Apple unveils new notebook range, powered by Intel and NVIDIA

16 October 2008

Computer maker Apple unveiled seven new notebooks in three form factors on Tuesday, and at the same time showed its affinity towards two emerging technologies - general purpose processing using specialised graphical processing units (GPUs) and solid state drives (SSDs).

While the new products didn't actually incorporate the former, the use of NVIDIA's GeForce 9400M motherboard lends credence to the theory. In tapping NVIDIA for integrated graphics in the new MacBooks, Apple may be sending signals that its next operating system release will include some general-purpose GPU (GPGPU) computing capabilities.

NVIDIA's graphics processors, of course, support CUDA, the GPU programming language the company has built for software developers. While central processor performance is still of paramount importance in PCs, NVIDIA and its developer partners have already demonstrated that certain parallel computing tasks can be carried out with much greater efficiency on graphics processors than on CPUs. But for now, all general-purpose processing for these notebooks are being carried out by Intel Core 2 Duo processors.

Apple has also embraced SSDs in its new line-up but had kept the option of basic hard disk configurations alive. The two new MacBooks, three MacBook Pros and one of two new MacBook Airs in the latest lineup have 128GB SSD upgrade options from normal hard disk drives. The more expensive of the pair of MacBook Airs, the $2,499, 1.86GHz version, comes with the 128GB SSD in its basic configuration.

Apple's innovation in manufacturing
Another innovation that Apple introduced was in the manufacturing process. Jobs explained that the new notebooks are carved from 2.5-pound, or 1.1-kilogram, blocks of aluminum. He said that the manufacturing process would allow Apple to build more rigid and reliable products.

"It's not only incredibly light but it's very, very strong," he said. "We've been working superhard to build unibody enclosures for some new notebooks."