Budget Graphics Card Comparison - Sandy Bridge Graphics performance is simply awful

[badb0y]

I think we should wait till Llano actually comes out before we say Llano's IGP owns Intel's IGP, no?

 

[Red Hawk]

Well, since the SB IGP was based on Intel's lackluster previous integrated graphics chip, and Llano's IGP is based on an actual discrete GPU with some use for gaming...no, there's really no need to wait. Llano blowing away SB with regards to graphics is pretty much a given.

 

[Cerb]

I think we should wait till Llano actually comes out before we say Llano's IGP owns Intel's IGP, no?

AMD's IGP already owns Intel's IGP, in both HW and SW realms, and Llano's will be even faster. There is very little to worry about, there. Even casual MMO players and such gradually learn to dislike Intel IGP .

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Yes we do. AMD released a video, comparing LLano to SB, and it showed realtime power measurements below the screen image.

I applaud you for linking to said video or even listing the parameters of their tests with the results. But there is more to it than a PR test. Do we know performance per watt? Performance per watt per application? Llano will most likely have a (significantly?) slower processor portion than Core i5s. It wouldn't be surprising for Llano to have as good or lower power consumption when doing things like accelerating video playback, but what about other, more intensive tasks, which put each processor through its paces? That was the point I was getting at, and you seemed to have missed it entirely, on top of not even giving me any real data to work with.

 

[Blitzvogel]

Well, since the SB IGP was based on Intel's lackluster previous integrated graphics chip, and Llano's IGP is based on an actual discrete GPU with some use for gaming...no, there's really no need to wait. Llano blowing away SB with regards to graphics is pretty much a given.

The leaked slides I've seen did not "blow" me away at all. Llano is painfully bandwidth limited. AMD needs to hurry up with support for DDR3 beyond DDR3-1866 if they want Llano to competitive as a light gaming GPU. A GDDR5 6450 gets the kind of scores the slides showed which were made by an A8-3510MX which is supposed to have 480 SPs. I'm hoping that a mistake was made somewhere and the Llano they tested was one with 160 SPs.

 

[Arkaign]

All integrated video is poop for enthusiasts/gamers. SB/IB/Llano/etc, doesn't matter, it all sucks ass. Of all the things to argue about, this is popular right now, but it doesn't really change much of the picture compared to the way it's always been. Intel IGP? Good luck doing any gaming with it outside of solitaire/etc. AMD integrated? Well, better, but the CPU is weaker and it's still not that great. Does anyone think they'll be playing Skyrim or BF3 at 1080p with high details on a Llano? Hope not, because it's just not gonna happen. Not this gen, not the next one they have details on, not even the hypothetical '5770' level performance they're shooting for in a couple of years.

Intel on-die video = poop.
AMD on-die video = slightly less poop, but still poop.

Integrated video was already good enough for MS Office, BluRay, etc, so what's the big excitement?

 

[AtenRa]

Intel never made IGPs or APUs for gaming, i don't know why people believe SBs IGP was made for gaming.

 

[Blitzvogel]

Intel never made IGPs or APUs for gaming, i don't know why people believe SBs IGP was made for gaming.

Gaming is the factor by which GPUs are typically judged, IGPs included since gaming tests are most comprehensive for pushing a GPU to it's limits as well as it's efficiency in managing memory bandwidth.

 

[frowertr]

All integrated video is poop for enthusiasts/gamers. SB/IB/Llano/etc, doesn't matter, it all sucks ass. Of all the things to argue about, this is popular right now, but it doesn't really change much of the picture compared to the way it's always been. Intel IGP? Good luck doing any gaming with it outside of solitaire/etc. AMD integrated? Well, better, but the CPU is weaker and it's still not that great. Does anyone think they'll be playing Skyrim or BF3 at 1080p with high details on a Llano? Hope not, because it's just not gonna happen. Not this gen, not the next one they have details on, not even the hypothetical '5770' level performance they're shooting for in a couple of years.

Intel on-die video = poop.
AMD on-die video = slightly less poop, but still poop.

Integrated video was already good enough for MS Office, BluRay, etc, so what's the big excitement?

This.

Who cares whos intergrated graphics is better than the others? Aren't we all using discreet video cards to game with? That will never change, people, as IGP will never be "on par" with discreet.

In my mind, the only thing IGP gives us is the ability to build servers, cheap workstations, or HTPC's without the need of the added expense/heat/power a discreet card gives us.. But hell even the lowest level IGP do all three of these things just fine now...

 

[Patrick Wolf]

Really, of all the stupid crap people argue about here, this is a new low. It's great IGP's are getting better, but IGP is for non-(or extremely light) gaming systems and laptops, always will be. And you all know this. End of story.

