After reading this article, http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/0 [...] index.html it makes me wonder where we'll be in a few years. Also, I know the questionable locale , but here too leaves more questions http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php? [...] 8&Itemid=1 Anyone have any comments on this? our future?

I started a thread on this already.
 
Intel graphics to impact upon NVidia and DAAMIT>

Intel is really no threat to highend. it already has control of the low-end market. It doesn't have any technology for highend gpus. we will see......

 
My post below is not a personal attack on you (jaydeejohn) or the thread you have started. Nor is it directed at individual members of the Forum. The post is my biased opinion.
 
I find it very difficult to reach a conclusion about computer hardware. In 2000 it was predicted we would have 10GHz processors before 2010. That isn't going to happen.  
GPU and Chipset manufacturers will always face strong competition from Intel's chipsets with integrated graphic controllers.  
Intel IGC chipsets are a part of the majority of personal computers and portable computers sold worldwide.  
Discrete graphics controllers included with PC's and Notebook Computers are a small percentage of computers sold worldwide.  
I read the articles your post links too. I interpreted the information as speculation only.  
When I walk into a server room I don't see discrete GPU equipment. I see equipment with high speed Intel processors on Intel motherboards using Intel chipsets with a large amount error correcting memory and several thousand GB of redundant hard drive storage. It is the business sector where Intel makes the majority of sales and profit. However the majority of the hardware I see in server rooms usually doesn't have "Intel Inside".  
I've seen some AMD equipment in a few server rooms. It is usually in application specific equipment for firewall and e-mail hardware.  
There are many of companies that manufacture and sell application specific software on proprietary hardware. In other words you buy the software licence and it comes with its own hardware. Many times the end user buys a licence for the software and the software company leases the hardware the software runs on to the licence purchaser.  
As for GPU's being used as CPU's, I do not think that will happen. CPU's and GPU's are not the same.  
I believe future inexpensive computers will have the CPU, GPU, Memory Controller and IO controller integrated into a single package. Good for Intel and AMD. Bad for NVidia and ATI.  
Evolution cannot be stopped in the PC arena.  
Intel has the spotlight in the public consumer arena. But when viewed with business and public consumer market, Intel and Microsoft are not the power players the general public believe they are.  
The Internet and Google are great tools. With a little bit of effort one can learn the "Wintel" machine is not as powerful as the "media" claims they are. There are companies that dwarf the size of Intel and Microsoft. We do not see these companies in the media because these companies are not vested developing equipment for Personal Computers and Portable Computers. These companies use PC's as tools to interface with the hardware and software they develop and manufacture to sell to telecommunication, financial, defence, automotive, mining, etc. companies.  
 
Food for thought.
 
The next time you use a credit card to purchase a new video card the cashier that takes your credit card may input your information into a "WinTel" machine but when your information leaves the store via the communication highway do you believe it's all on "WinTel" equipment?
 
 
The majority of the members of Toms Hardware Forum are wanna be enthusiast e-penises. They are narrow minded, computer game focused individuals who cannot comprehend there is a world outside of their bedroom and the artificial reality of PC hardware and software. The only thing that matters to them is their 3DMark/FutureMark score, Frames per Second rate and how well they can criticize Intel, AMD and Microsoft for errors they make.  
My latest favourite rants are from posters complaining the temperature of their new E8400 CPU is too high and it's Intel's fault. The majority of the posters complaining are too ignorant to use the Internet and Google to research the problem. If they did they would learn they may need to update their motherboard BIOS to support their new E8400 CPU. They would also learn their CPU wasn't overheating and it may take a while for all the motherboard manufacturers to release compliant BIOS updates. I see the temperature complaints are slowing down now because the majority of motherboard manufacturers have released BIOS updates to support Intel's 45nm processors.
Another favourite rant comes from the 4GB RAM idiots. Again, the Internet and Google will answer their questions but they're just too narrow minded and believe their RAM is defective and RMA it back to the manufacturer for replacement.
 
At the end of the day it is disheartening to read how many posters on Tom's Forums speculate and conclude everything wrong with their computer is someone else’s fault and cannot learn to accept they can be wrong nor can they learn how to research and solve a problem on their own.  
When I make a post asking for advice or help with a problem I've already spent time researching the problem and I was unable to find a satisfactory answer. If a member or members provide an answer I thank them. If I find the answer myself I post the information I found and thank all for their input.

