Apple

Nvidia is again at the center of a graphics tempest in the media, this time surrounding performance issues of Apple's new 17-inch MacBook Pro. Two little pesky questions haven't been answered yet, however. Are Nvidia graphics chips really the problem? And are the issues really that widespread?

Postings in an Apple discussion forum cite a smorgasbord of problems: Some cite the Nvidia GeForce 9600M, while others point to issues with fan speed. Another post points to faulty wiring and another to the main processor (i.e., Intel). But this is just one forum. Does this really indicate widespread problems?

Does the Apple MacBook Pro 17-inch unibody have chip issues?

(Credit: Apple)

I haven't heard back from Apple. Nvidia had no comment Monday.

So, I spoke with a few people who have informed insights into potential problems. Not all would speak on the record, however. Jon Peddie of Tiburon, Calif.-based Jon Peddie Research, which tracks the graphics chip market and does testing on graphics chips, said he hasn't tested the new MacBook Pro yet. Generally speaking, however, a GPU problem of this sort would dictate a BIOS change to adjust the fan speed (one of the possible solutions proposed already). Or, if it's more serious, the graphics board would need to be replaced. (BIOS stands for basic input-output system; GPU stands for graphics processing unit; CPU stands for central processing unit.)

"If either of those conditions were true, Apple would be issuing an alert," he said. The alternative is for Apple to deal with the alleged problem on a piecemeal basis, one customer at a time, Peddie said.

The latter scenario--the status now--of course leads to a lot of speculation and attempted diagnoses among users.

I also contacted another analyst, Linley Gwennap, principal analyst at the The Linley Group. He made some obvious points but important in the context that it's not necessarily the GPU. Basically he said that if any chip exceeds the "thermal design budget," the system becomes unstable.

Other people I contacted (who wished to remain anonymous) said the issue appears to be more of a fan issue than a GPU issue. But the jury is still out. And, let's be clear, Nvidia has been faulted for past MacBook glitches. The most recent being in October. Will Nvidia be perpetually plagued by fallout from past problems? The 1994 Pentium FDIV bug was an Intel albatross for years.

I see another ancillary issue--not necessarily directly related to the MacBook Pro issue discussed above--that needs to be addressed. Here's the proposition: you want better graphics but you also want a sleek laptop like the Apple MacBook Pro. Well, if you're pushing the outside of the graphics-performance envelope, something's got to give. It's like saying: I want a car that goes from zero to 60 in under four seconds but with low emissions.

The truth is high-performance discrete GPUs and Intel CPUs--even the ones with the "m" (for "mobile") suffix--will sometimes wreak havoc when they're stressed inside enclosures only 1-inch high (i.e., many laptops). But I'm stating the obvious (I think). Anyone who has maxed out a relatively high-performance GPU or CPU in a laptop knows the real meaning of the euphemism "uncomfortably hot"--a phrase often used in discussion forums.

Overheating results in a lot of unpleasant (and sometimes seemingly unrelated) surprises, including BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death), automatic (arbitrary) shutdown, and, as in the case of the MacBook Pro, graphics artifacts.

Some people will always point their finger at Nvidia (or ATI) but I submit that some of those people experiencing problems would be the first to raise a stink if Nvidia didn't offer a high-performance laptop graphics chip to run Crysis at the frame rates and resolutions they demand. Yes, a product should work as advertised but there are limits to what a GPU (or CPU) can do inside the thermally challenged, cramped quarters of a laptop.

Not that Nvidia is absolved of any and all crimes. Far from it. As I stated above, Nvidia has had its share of problems that were its own fault. But even Intel's integrated graphics (theoretically the most power efficient) has heat gotchas of its own. Heat has been an issue in the first version of the Intel-graphics-based MacBook Air (when playing video)--which I can vouch for since I own a first-generation MBA. And I have another laptop (from a top-five PC maker) with integrated graphics that immediately heats up (and sometimes overheats) when running video.

But back to discrete GPUs. If you want desktop-level graphics in your sleek laptop, then you're going to have to take the heat and, consequently, in some cases--if you push the graphics card--instability and graphics anomalies. That doesn't make it right. It's just a fact of life.

The MacBook might be getting changes inside and out in the next several weeks.

(Credit: Apple)

Apple might have decided its partnership with Intel doesn't mean it has to use all of Intel's products.

AppleInsider reports that Apple could be using a chipset from a different company--or even an internally developed one--in the next iteration of the MacBook, expected to arrive in the next six or eight weeks. Like other notebook vendors, Apple had been using Intel's mobile Centrino chipsets in its MacBook line ever since 2006 but it's going to pass on the Montevina version of those chipsets this time around, according to the report.