 

[RussianSensation]

Really, of all the stupid crap people argue about here, this is a new low. It's great IGP's are getting better, but IGP is for non-(or extremely light) gaming systems and laptops, always will be. And you all know this. End of story.

I never created this thread to create arguments. I thought it would be helpful for gamers on a budget (and some of those gamers may not be too technically savvy, and still wonder how SB compares to budget cards). Since most of us here mostly care about $200+ GPUs, don't you think there is some value from TechSpot's review to budget gamers? Once in a while people on our forum do want a budget gaming card. The review throws a bunch of them head-to-head. :thumbsup:

 

[Blitzvogel]

If AMD wants Llano to truly compete with dedicated graphics, AMD needs to add more memory channels and/or increase the memory speed potential. 'Nuff said. But they won't, as Fusion isn't completely about gaming graphics performance. Llano will need to be considerably less than the cost of an Athlon II x4 + Radeon 5550/5570 to be "competitive" in that level of graphics segment. Honestly, Llano needs to be around $100 for the 4 core/400 SP versions.

 

[Arkadrel]

@Nusna Moebius

Cheapest "Athlon II X4 630" was around 83$, on newegg.
Cheapest "Radeon 5570" was around 50$ on newegg.

The Llano will probably have advantages over both of those
(~equal performance,smaller form factor(mini pcs), much less power use, newest UVD (bluray 3D anyone?), CoreBoot, Massive GPGPU compute power, ect)

So I could see the top Llano going for around ~130-140$, and still selling pretty well, and being decent value.

It ll probably sell cheaper though.

 

[ksec]

The site didn't provide any details as to what CPU it uses. Given SandyBridge is faster then the i5 they used with those discrete GPU. This is give a slight advantage to Intel SB IGP.

The good thing is, Intel are actually working on drivers. Compare to previously they only update yearly on minor fix. This time their April drivers actually improve performance on a lot of games. And that is a good sign.

I continue to believe you can squeeze out another 30 - 40% of most games out of Intel hardware due to their immature drivers, compare to Nvidia and AMD who have been working on perfecting the drivers performance for years.

However just by looking at those charts, Sandy Bridge is far away from discrete Gfx. Although IvyBridge will hopefully close the gap, when Intel uses 22nm on all IGP versus lower end Gfx still sticking on 40nm in 2012.

 

[RussianSensation]

The site didn't provide any details as to what CPU it uses. Given SandyBridge is faster then the i5 they used with those discrete GPU. This is give a slight advantage to Intel SB IGP.

HD3000 is only found in i5-2500k or i7-2600k. Either way, they used a Core i7 920 @ 3.7ghz for the discrete cards. Looking at how slow SB graphics are, I doubt using SB processors would have provided any tangible benefits over the i7 920 @ 3.7ghz system. I agree with you that they should change their test system to SB anyway for consistency purposes.

 

[Zap]

AMD's IGP already owns Intel's IGP

Are you talking about AMD's future IGP or current ones?

All integrated video is poop for enthusiasts/gamers. SB/IB/Llano/etc, doesn't matter, it all sucks ass.

IGP is fine for anyone who plays games, but don't consider themselves gamers or computer enthusiasts. Yes, those people do exist, and make up a bigger portion of the gaming population than you think.

Look up Newegg reviews on low end "crappy" discrete graphics cards and you'll find many mentioning how much gaming was improved over the IGP in their system. Those people would likely be content with HD 3000.

If AMD wants Llano to truly compete with dedicated graphics

But they don't. At least I don't think so. They are just moving the IGP from the chipset to the CPU, like Intel did. If they truly make it competitive with dedicated graphics, then they are eating into their Radeon bread & butter. They probably want to make it the best IGP above all others but not so good that we stop buying their graphics cards.

 

[RussianSensation]

But they don't. At least I don't think so. They are just moving the IGP from the chipset to the CPU, like Intel did.

Llano is supposed to be significantly faster than their chipset IGP graphics. We are talking 400+ SPs. That's straight at the heart of current HD6xxx series mainstream offerings; although clockspeeds will probably be lower (as well as memory bandwidth won't be up to desktop parts I imagine).

 

[Cerb]

Are you talking about AMD's future IGP or current ones?

Current and near-future. Intel is having to play catch-up, and it's going to take them awhile. Wide-ranging game compatibility could take quite awhile, but they have already been addressing that issue. I would think that either with IB, though more likely with IB's successor, they'll get all their HTPC issues all ironed out, and have enough shader performance for plenty of post-processing of videos, as well. Not because tons of people have HTPCs, but because tons of people use their notebooks as video playback devices. Aside from that, they'll need to get their drivers reworked to perform more smoothly. None of it is pie-in-the-sky type stuff, it's just that AMD was able to use all the good things ATI already had (and fix the bad), while Intel took way too long to realize that IGP performance, including subjective elements, could be a used as a competitive advantage.

