Reports are suggesting that Apple may switch, yet again, back to Nvidia for the GPUs of the upcoming Mac Pro hardware update. Another claim that is part of this latest report is that the new Mac Pros will be featuring the much-anticipated Intel Ivy Bridge processor. This processor makes use of Trigate transistor technology and is being hailed as the next big thing from Intel. It boasts the speed of the processor by up to 37 percent and at the same time, consumes much less power.
A surprising claim made in the same report is that Apple will switch back to Nvidia as the main GPU supplier for it’s Mac Pros. The exact words of the article are, “Nvidia has their “Kepler” platform due out around the same time as Intel is making their changes, and our sources within the company indicate that they have chosen to have Nvidia lead the charge so to speak on the graphics front.”
But this claim doesn’t bid well with most tech analysts. This is because AMD recently released Radeon HD 7970 graphics card. Analysts had earlier claimed that this may well be the best choice for Apple to choose for the future of Mac Pro. Interestingly, Apple seems to have heeded this by including support for AMD’s latest release in Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3.
Currently, Mac Pro hardware features a Radeon HD 5770 card with 1 GB of memory. In the earlier models, Apple had been using hardware from Nvidia. So Apple does have a history of frequently switching between the two companies for the hardware of Mac Pro. For now, despite the claims, the bid seems heavy in favor of AMD. But one can not predict Apple well enough, as it is.
Image courtesy corex.
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