I tried WOW and second life - just for kicks. I'm sure intel is well into development for the next chipset, which I believe we'll see in macbooks this summer. This is a super low end solution so there's no money in drastic driver improvements. Intel put the chips out there, delivered T&L to the windows platform A YEAR AFTER THE CARD WAS RELEASED. Check the net - there is simply not much work being done on these. LASTLY - HOLD YOUR BREATH - anyone who thinks any significant improvement will come by way of drivers for this chipset. Very frustrating - btw this was typed on a brand new 2.4ghz macbook with ***** graphics capabilities The x3100 is SO BAD it's really like using a graphics card from 2000 or earlier. So, you pay a $700 premium for a dedicated graphics chip and 2' additional screen, and a few other tidbits.

Sure there's a metal enclosure, slightly bigger HD, some peripheral connections, cpu just barely faster, but the core of the machine is the same. There's really little relevant difference between the machines at this point EXCEPT the graphics.

If the macbooks had decent graphics chip (just good enough mind you), i'm betting a ton of Mbook pro biz would fly out the window. Apple either completely dropped the ball with the 950 & 3100, or they didn't give a sht, or did exactly what they wanted to do all along - a calculating marketing price point. the x3100 chips are pathetic, dismal crap excuse for a graphics system. The X3100 is a sign that Apple either needs to bring dedicated GPUs back (yes the Radeon 9550 in the last couple of iBooks was and still is faster than ANY of the integrated GPUs in use by Apple today) or switch to nVidia's Intel chipsets. Intel has had plenty of time to get proper drivers out for it. The card has been out for how long now? It started showing up in PCs just shy of a year ago.

The paper specs are VERY similar to the 6150, yet it outperforms all of the other integrated cards. The top nVidia integrated card then, the GeForce Go 6150, could even push Doom 3 at good framerates with good detail settings. The GMA 950 looked much better on paper, but the ATI card could push UT at 1280x800 at around 40 frames with everything set to medium. Even if you compare the GMA 950 to the top integrated card during the time they were both released, the ATI Xpress 200M, the GMA fails miserably. The GMA 950 can barely choke out 30fps in Unreal Tournament 2004 at 800圆00 medium settings in Windows, yet a similar system with a GeForce 8400M GS can run the game at highest detail settings at 1280x800 and locked at 60 fps. If you look at the specs for the GMA 950, one would think it could outperform the GeForce 8400M GS in some respects. The paper specs for both are highly overblown. 10x faster? Theres no way its 10x faster.

Gma 950 bad opengl