Report: Apple MacBooks Won't Have Intel Chipsets Inside

recently launched Centrino 2 mobile chipsets an AppleInsider report

AppleInsider's Kasper Jade, citing unnamed "people familiar with these plans," reports that unlike Apple's existing line of MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks, which sport chipsets from Intel's older Centrino mobile platform, chipsets in the new notebooks due in six to eight weeks "may have little or nothing to do with Intel at all."

The new MacBooks will continue to feature microprocessors from Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel, reports Jade. The report is somewhat vague in outlining whether this supposed development only applies to Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple's MacBook products. Jade's language suggests he believes the move away from Intel chipsets might apply to Apple desktop computers as well.

Jade further speculates that Apple could be returning to its practice of developing its own chipsets for its PCs. Apple largely developed its own proprietary chipsets for the computers it built around IBM PowerPC processors before moving to Intel hardware in 2006.

Another possibility for Apple would be to strike a deal for chipsets -- one that might already be well in the works, given the next-generation MacBook timeline -- with a third-party vendor. Jade mentions Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia and VIA as possible candidates for that role.

Intel and Apple were contacted for this story but had not replied to inquiries at publication time. AMD, Nvidia and VIA were similarly contacted but had no comment on the rumor.