Intel has done an excellent job reinventing the company around mobile processors, starting with the original Pentium M design back in 2004 and carrying forward to today's Core 2 Duo. But it has done a much less stellar job with the integrated graphics chipsets that connect those processors to the rest of the system, such as the memory chips and hard drives.

Most notebooks use integrated graphics chipsets over discrete graphics chips to cut down on power consumption, but the graphics performance of Intel's chipsets leave a lot to be desired. Microsoft was less-than-thrilled about the performance of the chipsets that were scheduled to arrive with Windows Vista, and Intel has had problems getting other chipsets to live up to their promise.

If it's an internally designed chipset that Apple has in place for the new systems, history would be repeating itself at the company, which used to design much of the internal hardware that went along with IBM's PowerPC chips back in the day. Apple recently acquired a passel of chip designers from P.A. Semi, but Steve Jobs has said those folks are working on future chips for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

AppleInsider thinks Apple might have contracted with Advanced Micro Devices or Via for the new chipsets, but offers no details on what might actually be inside the new systems. Given Nvidia's huge mobile chipset problem this summer, it is probably not in the running if Apple's looking at other suppliers.

In other pending MacBook news, Computerworld reports that the new systems will arrive in September with glass touchpads, which seems a bit curious. Glass might allow for all kinds of trackpad-oriented multitouch goodness, but it seems like a warranty nightmare to me.

The new notebooks are expected to borrow design cues from the MacBook Air and bring the aluminum casing on the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air to the MacBook.

AMD is looking to put a troubled 2007 behind it with a pair of announcements Tuesday highlighting its desktop chipsets and manufacturing advances.

The company plans on Tuesday at the CeBit conference to unveil its most up-to-date integrated graphics products for low- to mid-range desktop PCs in the new 780 series chipsets. The chipsets allow moderately priced PC buyers to run games based on the DirectX10 technology and to get additional performance out of discrete graphics cards if they need more juice.

Integrated graphics chipsets are used in the majority of PCs sold in the world. They're designed to provide PC users with basic graphics technology at a lower cost than adding a discrete graphics chip from a company like Nvidia or ATI.

AMD was a little late to the party when it comes to delivering a standardized CPU and chipset combination, but its acquisition of ATI Technologies allowed it to catch up to Intel. Intel's integrated graphics division has struggled over the past few years, and AMD has tried to seize upon that weakness as a competitive balance to Intel's current advantage in just about every other part of the market.

The support for Microsoft's DirectX 10 technology allows more sophisticated games designed using the technology to run on AMD-based PCs, said Niles Burbank, a product manager in AMD's graphics division. Perhaps not nearly as well as those games would on a more expensive gaming system, but at least they will work.

And if customers of a 780-series PC decide they'd like a little more performance, they can use AMD's Hybrid Graphics technology to add in a discrete graphics card and get the combined benefit of both the integrated graphics and the discrete card. According to AMD, most times the integrated graphics technology in a generic chipset is disabled when a PC owner adds a discrete card to the mix.

PCs using the chipsets will start arriving in the second quarter from all of AMD's current partners, including the big guys like Hewlett-Packard and Dell. There will be two varieties, the 780G with more performance and the 780V for the truly cost-conscious buyer.

AMD is also using CeBit, held in Hannover, Germany, to make a manufacturing announcement related to its chip-making factories in Dresden. The company will formally announce that it has begun shipping samples of "Deneb" and "Shanghai," its first 45-nanometer processors for desktops and servers, respectively.

Deneb and Shanghai are essentially shrunken versions of the integrated quad-core Phenom and Barcelona processors introduced last year. AMD is well behind Intel in introducing 45-nanometer processors, as Intel's first models shipped in November, and has set an ambitious goal of switching from 65nm chipmaking technology to 45nm technology in 18 months; it usually takes 2 years.

When a high-ranking executive at your strongest partner openly thinks your technology "barely works," perhaps it's time to make that a higher priority.

A series of internal Microsoft e-mails discussing Intel's 915 and 945 integrated graphics chipsets in unfavorable terms made its salacious way around the Internet this week. Microsoft is currently being sued over its Windows Vista upgrade programs, which were designed with pressure from Intel, but over the objections of the PC industry, to include support for a graphics chipset that couldn't run Vista's Aero interface.

