MacBook Pro with 2 NVIDIA GPUs? WHY!?

Seth Weintraub
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October 13, 2008
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Engadget/Gizmodo's tipster is saying that the new MacBook Pros will have 2 NVIDIA GPUs.  A lot of people are wondering why 2?  Perhaps it has a lot to do with Snow Leopard and Open CL:

OpenCL

Another powerful Snow Leopard technology, OpenCL (Open Computing Language), makes it possible for developers to efficiently tap the vast gigaflops of computing power currently locked up in the graphics processing unit (GPU). With GPUs approaching processing speeds of a trillion operations per second, they’re capable of considerably more than just drawing pictures. OpenCL takes that power and redirects it for general-purpose computing.

More on OpenCL...

here.

Comments (11)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 13, 2008 - 9:00pm

I am praying that Apple releases a Matte version of the MacBook Pro.
Because I am almost 100% certain that the matte version are more popular, as well as the fact that more professionals hate the idea of a glossy screen!

Please, please God, let there be a matte version!

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 13, 2008 - 9:29pm

They won't do matte finishes. The glossy sells much better due to the clarity of the screen. Sorry.

TPA8580 | October 14, 2008 - 5:44am

 Absolutely not true, matte screens sell way more on the MBP than versions with a glossy screen.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 13, 2008 - 10:43pm

its called a screen cover. they're very thin

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 13, 2008 - 11:45pm

There is no god.

M (not verified) | October 13, 2008 - 10:00pm

Umm.. its very common knowledge that anyone working at a professional level with any type of design work prefers matte, which at a macbook pro level shows that that model would be more popular. Glossy sells on 13" macbooks, not so much on 17" macbook pros.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 13, 2008 - 11:41pm

To answer the question about the two GPUs...

One is the chipset GPU that all MacBooks get and the other is the discrete GPU that you would expect on a PRO anyway.

It's NOT, however, two discrete GPUs that you're sort of suggesting with your post.

It's new well documented feature of the nvidia chipset called 'Hybrid SLI'.

When the computer is idling, the discrete GPU is switched off to allow power saving. You don't need a dicrete GPU for surfing....

Anyway, it's not a completely new feature. A few Sony notebooks come to mind. In those cases I think you had to resttart the computer however. I think the new Hybrid SLI is more like throttling- automatic.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 14, 2008 - 3:40am

Super fast! Boom!

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 14, 2008 - 4:33am

just wanna point out that this makes the photos that leaked all the way up to cnet real, not fake

Macdimar (not verified) | October 14, 2008 - 4:49am

Personally, I think this picture is shopped. The upper left corner and the upper right corner of the screen just don't match 'perspective-wise'. Besides, the power cable on the right is much sharper than the typography on the bottom of the screen border. This doesn't make sense since the distance to both objects isn't that much different.
I'm guessing it's a iPhone border shopped onto a MBA.

Macdimar (not verified) | October 14, 2008 - 12:10pm

Seems like l have to change my 'perspective' on that comment! ;-)