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tommywow

The integration of GPUs into mobile devices allow them to perform significantly more complicated tasks than before. Many apps such as Snapchat and Instagram utilize the GPUs to modify pictures and videos while maintaining a high frame rate. It is also interesting to note that some image processing operations are actually implemented in circuits as well. The combination of parallel processing and efficient circuit operations take loads off the CPU and allow complicated tasks such as face morphing in Snapchat to be done efficiently.

amolakn

I feel like another interesting example of the integration of the CPU and GPU are the integrated Intel HD xy00 graphics, where x normally is a number that increases by 1 per generation. For instance, 2nd gen intel mobile chips (Sandy Bridge) tended to have HD 3000 graphics, 3rd gen chips (Ivy Bridge) had HD 4000, 4th gen chips (Haswell) has HD 5000. Haswell in particular was known to be a step where battery life significantly improved.

There's a dilemma when buying a personal computer whether to stick with Intel's integrated HD graphics versus a dedicated GPU (NVIDIA or AMD), and often times computers that don't require as powerful hardware and are adequate for daily tasks, such as ultrabooks, tend to choose the integrated graphics solely for the sake of power constraints. Just figured the Intel chips used in our computers today are another good example of this, even though they may not be quite as portable as these two chips found in phones.