In February 2007, just after Vista launched, Microsoft's Steve Sinofsky told CEO Steve Ballmer that the 945 chipset, required for the "Vista Premium Ready" logo, could barely run Vista. And everyone (inside the PC industry, at least) knew the widely used 915 chipset that was awarded the "Vista Capable" logo couldn't even think about running the advanced display driver model used to deliver the fancy Aero interface, considered one of the major selling points of Vista.

Juicy stuff, for sure, but it's old news that Intel and Microsoft have been in engaged in "coopetition" for years. The real lesson is just how badly even Microsoft thinks of the current state of integrated graphics.

Intel likes to mention that it's the world's leading supplier of graphics technology. The only reason it can claim that mantle, however, is because people like bargains, and the way they get those bargains is through the use of integrated graphics chipsets.

Around 75 percent of the notebooks, and around 60 percent of the desktops, sold last year used integrated graphics chips. The rest use discrete graphics chips made by Nvidia and AMD that offer far more powerful performance for games and video.

The integrated graphics chips, usually thought of as "good-enough graphics," really aren't that good. Intel has had loads of problems with its graphics chipsets and their support for PC games or other intense graphical programs. Most of that software will run, but not in an ideal fashion, and lots of people expect that shiny new PC to be able to run PC games without fits and starts or jerky gameplay.

Intel has put the 915 and 945 chipsets behind it, but challenges remain. It still encountered problems with the release of the 965 chipset, and the G30 series has yet to make it into notebook PCs. This area represents arguably Intel's most glaring weakness at present.

The company has shown it's getting more serious about graphics, hiring more engineers and focusing some of its design prowess on projects like Larrabee. And it tried to take a big step forward in the performance of its 965-series integrated graphics chipsets by adding support for functions like transform and lighting. It had lots of problems delivering drivers for that chipset, however, and when those drivers arrived, they didn't deliver a uniform boost in performance.

Nvidia and AMD are way ahead when it comes to understanding how to build graphics chips. Nvidia has been doing this for years, and AMD recognized the growing importance of graphics when it acquired (for far more than it should have paid, however) ATI Technologies in 2006.

Graphics chips and CPUs like the Core 2 Duo are two very different beasts, but the wholesale embrace of multicore processor designs means that at some point, graphics technology becomes just a core on the main chip. AMD is well underway with planning for its Fusion processor and Nvidia seems to be eyeing broader uses for its high-powered graphics chips.

This is Intel's next great challenge, now that it has thankfully derailed the March of Itanium and soothed the burns from the Netburst architecture.

It needs to somehow get up to speed with Nvidia and the former ATI when it comes to graphics knowledge while keeping an eye on the rest of its business. Intel has found it difficult in recent years to break into new areas, such as flat-screen TVs or cell phones, that have very different processing requirements and architectures than the CPU.

But those other bets were just that, bets. This time, Intel has no choice. Intel can't afford to fall behind as the PC industry changes; it's one thing to swing and miss when trying something new, it's quite another to miss the mark on your home turf.

By the time Windows 7 rolls around, Intel will need to do better than "barely works."

As rival AMD was preparing to snap up graphics chipmaker ATI Technologies, Intel was considering topping AMD's offer or going after Nvidia, according to one of the company's top executives.

In an interview with The Inquirer, Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's digital enterprise group, said Intel looked "pretty closely" at making a play for Nvidia or ATI, the two largest graphics chip companies in the world. Obviously, that never happened, as AMD closed its acquisition of ATI last year and Nvidia continues on as a standalone company.

Intel's Pat Gelsinger addresses attendees of the company's Fall 2007 Intel Developer Forum.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News.com)

Intel had some unique concerns that checked its ambitions, according to Gelsinger. "One issue was that we didn't know if we could because, if number one buys number two or three, what happens regulatory-wise?" Intel is the leading supplier of graphics technology for PCs because of its integrated graphics chipsets, and if it were to acquire a dominant share of the graphics market to augment its dominant share of the PC processor market, the U.S. government (well, perhaps the next administration) might have sat up and taken notice. And European regulators, currently hounding Intel on that continent, would almost assuredly have objected to the deal.

But graphics processors aren't just about rendering pretty pictures anymore. One of the real reasons graphics technology is attractive to both Intel and AMD is because graphics chips are very good at processing a stream of instructions at high speeds. That's why AMD bought ATI, and it has plans to integrate graphics chips directly onto a PC processor in 2009, a project known as Fusion.

Right now, those chips are designed to handle graphics data, but there's no reason why they couldn't be used for other applications that require high-performance computing, as long as the industry can figure out a way to program for those chips.

