GMA500 (in a netbook) - why is it so bad?

[SunnyD]

Looking at the specs for the 500, based on a PowerVR core that is actually DX10.1 compliant, the only thing holding it back appears possibly the clock speed. Is the GMA950 really that much better though?

 

[boomhower]

They both are equally worthless. They can display basic video and that it. I mean dang, they choke on hulu.

 

[Hacp]

Originally posted by: boomhower
They both are equally worthless. They can display basic video and that it. I mean dang, they choke on hulu.

Isn't Hulu using the CPU? I'm not 100% sure.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: Hacp

Originally posted by: boomhower
They both are equally worthless. They can display basic video and that it. I mean dang, they choke on hulu.

Isn't Hulu using the CPU? I'm not 100% sure.

Yeah. Hulu is CPU dependent. It's choking on Hulu because the Atom is a pretty mediocre processor.

 

[SunnyD]

Well reading the specs on the GMA500 - it's supposed to support MPEG-2, VC1 and AVC hardware acceleration. That alone sounds like it would be a better chip than the 950.

 

[IlllI]

where are you getting the info that GMA950 is better?

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: IlllI
where are you getting the info that GMA950 is better?

Performance-wise, the 950 runs faster (and benchmarks faster) than the 500. Partly - the 950 has a faster clock speed and higher memory bandwidth than the 500.

As an aside, I've also read that the 500 only support 1GB of system memory as well.

 

[IlllI]

yeah its probably b/c its highest clock is 200 MHz compared to 400 vs the 950.
i was unable to find direct comparisons/reviews of them together though.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: IlllI
yeah its probably b/c its highest clock is 200 MHz compared to 400 vs the 950.
i was unable to find direct comparisons/reviews of them together though.

Try here.

According to Notebookcheck though, the GMA950 coupled with the Atom is only running at 166MHz. So the GMA500 should theoretically be better imho. If only it supported more than 1GB of ram.

 

[runawayprisoner]

GMA 500 suffers from horrible driver support. It should be much better than GMA 950 feature-wise. And it has hardware support for h.264 decoding for up to 1080p as well. Some 1080p h.264 AVC videos run smoothly on GMA 500 whereas the same can't be said for GMA 950.

Edit: and that it only supports 1GB of RAM is not true because the Vaio P, which has a GMA 500, runs with 2GB of RAM.

 

[IlllI]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Try here.

According to Notebookcheck though, the GMA950 coupled with the Atom is only running at 166MHz. So the GMA500 should theoretically be better imho. If only it supported more than 1GB of ram.

i had found that earlier, but i meant actual benchmarks comparing the two etc.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: IlllI

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Try here.

According to Notebookcheck though, the GMA950 coupled with the Atom is only running at 166MHz. So the GMA500 should theoretically be better imho. If only it supported more than 1GB of ram.

i had found that earlier, but i meant actual benchmarks comparing the two etc.

They have some benchmark runs for the various video adapters. Mostly synthetic, but some of the ones that are actually capable of running certain games will have some numbers too.

 

[Bateluer]

They both suck. If you want to actually do anything more graphically intensive than Solitaire, you'll need to pick up an Asus N10. The N10 comes with an Nvidia IGP, a 9300M, but also costs close to 800.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
They both suck. If you want to actually do anything more graphically intensive than Solitaire, you'll need to pick up an Asus N10. The N10 comes with an Nvidia IGP, a 9300M, but also costs close to 800.

At that price point I'd be picking up a laptop with something significantly better than a 9300M in it. For now, I'm just trying to figure out why the GMA950 is considered "better" than the technically superior GMA500.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

At that price point I'd be picking up a laptop with something significantly better than a 9300M in it. For now, I'm just trying to figure out why the GMA950 is considered "better" than the technically superior GMA500.

There's not much to say other than that excluding features, GMA 500 is slow. The only thing it consistently excels is MPEG-2, VC1 and AVC hardware acceleration, but honestly, that doesn't take that much hardware wise, and GMA 950 doesn't have anything beyond partial MPEG-2 support.

Remember, the 166MHz core GMA950 aka 945GSE, which is the lowest power consumption one out there, has 5W TDP. The GMA500/US15W, which is on the same process and including the southbridge, uses only 2.2W. They had to sacrifice something to get that low. Some people are claiming lack of driver support, but I only believe that partially because software can only go far as the hardware capability.

Fillrate-wise, the GMA500 has lower MTexels/s than the GMA950 in both single and multi-texture.

