... that Intel are single-handedly keeping the motherboard manufacturers afloat - How many different sockets? Bloody hell.

One problem - intel graphics suck, you can get a better card for about £10. The only gaming you can do on intel graphics is solitaire, and even then, not on vista.

Based on my experience with the i830M, no thanks, I'll keep my geForce 7600GT.

I think the whole *point* of 3dfx cards was to offload all that stuff from the main CPU and run it more efficiently on dedicated hardware. Hell, the Amiga did it decades ago and it was bleeding-edge tech back then!

This would presumably make switching from discrete to dedicated graphics processing on-the-fly a breeze? Surely the desktop's days are numbered?

Didn't the PC platform become the powerhouse it is by not sticking everything on one single-vendor controller board? This will undoubtedly be useful for lower-end laptop manufacturers and those trying to build small devices, but it goes against the things I like about the PC platform - choice and flexibility.

It reeks of Microsoft too... one day you have a business selling compression software, the next it's in the OS (and a bunch of other features like firewalls and CD writing). The same may go for graphics vendors...