"The key transition (we're going through now) is in the graphics programming model," Gelsinger told The Inq. "The issue (GPU makers) have is making the pipelines more programmable, and we have the most programmable model on the planet--IA." IA (Intel Architecture) is Intel's term for the x86 instruction set; the company likes to remind everyone whenever possible that it came up with that idea.

Instead of teaching programmers how to exploit graphics chips, Intel's plan is to develop a project called "Larrabee" that will build a x86-compatible chip with the performance of a graphics chip. "Larrabee ends the debate on GPGPUs (general purpose graphics processing units)," Gelsinger said at the Beijing Intel Developer Forum in April. "This is what developers want." Both Fusion and Larrabee won't turn into products for a long time, so developers will have plenty of time to decide which model will prevail.

Check out the rest of The Inq's entertaining interview with Gelsinger, as well as the first two parts posted earlier in the week and the final part scheduled for tomorrow.

It appears that Intel still has some work to do in getting its act together on PC graphics.

New drivers for the company's 965GM chipset, found in many notebooks and midrange desktops, still don't deliver the uniform performance increases promised earlier this year, according to testing by CNET Labs. My colleague Julie Rivera benchmarked three games on a PC with both the older drivers and the newer ones, and concluded that while some improvements could be detected, the new drivers don't do nearly enough to improve performance across multiple games.

This graphic may come in clearly, but Intel's 3D graphics performance isn't quite up to snuff.

(Credit: Intel)

Integrated graphics are the budget-friendly way of getting 3D images displayed on your PC. They are built into the processor's chipset, which saves a ton of money for both the PC builder and the end customer compared with powerful but expensive discrete graphics cards from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices. Serious gamers tend to buy more powerful configurations, or build their own systems, but casual gamers intrigued by popular titles like Quake or F.E.A.R. might not realize they need the extra performance.

So last year, Intel decided it was going to make a leap in the 3D graphics performance to make popular games more enjoyable on low-cost hardware. The 965 started shipping last September, but for some reason it took Intel nearly a year to write the drivers needed to unlock that performance, finally releasing them in August.

According to the tests, it wasn't enough. F.E.A.R. did see a noticeable boost in performance with the new drivers, but Quake 4 performance was about the same compared with the older driver. And Company of Heroes was well below the expected performance of such a game, even when Rivera used the settings recommended by Intel.

Better graphics are definitely on Intel's radar these days, but it could be awhile before the greater emphasis turns into products. Many Intel-based PCs on sale right now use an updated chipset with better graphics performance, but if you want to play 3D games--even just now and then--it's probably best to suck it up and buy the more expensive configuration with a discrete graphics card. CNET Reviews can help you choose which one suits your needs.

With the next two generations of Intel's chips set in place, the company is looking forward to a low-power future.

So said Intel CEO Paul Otellini in his keynote address kicking off the Intel Developer Forum at San Francisco's Moscone Center on Tuesday. Intel will launch the server and high-end desktop versions of its Penryn generation of chips on November 12, in line with previous reports to expect those chips before the Thanksgiving holiday. And Intel has also completed the design for Nehalem, a more radical overhaul of the company's chip blueprints.

The more interesting news was Otellini's goals for Intel over the rest of the decade. The company plans to ship a generation of processors on its 45-nanometer manufacturing technology by 2009 that come with graphics integrated right onto the processor, similar to what rival Advanced Micro Devices has planned for its Fusion chips. Intel will be investing in a joint venture with KDDI, a Japanese telecom company, with plans to build a WiMax network in Japan. And as expected, Intel talked up its low-power chips for MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices), with plans to reduce the power consumption of its handheld computer chips by a factor of 10 compared with the Silverthorne processor, expected next year.

This is all part of Intel's search for growth, which has meandered a bit this decade. Still, you've got to have a strategy for the future, especially as the PC market matures over the next five to 10 years. That appears to have three legs: first of all, don't squander the base market of PC and server processors.

To accomplish that, Otellini has implemented a more gradual series of manufacturing transitions that makes sure the company doesn't try to introduce a new architecture with a new manufacturing technology, and that it doesn't go too long in between revisions to its chips. The hope is that this prevents AMD from catching it napping and losing significant chunks of market share, which is probably the best description of the years from 2002 to 2006.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini addresses hardware developers and the media to kick off the 2007 Intel Developer Forum.