GMA 500 200MHz, 2 pipelines
=400MTexels/s

GMA 950 166MHz, 4 pipelines
=667MTexels/s

Starting from the basics like the fillrate, the GMA500 is already behind the slowest GMA950. Then it has more disadvantages. GMA500 was architected for not only lower power, but also unified shaders, which are more general purpose than the fixed function units on the GMA950. Fixed function is usually faster because it can be optimized for that specific operation.

 

[SunnyD]

The GMA500 has 4 pipelines.

Well I suppose it has just about been rendered moot with Dell shipping the Mini 10v now, which uses the GMA950 & N280. As soon as they start to ship the 1280x768 (HD) version, I'm pretty certain which netbook I'll be picking up, assuming it comes it at a reasonable price.

 

[runawayprisoner]

GMA 950 is a better alternative right now because, again, of bad drivers support from Intel.

If not for that then because it's coupled with the Atom Z processors, which are not as powerful as the Atom N processors. The main advantage of the GMA 9xx series is that since they use software Vertex Shaders, the faster the CPU, the better their graphics performance for certain games.

 

[Fox5]

GMA500 has poor driver support (it's made by imgtech and not intel).
GMA500 is derived from a PocketPC graphics chip.
Its shader ability is likely poor, though so is the gma 950's.
It's a tiler, but I think the gma950 already was too.
Tilers don't benefit newer games as much because pixel shaders drain fillrate like nobody's business without creating occlusion.

That's the gist I get of it anyway.

 

[nycfonephreak]

I'm trying to decide between the 11.6" and 10" Acer Aspire One. The 11.6" has GMA500 with Atom Z520 processor and the 10" has GMA950 with N270 processor. Both running WinXP

I'll mostly be using for simple tasks like web and email (95% of the time). However, there may be times where I'll want to use Photoshop or Photoshop Elements (can be an older version, if that's better) to do a quick edit on a small image.... or I'll need to run an old version of Dreamweaver to make a quick fix to a web page.

I think the larger screen would be better... but, which (if any) is better equipped to handle PS, PSE or Dreamweaver?

 

[IlllI]

i know this is an old topic, but apparently its the drivers is what is (mostly) holding it back

taken from this article Text

"Now, the performance shortfall is not exactly Imagination Technologies fault, as we all thought. The problem is that Intel hired a 3rd party vendor called Tungsten Graphics [now a whole owned subsidiary of VMware Inc.] to create the drivers for the parts. Problem with those drivers is the fact that "GMA500 suffers from utterly crappy drivers. Intel didn't buy any drivers from Imagination Technologies for the SGX, but hired Tungsten Graphics to write the drivers for it. Despite the repeated protest from the side of Imagination Technologies to Intel, Tungsten drivers DO NOT use the onboard firmware of the chip, forcing the chip to resort to software vertex processing."

 

[jaydee]

Where does GMA 4500MHD compare among these?

 

[IntelUser2000]

Originally posted by: jaydee
Where does GMA 4500MHD compare among these?

Wow you guys recovered a really old thread.

The 4500MHD is a much higher performing(and power consumption) than either of them.

BTW, its 5 months old, but I'll reply anyway.

The GMA500 has 4 pipelines.

I know what I am talking about. The Intel Menlow platform presentation states 400MTexels/s which with a 200MHz clock will only end up as 2 pipelines(well not really pipelines, but ROPs since its a unified shader architecture).

It's just slow. It uses 2W while the GMA950 based one uses 5W, you think performance is free?

 

[Rottie]

You guys are crazy...I dont know why you guys complaining about how bad GMA 500 GPU is but you knew how wonderful little netbook runs great regardless how good video is. You know netbook does not come with DVD drive just because GMA 500 sucks so there is no reason to watch DVD movie using netbook....Netbook is for light task such as word processing surfing websites...check email on the go...What else do you want more from netbook with bad GPU like GMA 500???

 

[IlllI]

Originally posted by: Rottie
You guys are crazy...I dont know why you guys complaining about how bad GMA 500 GPU is but you knew how wonderful little netbook runs great regardless how good video is. You know netbook does not come with DVD drive just because GMA 500 sucks so there is no reason to watch DVD movie using netbook....Netbook is for light task such as word processing surfing websites...check email on the go...What else do you want more from netbook with bad GPU like GMA 500???

i think the original topic why is the GMA 500 worse than the GMA 950

 

[tcsenter]

GMA 500 is basically a set-top box graphics core. The kind of stuff used in mobile GPS and navigation systems. Most laptops with GMA 950 are going to benefit from selective off-loading of graphics to a much more powerful mobile CPU than Atom, as well.