The view of the financial community has been generally very positive, which is reflected in Intel's stock price that is currently trading in the $28 neighborhood and is hitting 7-year highs. With the past 12 months, Intel's market cap has increased from about $110 billion to about $142 billion.

Financial background about Intel released today by financial analyst firm Five Star Equities confirms in that sentiment and indicates that the financial community has, for the first in more than 5 years, high expectations in Intel's opportunity in the chip market. Five Star Equities states that Ivy Bridge essentially kills the discrete graphics card because the integrated graphics of the CPU would be good enough for 95 percent of computer users.

"There is a very small market of people who seek out high-performance graphics cards, mostly comprised of hardcore gamers," the report reads. "The improved graphics provided by the Ivy Bridge chips will likely satisfy the needs of the average consumer."

The report also quotes industry analyst Jack Gold, who said that "extreme gamers who want very powerful graphics cards are in a niche market already, and it's shrinking." Gold continued and noted that Nvidia may be in trouble, "because their graphics chip market is falling off faster than their mobile chip market."