Arrandale minus GPU for Apple ?

[lothar]

Apple's customers may not be price sensitive but any business is price sensitive by definition. If option A and B are expected to produce the same results and A is cheaper than B absolutely no business will ever consider B. In practice no two options are identical, but for every sane business decision the total cost vs benefit is the primary driver.

Discrete graphics take up more physical space, complicate board layout, use more power and as a result may impact the cooling and ergonomics of the final product.

I'm not sure what I'm arguing against exactly, but there you go. As far as the OP: smells like BS. Perhaps Apple will get a special SKU with the graphics rendering fixed function parts of the silicon permanently disabled to save power. When they arrive we'll know.

Yeah, but where will Apple get their profit margin of charging Mac users a Radeon HD4870 GPU for $400-500 from?