NVIDIA working on first GPGPUs for Macs

One of the biggest complaints I have about Apple’s hardware is the lack of decent graphics cards in their computers. It took until this month for Apple to put a decent card, the NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT, into the Mac Pro. As for the MacBooks, they don’t even have dedicated graphics cards. I understand that cost is an issue with the MacBook, but there are plenty of cheap dedicated cards. The X3100 is a great improvement from the GMA 950, but still not perfect. Apple are learning from their mistakes and improving all the time. I expect the next MacBook Pro will have one of NVIDIA’s new 8800mGT cards.

It pleased me to hear that Apple is working closely with NVIDIA to bringing the first GPGPUs (general-purpose computing on graphics processing units) to Macs. These are a new kind of graphics processors that can perform computations that are normally done by the CPU, allowing the graphics card to do work even in non graphics related applications.

It’s likely that we’ll be seeing Mac-comptaible GPGPUs turning up as build-to-order options for Apple’s Mac Pro workstations due to their ability to aid digital video and audio professionals in sound effects processing, video decoding and post processing. But also because they are very expensive compared to regular graphics cards. But over time, as the production price decreases, this technology will be in the consumer line too.

Via [AppleInsider]