Mobile Trinity Graphics: Not really better than Intel HD Graphics 4000?

[Red Hawk]

I recently looked closely at mobile Trinity and Ivy Bridge benchmarks because my parents are buying a laptop for my little brother for Christmas. My dad found a great Black Friday deal on a Toshiba laptop with an i7-3630QM and 1600 MHz DDR3 memory for just $600 USD. I tried talking him into paying a little less to get a laptop with an AMD A8-4500m and Radeon HD 7640G or a little more for a laptop with an AMD A10-4600m and Radeon HD 7660G, but I couldn't make a strong enough case based on gaming performance for him to give up the performance advantage of quad core Ivy Bridge over Trinity. And I've realized: it's because, when it comes down to it, Trinity really doesn't have much of an advantage.

I mean, overall, it's better, but just look at the benchmark list Anandtech did:

This is not the clean sweep that Llano vs Sandy Bridge was. The 7660G comes out 20% ahead overall, but Ivy Bridge is a stone's throw away in most games, and actually pulls ahead in high-profile games like Skyrim, Arkham City, and DiRT 3. The results are too consistent to be a fixable driver fluke, and even if it was, that possibility has its own problem -- would AMD really be having driver issues while Intel isn't? It's more likely that Intel is having driver issues in Civ 5 or Shogun 2 than AMD is struggling with Skyrim or Arkham City.

It's true that Trinity's graphics beat Ivy Bridge on desktop, hands-down. So why the lack of universal advantage in the mobile space? It probably comes down to the manufacturing process. 22nm allows Intel to keep higher clock speeds at lower TDPs demanded by laptops, while Trinity is stuck back at 32 nm and has to throttle its clock speeds in order to fit into laptop TDP ranges.

Now, to be fair in my situation, the HD Graphics 4000 that Anandtech benched with a 3720QM is 100 MHz faster than the HD Graphics in the 3630QM that my dad bought. That might be enough for the 7660G to pull ahead in Skyrim, Arkham City, etc. But that's just an 8% difference in the end. I was recommending a 7640G, which has 33% less shaders and a possibly lower clock speed than the benched 7660G, over the HD Graphics 4000 based on gaming performance. I realize now that the 7640G is probably worse than a standard HD Graphics 4000. If we were to see the same comparison between the 7640G and the HD Graphics 4000, I think we'd see the roles reversed -- the HD Graphics would hold huge leads in Skyrim and Arkham City, it would win most games, and Civ 5 and Shogun 2 would be marginal wins for the 7640G.

On top of this, Intel seems to be pushing forward at a faster pace than AMD. HD Graphics 4000 featured a reworked architecture and 30% more execution units than HD Graphics 3000 (12 vs 16), and got a 50% performance increase overall, a true generational leap:

While Trinity, while featuring an architectural shift from VLIW5 to VLIW4, only yielded an 18% improvement over Llano:

We have no solid figures on the changes Kaveri is supposed to bring, but Haswell's best GPU configuration will have 40 EUs over Ivy Bridge's 16. Intel is bringing the heat as best it can with HD Graphics, and I'm actually starting to doubt if AMD can even hold their own with integrated graphics. I used to think that Llano and Trinity were essentially the only option for low-budget gaming laptops, but that's not the case anymore. Ivy Bridge vs Trinity feels more like Nvidia vs AMD now -- each wins some and loses some, while one holds an overall advantage.

AMD loses to Intel in power efficiency and CPU performance, and ultimately desktop integrated GPU performance is irrelevant because if HD Graphics 4000 isn't sufficient you can always upgrade to an inexpensive GPU while the only way to upgrade CPU performance is to get another CPU entirely. And now even the mobile graphics advantage is questionable. What is the point of Trinity, really?

 

[VulgarDisplay]

The sad thing is, if the CPU's weren't so shoddy for gaming their iGPU's would be much better.