 
Where we will be in the next few years is still a mystery.  But where we will not be in the next few years is very obvious.  Read this article.  To me, it is very disappointing news.  It's bad enough that micro$oft made an os that was not compatible with a lot of programs.  But it's a totally different story if micro$oft makes 2 bad operating systems in a row (the second of which is basically vista with a plastic bag over its head).
 
http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/09 [...] 11-on-the/

Thats why I posted this. Some people here do have a lil knowledge about trends. So why not ask? Also, you said that Intel own a certain % of the IGP market. Now, I know I didnt link to part 1 of the said interview, but as has been written here by other people with knowledge on these forums, that AMD has just come out with something Intel CANT do. A chipset that actually can play PC GAMES. Now, if you HAD read part 1 of the interview, youd know that a top designer of games is completely knocking the crap out of those Intel chips. WHY? Because Intel's chips cant play todays games, and since theyre so "popular" ,bought by people that dont know squat, unlike the people here, the gaming industry is slowly LEAVING PC GAMING BEHIND. Now, if this is all speculation, then youd better explain the reality to Anands and Toms readers, the game makers and the regular Joe who bought a Intel IGP chipset that CANT run games and is extremely disappointed . My post here was to ask whether the socalled "narrow minded gamers" would still have that ability, as from what Ive been researching, there are definately problems.

AMD IGP:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdo [...] =3072&p=19
Intel IGP:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3111
Intel future IGP chipset:
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/ [...] _in_q208/1
Present IGP AMD Chipsets:
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/ [...] nd_sb700/1
Present IGP NVidia Chipset:
http://www.beyond3d.com/content/news/364
ATI's new chipsets enable entry-level gaming PCs and notebooks  
http://ati.amd.com/companyinfo/press/2003/4661.html
VIA IGP Chipsets:
http://www.techshout.com/hardware/ [...] hnologies/
 
The common thread from IGP chipset manufacturers appear to be chipsets designed for entry level and low end mainstream PC's and Notebooks for office applications and entry level HTPC's
The serious, well informed gamer who build their own PC will use discrete add in dedicated GPU cards. The people who assemble computers specifically for gaming because it is their hobby are people who probably have formal training in electrical/electronic, computer engineering and technology.
The informed gaming hobbyist is a person with skill and experience and the intelligence to know criticising hardware and software companies is immature. The informed gaming hobbyist does not complain about software and hardware obstacles. They work around the problems to achieve the results they are striving for.
The gaming industry is leaving the PC market behind because the majority of people who play video games use dedicated gaming consoles. Gaming consoles are a lot less expensive than PC's designed for gaming. Plus gaming consoles have the ability to be home theatre devices. (Sony Playstation and Microsoft Xbox.)
Plus this thread is only about the IGP GPU. There is another group of hobbyists and professionals that use the PC for music and video production.
Whether or not Intel integrate the GPU and Memory Controller (Northbridge) into the CPU die and package (Nehalem) I believe the discrete GPU will be impacted but not so seriously that it will knock GPU manufacturers out of business.
 
Nehalem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehal [...] hitecture)
 
To reiterate, my reply to your thread was not a grievous attack on you. I have been following the evolution of PC hardware and software for a decade. There was no need to reply to me using capital letters to emphasize your points.
 
As for the consumer who buys a name brand PC from a big box retailer and is disappointed their name brand PC cannot play PC games properly must blame them self for not researching first to determine what they want their PC to do. The information is easily accessible and if the consumer researches what they want their new computer to do they will be satisfied with their purchase. The biggest problem seems to be consumers want the performance of $3000 PC but don't want to spend more than a $1000. That is wall that seems impossible to break through. Some people are cheap and they receive disappointment they deserve.

If the igp makers did make a decent product, which AMD definately does, nVidia sorta does, and Intel..... it just aint happnin for Intel. The game makers want a range to work towards when making a game. The problem is, Intels igps are soooo low in performance that the games just dont work. And since Intel has 40% of this market, I find that irresponsible. I believe that if a regular Joe has the ability to game on his igp, he will, which just MAY increase dsicrete sales. And IF the game makers had a tighter window to be able to make games playable, then they would. It would put a dent in the console sales. When mom or dad goes out and buys a computer for lil Joey, hes not likely to ask whether this is good for gaming, and even if he does, he may just get brick-n-mortared buy the salesman, and that hurts the current market, and endangers the future of pc gaming, as therell be no regular Joes doing it, theyll all be on consoles. Youre in the graphics forum here, with exceptional people. They DO play games, and they also help people here. The regular Joes. As for the $3000 pc, that doesnt have to happen. Look at the pricing for the new AMD mobos. They can PLAY games. Why do you think several companies have gotten together to create a pc gaming group? I blame Intel for this, as they have the resources to do better, but they dont. Im watching my hobby become an afterthought, just like Intel's attitude towards their igps, and I dont like it. I want to be gaming for a looong time. Im not down on you either, but I want to emphasize what I want. Like I said, you ARE in the graphics forum here, and as such, the future of gaming is on almost everyones mind here, in one way or another.

