Integrated Graphic Cards (New Apple Trend?)

[Mord]

the only valid reason which seems to be true is that their is not enough space on the logic board, look at the giant intel packages, cpu, north-bridge south-bridge theirs no room for a proper graphics card, let alone the cooling capability, i reckon that apple will go back to discrete graphics when intel transitions over to a HTT type bus so it can reduce motherboard clutter. my ibooks logic board has tonnes of room, just a cpu northbridge and radeon mobility, but intel logic boards are far more complex.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Well actually, you're wrong. Just look at any benchmark which isn't processor limited on the old Mac mini comparing the old with the new and you'll see that even the outdated, non core image compatible 9200 wipes the floor with the GMA950 (does anybody want to play UT2004 at 7FPS? No, well buy an old mini then). The Doom 3 benchmarks were neck and neck between the old mini and the new one, but that doesn't seem so impressive when you consider how muc faster the Duo mini they were testing's CPU is.

When you take a much faster dedicated GPU like the FX5200 in the old 12" PowerBook or the even faster 9550 in the old iBook (both of which are at least twice as fast as the 9200 and core image complaint), you see that we have an even more embarassing situation for the new machine, so actually, it's your argument which isn't backed up by facts.

To some extent, it was excusable with the mini, because at least that gained core image support during the Intel transition, though it is really all about widgets splashing since it's not fast enough to use the pro video apps which require core image.

We've been through this a hundred times already. The only test where the Intel mini underperformed the G4 mini is UT. So if you want a Mac to play UT, by all means do not buy an Intel mini or MacBook. If you want a Mac to do just about anything else, you're going to be very pleased with the performance of the MacBook, especially compared to the iBook it replaced.