Windows 7: Will Ivy Bridge's Integ. Graphics Ring Death Knell For Discrete GPUs?

This is true, but it does take a while sometimes to discover what the little pic is trying to tell you.

Maguscreed,

What you've posted is sad but true. The long continuance of this economic crunch is taking a HUGE toll on the life-style of the average family, whether they live in America or Europe. For many, the choice to purchase the higher quality, higher priced goods or services does not exist anymore; its back to basics like it or not.

Personally, I have decided not to make any unnecessary purchases in the immediate future. At work we have already experienced one reorganization and a second is in the wind. Job insecurity is prevalent everywhere. It is summer and already many folks have decided to stay home instead of going abroad. Barbecues, picnics and short family outings sound better than ever when you are strapped for cash.

I'll offer an opinion. I am not a gamer but I still appreciate good, sharp, responsive graphics. Also I build my own. The group who builds their own rigs will probably gravitate to the chips with no on board graphics and purchase discrete cards. I say this from having used the I7 3770K. It seems to me to be a good chip but lacking some what in quality of graphics. So I feel what ever group I am classed in will probably go for discrete. It may be a small segement of the market. I don't know how large.
A question I have is if you have two chips (just say Intel) one with graphics and one with out. What happens to the multitude of internal transistors. Are they put to other uses on the chip without graphics.

I agree. Having tested out the i7-3770 HD 4000 graphics against the AMD HD 6670 graphics, the HD 6670 graphics are silky smooth and look great. The HD 4000 graphics are pretty good, but still a few steps behind. If you didn't tell a novice that they were looking at on board graphics, the person may be fooled. The HD 4000 graphics are that good. On default settings, my comparison showed a better gaming experience using Titan Quest Immortal Throne. However I suspect that even some of the cards below the HD 6670 will be superior to the HD 4000 graphics. For someone that doesn't have a point of comparison, the HD 4000 graphics will look great.

Then again you also have to consider that there are people out there that think tablets and smartphones are the gaming medium of the future.

So who knows.

While I own plenty of gaming consoles, you'll have to pry my gaming PC out of my cold dead hands. I like to tinker, and have modded and enjoy mods for plenty of PC games out there. As much as I enjoy my console games they've often left me feeling more could be done - they'll always be a secondary distraction at best.

There are chips with no onboard graphics? Are you talking sandy bridge and earlier?

'Coz there ain't no Ivy Bridge's without graphics, Damn it!!

Most of my time when I'm not doing homework, I'm either gaming, video encoding or playing around with photoshop. As has been said, I don't think the integrated graphics will even catch up with the demand for more video crunch that the discrete cards offer, though I am at the low end of the discrete maraket, paying around $450 per card.

TanyaC:

If the user segment is large enough. The manufacturers will provide a chip with no graphics. It is all about money. All models of the Ivy Bridge are not released yet. We may well see a viable choice in the future.

Intel just wants to make sure that early adopters all get CPUs with HD graphics, so they can try it out for themselves.

I rebuilt one of my HTPC boxes last week after it died after many years of service. I choose an MSI Z77MA-G45 motherboard with an i5-3750K CPU with on-board HD4000 graphics. I was not disappointed. HDTV looks great. In the past I have always used some sort of nVidia GPU, such as the ION or GT430. This time I decided that Intel may have evolved enough to match that level of video performance. My desktop PC still has a nice discrete nVidia card, however.

Bye.