Yeah there seems to be pretty negligible difference now. I will probably go with 9070 xt. My low power need is mostly for CPU. I don’t want it to use 40-80W of power just for scrolling a web page, watching a video and staring at the IDE for hours.

That’s actually very cool! Almost what I want but I am concerned about GPU performance. I am expecting at least 4070 (desktop) performance with a possible upgrade path. PCI-e x4 is also limiting discrete GPU options :(

Can you please also clarify how not having a dedicated GPU will save me 20-30W? Not sure but based on my experience with 4070 and some web search, dGPU runs about 15W with single moniton on idle. Moreover, iGPU will also consume some power, even if not that high, the total difference should not be that high. I can also use dGPU for gaming only and rely on iGPU for desktop stuff.