[reitzensteinm]

Intel's only three generations into on die GPUs - starting with the 32nm Westmere dual core chips.

They don't even have DRAM on the chip yet - normal graphics cards use monstrously high bandwidth connections (10x higher than DDR3) to stream in textures. HD 4000 et al just access main memory, competing with the CPU for bandwidth.

They might be unimpressive now, but it's a focus of Intel to keep improving them, and that will happen significantly faster than Moore's Law.

Also, it's wrong to compare them to discrete graphics cards. They're cheap and low power, used in the MacBook Air. They replace the much inferior Intel integrated graphics and nVidia chipset graphics (used in the original Air).

They're now nipping at the heels of low end discrete graphics chips (especially on laptops). That's a great thing.

As a game developer, I'm excited by them. My games will run badly, but at least now they'll run on even the cheapest computers.

[wsc981]

"As a game developer, I'm excited by them. My games will run badly, but at least now they'll run on even the cheapest computers."

As a sidenote, John Carmack was reasonably enthusiastic about the latest generation Intel integrated graphics at QuakeCon 2012 (at YouTube you can find the whole 3,5 hour talk).

From http://pcper.com/reviews/Editorial/John-Carmacks-QuakeCon-20...:

"Several factors have pushed iD in this direction. First off the hardware is now good enough overall for gaming. The latest Intel processors have a graphics portion that is entirely able to run games at decent resolutions and quality settings."

Personally I started playing Counterstrike: Global Offense last week on my 2012 MacBook Air and it performs well (medium settings) on the integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000.

[greyfade]

Intel has been doing graphics parts for ages - going back to their i740 in the '90s all the way through their GMA family of northbridges.

They've always been equivalent to low-end previous-generation parts from ATi and NVIDIA. They've never had anything even remotely comparable until the HD 4000, and even that is a bad joke.

[wisty]

nVidia chipset graphics were better than Intel's earliest iterations, which is why Apple took so long to upgrade from C2D + nVidia (that, and costs).

You're right - Intel (like nVidia's chipset) gives you a GPU that's a rung below the cheapest current cards. In the bad old days, it used to be an order of magnitude worse if you were lucky, and wouldn't run your game in the worst case.