That's pretty much all Aero is. Very overrated.

[q=Grinenshire]How about the CPU/Memory usage? It looks bloody costy to be blunt.[/q]

To be honest, you would be very surprised at what can run Beryl. As Endless said, you're definitely better off with a dedicated GPU, but my laptop with an integrated SiS and 64MB of shared VRAM runs it very acceptably.