Next-Gen MacBooks To Adopt Intel Sandy Bridge, Drop NVIDIA GPUs

Without a doubt, Intel's forthcoming Sandy Bridge CPUs represent one of the hottest topics right now, but if you add to that Apple's next-generation MacBooks, then things are bound to get nothing short of “explosive”.

So, according to AppleInsider, it seems that the Cupertino-based company plans to continue its strong relationship with Intel by adopting its forthcoming Sandy Bridge processors for its entry-level 13-inch MacBook notebooks, Intel's new CPUs providing enough graphics horsepower for the needs of the aforementioned portable computing systems by Apple.

Furthermore, the same source seems to point out that future MacBook Pros will also move to a different platform, with AMD's Vision mobile GPUs being rumored as the solutions of choice used for handling the more intense graphics requirements of the 15 and 17-inch Apple machines.

As you might have noticed, there's one big name missing from all of this, namely NVIDIA, Apple's previous main graphics card supplier.

There are several reasons why NVIDIA's GPUs might not find their way too soon into Apple systems, most of these problems being related to the licensing problems the company's facing as far as Intel' Sandy Bridge lineup is concerned.

Of course, given Apple's relatively limited (yet constantly increasing) market share in the field of portable computing solutions and NVIDIA's overall performance in the segment, we're pretty sure that the GPU manufacturer won't suffer too much on a financial level from the loss of the Apple “account”, but the blow in terms of company image will certainly be a serious one.

Oh well, guess that we'll have to wait a bit more and see how things play out, but, without a doubt, the first half of 2011 is shaping up to be a pretty exciting one, and Sandy Bridge is the main “culprit” for all of these market changes.