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Is there any hope for discretes in laptops?If you were to listen to the “common” wisdom, IGPs will take over the notebook market. I doubt it. One of the reasons that IGPs won’t and can’t take over is the rapid changes and new features that are being added to notebooks. Most of them are about media, and media needs, as we all know, lots-o-bandwidth, and, as most of us know, IGPs are challenged when it comes to bandwidth. Probably one of the most often talked about new features in notebook computers is high-definition video. The demands on the graphics processor for HD content is enormous, and “good-enough” graphics just isn’t good enough in this area. We predicted a couple of years ago that the notebook would become the preferred media manager and EPC, and we think we can see that happening. Evidence for it is the increase of integrated TV tuners, as well as a slew of USB tuners. Soon—really, no, I’m not kidding, soon—Vista will be available. It will come with Microsoft’s version of an EPC known as the Media Center. (Like most things Microsoft does, it doesn’t invent much, but when it moves into a market it makes it look and sound like it created it, and the Media Center is no exception.) When MS’s MCE Vista shows up all PCs with that OS will be EPCs, like it or not. Now, they won’t all have a TV tuner, but they will be able to support one if it should get installed. All that media management, on top of Vista, puts a hellofa load on the GPU, and therefore you have to have a pretty good one, with a pretty good amount of video memory (512 minimum by my reckoning), and that’s simply beyond the reach of IGPs, even though the suppliers may advertise them as Vista ready. Along with Vista comes the requirement for DirectX 9 with PS 2.0 capability, and here again, the IGP suppliers claim their newest parts have such capability. That, of course, is somewhat subject to interpretation, and sadly the only real way to tell is to actually see the screen of a new PC. Microsoft’s Vista WinSAT generates the Windows System Performance Rating (WinSPR). This scale runs from 1 to 5, with higher numbers being better. This tells you if Vista will run, but doesn’t tell you anything about the quality of the image—that’s why you just have to look at the screen, and if possible compare one system to another. ATI is also offering a test to allow users to determine if their system is Vista-ready. And also with Vista comes support for DirectX10 and with that the ability to run next-gen games and apps. No IGP is going to handle that load for quite a while, all due respects to Mr. Moore’s law. However, that doesn’t mean IGPs aren’t going to gain share, as the chart indicates. Therefore, with the ever increasing market share of integrated graphics in laptops, to meet the market needs suppliers will have to have a robust product line of discrete semiconductors and integrated parts to provide top to bottom investment protection for users planning to get Vista’s performance-intensive HD and multimedia applications and games. So just don’t believe the common wisdom—discretes in laptops, as well as desktops are going to be with us for quite some time. |
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