(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET News.com)

The second is graphics. AMD is forcing Intel's hand a bit in this area, with its purchase of ATI Technologies last year and the resulting plans for Fusion. Intel ships more graphics technology than anybody else on the planet, but that's only because it ships so many low-cost integrated graphics chipsets in desktops and notebooks, not because that graphics technology is extremely compelling. But the company wants to improve its performance in that area, hiring engineers and purchasing companies like Havok to improve its hardware and software expertise in graphics technology.

And in the long term, Intel will attack the graphics market by accelerating the pace at which it develops graphics technology by using its most advanced manufacturing processes. Historically, Intel's integrated graphics products used older manufacturing technology too antiquated for cutting-edge processors, but that's changing.

In 2009 Intel will ship a processor that has 45nm graphics technology built onto the chip, and in 2010 it will introduce a chip for which both the CPU and the graphics technology were designed for the 32nm manufacturing technology slated for production during that timeframe, Otellini said. And for the high end of the market, and possibly the discrete graphics market currently owned by Nvidia and ATI, Intel will produce a processor called Larrabee with many configurable cores and a shared cache memory. Otellini said Intel will demonstrate Larabee in 2008, but didn't share launch plans.

The third area of focus is mobility. Intel wants to be part of whatever design becomes the most popular mobile device. Having shed its ambitions for mobile phones, it now plans to compete directly against the smart phone industry with the MID, sort of a handheld notebook PC that hasn't really attracted much interest as of yet.

In 2008 Intel will introduce Silverthorne, and beyond that an x86 processor called Moorestown for low-power devices like MIDs. There's no evidence at all that people want MIDs right now, but Otellini thinks that if Intel continues to reduce the power consumption of its chips, the designs and software for MIDs will continue to improve.

Those devices will have to connect to the Internet somehow to compete against smart phones that use cellular networks for voice and data. And Intel thinks that network will be WiMax. The company is working with Sprint and Clearwire to get WiMax service going in the U.S., and it will hit Japan with WiMax as part of its joint venture with KDDI.

So that's what Otellini said. As always, it's interesting to note what he didn't say. He didn't mention Microsoft once during his presentation, at least that I noticed. He didn't mention Viiv or any of Intel's previous efforts to develop PCs for the living room. And Itanium seems to have finally crawled offstage, at least as far as the CEO is concerned. Keynote speeches later today from Pat Gelsinger and tomorrow from Dadi Perlmutter and Anand Chandrasekher might clear up some of those questions, but it's always interesting to see what the CEO's priorities are during one of his biggest speeches of the year.

Stay tuned for more coverage of IDF, including a talk later today with Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, and much more on the future of mobile devices tomorrow.

Owners of PCs with Intel's 965 chipsets can finally download drivers that will immediately improve the performance of games running on those systems.

The 965 chipsets were supposed to be a dramatic step forward for integrated graphics performance. Most PCs come with graphics technology built right onto the chipset that connects the processor to memory and the rest of a PC. Serious gamers opt for discrete graphics made by Nvidia or AMD's ATI division, but most people save a little money and get the basic graphics.

Intel wanted to make an integrated graphics chipset with more powerful graphics performance that would allow basic PC users to play some of the latest and greatest 3D games when it shipped the 965. But it has been unable to write the drivers needed to enable that performance until now.

Windows XP drivers are available here, but if you're on a Vista PC with Intel's 965 chipset, you'll have to wait a little longer. Intel put together a video here that shows the improved performance of PCs with the new drivers.

Nvidia painted a pretty picture in the graphics market during the second quarter.

The company's market share soared by 81 percent compared with a year ago, as it overtook AMD's ATI division and erased some of Intel's lead in the market for PC graphics, according to new data from Jon Peddie Research. Intel held 37.6 percent of the market in the second quarter, while Nvidia garnered 32.6 percent and AMD had 19.5 percent.

Intel holds the lead in graphics by virtue of its integrated graphics chipsets, which ship with low-end desktops and lots of notebooks. Nvidia and AMD also make integrated graphics chipsets, but are better known for the high-powered graphics processors that come in more expensive PCs. Nvidia ruled the roost in the desktop market, but Intel has a sizable advantage in notebooks, thanks to its Centrino marketing program, which encourages PC makers to use Intel's mobile chipsets.

AMD's market share fell 19 percent as it integrates the former ATI into its operations. AMD launched a new series of ATI graphics hardware later than some had anticipated, which may have contributed to its market share woes.

Overall, the graphics market was up 3 percent compared with the first quarter, a reflection of strong demand for PCs that also helped PC processor shipments increase in the second quarter. Graphics shipments were up 8.2 percent compared with last year.