Beyond gaming, what were the 320m's advantages over the HD Graphics 3000?

[XX55XX]

It seems like a lot of people are upset that the 320m has given away to Intel's own graphics solution for the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

But, if you are not a gamer or running Folding@Home on a GPU, why is having Nvidia graphics so important? Shouldn't the increase in CPU performance offset the fact that Intel's graphics solution can't offload Flash decoding?

But, besides off-loading Flash decoding on the GPU, what what so good about Nvidia's graphics solution? If all you did was surf the Internet or do Photoshop all day, what did it offer to you?

I'm just interested to here why people are so upset.

 

[Staindsoul]

Definitely going to help video playback, if thats important to you

 

[alust2013]

Basically nothing. It's even pretty comparable to the 320m for graphics intensive tasks, similar to the comparison between the arrandale i3s and the last-gen C2Ds. Not quite as good, but similar real-world performance.

 

[gorskiegangsta]

Virtually none. Things like light graphics and video playback/encoding are actually handled better by the new Intel HD Graphics.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I think the issue is more like "nVidia produced a great chipset that was used for years. The Macbook Pro's were just updated, and the 'Pro' model has a graphics chip that's almost as good as a 2 year old chipset".

When you look at it like that, and keep in mind that the MBP is roughly $300 more expensive than it needs to be, all of a sudden the complaints seem a little more legit.

It's not that it's a bad integrated graphics card, it's that it was good 2 years ago, and just sucks right now, for what Apple is trying to charge for the machine it's in.