Macintosh hardware

The hardware of the Macintosh (or Mac) is produced solely by Apple Inc., who determines internal systems, designs, and prices. Apple directly sub-contracts hardware production to Asian OEM laptop manufacturers such as Asus, maintaining a high degree of control over the end product. Apple buys certain components wholesale from third-party manufacturers. The current Mac product family uses Intel x86 processors. All Mac models ship with at least 1 GB RAM as standard. Current Mac computers use an ATI Radeon, nVidia GeForce or Intel GMA graphics cards and include either a Combo Drive, a DVD player and CD burner all-in-one; or the SuperDrive, a dual-function DVD and CD burner. Macs include two standard data transfer ports: USB and FireWire. USB was introduced in the 1998 iMac G3 and is ubiquitous today; FireWire is mainly reserved for high-performance devices such as hard drives or video cameras.