The problem is simply that graphics cards for PC's is to fu**ing expensive!
There must be some cartell going on.  
The consoles are killing the gaming-PC simply because of prices!
But, in a year or two when the consoles are stuck with their 2007-graphics and the PC is looking way better...then the gaming-PC is on again.
(But the underlaying problem is the heatwall in ic's, parallell processing is hard!)  

I will agree that the vast majority of people in hardware forums don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about, either in they don't understand how a specific piece of hardware works, or they don't take all the circumstances into account.
 
People who are only interested in synthetic benchmark performance could care less about the real world performance of the product. I was bordering on obsession with hardware development and whether AMD or intel wore the performance crown until Intel's quad core QX6850 came out.  
 
At the  time Amd's top model chips were the Athlon 6000 x2 and the 6400 black edition (running 3.0ghz and 3.2ghz) As i was tired of hearing all the intel fanboys rant about how monsterous the QX6850 was and how screwed AMD was i actually did the math in performance comparison.
 
Core 2 Extreme QX6850          Athlon x2 6000            % Difference
Core            Kentsfield                    Windsor
CPU Freq        3000mhz                  3000mhz
FSB/HTT          333mhz                    200mhz
Ram Spd          800mhz                    750mhz         Intel 16% faster
# of cores        4 (2x2)                    2 (2x1)           Intel 50% more  
L1 Cache        64x64KB                128x128KB        Amd 50% more L1  
L2 Cache           2x4MB                      2x1MB       Intel 75% more L2
Mem Ctr    Motherboard                     On Die
Fab Tech            65nm                90nm AMD        27.78% larger die
Die Size        286mmSq                 230mmSq
Transistors    582million              227.4million
TDP Rating           130W                      125       Intel 3.85% More W
Power Consumption
Idle                      124W                      96W  Intel 22.59% More Pwr
3DM06 Cpu Test 2    225                     210W   Intel  6.67% More Pwr
Price                   $1499                     $170  Intel Costs 88.66% More
 
Benchmarks  
PCMark 05 V 1.2
Cpu 9679                                   6158 Intel performs 36.38% Better
Memory 4510                              4153 Intel Performs 7.92% Better
 
Sandra XI  
 
Arithmetic ALU 55945                 21938 Intel Performs 60.79% better
Arithmetic MFLOPS 38712            18544 Intel performs 52.10% better
Memory Integer 6389                   8600 AMD Performs 25.71% Better
Mem Floating Pt 6389                   8597 AMD performs 25.69% Better
 
3D Mark 06 v1.1  
All 3Dmark, Games &
@ 1280x1024 32bit
CPU 4346                                 2231 Intel performs 48.67% Better
Graphics 11765                        10182 Intel performs 13.46% better
 
Prey 124FPS                         107FPS Intel performs 13.71% better
Quake 4 132.8FPS                  105FPS Intel performs 20.94% better
Serious Sam 2 167.5FPS        152.1FPS Intel performs 09.20% better
Warhammer 51.2FPS               32.5FPS Intel Performs 36.53% Better
Supreme Commander 59.0FPS  37.5FPS Intel performs 36.45% Better
Unreal Tourn '04 91.9FPS        79.9Fps Intel Performs 13.17% Better
 
So to recap, the QX6850 has
twice as many cores
4 times the L2 Cache
16% memory speed advantage
65nm core compared to 90nm core
Consumes more power, without having the on die memory controller the AMD does
 
9x the cost, and max gaming performance gain of 36%
All cpu benchmarks were from THG interactive cpu charts, power consumption i found in another tomshardware article.
 
Have alot more data compared but as i don't recall the link to original post and it's really OT ill just post that bit. Just illustrates my point of how much people will omit when they want to declare victory.
 
But "informed gaming hobbyist" is a bit of an oxymoron, if you'll recall something like 70% of gamers favored the P4 back when it was intel's finest. They're also the group of people that are ready to drop $3000+ on a new computer every 6 months, or if not a completly new rig, $1500+ on an SLI/Xfire setup. Informed gamers are hardware/overcloking enthusiasts first and foremost, gaming is an afterthought.
 
