch that resulted in it failing to [...]

Apple’s Laptop Line Gets a Graphics Boost

Written on October 14, 2008 by Omar McFarlane and 3 people have commented

Apple has updated their laptop line (sans the “white MacBook”) with NVIDIA’s new GeForce graphics chips: the 9400M for the MacBook and MacBook Air, and the 9600M GT for the MacBook Pro.
The 9400M contains 16 parallel graphics cores offering 54 Gigaflops of graphics performance. This translates to, according to Jobs, a “5x faster graphics than [...]

MacBook: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Nothing Blu

Written on October 14, 2008 by Darrell Etherington and 3 people have commented

As predicted, Apple today introduced two new models of MacBook, featuring all-aluminum cases constructed from a solid block (or “brick”) of aluminum.  The new models much more closely resemble their Pro siblings than did the previous white and black plastic MacBooks. The entry-level ($1099) white MacBook will also continue to be offered, but receives a [...]

Apple Officially Admits to Faulty NVIDIA GPUs

Written on October 10, 2008 by Darrell Etherington and 19 people have commented

Following NVIDIA’s July 2008 announcement that a number of their GPUs were experiencing higher failure rates than should be normally expected, Apple today finally released an official support article acknowledging the problem. The article claims that NVIDIA told Apple graphics cards in Macintosh computers were not affected by the problem, which is supposedly related [...]

Update: More “Brick” Rumors, Nvidia MacBook GPUs

Written on October 06, 2008 by Darrell Etherington and 9 people have commented

A few days ago we posted a story about the much-sensationalized upcoming Apple mystery product, “The Brick.”  While there is still no definite word regarding what it actually is, 9to5mac is now reporting that a “reliable” source has lead them to believe that “The Brick” is not a product at all, but rather a production [...]