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> Thanks to Intel, Apple's laptops need to add an extra graphics chip to their already-crowded motherboards. Not precisely. In the latest generation of chips

> Thanks to Intel, Apple's laptops need to add an extra graphics chip to their already-crowded motherboards. Not precisely. In the latest generation of chips this is in on-die. Apple doesn't have to add Intel's integrated graphics to their motherboard, Intel ships all their chips with their integrated graphics cores inside them, sort of (but technically slightly different than) how they ship their chips with L2 caches inside them already. Intel may well be being dicks about licensing, but to ask for a westmere i7 without Intel's integrated graphics is asking for them to spin a different die process. (Though they did do that for Apple once IIRC.) Overall, the fact that it's there isn't a huge issue, people who don't like it just turn it off and use an off-package graphics card. I think this is more about the licensing issues than Intel needing to offer another die.

wmf 16y ago
No, the point is that Apple has to add an extra non-Intel GPU because the integrated Intel GPU sucks. What was a two-chip system (Core 2 Duo + NVidia 9400) is now a three-chip system (i5 + PM55 + NVidia GPU).
- djcapelis 16y ago
  Right, but that isn't because Intel won't release a different mobile i7 die. It's because they're not letting nvidia legally ship a chip that interfaces with the new Intel chips. It's a licensing issue, not a die construction issue. The fact that all the mobile i7 dies happen to contain Intel's integrated graphics is irrelevant.
wtallis 16y ago
The memory controller and graphics core in Arrandale aren't on-die, but they're in the same package. This, and the fact that the GPU/memory controller is still built on a 45nm process, makes for a much bigger package - according to an earlier Ars article, the new package is twice the size of what's in the MacBook Air. It would be relatively easy (and not entirely unprecedented) for Intel to build a CPU-only Arrandale in a smaller package for Apple if they would let NVidia supply the memory controller as part of their chipset.
- djcapelis 16y ago
  Yes, apologies, I play fast and loose with die/package terminology and I should be careful to be more accurate. Anyways, your points are all quite right and Apple has asked for and gotten smaller packages before. I still think the licensing issues trump the package issues and that more relates to Intel absorbing the northbridge onto the die. (That one actually did go on-die not just on-package I think?) It just seems silly to blame an unrelated change that added an on-package IGP for these issues. I mean I know people have an irrational hatred for Intel's IGPs for some reason, but blaming them for the nvidia license dispute issues that are about the northbridge going on-die? I just don't get it.

wmf 16y ago

No, the point is that Apple has to add an extra non-Intel GPU because the integrated Intel GPU sucks. What was a two-chip system (Core 2 Duo + NVidia 9400) is now a three-chip system (i5 + PM55 + NVidia GPU).

djcapelis 16y ago
Right, but that isn't because Intel won't release a different mobile i7 die. It's because they're not letting nvidia legally ship a chip that interfaces with the new Intel chips. It's a licensing issue, not a die construction issue. The fact that all the mobile i7 dies happen to contain Intel's integrated graphics is irrelevant.

wtallis 16y ago

The memory controller and graphics core in Arrandale aren't on-die, but they're in the same package. This, and the fact that the GPU/memory controller is still built on a 45nm process, makes for a much bigger package - according to an earlier Ars article, the new package is twice the size of what's in the MacBook Air. It would be relatively easy (and not entirely unprecedented) for Intel to build a CPU-only Arrandale in a smaller package for Apple if they would let NVidia supply the memory controller as part of their chipset.

djcapelis 16y ago
Yes, apologies, I play fast and loose with die/package terminology and I should be careful to be more accurate. Anyways, your points are all quite right and Apple has asked for and gotten smaller packages before. I still think the licensing issues trump the package issues and that more relates to Intel absorbing the northbridge onto the die. (That one actually did go on-die not just on-package I think?) It just seems silly to blame an unrelated change that added an on-package IGP for these issues. I mean I know people have an irrational hatred for Intel's IGPs for some reason, but blaming them for the nvidia license dispute issues that are about the northbridge going on-die? I just don't get it.