That wasn't my point. The GPU is almost a drop-and-play component on an SoC. Given that Intel could very rapidly incorporate any licensed GPU, such as the best

That wasn't my point. The GPU is almost a drop-and-play component on an SoC. Given that Intel could very rapidly incorporate any licensed GPU, such as the best of the best that Apple uses, what exactly is your point? You clearly are trying to hold the notion that Intel is so far behind, led off course by their energy quest that now they can't catch up on the GPU, yet they have exactly the same capacity as Apple does (actually let me amend that -- as the world's most advanced fab and chipmaker, they have dramatically more capacity than Apple does). So why haven't they? Well thus far the only Atom-powered mobile devices have been pitched essentially to the third world. Intel is going through the mobile growing pains in the very low cost market, and when they decide to go for the mainstream I suspect that -- just like Apple -- they can decide to go for GPU performance as well. I mentioned the HD 4000 given that you oddly decided to talk about "Intel's" and "Apple's" GPUs, and while you've quite rapidly shifted course to a more enlightened position now based upon reading other replies, I suspect you weren't quite aware of what the actual GPU sources were.