tequila bomb

Grim News for Apple’s MacBook Air Customers…

I am no fan of Intel’s new IGPs in their Core i3,i5 and i7 processors.

This article from ars technica just gives me another reason to be even more disappointed in Intel’s new strategy to squeeze NVIDIA out of the graphics market and foist its own shoddy GPUs on us.

As I, and Chris Foresman in his piece I referenced, pointed out a while back :

A MacBook Air with an Intel Core processor would have to have an Intel IPG, and there would be no room for a second GPU. Intel’s current IPG performance would be a horrible step backwards in GPU power on the MacBook Air. It would be barely able to match the performance of the 9400M, currently offered.

The general consensus seemed to be then that Apple would have to wait until Intel brought out some new ultra portable silicon for the Air…

Well now that Intel has taken the wraps off its latest ULV mobile processors, it seems Apple still has a problem.

Like the rest of Intel’s Arrandale-class mobile processors, these newest ULV models are still saddled with the fair-to-middling Intel HD integrated graphics processor stuck right on the processor package. This updated IGP is certainly an improvement over previous Intel offerings, but it won’t cut it as far as Apple is concerned—the IGP is roughly comparable to Apple’s last-generation NVIDIA 9400M integrated graphics, and isn’t compatible with OpenCL.

Not even offering OpenCL support is something that had not occurred to me about Intel’s IGPs. Not only does that mean that on Apple’s entire Pro lineup you have to go to the second GPU (provided by NVIDIA) to make use of OpenCL. But it also means that on anything that does not have a second GPU provided by someone other than Intel, you are not even going to have the option of OpenCL at the moment. Period.

There simply is not enough room in the MacBook Air’s design to slap a second graphics processor in. Nor will it make for good power consumption. Especially as squeezing all that extra silicon in will probably mean making the battery smaller still.

Sticking with Intel’s older Core 2 Duo processors, which Apple can use NVIDIA GPUs with, is simply going to mean that any MacBook Air update is going to give a negligible performance improvement compared to the current model. (Intel are not releasing any new Core 2 Duos as they push their new range of silicon.)

In short, it seems that until Intel produce better IGPs, or resolve their stupid legal battle with NVIDIA over whether it has the necessary license to make chipsets for Intel’s latest processors, Apple can’t pair these new Core i5 processors with the new NVIDIA 320M currently used in the 13″ MacBook Pro and white MacBook.

So the MacBook Air may well go the way of the PowerBook G4 12″. A slide into obscurity, with no updates for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps it’s time to bring back the PB G4 12″?

I preferred it to the Air anyway. In fact I still use one when I travel.

Boxy is good. The Air looks like a large silver tray by comparison anyway. And the form factor of the old PowerBook G4 12″ fits better with Apple’s new industrial design for the iPhone 4G!