Mac OS Nehalem support

The upcoming Mac OS X 10.5.7 could support Intel's Nehalem architecture along with AMD's Radeon HD 4000 graphics components, according to netkas. The beta version of the operating system allegedly includes five kernel extensions for the video cards, including the HD 4850 and 4870 chipsets, while enabling Core Image and Quartz Extreme acceleration.

A retrofitted version of Mac OS X 10.5.6 meant for hacked installations was not able to support both DVI ports without using a DVI-VGA adapter, however, while certain screen resolutions were also unavailable.

If true, the Nehalem support adds evidence to the speculation that Apple's upcoming iMac and Mac Pro systems will offer options for Intel's Core i7 or next-generation Xeon platforms.

Any plans to offer an iMac with a Core i7 CPU and NVIDIA chipset could be further delayed, as the two chip-makers are currently involved in a licensing dispute. Intel claims that an existing license does not apply to the new Nehalem-based processors, which would prevent NVIDIA from building compatible chipsets for the new CPUs.

Regardless of the licensing conflict, it remains unknown if Apple will include the expanded hardware support in the public release of Mac OS X 10.5.7. The company could also be testing the kernel extensions for a later version. [via AppleInsider]

by MacNN Staff