[Janichsan]

Apple and Nvidia are reported to have split up in anger. The main reason is said to be Nvidia's handling of the overheating problems of the 8400M and 8600M GPUs and their unwillingness to take responsibility for the problem. With this step, Apple is in good company: HP and Dell both did the same in the past months, for the same reasons.

This doesn't sound good for future iterations of Macs without dedicated GPU. The 9400M used in recent models were the first decent integrated graphic boards used in lower-end Intel Macs. A return to Integrated Intel Crap™ would be a major step back.

[charmin]

Despite the tabloid-style thread title, this IS still a rumour, yes?

[Ranger_Joe]

If this indeed the case, it will be interesting to see how long this recent refresh of laptops will last.

[Janichsan]

charmin, on July 2nd 2009, 08:22 PM, said:

Despite the tabloid-style thread title, this IS still a rumour, yes?

Well, there's no official word from any of both companies (and I doubt there will be), but the whole thing sounds too plausible to be just an unfounded rumour. Apple has expressed their displeasure about Nvidia's policy regarding the overheating CPUs earlier and – as mentioned above – Apple wouldn't be the first to dump Nvidia. Secondly, there are reports that the recent generation of MBPs with a the 9600M appears to be suffering from exactly the same problem.

Nvidia seems pretty much in the heat about that whole business – not only from their OEM customers (Dell, HP and – as it seems – now Apple) but also from their suppliers, who Nvidia was trying to blame.

Plus, there's a lawsuit between Nvidia and Intel regarding licensing issues, which might be another reason for Apple and Nvidia splitting up.

[J'nathus]

Although performance wise my 8600 GT M in my MacBook Pro heartily outstripes the X1600 in my last MacBook Pro... the X1600 was a smoother experience / machine. Also I have some strange locking up issue that happens in Front Row on this nvidia MBP that my ATI never exhibited (and yes, the ATI one DID have Leopard on it - after I upgraded it to Leopard that is).

[Kaoro]

Good. My iMac had an X1600 which ran games surprisingly well. My MBP has a 9600M and it will overheat and crash the system unless I use smcFanControl. And even then, the GPU can crash the system sometimes.

I don't really keep up with the bleeding-edge GPU updates, but from my experiences, ATI is a nicer experience. I know Apple could use ATI chips in the MBP and desktops, but does ATI not make an integrated option? Isn't Larrabee supposed to be an integrated offering from Intel that finally doesn't suck (or is it a discrete system)?

[bobbob]

Kaoro, on July 2nd 2009, 05:10 PM, said:

but does ATI not make an integrated option

For AMD CPUs. I really doubt they're going back to making Intel chipsets, since no one expects the acquisition (sorry) to reverse, and Intel's even trying to stop nVidia from making chipsets for Intel CPUs with integrated memory controllers.

This article sounds pretty bunk, as it is. No one that's cited as 'dropping' nVidia seems to actually be dropping nVidia. Dell's still selling quite a few, and Apple's pretty much gone the other way with 9400-powered everything. Obviously they'll eventually be going to Nehalem consumer CPUs and thus forced into Intel chipsets, but that's nothing to do with this and if that's the only evidence then this is all a crock.

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Isn't Larrabee supposed to be an integrated offering

They're supposed to have a non-Larrabee CPU/GPU hybrid first, IIRC, and integrated Larrabee is probably after discrete Larrabee. Either way, this is on Intel chipsets if Intel gets its way.

Quote

from Intel that finally doesn't suck (or is it a discrete system)?

The discrete one is the one everyone's waiting for. Integration is going to hobble it.

[The Liberator]

What were you saying about the Spanish Inquisition?

I guess we will have to wait until the smoke clears, and see if the rumour actually will turn out true… or not.

Liberator.

[teflon]

bobbob, on July 3rd 2009, 05:49 AM, said:

This article sounds pretty bunk, as it is. No one that's cited as 'dropping' nVidia seems to actually be dropping nVidia.

Well, they've all got contracts and agreements in order to get the parts for as little as possible. Appleinsider even suggested that it might have been a 3-4 year deal with NV. Even if there wasn't a contract, it would still be a massive pain to simply cut out NV's parts as soon as you decide to stop working with them. Dell would have to relaunch about half their systems, which would mean absolutely tons of Q&A, much better to wait till you've next got a revision anyway and then jump to AMD.

I also think it could be possible that governments (US and EU) step in with anti-competitive lawsuits that force intel to play nice, since they're basically throwing the rattle out the pram because NV is stealing a lot of their customers.

[charmin]

teflon, on July 3rd 2009, 08:17 AM, said:

which would mean absolutely tons of Q&A

Questions & Answers?

Quality & Assurance?

[Janichsan]

bobbob, on July 3rd 2009, 06:49 AM, said:

This article sounds pretty bunk, as it is. No one that's cited as 'dropping' nVidia seems to actually be dropping nVidia. Dell's still selling quite a few, and Apple's pretty much gone the other way with 9400-powered everything. Obviously they'll eventually be going to Nehalem consumer CPUs and thus forced into Intel chipsets, but that's nothing to do with this and if that's the only evidence then this is all a crock.

