Integrated graphics finally not the joke it once was??

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Having looked at the reviews of the Intel HD2000 and HD3000 IGPs the latter is even faster than an HD5450 in some games. Even the HD2000 is trading blows with the HD4290 IGP in the 890GX motherboards. The Intel drivers seem to be fine with many games:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/t...2100-tested/11

It is a good sign that Intel have worked on improving their IGPs.

With AMD Llano and Zacate also being released this year it means that even a cheap desktop or laptop would be fine for running many games at lower settings.

This is definitely good for PC gaming IMHO.

[Pob255]

It's probably down to at last intel have managed to correctly integrate the gpu with the cpu to make something decent.
And system memory is finally getting fast enough to make using it worth it.

Interesting in the way it greatly varies between games, still at long last intel has caught up on the graphics side, downside is it's going to hit 3rd party integrated graphics very hard, with the gpu on the cpu die even if someone comes up with a better integrated gpu no one will use it as it'll be an extra cost on a motherboard that no one will want when intel is already charging for the gpu in the cpu cost.
This means that intel have now totally sawn up the integrated market on intel platforms.

The one thing I really don't like the core i architecture for is that intel has forced all the competition out of the chipset market and is now stitching it up so that no one can get back in.

[Golden Dragoon]

Looks interesting, reading a review though the only feature that I feel is really worth it is the transcoding performance, which nicely utilizes that built in gpu.
I think intel have made a very good soc (lets face it, that what it is), but I don't think it is for me tbh