Nvidia in, Intel out for Apple Mac Mini?
Is Nvidia elbowing out Intel at Apple again? Will the same Nvidia GeForce 9400M chip that caused a small sensation when it dislodged Intel graphics silicon in the MacBook line land in the Mac Mini too?
Is Nvidia coming to the Mac Mini?
(Credit: Nvidia, Apple)Tom's Hardware is speculating that it's Nvidia's Ion platform that is Mini-bound.
But Nvidia's Ion chipset is tied strictly to Intel's Atom processor. It seems unlikely that Apple would demote the Core 2 Duo-based Mini to the slower Atom chip. Though anything is possible with Apple, it seems more likely that Apple will upgrade the ancient Intel GMA 950 graphics to the GeForce 9400M, sans Atom.
Apple could be planning some ultra-small Mini whose thermals can only handle a low-power chip like the Atom z540 (1.86GHz) or dual-core 330 (1.6GHz). Like I said, anything's possible at Apple, but unless there's a good reason I don't think a "new, slower" Mini hobbled by the Atom makes for happy Apple customers.
Brooke Crothers has been an editor at large at CNET News, an analyst at IDC Japan, and an editor at The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, among other endeavors, including co-manager of an after-school math-and-reading center. He writes for the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET. Disclosure. 



Did anyone stop to consider that maybe the NVIDIA Ion isn't the chipset that's going in? I mean, it's not like there aren't any decent mobile (read: thermally compatible) high-performance NVIDIA chipsets that could go in there...
Has this guy been right before?
Why should we believe this rumor now when it was not true for macworld?
Obviously, there are several different issues they would need to address, but a machine like that could serve as both a media player/hub capable of HD, and a simple, cheap desktop machine that you can plug in to any monitor.
Full disclosure: I've been running a Mac mini as my media center machine since they went Intel. Front Row is crispy on the big screen, but I recently switched to Boxee for the awesome Netflix integration. http://www.powerpage.org/archives/2006/03/big_monitor.html (The updated mini is now connected to a 42" Vizio LCD, with optical audio running to an Onkyo 7.1 surround system).
I don't mind watever they put in that thing just release it already !
- by meowser007 February 19, 2009 12:19 AM PST
- Seems to me they'll leave the Core 2 duo in the mac mini but they'll upgrade the graphics on the mac mini. A smaller design would be pretty coll. Maybe it could be a green machine.
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