Yeah, the whole thing is still rather speculative without further evidence, but it somewhat rings plausible. Consider this:
Apple was already pretty pissed at Nvidia due to the 8600M business. First, Nvidia flatly denied the problem, blaming their suppliers, the OEM manufacturers (which includes Apple) or the users for the dying GPUs. Then Nvidia admitted the problem, but stated only a few manufacturers to be affected. Apple checked themselves – and found different. I don't know if you have read that Apple Knowledgebase article regarding that problem, but there Apple is basically accusing Nvidia of lying.

Now it appears that Nvidia has learned nothing and delivered 9600Ms with exactly the same problem! While there is no acknowledgement of this by Apple (yet – you may remember that it also took a while until Apple acknowledged the 8600M problem), it's more than believable that Apple is now even more pissed at Nvidia.

teflon, on July 3rd 2009, 09:17 AM, said:

Well, they've all got contracts and agreements in order to get the parts for as little as possible. Appleinsider even suggested that it might have been a 3-4 year deal with NV. Even if there wasn't a contract, it would still be a massive pain to simply cut out NV's parts as soon as you decide to stop working with them. Dell would have to relaunch about half their systems, which would mean absolutely tons of Q&A, much better to wait till you've next got a revision anyway and then jump to AMD.

The whole 3-4 year contract thing makes sense, since this would now put Apple and Nvidia in the situation to having to re-negotiate that contract (starting from 2007). This would make it likely to expect a change next year. On the other hand, Apple has a proven history of dropping GPU suppliers on a short term – back then when ATI managed to piss them off by prematurely announcing a new PowerMac.

[Kaoro]

bobbob, on July 2nd 2009, 10:49 PM, said:

For AMD CPUs. I really doubt they're going back to making Intel chipsets, since no one expects the acquisition (sorry) to reverse, and Intel's even trying to stop nVidia from making chipsets for Intel CPUs with integrated memory controllers.

Uhh, this sounds extremely anti-competitive. I'm a surprised this is (apparently) legal.

[teflon]

@charmin: latter not former.

@Janichsan: I wouldn't put it past Apple to put in escape clauses should those companies leak details about product launches. After all, they're already incredibly secretive, so having their stuff announced for them would really really p*ss them off. Also, that was prior to a product launch, with a month or two lead time before the product actually released, and they weren't pushing as many sales as they are now, so disruption would have been minimal to the line and need minimal development (the Geforce 4 was practically just an upclocked Geforce 3 and the Geforce 4MX was a Geforce 2).

Since a new line of MBPs going back to intel chipsets and utilising AMD's latest mobile GPUs would take a good few months to arrange (having to arrange and maintain the same feature sets) at least, since its nowhere near as straightforward as dropping a different GPU in there, Apple might as well at least sit it out during this current current generation and give themselves the 8 months in order to perfect things.

@Kaoro: if Apple went with AMD's GPUs, then they would have to return to Intel for the logic boards. AMD aren't going to go out of their way to custom build a whole new chipset just for Apple, and they too have been in a bit of bother with Intel recently, so aren't likely to stir up that old argument again.

[edddeduck]

A few points I can think of...

1.) Apple did not drop ATI completely they just dropped them from the next set of revisions of Mac hardware, everyone assumes as a warning for the Cube leak.

2.) Even if Apple do drop NV they will still have to support a lot of NV based Mac's if they pull the rug from under them and kick out NV what happens to all the current Mac hardware with NV hardware? No more patches or driver updates? Remember NV write the drivers so if Apple kick them out what happens? How much effort will NV make to update drivers if they have been told they will not have any more business?

3.) This rumor appears to be a little late if this was going to happen I would have expected it before they updated the mini to the 9400 card. Remember the 9000 series issues started to be reported well before the new mini arrived.

4.) It does seem to be a little cutting off your nose to spite your face move. NV have had some failures on some fabrication so you remove all their hardware from your machines and tell them to go hang?

5.) This is all very sketchy and built up from one small point and another till you have this huge conspiracy..... NV has had fab problems, Apple's KB article could be seen as a jibe against NV if you read it and make your own connotations on the language, a supposed deal might be coming up for negotiation, once in the past Apple pulled some cards due to a leak, today is a slow news day, so this means Apple must be dropping NV......


I can see the next round of cards maybe being more of an ATI flavor than NV but as the last round has been most NV this would make sense as Apple tend to swap from one to the other manufacturer. The failure rate might effect this a bit but I don't think Apple would break all ties with NV over some fabrication problems which are not as shocking as some people say. Remember a support forum is where people complain not where people say my 8600 works great thanks!

Then again this is all just my personal guess and I have as much inside knowledge as any reader of Mac Rumors has and no more.

Edwin

[The Liberator]

…But you have a better comprehension of the knowledge.

[Janichsan]

edddeduck, on July 3rd 2009, 04:04 PM, said:

2.) Even if Apple do drop NV they will still have to support a lot of NV based Mac's if they pull the rug from under them and kick out NV what happens to all the current Mac hardware with NV hardware? No more patches or driver updates? Remember NV write the drivers so if Apple kick them out what happens?

