Alex McLarty of The Mac Gamer has an interesting story on his website. Having traveled to Nvidia’s launch shindig in England (Alex is in the UK folks so don’t feel too jealous…) he reports that what Nvidia is trying to do with its new mobile graphics architecture platform, the Nvidia 9400M, is lure notebook manufacturers away from Intel and its Integrated Graphics.
Intel’s Killing Games…
Alex quotes Mark Rein who famously stated: “Intel are killing games.”
Yes, Intel chips, hence the plural. Mark was referring to the fact that Intel’s Integrated Graphics are weak and cannot run games well at all (and pro apps for that matter). Yet they are, as Alex notes, hugely popular with notebook OEMs because they are cheap. With such large volumes of such machines in circulation it has forced developers of games to develop around them. That of course is bad. Developers are wasting precious development resources trying to make the best out a mass of “low-performers” while ignoring the capabilities of much higher performing (but more rare…and more costly!) mobile GPU architectures.
Nvidia Saves Games…
In comes Nvidia. And with the new 9400M platform you get blazing performance over Intel’s Integrated Graphics — as demonstrated beautifully in Apple’s newest MacBooks.
So is Apple in love with Nvidia now? Is that why two Intel executives recently got scolded for bashing the iPhone at an Intel developer summit in Asia? First the uncertainty of the PA Semi acquisition and now the Nvidia 9400M. Both of those moves amply demonstrate that Jobs & Co. have no cronies in Cupertino. For them, it’s all business, all the time. And so…while it may not be love, it certainly isn’t getting any warmer between Apple and Intel.
To read Alex’s complete post go here.