Rumor: Nvidia-powered MacBooks on October 14th

Of course these are all rumors, so don't be surprised if 10/14 comes around and there are no changes in Apple's lineup. But the rumors have been adding up -- we've heard for a while that MacBooks were due for a refresh, and we're not the only ones hearing about Nvidia units being included as well. Not to mention that Apple has apparently finally realized that gaming is worth embracing, and the next logical step for a gaming upgrade would be the MBP line.
Don't put money on it, but if you're planning to buy a MacBook and can wait another few weeks, you might want to wait and see. I'm getting close to being in the market for a new laptop, and as a gamer, I'd love to see a MacBook with a little more graphical oomph to it.
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TUAW is hearing from various sources that new MacBooks are right around the corner, and that they might even have some extra Nvidia power...
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Pulling back from the details of an inevitable upgrade to the line of portables at some point, I am just curious about the whole October 14 date that keeps getting thrown out. To the best of my knowledge, it was first put out there by John Gruber on Daring Fireball right after the September iPod event and has been widely thought of as The Date since then. But is anyone aware if that date has come out of any other source? Or is it all this speculation and anticipation based on this one line that Gruber put out there? I don't necessarily doubt him--although his strength is as a thoughtful commentator on Apple matters rather than rumour speculation--I am just curious if any other source has corroborated October 14 as the big day?
October 08 2008 at 6:53 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI just set up a prediction market for whether new notebooks will come out on Oct 14. It lets us all vote and aggregate our opinions into one guess. Here's the link:
http://www.intrade.net/market/detail/?contractId=313685
Go vote!
Hope the new MacBook's support Call of Duty 4 Mac. My old book got broken and now waiting for new release to buy...
October 05 2008 at 7:24 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI don't think that there is going to be as sharp of a line between the MacBook and MacBook pros if and when these new ones come out. If the MacBooks end up with acceptable video processing it will be more like the option for how much power how much screensize do you want rather than well do you want portability or power.
October 05 2008 at 11:29 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyTrue but what a lot of people are looking forward to is going into bootcamp to take advantage of the card.
I spend a lot of time on the road away from my gaming desktop and consoles. Before bootcamp, gaming on the mac was wow and civ iv and that was about it for me. Booting to windows has been pretty nice post-intel chips. And Steam is a godsend.
It's encouraging to see that Apple still likes Nvidia after the bad GPUs fiasco. I think the industry needs Nvidia and kind of closed ranks around them. I have a new MBP with the Nvidia 86XXX chip in there. I guess as long as Apple honors the warranty, as Dell and HP have done, and as long as I am religious about backing up the disk image, I'll go along too. I'm buying Apple Care just to make sure.
October 05 2008 at 5:44 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI purchased the MBP because I needed a dedicated video card for some applications / games. Being an iBook user, I was really disappointed that the intel line (macbooks) had a shared card. I know many users that didn't purchased a macbook because of the video card but they didn't get the macbook pro because of the price... I think Apple's consumer notebook line needs a major upgrade and I'd say a speed bump only for the pro one.
October 05 2008 at 3:20 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI was scrwed!!!! I got my new macbook abot two weeks ago due to my macbook pro breaking ;( this sucks so so so much..
October 05 2008 at 1:07 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThere is no way Apple would make the MacBook with a better/more powerful video card than the MacBookPro or MacBookAir!
October 04 2008 at 9:57 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThe MacBook Air doesn't *HAVE* a powerful graphics card. It runs on the same card as the current MacBook.
Having a *powerful* GPU is great and all, but the fact is Direct X is the dominate Graphics API right now. OpenGL? It's old and dated, and nobody wants to use it for games. Until OpenGL breaks away from legacy CAD support and morphs into a quality graphics API, most AAA titles like HL2, TF2, GoW, [insert most any new game here], will stay DX only.
Macbook Pro with a 8800 is great and all, but if you can only play a handful of new games on it, what's the point?
I think the fact that most of those games only run on Windows interferes with that issue now.
October 04 2008 at 11:31 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHot Apps on TUAW
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