Certainly not. The beef between ATI and Apple also didn't completely sever all support for ATI cards. The most likely it "just" means that Nvidia will lose Apple as customer for their chips for at least a couple of years.

Quote

3.) This rumor appears to be a little late if this was going to happen I would have expected it before they updated the mini to the 9400 card. Remember the 9000 series issues started to be reported well before the new mini arrived.

Relatively official reports of an updated mini were already around for quite a while before it was actually released. So it was already in developement at that time. When the reports about the malfunctioning 9600s (only those are affected – not the 9400s) came in, it was probably already too late.

Quote

4.) It does seem to be a little cutting off your nose to spite your face move. NV have had some failures on some fabrication so you remove all their hardware from your machines and tell them to go hang?

"Some" failure? Basically all 8600Ms – not only the ones sold to Apple – appear to have been faulty. Plus emergence of the same problems with the next line of GPUs. Plus Nvidias policy of handling of the whole issue. Plus reportedly arrogant behaviour from Nvidia's side in the re-negotiations of the supplier contract. That adds up...

[edddeduck]

Janichsan, on July 3rd 2009, 07:19 AM, said:

Certainly not. The beef between ATI and Apple also didn't completely sever all support for ATI cards. The most likely it "just" means that Nvidia will lose Apple as customer for their chips for at least a couple of years.

I like the quotes on "just" that was kinda my point. I can see Apple being unhappy but there is a big difference between having the next set of cards being ATI (with some BTO NV cards) and dropping all NV cards from ALL Mac's full stop! I can see the first happening but not the latter.

Janichsan, on July 3rd 2009, 07:19 AM, said:

Relatively official reports of an updated mini were already around for quite a while before it was actually released. So it was already in developement at that time. When the reports about the malfunctioning 9600s (only those are affected – not the 9400s) came in, it was probably already too late.

My point was is Apple was unhappy with ATI and pulled the Radeon card days/hours(?) before a press conference I don't think a few months before even announcement was to late if Apple were really annoyed.

Janichsan, on July 3rd 2009, 07:19 AM, said:

"Some" failure? Basically all 8600Ms – not only the ones sold to Apple – appear to have been faulty. Plus emergence of the same problems with the next line of GPUs. Plus Nvidias policy of handling of the whole issue.

The main claim that ALL chips are faulty (including desktop versions) was by the national inquirer and the link to that story appear to be dead (perhaps the took it down as they could not proof the accusation?). But if NV are lying and that all cards are effected then they have lied to the SEC and all their partners and that would be financial suicide. Out of all of the 8xxx series cards we have had in laptop and desktop including external testers the failure rate (without checking) is well under 10% (i.e. I can think of one Mobo swap in a testers laptop) and the failure rate of machines at Feral is 0%. Yes an issue exists no argument but if 100% of cards are effected I must just know lucky people.

Janichsan, on July 3rd 2009, 07:19 AM, said:

Plus reportedly arrogant behaviour from Nvidia's side in the re-negotiations of the supplier contract. That adds up...

Yeah but it's just that reports and right now the press are playing the beat up on NV game. Just like some members of the press have been playing the same game on Jobs in the last few years, throw enough mud and something will stick.

Not saying this won't happen but it does seem to me to be sensationalizing everything into frenzy. The truth is most likely closer to Apple might not like the negative publicity and as such might have a more ATI heavy lineup for the next gen of cards.

But as I said this is just my thoughts and me playing devils advocate to all mostly wild rumors. A good example is the name of this thread for example. I guess "Apple rumored to be slightly unhappy with NV, ATI cards might be the default card in next upgrade" does not give the publicity.

Edwin

[edddeduck]

Another comment from another rumor(ish) site saying the split is rubbish...

NV deny split

Quote

Apple is still buying Nvidia notebook chips and chipsets and nothing has changed in the last few weeks. Nvidia and Jensen [NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang]himself have a lot of respect for fuss maker Apple, and therefore this relationship has top priority for Nvidia people.

[Janichsan]

Quote

But as I said this is just my thoughts and me playing devils advocate to all mostly wild rumors. A good example is the name of this thread for example. I guess "Apple rumored to be slightly unhappy with NV, ATI cards might be the default card in next upgrade" does not give the publicity.

I have to admit I myself was not too lucky with the thread title one millisecond after clicking the "post" button. "Apple rumoured to dump Nvidia" would have been better, but it was too late by then.

[J'nathus]

edddeduck, on July 3rd 2009, 08:02 AM, said:

The main claim that ALL chips are faulty (including desktop versions) was by the national inquirer and the link to that story appear to be dead (perhaps the took it down as they could not proof the accusation?).

Did you mean The Inquirer?

If you did, and if anyone refers to that site, just take any article found therein with a grain of salt. That site is a known nVidia basher, and much of their articles are filled with a TON of editorial comments to that end.

The Inquirer is entertaining, but I always look at the articles they link to in their 'news' items to get the story.

All-in-all, it doesn't look like Apple is dumping nVidia just yet.

I would like to see more ATI options at apple, but that's just me.