Nice to see...
... that Intel are single-handedly keeping the motherboard manufacturers afloat - How many different sockets? Bloody hell.
Intel's first next processors based on its next-generation 'Nehalem' architecture are due to appear a year from now, in Q4 2008. But the really interesting models will arrive during the first half of 2009: desktop and mobile CPUs with integrated graphics cores. The chip giant's roadmap currently has the first Nehalems, …
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!
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...