 

[SPBHM]

yes, well... I think it's just a consequence of the inferiority of AMD in terms of power efficiency in general.... they need to clock the GPU and CPU to low, and some games are really limited by a low clocked Bulldozer, also mobile normally uses slower memory which should be more damaging for the faster GPU...

the HD4000 with the i3 or i5 (more adequate comparison than the i7) should also perform worse than the HD 4000 with the i7 (higher clock, more l3, faster CPU)

 

[Lepton87]

I think the bulk of the issue is memory bandwidth, AMD has just less efficient IMC and puts lower bandwidth numbers even with the same RAM speed. To exacerbate the issue AMD iGPUs don't have access to a very fast L3 cache like ivy has.

 

[Red Hawk]

yes, well... I think it's just a consequence of the inferiority of AMD in terms of power efficiency in general.... they need to clock the GPU and CPU to low, and some games are really limited by a low clocked Bulldozer, also mobile normally uses slower memory which should be more damaging for the faster GPU...

the HD4000 with the i3 or i5 (more adequate comparison than the i7) should also perform worse than the HD 4000 with the i7 (higher clock, more l3, faster CPU)

The odd thing is, that's not what is reflected in the benchmarks. Strategy games like Starcraft 2, Civ V, and Shogun 2 should be the most CPU-heavy games on the list, yet those are the ones where Trinity holds the strongest lead. Skyrim, which Intel holds the lead in, can be CPU intensive, but it's mostly a memory hog; Arkham City would definitely be bottlenecked in memory and shading long before hitting a CPU wall.

i3 and i5s don't necessarily have slower HD Graphics 4000 than i7s; the dual core i5-3340m has an HD Graphics clocked at 1250 MHz, just as fast as the i7 that Anandtech benched.

 

[SPBHM]

The odd thing is, that's not what is reflected in the benchmarks. Strategy games like Starcraft 2, Civ V, and Shogun 2 should be the most CPU-heavy games on the list, yet those are the ones where Trinity holds the strongest lead. Skyrim, which Intel holds the lead in, can be CPU intensive, but it's mostly a memory hog; Arkham City would definitely be bottlenecked in memory and shading long before hitting a CPU wall.

i3 and i5s don't necessarily have slower HD Graphics 4000 than i7s; the dual core i5-3340m has an HD Graphics clocked at 1250 MHz, just as fast as the i7 that Anandtech benched.

also half the l3 cache, and as far as I know l3 cache affects the Intel IGP performance (a little)

apart from the big difference in terms of CPU performance, I don't know, but if the test was made with lower settings, it may well decrease the importance of the advantage the AMD GPUs hold in terms of shading/tmus or something? well...

desktop trinity runs at 800MHz I think, mobile will work at 500-680
while the Intel IGP will go from 650 to 1150 in most CPUs (I think), and by my experience with the SB IGP, it stays most of the time on the higher clock mode, perhaps the trinity IGP stays at 500MHz most of the time?

 

[MrK6]

Wow, the HD 4000 is faster than I understood from first impressions (months ago). I had to go do more research after reading this thread because it surprised me that much, another review that shows the same: http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-Trinity-A104600M-Processor-Review/?page=8 . I have a 6550M in my notebook (400 shaders @ 600MHz, usually overclocked to 800MHz) and it plays newer games easily. BF3 multiplayer is actually heavily CPU limited on the dual core overclocked to 3.4GHz. I don't know if I would defer all mobile gaming to an HD4000 just yet, but if HD 5000 maintains this pace it just may sufficient.

 

[Lepton87]

Wow, the HD 4000 is faster than I understood from first impressions (months ago). I had to go do more research after reading this thread because it surprised me that much, another review that shows the same: http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-Trinity-A104600M-Processor-Review/?page=8 . I have a 6550M in my notebook (400 shaders @ 600MHz, usually overclocked to 800MHz) and it plays newer games easily. BF3 multiplayer is actually heavily CPU limited on the dual core overclocked to 3.4GHz. I don't know if I would defer all mobile gaming to an HD4000 just yet, but if HD 5000 maintains this pace it just may sufficient.

