An interesting discussion is starting between Intel and press/analysts on what they are going to do about losing the design win for Apple’s MacBook’s and MacBook Pro’s choice chipset, as we predicted and saw this week.  Obviously Intel still provides all the processors in Apple’s complete line of computers but the loss of the chipset in the design could cause a domino effect on an industry that tends to follow what Apple begins. 
 
Here was Intel’s comment:

“Intel continues to have a strong relationship with Apple. Graphics is a competitive market and we compete for all new business. Intel’s technology is integrated throughout Apple’s product line but we didn’t win this particular design.” 

Don’t forget though that Intel is still the chipset in other product lines including the iMac and Mac Pro.  Maybe that will be changing as we enter the new year…  MacWorld will be on us before you know it.

Yesterday, Apple refreshed its MacBook line of notebook computers. As was widely rumored, Apple announced a new graphics provider to replace the Intel integrated graphics that was used on the previous MacBook.

NVIDIA replaced Intel as the graphics supplier with the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M sporting 256MB of RAM shared with main system memory. Steve Jobs himself says that the new NVIDIA GPUs deliver five times the graphics power that the notoriously underpowered Intel X3100 integrated graphics system in previous generation MacBooks could muster.