Could Apple take on Nvidia with an independent graphics card?

If you are fully submerged in the Apple Ecosphere of Products, you may not have noticed a great trend that happens with computing. No we are not talking about AI, even if it is the Hot Trend, it’s something that is actually tied to AI development: graphics card.

You can typically connect graphics cards with games and other video -located persecutions, but AI has had a major impact on the sale of graphics cards. The technique involved can handle AIS large calculations well. Because of this, Nvidia, perhaps the biggest player in the graphics card market, has seen the popularity of its products explode.

Apple has been successful with its M-Series chips for its Macs and iPads. When M1 debuted, it demonstrated the impressive gains over Intel processors, it replaced, and each new M chip continues to show a remarkable speed. Apple Chips has an integrated CPU, GPU and other components, and integration contributes to Apple Silicon Performance and Power Efficiency.

But as the hype around graphics card continues with the launch of the NVIDIA RTX 5070ti, we began to wonder, would Apple ever endeavor to make an independent graphics card? The current M4 chips offer impressive graphics performance, and Apple has mixed with such an endeavor in the past with its proprietary AMD Radeon MPX modules for Mac Pro.

The tight integration of hardware, software and user experience has been a hallmark of Apple’s Modus Operandi. But a separate Apple graphics card could ease the burden by releasing chip updates for MAC Pro and Mac Studio – which currently uses M2 Ultra Chips released in June 2023. There is also the ASUS Thunderbolt 5 egpu for the PC that got us to ever do the same or let such devices back on its Macs.

What Apple -Silicon change meant to graphics

Before we consider the possibilities, let’s look at the recent story with Apple and Graphics hardware. The move to Apple Silicon not only abolished a huge chipmaker from Apple products, it also removed AMD and its Radeon GPUs from the equation. Long a staple of Macs, AMD Radeon Graphics came in various variants ranging from integrated graphics in its MacBook to discreetly free GPUs available to Mac Pro 2019.

Apple once used NVIDIA graphics in Macs, with an NVIDIA graphics card that made its Mac debut with Power Mac G4 in 2001. Apple stopped using NVIDIA GPUs in 2013 to deteriorate by many professionals and enthusiasts. Apple also used ATI graphics cards, but eventually resident Apple AMD.

Which brings us to Apple Silicon. With M-Serieschips, Apple proved that both a high-performance CPU and GPU can exist together in an integrated chip along with RAM and storage. The ultimate goal of this change was to create a huge powerful and effective chip. It succeeded.

Thiago Trevisan

The most prominent example of the sharp infrastructure change is in 2023 Mac Pro, which has the same chassis as 2019 Mac Pro and is clearly designed to use standalone GPUs or MPX modules. M2 Ultra chip with its 24-core CPU, 60-core GPU, 64 GB Unified Memory and 1TB SSD (in the basic configuration) are all integrated into a piece of silicon. The graphics performance of M2 Ultra is probably too many Mac Pro customers, while they are more effective than the power-hungry AMD Radeon MPX modules.

Apple also had its afterburner card, which helped increase the prores performance at Mac Pro 2019. In the end, Apple did what it considered ideal: it created an integrated media engine within the M -Chip itself. So now, without these modules, Mac Pro is a cavernous chassis.

What mac pro users are missing out on

The way MAC Pro with Apple Silicon is currently built, it cannot use graphics cards in its PCI Express extensions. Apple’s GPU is built into its M-Series chip, and the company sees no need to create its own separate GPU card and the performance and efficiency of the compromise.

But it also means that third -party cards are not compatible either. With the performance that Nvidia has on the tap for its latest GeForce RTX 50 series, most serious professionals who are dependent on graphics have probably left Apple. While the M4 is excellent, it still cannot hold a light for Nvidia’s offer in advanced workloads. The M5 Generation of the Apple Silicium will not have broken this gorge either. Apple needs another way to increase graphics performance – if it wants to.

Asus

Historically, Apple has allowed external GPUs (EGPUs) to work with its Intel Macs. Many users would use an EGPU equipped with an AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT to, for example, increase the graphics. But EGPU support was dropped with the contact with Apple Silicon-So you can stop looking at the sick-looking ASUS ROG XG Mobile Thunderbolt 5 EGPU/Dock.

Is there a demand for increased GPU —DEAVATE on a Mac?

The truth is that there may just not be demand in the market for Apple to deliver more graphics power – anyway.

Let’s look at the central Apple consumer who depends on GPU performance and how they differ from the rest of the industry: It is mostly video editors and production studies. As a person editing video (often from 6K or 8K raw formats), the current Apple Silicon offers are more than sufficient, and a more powerful GPU would only make a minor difference. Apple’s amazing coders and decoders also do easy work with many common formats, so the weight here is no longer on raw GPU.

What about those who make 3D creation and graphics-heavy workload? These users have probably used Windows or Linux and Nvidia’s Cuda platform, but for those on Mac, more graphics performance would definitely help. It could even bring users back to macos, users who left because they needed more power, but they miss the Mac experience. This may not be a big enough set of users to lure Apple.

Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry

How about one of the largest growing markets all over the world, games? Apple consumers are in play, just in a different way than on the PC page. Apple has recently made an effort to push Apple Arcade as well as popular games such as Resident Evil 4. With beam pores and good graphics performance from the iPhone 16 Pro, Apple has determined the foundation ready.

On the PC side, gamers want next generation GPUs because the latest titles require radiation tracking and higher resolutions. The way this demand is met is of graphics cards that can be upgraded when needed. I find it unlikely that Apple would give up its idealized vision of an integrated Apple Silicon solution to tackle this user need.

There is also a perception problem: Macs just isn’t seen as a game platform. Randomly the same view is conveyed with the Apple Vision Pro; It is first produced as a productivity unit and entertainment for the second. On the other hand, users of Meta Quest 3 are enthusiast players and increases its reach. Vision Pro has horsepower and resolution for a great gaming experience, but it lacks a great push from Apple and developers. Do you sound familiar? It is another example of how Apple is not very motivated to the gaming market beyond what it has already done, making the adoption of graphics card unlikely.

Even if Apple relieved developers to want to make more games for Mac, the chances of it would do this will do this within the framework of its Apple Silicon Graphics performance.

Thiago Trevisan

The future could be light

Not all bad news for Apple fans dreaming of more graphics power. Apple’s Silicon Macs has impressed every new release, so there’s a good chance that the turtle can actually win the race. Or push straight ahead to have plenty of performance without needing other solutions, which has undoubtedly done already too many.

However, the past cannot be ignored. The Afterburner and MPX modules it offered with Intel Mac Pro show that Apple is willing to meet the needs of niche markets. While it requires some engineering filling and new implementations of the M-series chips, Apple is capable of it and it feels like there is a very distant chance that the company can entertain a free graphic map. But the days of EGPUs working with Macs are probably long behind us. MAC Pro does not face limits on power consumption or size – it is clearly large enough to fit larger Apple Silicon inside.

But just because Apple can do it doesn’t mean it should. When Apple Silicon gets so good that everything is nicely packed in a Mac mini-size graphics power center do users even want an external graphics card? Probably not. The best choice is that Apple continues with its integrated silicon journey as intended. But we can always dream.