Hardware Intel GMA HD Graphics Performance

We test out Intel's latest GMA HD graphics in its Clarkdale Core i5-661 CPUs to see how it stacks up against AMDs 785G and Nvidia's 9300 IGPs when it comes to gaming and HD video playback. Long derided as terrible, GMA HD might be about to prove Intel's graphics detractors wrong.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/01/25/intel-gma-hd-graphics-performance/1

 

your MPC-HC version is ancient!

you can find the lastest here:
http://xvidvideo.ru/media-player-cl...ayer-classic-homecinema-x86-x64-svn-1557.html

 

Its interesting to see that the Intel Integrated GPU can at least keep up with the integrated offerings from both AMD & Nvidia (if not quite give the same absolute FPS).

It does make me wonder what would happen if they scaled up the amount of Unified shaders (to say 48 or so). Could they actually compete in the mid range with ATI & Nvidia?

I must admit though I am very impressed with the mobility HD4200 in my wifes Acer Laptop (coupled with a Turion II M500). It handles L4D fine with medium details (medium shaders) at the laptops native resolution (1366x768).

 

I downloaded it from Sourceforge just before using it. It's the latest official version and the one Google turns up - you have posted an experimental one.

 

Although not direct (or the main point of the article), I liked the comparison of 550BE with i3-530. Shows that the performance gap isn't all that, but neither is the price. Very interesting reading.

 

they all are experimental ones, the latest ones has many bug fixes and new futures
i used one of the latest mpc-hc builds on my 780G the other day works fine

 

it sounds very interesting and Anandtech came to the same conclusion. But how does the the i3 540 do against the comparison? It's only 200sek more here for the higher clock speed, so I'm wondering if it's worth to start with the higher clocks, or keep looking at the 530 since it OC's so well?

Can I assume that the H55 +530 would be an great platform for websurfing, media playback and light gaming (thinking of a mATX build for small son's first computer)? Better than the 9400? Or would there be more longevity from an AM3 + Phenom x4 platform?

 

I'd go H55 personally - upgrading to a discrete card and even a i5 750 is also an option if he wants more power for games

 

Could we get some test results for the Pentium G6950? It's substantially cheaper than the i3-530, and if its lower-clocked GPU can still handle full HD playback then it would be a great option for a media center.

 

What's H55 gonna be like I you decide to drop an i5 or i7 in later on though? Do you lose anything next to P55?

 

H55 is P55 without RAID functions, that's all. If you drop in a Lynnfield CPU you simply can't use the video outputs on the rear I/O because it has no graphics part. Lynnfield parts fit and work perfectly in H55 boards however - we've been doing it a lot lately.

Intel just hasn't sent us one to test. It should still be able to handle the media playback fine, and most boards will let you OC the GPU from 500 to 733MHz anyway

 

Awesome! So when's that H55 (or H57) mATX board review coming, I want to get a setup this month!!!

 

One this week, one next week.

 

Any review on this ? looks interesting to me ..

http://www.bigfootnetworks.com/gearupuk/index.html

 

Might we see a new article or perhaps an update to this one when AMD releases its 8-series motherboards in the coming months?

 

Its nice to see these chips are up to a bit of light gaming. Could prove to be a good little budget system for those who only play the odd bit of games and older ones such as Sim2 etc. The girlfriend would certainly be pleased.

Andy

 

TBH intel hasn't ran away with it. i3 is still too expensive a platform (cpu + mobo) compared to AMD.

You even said yourself that the phenom II 550 didn't hit more than 14% useage during playback. I want to put the suggestion to you that throwing in the £25 sempron 140, with on board GPU you could still handle HD playback with little problems. Move up to an Athlon II x2 or even the Athlon II X3 425 coupled with an Asus M4A78LT-M LE for example with one button overclocking and you have a killer machine. If green is your concern then intel seems the way to go, but you do pay that bit extra for it. why not underclock in that case?

For the gaming front you would probally still want a GPU anyway thus making the investment in an H55/57 board useless

 

as Javaman said, it's still too expensive for the lower end to really compete with anything on that power level- it needs a price drop. Also, just in case you weren't aware, this got posted on Engadget. Link

 

Hey where is the Crysis benchmark? That's what we really want to see.
I know from personal experience that a HD3300 can run Crysis at 24 Fps med to high settings at 1280 X 1024 resolution
not bad for a integrated chip.

If Intel is getting into the GFX arena again they need to find their niche market and dominate it.

 

Anandtech article on Core i3 530 indicated that there is lots of overclocking headroom on the gpu - probably because Intel tends to be very conservative on binning. It would be interesting to see the performance conclusions change when OC'ing AMD vs Intel.

On the image quality differences in Trackmania Nations Forever, some apps do have hardcoding to disable features on Intel dating back to older products; were you able to override the automatically behavior to make the app render the same on both devices?

Also, your power numbers for Blu-Ray playback on Core i3 seem odd - the cpu utilization numbers look like hardware acceleration was not enabled - maybe the version of the player issue you are using doesn't have correct support for new cpus?