Graphics Remember this? Mobile graphics in desktop

Yeah... its like saying a low power racing car

 

I think when you look at it, the efficiency per Gigaflop on a mobile part is only slightly higher than a similar performance spec desktop part.

So you could save a little electricity and money, but the savings would be small. I'd like to see more green desktop parts (Powercolor makes the Go Green series, 5570, 5670 (or had made one, I don't see it available anymore) and 5770). The couple of "green" desktop parts around seem to consume about 15-20% less power with the same performance. That would probably put them on par with similar performance mobile parts for actual processing electrical efficiency.

The biggest thing is, don't get a card with more processing power than you need. I don't game with any high end games...a 5570 is just fine for me. Admittedly I probably should have gotten a 5670...because, well I wouldn't mind turning ALL the options to the max or almost maxed in the few games I play a lot (empire total war and HL2/DOD/CS basically).

That said, if I had gotten a 5870, I'd be wasting tons and tons of power of capability I just don't need or really want.

Now a mobile part integrated on to a motherboard, such as an ITX or uATX board could be nice, because you could save space and leave open PCI-e lanes for either additional graphics cards for more GPU processing, or additional add on cards. That and have a system that is better than the anemic integrated GPU you might otherwise find (even the current SB and new low end AMD APU stuff just isn't that powerful. The SB stuff about 75% of a 5450, the AMD stuff about as good as a 5450...it'd be nice to see some stuff at least on par with a 5570 or even 5670 for a "low end" gaming system).

 

This is where something like Llano should come up trumps. Phenom X4 like performance with an integrated HD5670 class GPU all in one chip.

More than enough grunt for 720p gaming and will hopefully be relatively power efficient.