A closer look at Apple's move to NVIDIA chipsets, DisplayPort
At its notebook announcement, Steve Jobs said NVIDIA had presented Apple with a new chip it had in development that incorporated the company's high performance graphics platform into a part that would also handle the general interface of a computer's main Intel processor, a task typically performed by a series of components referred to as a chipset.
NVIDIA had planned to sell the part for use in desktop PCs, but Jobs said Apple wanted to use the part in its new notebook design. The result was the GeForce 9400M, a single chip of which 70% is devoted to GPU functions. It provides as much as 6.2 times the graphics performance of the Intel chipset, integrating its own Intel GMA X3100 graphics processing unit, that Apple had been using in its entry level MacBook since late 2007.
The integrated 9400M part even delivers 55% of the 3D graphics performance of the dedicated NVIDIA 8600M GT GPU Apple had been using in its MacBook Pro; the integrated intel parts used in the MacBooks only delivered 11% of the performance of the dedicated NVIDIA CPU available on the Pro line. "In graphics intensive applications, our customers will notice a world of difference," said Bob Mansfield, Apple's Senior Vice President of Mac Hardware.