As for critizing hardware companies, it depends on the comment as to if it is immature or not. Constuctive criticisms are hardly immature as AMD/ATI, intel and nvidia actually pay people to not only research hardware forums, but intel actually pays people to shamelessly promote their hardware and bash any and all cometition. I'm sure it's common place among the major hardware companies but intel is the only one i know of to be proven guilty of the practice.
 
However your comment on the 10ghz by 2010 not happening, is wrong. Well, i suppose it would depend on the context of the comment, but either way 10ghz has been done, and doubled.  IBM i believe was the company that tested a 20ghz cpu, air cooled and did so using normal fab production. My uncle who is actually a microprocessor engineer and has dealings with all the formentioned companies told me of this close to two years ago.
 
It's not about what can be done, it's about what is practical and economical. No software around would need anything near that fast, and the production cost would leave no market for it anyway.
 
As for the thread topic at hand...IGP isn't an if, but a when, much like intel implimenting an IMC. As for the gpu, i don't know about intel but look at AMD's roadmap, they aren't just researching it, they're testing it and banking on it.
 
Yes it is going to impact ATI and nvidia, but obviously in different ways...since ATI...is AMD.  
 
Its not going to be a question of GPU or CPU, it's going to be a question of how many cores are gpu dedicated and how many are cpu dedicated.
 
It will no longer be a question of PCI, PCI-E or PCI-E 2.0, but which socket on the motherboard will i use.
 
Eventually it won't even be a question of having to decide between a gpu/cpu config, it will be just be a bios option of mPU #1- GPU or CPU. The graphics, general computation, and memory are going to be in a single package and socket based within the next 5 years. It's just a matter of the Fab process getting there. It's not going to kill gpu companies, so long as they adapt, because discrete gpu add-in cards aren't just going away, performance cards are as well.
 
If you look at the newer corporate PC's, they are micro-atx. Which puts the computer case about the size of a mid-range laptop but about 3x the thickness. Intel igp boards don't allow for much more than win 2000, or Xp with 16bit color. It's a fair assumption that corporations don't upgrade to vista not just because the OS would be a huge cost, but in order to run it would require buying thousands of new desktops, which would also have the added cost of higher power consumption.
 
AMD's IGP board  costs Around $100, capable of playing blu-ray HD with a $35-40 1.8ghz processor, and running vista with all the shiny GUI features. Add in generic ram cost can get 1 Gig DDR2 800mhz sticks for $30, and a 250gig Sata drive for $50. $220 for a vista capable HTPC.  
 
No self respecting hardware geek would proud of it. But i'm willing to bet that...oh i don't know 80-90% of computer users would be.
 
As for those who buy desktop under $1000 hoping for gaming performance yes, that's deluded. They're paying $1000 for $350-450 hardware and the rest is software they'll never touch.
 
But if you can't build a gaming rig for under $1000 you either don't know that much about hardware, don't know how to overclock or don't know when to draw the line.  
 
I still have a DFI LP CFX3200 939, 4400 toledo core x2 rig that plays crysis in 1280x1024 with all setting maxed and maintains a minimum of 25fps, avg 35 with a HD2900xt gfx card. 4 gigs ddr runing 640mhz @ 2.5-2-2-8 and cpu OCed from 2.2 stock to 3.68ghz on air cooling.  2x18gig 15k rpm scsi in mirriored Raid, and 2x74gig 10k rpm scsi in mirriored raid. Cost of what i originally paid for the old hardware + the 2900xt is still only $980. At the time i originally built it i got a x1800xtx that cost $190 when it was the latest and greatest card around total cost was $790.

Thank you/ I got a few answers to my question. But Id like to add 1 thing. As you said, enthusiasts want the wow of the oc over the actual playing, to an extent. The problem all of us are facing is that adaptability has actually reduced out choices of hardware, our hardware configurations, and shows a continued narrowing path. As an enthusiast as well as a gamer, it doesnt sit well with me, but I guess thats the price we pay for progress. In the cpu forum, I followed a thread about the changes of the enthusiast, it went kinda like where have all thwe cowboys gone. It talked about pin mods, soldering capacitors, the like. I loved the remeniscing until someone said " I dont miss the days when it was a !@$%^ in the ^%%$, now I can even oc in windows with no problems. I just hope our hobby doesnt go the way of the auto, where its really difficult to work on a car, much more than it used to be

Well AMD/ATI is claiming 50% of the graphics market by years end.  Thats a bold statement and one that will certainly leave nvidia against a wall since they dont have the resources to build an entire platform like ATI/AMD or Intel does.

With the new chipset, and the coming of the 4xxx series before nVidias new arch, I see growth, but 50%? I see this all as a win win. A superior to all inferior to none IGP, and real competition, especially before Intel enters the discrete market