Just remember that in many designs HD4000 throttles badly, especially in ultrabooks. OEMs don't leave enough thermal room for both CPU and GPU to work together, so depending on the notebook either CPU or GPU throttles causing awful stuttering, it mostly affect slim designs.

 

[Red Hawk]

Just remember that in many designs HD4000 throttles badly, especially in ultrabooks. OEMs don't leave enough thermal room for both CPU and GPU to work together, so depending on the notebook either CPU or GPU throttles causing awful stuttering, it mostly affect slim designs.

And such throttled GPUs are usually indicated by the CPU designation, such as "UM". I hardly expect to see a full A10-4600m in an ultrabook design either.

 

[ShintaiDK]

AMDs bad powerconsumption numbers obviously hit them hard in the mobile space. Where you simply cant have a TDP thats 30% higher to counter some of the deficiencies.

 

[nforce4max]

AMDs bad powerconsumption numbers obviously hit them hard in the mobile space. Where you simply cant have a TDP thats 30% higher to counter some of the deficiencies.

They're not as bad as some people have made them out to be, take your average Llano and Trinity laptop then compare it to your average SB laptop then you will see that AMD has the advantage in battery life but performance not a chance. Their memory controllers barely push 1333 let alone 1600 enough to get decent results.

 

[Obsoleet]

Not to raise this thread from the dead, but I just did.. I'm very interested in APUs and have come to similar conclusions, with caveats.
Intel might be a better choice on mobile, but you need to take into account these results- http://techreport.com/review/22932/amd-a10-4600m-trinity-apu-reviewed/12
Namely the frame latency results. I can vouch that on my i5-3320M while the framerates are high, you can definitely feel that latency.

The Trinity solution destroys Intel in that regard and the review notes that while the IB HD4000 is a great improvement, the AMD solution is superior to the HD4000. It's difficult to find direct results of an IB i3 vs A10-4600M in gaming, but I'm having a hard time deciding between the two.
The best part of the summary from that review, which I feel really sums it up accurately-

Laptops are rapidly becoming the most popular consumer PCs, and a great many consumers will want to play games on them at least some of the time. We've noted that one can't always tell CPUs apart from the seat-of-the-pants experience. The results of our latency-focused gaming tests will tell you IGP performance deltas are much easier to perceive, at least in graphically intensive titles like the ones we tested. All of these IGPs are relatively wimpy graphics solutions, so you really want the best one possible.

On the desktop, I'd probably hand the win to the A10. The GPU power there is really worth it over the Intel chips if you're not using a discrete GPU. My next system will be an A10 (or whatever succeeds it), because if my 5870 dies, I won't be buying another discrete video card ever again so I want to have the best APU possible to fall back on. CPU power at 2013 performance rates for both Intel and AMD are so high that additional gains are mostly irrelevant for me, if not already outright overpowered (hence the rise of Apple mobile and Chromebooks doing the job for most).

All this said, this is my view today, unless AMD has something up their sleeve to up their memory bandwidth, Haswell should put Intel on par with AMD in gfx performance and offer a better CPU. I'm not counting AMD out yet, they also own the entire platform and can do whatever they deem fit to boost APU performance. With far, far more to work with.

 

[Red Hawk]

The HD 3000 certainly seems to have unacceptable latency there, but the 4000? While it lags behind AMD, it's not incredibly so. Certainly not on the level that Radeon HD 7000 discrete cards had before the 13.2 beta. In the very same article, the HD 4000 has better results in Batman Arkham City. Frame latency seems to mainly be a driver issue, and both Intel's results with Arkham City and AMD's recent beta show that you can cut down on latency and still have superior raw frames per second; the core point about Intel matching AMD's capabilities when it comes to the physical chip and technology remains.

