intel graphics media..good or bad

From "Notebook Video Graphics Card Guide'' found at notebookreview.com:

''Integrated cards include Intel Extreme Graphics, Intel Extreme Graphics 2, ATI 320M/340M IGP, S3 or SiS chips -- If you're not planning on doing any gaming, or not doing any gaming beyond Quake 3, these types of cards will be satisfactory. However, if you do plan on gaming, avoid integrated cards at all costs. For what it's worth, I had a dedicated S3 chip with 16MB of video RAM in an old notebook that struggled with Unreal Tournament. 1999.

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900/950:

DirectX Level: DirectX 9
Pipelines: 4 Pipelines
Memory Configurations: 128-bit bus, uses memory shared with system
These get about as far as Unreal Tournament 2004, but the performance is still miserable and worse, while ATI's integrated parts will actually run pretty much any game out there (playability is another story entirely), Intel actually needs a compatibility list, as the GMA 900/950 won't properly run some games. Even though the GMA 900/950 also has more pipelines than the other IGP parts, it lacks some crucial modern features that chips like the X200M have, which explains its inferior performance to that part.

ATI Mobility Radeon 9000/9100 IGP:

DirectX Level: DirectX 8.1
Pipelines: 2 Pipelines
Memory Configurations: 128-bits, shared with system
Not completely miserable but not stellar, either. These usually are only found on Pentium 4 notebooks, and if they're only found on Pentium 4 notebooks, chances are you won't ever be using them anyhow. For the curious, though, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Half-Life 2 on low settings will be about as far as you'll go.

ATI Radeon Xpress 200M:

DirectX Level: DirectX 9
Pipelines: 2 Pipelines
Memory Configurations: Width varies; 16MB, 32MB, and 128MB
Now we're talking. This is alternately the good stuff and the most confusing stuff. As far as IGPs go this is the best you can get. Some versions of this actually come with 128MB of dedicated memory, which is weird, because it's an IGP. The smaller versions of these actually use HyperMemory coupled with a small dedicated buffer (the 16MB and 32MB parts), while the large one (128MB) uses HyperMemory to boost its addressable RAM to a very impressive 256MB, even though the core itself can't really use more than 128MB. Compatibility of this part is flawless and it'll play most games available barring the super intense ones, even if at very low resolutions. The 128MB version is, of course, the most desirable one.''

I have been gaming with Intel G Chips for about 2 years.
Vary nice 3d stuff. many people think having a Video card is there only option, its not.
Intel onboard video boards all have a G in there name.

Intel makes good processors, sadly they really don't make good graphics chips.

If you notice, the price is cheaper when a notebook is bundled with an intel graphics chip as opposed to one having basically having similar specs but possessing an ATI radeon graphics card

Intel chips are enough for powerpoint but in my opinion don't perform well enough for video playback. Go with Ati radeon if you can afford the extra cost or if you're willing to use an AMD driven laptop as opposed to an Intel driven laptop as a lot of AMD laptops are bundled with ATI radeon.

Just remember, integrated graphics not only take up your system ram to run, but they share the same bus. If you go to www.tomshardware.com you can read the article on Intel's integrated graphics. Basically, these graphics solutions actually slow down the machine for all processing. In other words, these processors do not allow your CPU to run at its full potential. Check some of the benchmarks out (I'm not talking about the gaming or 3D ones either). Tomshardware compares machines with the same stats, but one has an ATI card, and the other has Intel's graphics. The intel graphics box lags in all the benchmarks, proving that the graphics card itself is bogging down the rest of the system. stay away if you can.

This is just my opinion, but Intel Graphics are usually bad and uncompatible with many high-end games. It's graphcis are choppy and blurry for some reason. I'll stick with NVIDIA or ATI.