14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that integrated graphics solutions, while still widespread on the laptop market, are starting to lose their importance, bit by bit, at least temporarily, as discrete GPUs end up being used in more and more notebooks.
Integrated graphics, especially those built directly into the CPU, as is the case with both Intel and AMD solutions, are quite popular these days.
The main reason for this is that they are low-cost solutions and allow notebooks to be smaller (thinner mostly) than would otherwise be possible.
Still, it appears that mobile graphics processing units are steadily gaining more share of the laptop segment, or will do so by the end of the year.
This revelation comes in spite of analysts' belief that it is only a matter of time before CPU-included graphics remove discrete GPUs from the low-end altogether.
"The embedded graphics processors like AMD's Fusion and Intel's Sandy Bridge will eliminate IGPs and due to Moore's law and the slowness of ISVs to exploit the hardware advantages of the new GPUs, cannibalize the low-end (value segment) discrete chips," said Mr. Peddie.
Drew Henry, general manager of GeForce business at Nvidia, said that more notebooks with standalone graphics are getting made and sold, and this goes for AMD chips as well.
One reason is that consumers are switching from having a desktop as primary system to relying on notebooks, so they will, of course, look for one with a good video controller.
This is coupled with the fact that not just games, but also consumer applications benefit from discrete GPUs.
Still, what has contributed at least as much is the fact that GPUs can seamlessly share the same system with an integrated chip with no impact on battery life.
"Nvidia has been successful with OEMs building Sandy Bridge-based notebooks that use Nvidia GPUs and their Optimus technology,” said Jon Peddie, the head of Jon Peddie Research.
“AMD too has been successful in the notebook market, especially with their Fusion processors - but they do not necessarily get a discrete mobile GPU attached."