 

[Nintendesert]

I'll be honest, I got hoodwinked by Intel and really believed the minimum graphics performance bar would be raised significantly with SB. I preached a new explosion in the PC gaming market due to it. I'm still holding out some hope that AMD's APU push forces Intel to make bigger improvements. It's for the best in the PC world for that minimum bar to be raised far greater than it is now.

 

[BFG10K]

Onboard will always lag behind discrete for the simple fact that discrete can have separate high speed memory while onboard shares system memory. Also discrete has a much higher TDP budget given it can have larger coolers and external power connectors.

Even if onboard gets fast eDRAM ala XBox, it won’t help assets such as textures and geometry which still have to be stored externally, and that means system RAM for an IGP. System RAM is very slow especially if it’s being shared by the CPU at the same time.

 

[iCyborg]

To all the people who think nobody cares about IGP: Intel holds >50% of the graphics market, and it only has IGP. Obviously many people do care. It's gamers that generally don't care, but they aren't the majority.

Also, I have a powerful desktop, but I care about IGP in notebooks. The fact is that comparing my desktop to something like 2630QM+HD3000: my CPU is ~50-100% faster (including OC), and GPU is an order of magnitude faster.
So guess where would I like to see a performance bump...
Even if Llano's CPU is 20-30% slower than mobile SB, if GPU can deliver 2-3x over HD3000, it will be a more balanced system compared to my desktop. And if it can deliver that with less power used as the demo videos seem to suggest, I'll be interested...

 

[biostud]

HD3000 is only found in i5-2500k or i7-2600k.

And all mobile SB processors.

 

[exar333]

Gaming is the factor by which GPUs are typically judged, IGPs included since gaming tests are most comprehensive for pushing a GPU to it's limits as well as it's efficiency in managing memory bandwidth.

Sorry, you are pretty off here. I love gaming, but for most users this is NOT the primary focus of their GPU. As stated in this thread, you are really comparing a 'crappy' gaming GPU against a slightly 'less crappy' GPU. The real questions are can the GPU play everything I want (SD/HD content), do things I regularly ask my computer to do (encode) and display what I need? In this context, IGPs have some a long way with SB and with Llano (when released). Light gaming is always a plus, but SB graphics are marketed toward either low-end laptops (standard size) w/out a dedicated GPU or a mid to high-end SFF laptop (ultra-portable or sleek-styled). Many of these types of machines have cheaper and lower-resolution screens. If you are buying a 1080p IPS laptop with a 17'' screen, you are also likely springing for a high-end mobile GPU. Those buying a sub-$500 machine or a Mac Air are not as concerned with GPU performance as they are price or protability.

 

[RussianSensation]

Sorry, you are pretty off here. I love gaming, but for most users this is NOT the primary focus of their GPU. As stated in this thread, you are really comparing a 'crappy' gaming GPU against a slightly 'less crappy' GPU. The real questions are can the GPU play everything I want (SD/HD content), do things I regularly ask my computer to do (encode) and display what I need? In this context, IGPs have some a long way with SB and with Llano (when released). Light gaming is always a plus, but SB graphics are marketed toward either low-end laptops (standard size) w/out a dedicated GPU or a mid to high-end SFF laptop (ultra-portable or sleek-styled). Many of these types of machines have cheaper and lower-resolution screens. If you are buying a 1080p IPS laptop with a 17'' screen, you are also likely springing for a high-end mobile GPU. Those buying a sub-$500 machine or a Mac Air are not as concerned with GPU performance as they are price or protability.

Agreed. For the mobile segment, SB is great. It's fast enough for 1080P video, encoding work and is great for power consumption; and it comes "free". On the desktop, well that's another story altogether. But even as great as SB is, Apple still adds AMD discrete GPUs in their notebooks. Clearly, consumers buying >$1000 machines still aren't satisfied by SB graphics for their "basic" needs.

 

[skipsneeky2]

leading performance in high end video cards?leave it to nvidia intel doesnt even stand a chance in the graphics card market,like donald trump running for president each is best at what they do but oh yeah a 2500k that mostly gamers will buy oh yeah i think crysis 2 will run just fine on that onboard gpu intel offers,not no one gives a rats ass about the onboard gpu,pop in a card and kick some ass why cant intel offer a higher end version of the 2600k perhaps with more cache and kill that onboard gpu,but still make it a option on a motherboard?like the old nvidia chipsets?we havent had a nvidia chipset since the 700 series,that would be interesting to see again