 

[Piroko]

At the end of the day Trinity will allow more games to be played with 40fps+. It's not as big of a difference as Llano was to Sandy, but people in vc&g regularly argue about differences below 10% and Trinity is quite a bit faster than that.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I agree that trinity loses some of its advantage in gaming in the mobile sector. However, the question to me, is: Is either one really adequate?

For sure on the desktop, I would never consider an APU for gaming. In the mobile sector as well, it seems like still a very marginal solution. You have to accept a lot of compromises as to what games you can play, resolution, and image quality. These compromises are more acceptable in a laptop due to power and thermal constraints, but I still would consider a GT650M the minimum for laptop gaming, especially with new games becoming more graphically demanding.

 

[Obsoleet]

For me the question is (and I agree it's likely a driver issue)- will Intel fix this? They have the raw frames to show, but in most cases their latency is out of control. You don't have to worry with Trinity, it already works as it's supposed to. I'm not sure if the HD4000 will receive a lot of driver TLC after Haswell is released (unless we're seeing improvements in the HD3000 today, judging from that article I'd say no).
While the Trinity platform is likely to receive benefits from the discrete card optimizations (and already has in a big way).

I have an HD4000 laptop and I find it adequate, for those who demand everything have a massive GPU or SLI/Xfire, no, nothing is ever going to 'work'. But I play enough games on my HD4000 that I find it suitable. It's really not bad (if you don't exclusively play FPS games) and I'm running in single channel mode.

What I'm really looking forward to is the Haswell and next iteration of Trinity. But today, I'd probably have to go for the AMD solutions on desktop and mobile over Intel if you don't want a discrete GPU. Intel has a good product though (that I'm typing on now), but buying a new desktop or laptop today I'd probably go A10 for both.

Battery life for Trinity is extremely good (http://techreport.com/review/22932/amd-a10-4600m-trinity-apu-reviewed/13), that and in the vast majority of cases the Trinity being faster (~20% faster which far from insignificant) makes it the easy win vs the HD4000 in my view.
With Haswell, I think we'll see something similar to the HD4000 continue to carry the lowend and midrange but i7s having double the performance of the HD4000. That will likely be a price/performance battle between Intel and AMD APUs.

At the end of the day Trinity will allow more games to be played with 40fps+. It's not as big of a difference as Llano was to Sandy, but people in vc&g regularly argue about differences below 10% and Trinity is quite a bit faster than that.

Exactly.. 20% on average is massive for discrete or mobile.

 

[Obsoleet]

yes, well... I think it's just a consequence of the inferiority of AMD in terms of power efficiency in general.... they need to clock the GPU and CPU to low, and some games are really limited by a low clocked Bulldozer, also mobile normally uses slower memory which should be more damaging for the faster GPU...

the HD4000 with the i3 or i5 (more adequate comparison than the i7) should also perform worse than the HD 4000 with the i7 (higher clock, more l3, faster CPU)

There's a good link detailing this. The i3, i5, and i7's aren't that far apart in performance- http://www.hardware.fr/articles/872-6/perfs-jeux-f1-2011-civilization-v-battlefield-3.html

For me it comes down to cheap i3, i5 (with turbo core and hardware virtualization thrown in), or A10 (completely different CPU but does auto-overclock as well and hardware virtualization).
The i7 isn't worth it at a high price as it lacks VT-d and is built on a older process, and it's more expensive only offering (mostly unnecessary) CPU performance.

The i5 laptops are about at the same price as the A10-4600M. Both are ideal, discounting price.
I work using VMs, so for me this is important. I'd probably go for the A10 in the end, but the low price and similar performance on the HD4000 on the i3 makes it a pretty decent deal.

 

[piesquared]

Yes but you can't take intel's frame latency issues for their igp's out of the equation. Couple that with lower performance and you have a recipe for a very poor experience.

