Report: Nvidia at root of 30-inch Apple Cinema Display delays

It's just another delay in Cupertino, or is it? Surprisingly, industry sources aren't beating on Apple over its latest display woes.

Following reports that Apple Computer has delayed its new 30-inch high-definition Cinema display into October, The Inquirer is reporting that the company's third party graphics card supplier Nvidia may be to blame.

According to the report, Apple is "raring to go" forth with the new displays, but Nvidia is unable to produce stable versions of its new GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL card, which are required to power the 2560x1600 pixel mammoths.

"With 6800 Ultras in short supply on the PC, and the marketing machine telling everyone to buy 6800GTs, this special edition 6800 Ultra must be a niche of a niche of a niche - and possibly even less viable to produce."

The report also notes the massive size of the graphics card, suggesting that it is neither cheap nor easy to manufacture.

Based on a statement published on the Apple online store, customers who plan to use the card must automatically surrender an additional PCI slot. "Due to size of this advanced graphics card, the adjacent PCI or PCI-X slot will be blocked and cannot be used. This reduces the number of available PCI or PCI-X slots from three to two."

Apple recently informed customers that it now hopes to ship its 30-inch display, along with the Nvidia graphics card, on or before October 25th.

34 Comments

onlooker 5124 comments · 23 Years

About 20 years ago

That story is obviously somewhat Bull sh*t because it contends that Nvidia manufacturers, and supplies graphics cards. Nvidia does not manufacturer graphics cards.

IBM manufacturers the GPU for nvidia now, and the cards are manufactured by someone different. Nvidia designs the GPU which is working so I don't see Nvidia as to blame here. I wonder who designed the card itself? Apple, and Gainward maybe?

victorgav 4 comments · 20 Years

Quote:

Originally posted by onlooker
That story is obviously somewhat Bull sh*t because it contends that Nvidia manufacturers, and supplies graphics cards. Nvidia does not manufacturer graphics cards.

IBM manufacturers the GPU for nvidia now, and the cards are manufactured by someone different. Nvidia designs the GPU which is working so I don't see Nvidia as to blame here. I wonder who designed the card itself? Apple, and Gainward maybe?

True!

NVidia designs chipsets, which it licenses to board makers.

As I've always understood it, Apple is responsible for designing and manufacturing the actual board, as well as writing and maintaining the necessary drivers.

So, Apple itself is probably the culprit.

hmurchison 11823 comments · 23 Years

Wrong fellas.

Nvidia does make OEM boards that the many manufacturers can use. If they want to add specific functions then they must do the work themselves and writer the drivers but Nvidia does make boards. The 6800 Ultras are constrained everywhere. Apple has nothing to do with this. Funny how people love taking swipes at Apple. Why don't we just blame terrorism on Apple and shut them down \

That still does not prove for fact that NVidia is to blame. Gainward used to supply Apple with their Geforce cards in previous years, and I still don't think that nvidia has the facilities to manufacture a full product line of graphics cards. But if you say so.

I will search and see if I can get confirmation later. I believe the lowend cards are mainly OEM desings from Nvidia. However I doubt they have an OEM for the Dual Link DVI cards .