Is Apple getting ready to give AMD “the talk” about MacBooks?
The graphic capabilities across the entire Apple MacBook product line has been trusted into the capable hands of AMD for a good while now, but things might change between this year and the next, as rumors circulate of plans involving NVIDIA chips powering future generations of Apple MacBooks, with graphic capabilities good enough for high-end gaming, CAD applications, and even VR.
Rumors have been corroborated by as many as three job listings published by NVIDIA, describing applicants who will be required to work on “...the next revolutionary Apple products...”.
While it’s early to speculate on the meaning of the word “revolutionary”, it’s not hard to envision that MacBooks will be part of this revolution, as display resolution grows exponentially in the multi-K realm, alongside with the hardware requirements of games and applications, slowly but steadily raising the bar, and consumers expectations,
If speculations proves to be accurate, it may still be possible for AMD to provide graphic chips to Apple’s more entry-level devices, like the 12 inch MacBook Retina, or the Mac Mini.
Apple has been also rumored to be working on a reboot of the Thunderbolt Display, which may feature an integrated graphic chip made by NVIDIA, that could possibly enable Apple products with lesser graphic hardware to benefit from a boost when connected to these new displays.
By this token, there may also be hope for the aging Apple Mac Pro, a machine that has not seen an update for a few years now, and which some have been fearing might be eventually discontinued, unless Apple has plans to get back into the game of enterprise-grade professional workstations.
AMD has been working on its Polaris chips for a while with discrete results, but NVIDIA’s impressive track record with its latest GTX 10-series, and Titan X may be a little too tough to beat for AMD, this time around, unless the focus is on energy efficiency, which has been AMD’s main selling point so far.
Ready to shop?
If you are looking for the perfect MacBook, PortableOne has you covered with a great selection of Apple MacBooks, as well as expert support.