For majority of users (chrome) this is a detriment. Google really screwed up GPU Accelerated CSS Transitions. Open taskbar and look for yourself. Moving those cards around takes >10% of my old GPU (~1050) but 100% of one CPU core (3.4GHz Haswell). This is the most basic possible single quad texture being tilted around and Chrome eats whole CPU core!
Its just as bad with even simpler 2D primitive operations like "animation: linear infinite" used for example here as one line text scroller under the video:
https://ustka-panorama.webcamera.pl
~20% of GPU and ~15% of one CPU core is being eaten by Chrome scrolling _one line of text_. Nothing on modern machines Chrome devs are used to, but translates to around 30% of whole CPU burning cycles on Thinkpad X230 just to move that text around!