Apple on Tuesday unveiled re-freshed lineup of its MacBook family of personal computers that now feature higher-performance Intel Core 2 Duo processors as well as new enclosures that are now made from a single piece of aluminum. In addition, Apple also decided to switch from Intel Corp.’s chipsets with built-in graphics cores to Nvidia’s chipsets due to higher performance.

“Apple has invented a whole new way of building notebooks from a single block of aluminum. And, just as important, they are the industry’s greenest notebooks. The new MacBooks offer incredible features our users will love – like their stunning all-metal design, great 3D graphics and LED backlit displays – at prices up to $700 less than before,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive.

Traditionally notebooks are made from multiple parts. With the new MacBook, Apple replaced all of those parts with just one part that the company calls the “unibody”. According to the company, the new type of enclosures is more reliable. It should be kept in mind that unibody does not mean that the whole notebook is made out of a monolithic piece of aluminum: the body still consists of two pieces.

“The MacBook’s unibody enclosure is made from a single block of aluminum, making the new MacBook fundamentally thinner, stronger and more robust with a fit and finish that we’ve never even dreamed of before,” said said Jonathan Ive, Apple’s senior vice president of industrial design.

The new family of MacBook computers – including MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air systems – are now based on a mobile Nvidia nForce core-logic with integrated GeForce 9400M graphics core. While the core only features 16 stream processing units, according to Apple, it is still five times faster compared to integrated graphics by Intel Corp. that was utilized earlier.

Other features and capabilities of the new Apple Macintosh laptops remained similar to predecessors: dual-core Intel Core 2 Duo microprocessors, 1GB or 2GB DDR2/DDR3 memory, discrete Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT/9600M GT graphics processor on select models, up to 320GB hard disk drive or up to 128GB solid-state drive, integrated webcam, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth module, DVD optical drive and so on.

Depending on the specs and model, the new MacBooks cost from $999 to $2799.

Tags: Apple, macbook, Nvidia, Geforce, Nforce