Valve is placing its vote of confidence behind Intel's new "Sandy Bridge" microprocessor, and even designed Portal 2's PC version with the processor in mind, says CEO Gabe Newell.

Intel unveiled the new, second-generation core i7 processor at the Consumer Electronics Show this week, where Newell took the stage.

The Valve boss called the integrated CPU and graphics technology -- the latter of which is reportedly better than 40-50 percent of the discrete graphic cards on the market -- "a game changer". 

"This allows for a console-like experience on the PC," he said,according to an International Business Times report.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini said at the company's CES press conference that the focus of Sandy Bridge was "all about the visual experience." 

The new 32-nanometer microprocessor includes sophisticated built-in capabilities for 3D graphics, as opposed to previous CPU-heavy Intel chips.

The company claims it performs tasks like Microsoft spreadsheet work hundreds of times faster than the previous generation chip, and comes with several new HD video-friendly features incorporated.

Valve's Portal 2 is slated to launch on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and Mac in April of 2011.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/32297/Valve_New_Intel_Microprocessor_Will_Bring_ConsoleLike_Experience_To_PC.php

hmm interesting...

Uhhhhhh

Thats moving backwards Gabe

I wish he would have gone more in depth with what he meant

What the hell does that even mean? Does it mean that PCs will be more restrictive with less graphical power? I guess Ill just stick with AMD.

How does this guy get away with saying ridiculous things.  The console experience is a machine with set specs that make development straight-forward and eliminates compatability issues.  I somehow doubt that any CPU alone is going to do that.

sandy bridge is a CPU/GPU hybrid... it can handle both tasks better then Intel's G32 (forget wtf last Intel GPU is, it was trash anyways)

new CPUs will now have GPU capabilities, which is why Im happy for Nvidia's CPU annoucement, Can't wait to hear of the Fermi based CPU. lol

this means that all games w8ill be playable whether on higher HW or lower HW

just that if you have a higher end PC,games will work on high level

but if you go and spend a fortune on Graphic cards,you will still be able to play the game atleast jus that extra smoothness of the graphic cards won't be there

and as a result the userbase able to play the game will be BIG

unlike now where most big games only work on high end PC's

A lot of what he is talking about is a problem that the average person who plays games on their PC doesn't have ... The crapware discrete graphics card.

I could be wrong but the vast majority of PCs sold to users are probably box deals from major suppliers (like Dell), and a person can spend $1,000 on their desktop and end up with a GPU like the Radeon HD5450 (or worse). While a person could go out an buy a $100 graphic card and play every console game released at higher resolutions, with a faster frame rate, and more detail these bargain basement graphics cards have difficulty playing any game.

Sandy Bridge could (effectively) eliminate this problem being that the integrated GPU is far better than these low end GPUs.

 Well thats what I get for skimming the article

from what I can tell, based off released benchmarks, a low end nvidia 9300GT (think its end with GT anyways) is faster than Sandy Bridge. But Sandy Bridge is faster then the low end 6xxx series which is a good thing. So we can say that it can handled HL2 and maybe some other newer titles with ease.