It’s interesting to see the paradoxical combination offered by Apple in its newly launched Apple MacBook Air that has classy design (but) wrapped around old Intel chips. The design is indeed marvelous as the model is compact and weighs only 2.3 pounds with super-sleek screen. Besides being ultra-light, the MacBook offers greater storage capacity and high-performance Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics. The only disappointing feature is the old Intel processor it carries, which is not-so-efficient compared to the new Intel Core processors like i3, i5 and i7.

So, what’s the matter behind Apple’s strategy to launch a product with unique looks but long-gone and over-used processor, especially when there are better processors available?

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said, "The Core 2 Duo is a fast processor for this class of machine."

"Flash storage combined with power-efficient Intel Core 2 Duo processors and Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics delivers an ideal balance of mobility, battery life and performance," added Jobs further. The statement was rather made in a quite tepid tone during the MacBook Air rollout that took place on Tuesday.

Well, the actual reason here could be the incapability of Apple’s notebooks to use the new iCore processor series as they require numerous chips.

As far as the Nvidia 320M is concerned, it is a chipset, not a discrete GPU. And Apple can follow it because it is not a big concern for the larger MacBooks (15- and 17-inch). Apple already uses Intel Core i5 processor, an Intel chipset, and a discrete Nvidia GeForce GT 330M GPU for its notebooks.

Here are some other hidden undercurrents. According to Nathan Brookwood, the principal analyst at Insight 6, "Apple for the last two years has tried to include in all of its systems GPUs that have some capability to be used for programmable operations that take advantage of OpenCL. Apple has been driving this OpenCL standard--which Intel does not support in its integrated graphics offerings," 

Brookwood continues. "Apple is using the GPU to speed up some of the more computationally intensive tasks like face-tagging in iMovie and iPhoto. Those are the kind of tasks that really lend themselves to GPU acceleration," he said.