Sources close to Apple’s forthcoming PowerBook G4 project (code named Mercury) have confirmed that the new PowerBook will indeed ship with nVIDIA as it”s video subsystem. Exact specifications are still to be determined, but we expect it to be a 16 MB implementation of the company’s GeForce2 chipset.
The consensus from video experts is that the new mobile nVIDIA GeForce2 chips are superior in performance than the ATi Mobility M4. According to sources, nVIDIA has been much more enthusiastic about working with Apple than ATi has been lately. But that may be a result of the animosity that developed after the ATI press release fiasco.
Another factor to consider is that nVIDIA has a more aggressive future road map than ATi. Even the next generation PCI card from ATi, the Radeon 2 MAXX, won’t be able to compete with nVIDIA?s next generation Ultra chips, particularly for memory bandwidth.
Game developers, particularly id Software, have really influenced Apple on the issue of video performance. The ability of nVIDIA’s chips to take load off of the CPU and really saturate the AGP bus is infinitely better than ATi’s capabilities for high-resolution and high-quality 3D graphics.
What is your take on ATi versus nVIDIA for PowerBook video? Will this impact your purchase decision? Is all this funky capitalization really necessary? Use the feedback link below.