 

[bgt]

I have the i7-3770K/4000IGP and the A10-5700M IGP. The Trinity is not only faster but has a much smoother/sharper picture as the i7 igp. Their design strategy is so different that you can say that the AMD solution is not so cpu load dependent while the Intel 1 is. And that makes the 4000 stutter more often under multitasking load.

 

[Obsoleet]

I have the i7-3770K/4000IGP and the A10-5700M IGP. The Trinity is not only faster but has a much smoother/sharper picture as the i7 igp. Their design strategy is so different that you can say that the AMD solution is not cpu load dependant while the Intel 1 is. And that makes the 4000 stutter more often under multitasking load.

Your A10 is the desktop version. We're comparing the mobile versions in this thread.
On the desktop, Intel has no chance at competing and probably will still lose in Haswell vs Kaveri.

The A10 is going to be superior across the board for mobile or desktop. But it's close enough on mobile that I have my doubts whether a $700 A10 laptop is worth it over a $400 i3. But I have no doubt an A10 is a better choice than an i5 or i7 at the same price.

 

[bgt]

Just look at my other thread where I tested the dependency:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2295636
Just look at the i3 failure under multitasking and graphics. An i3 laptop will have worse problems.

 

[SPBHM]

Just look at my other thread where I tested the dependency:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2295636
Just look at the i3 failure under multitasking and graphics. An i3 laptop will have worse problems.

I doubt any i3 laptop user is going to load both as much as that, no other application will ever load the GPU as much (apart from other os the same kind, like OCCT), and you are using low clocked, most of the time dual core CPUs,
the worst case scenario is probably gaming, and here is how they compare:

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/872-6/perfs-jeux-f1-2011-civilization-v-battlefield-3.html

also I have a few Intel IGPs and AMD cards and "smoother/sharper picture" is really hard to use as an argument.

 

[Obsoleet]

I doubt any i3 laptop user is going to load both as much as that, no other application will ever load the GPU as much (apart from other os the same kind, like OCCT), and you are using low clocked, most of the time dual core CPUs,
the worst case scenario is probably gaming, and here is how they compare:

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/872-6/perfs-jeux-f1-2011-civilization-v-battlefield-3.html

also I have a few Intel IGPs and AMD cards and "smoother/sharper picture" is really hard to use as an argument.

Given the choice between slower APUs and faster APUs, I'll take faster.
Which is the A10, even though I have the HD4000/i5. I was never one to promote what I own, simply because I use it. I'm not that attached and can see clearly.

The ideal test, other than the most strenuous as bgt did- would be something realistic such as what I do: play a game, stream Youtube videos in the background, and have voice chat being used at the same time.
That's without mentioning that most people are buying laptops for their primary computer anymore. If they hook up a monitor to their laptop, they'll be using dual monitors and this will be even more of a use case.

If you do that test, it no longer correlates exactly to that hardware.fr test. From what we know, the A10 is going to handle it better.

 

[SPBHM]

Given the choice between slower APUs and faster APUs, I'll take faster.
Which is the A10, even though I have the HD4000/i5. I was never one to promote what I own, simply because I use it. I'm not that attached and can see clearly.

The ideal test, other than the most strenuous as bgt did- would be something realistic such as what I do: play a game, stream Youtube videos in the background, and have voice chat being used at the same time.

If you do that test, it no longer correlates exactly to that hardware.fr test. From what we know, the A10 is going to handle it better.

if you are gaming, I would also suggest looking at the lower priced laptops using the GK107 640m or 650m,

but this load you suggested will never be anything close to the furmark test.

 

[Obsoleet]

if you are gaming, I would also suggest looking at the lower priced laptops using the GK107 640m or 650m,

but this load you suggested will never be anything close to the furmark test.

I'm uninterested in 3rd party bolt-on solutions. Intel or AMD only. It's not furmark, but it's a very lightweight test (you can be sure that you're antivirus among other things such as Skype, Steam are all running) that will show AMD's IGP multitasking superiority shine through.