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.
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.
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?
Originally Posted by logan'srun 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.
Originally Posted by Bindibadgi 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 ;)
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?
Originally Posted by okenobi 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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GatesDA 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.
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 :)
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.
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?
still not fair.. you are comparing an integrated gpu on cpu with a non integrated gpu on cpu.. the benchmark is invalid because of AMD still doesnt have the FUSION yet.. wait till FUSION is on.. then you start comparing.. and for the driver part i have been using version 9.12 since the release and i dont have a single problem that you have encounter in your benchmark.. finally.. you are comparing an Apple with an Orange.. make sure you under-clock the gpu on intel so that all the gpu have the same frequencies.. even a kindergarten can do it..
Originally Posted by rootheday 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.
Then it would be evaluating the potential of a single CPU, in a single environment, not what you buy. It would invalidate the power consumption results, because what voltage would we run it at? We all know that there is plenty of overhead from Intel's 32nm CPUs - moreso than AMD - and we covered that recently in our 661/530 review. We will cover it again in the future in a specific 530 and 32nm Pentium article. It was not the focus of this feature, which was simply a product analysis. ;)
Quote:
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?
It works perfectly from what I can tell - Intel has always been higher in every PowerDVD playback test we've ever run. I pulled the latest PowerDVD from Cyberlink with all the latest updates and it said ClearVideo was enabled when playing back.
Xcom, you are exhibiting purchase justification syndrome my friend. ;) For starters - Fuzion isn't around for another 18 months, minimum, whereas these products are available to buy now. In addition, Intel's on-die GPU is simply the same northbridge as G45 (+2 shaders), but die shrunk and now uses a QPI link to the CPU, instead of front side bus. Even if it was integrated into the GPU - having a product the competition doesn't that you can buy means the results are valid because this is technology of today. It's precisely why we don't adjust clock speeds - we're not looking at the technical efficiency of their pipelines on a clock to clock basis, this is a product analysis.
Fuzion is already 2 years late, until we see silicon - something we maintain equally across every product from every company - it's just a powerpoint presentation like Larrabee, and a wet dream of AMD enthusiasts.
Krayzie - I realise that, but Crysis is a hardcore game not a casual one. I only did MW2 because it's popular and made for all products. Showing Crysis barely playable on any IGP is not really a measure of much, since we were focusing on what games people might want to really play on integrated graphics :)
Java - our conclusions as well. We point out on the last page that the AMD solution offers great value for money, but for those who really, really want the extra features like bit-streaming Intel offers this and ClearVideo has fantastic de-interlacing.
One button overclocking is an option, yes, but at what voltage and cost to efficiency? The extrapolation of data is numerous and something that requires a whole separate article to cover in itself.
Thank you very much for some interesting reading. This was exactly the comparison I have been looking for. Great job!
Right now I'm sitting with an Atom 330 and nVidia ION which works great.
However I am looking into maybe getting a setup with a bit more "grunt" in the CPU area and would like a CPU that can play HD material on "raw power" in case hardware acceleration doesn't work.
Would a core i3 be sufficient for this?
Excellent stuff, I was waiting for a review of the GPU core in the i3 before buying one for an MCE build. I'd been intending on going the nVidia 9400 route but the power consumption figures and better raw speed of the i3 chips compared to an equivalent price AMD setup (and nVidia 9400 boards not being available anymore, along with having been more expensive) have swung it for the H55/i3, especially as I want something fast to encode video at the same time. It looks like the i3 530 do it fast enough.
Quote:
I can already hear those seriously interested in building a Media PC diving for your wallets.
It's a nice sound! I'll be ordering mine at the weekend.
@corbendallas - based on this review the i3 530's GPU core more than holds its own decoding 1080p so it's by far the best option & makes me wonder why Intel have bothered with the i5 661 - it has a higher TDP and whilst it's GPU core may be faster, if the i3 530 can decode 1080p flawlessly, why bother spending the extra cash on the 661 for a MCE or genereal use PC?
There appears to be something wrong with your CPU utilisation (and therefore power consumption) numbers for the i3 and i5 cpus - i am sitting here with a laptop equipped with a core i5 520m and the latest version of Arcsoft and am seeing utilisation of between 8 and 12% utilisation whilst playing back an h.264 encoded film (watchmen).
I'm 100% sure that on my previous machine with GMAX4500 I only ever saw utilisation in the 15 - 20% range also when using PowerDVD so I don't follow the remarks made about utilisation always being high with Intel Gfx.
Would have been good if you had compared more game titles too, seriously it's interesting to see how something like modern warfare performs, but in reality why not show more games that people with low powered integrated graphics are likely to play? For what it's worth, I've just played through 3 campaigns of Left 4 Dead 2 and have been amazed that it was actually playable and looked good (at 1366*768 medium settings). FPS was hovering around 20fps which sound v low, but it was surprisingly smooth.... considering I play on an i7 machine with a 5870 normally, I was pleasantly surprised... GMAX4500 never delivered anything close.
I can't help feeling that we might even see more performance as Intel have finally appeared to have sorted out their drivers to a point where games actually don't not work now.... ;-)
Comments 1 to 25 of 29
Replyyou can find the lastest here:
http://xvidvideo.ru/media-player-classic-home-cinema-x86-x64/media-player-classic-homecinema-x86-x64-svn-1557.html
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.
i used one of the latest mpc-hc builds on my 780G the other day works fine
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 ;)
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 :)
One this week, one next week.
http://www.bigfootnetworks.com/gearupuk/index.html
Andy
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
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.
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?
Then it would be evaluating the potential of a single CPU, in a single environment, not what you buy. It would invalidate the power consumption results, because what voltage would we run it at? We all know that there is plenty of overhead from Intel's 32nm CPUs - moreso than AMD - and we covered that recently in our 661/530 review. We will cover it again in the future in a specific 530 and 32nm Pentium article. It was not the focus of this feature, which was simply a product analysis. ;)
It works perfectly from what I can tell - Intel has always been higher in every PowerDVD playback test we've ever run. I pulled the latest PowerDVD from Cyberlink with all the latest updates and it said ClearVideo was enabled when playing back.
Xcom, you are exhibiting purchase justification syndrome my friend. ;) For starters - Fuzion isn't around for another 18 months, minimum, whereas these products are available to buy now. In addition, Intel's on-die GPU is simply the same northbridge as G45 (+2 shaders), but die shrunk and now uses a QPI link to the CPU, instead of front side bus. Even if it was integrated into the GPU - having a product the competition doesn't that you can buy means the results are valid because this is technology of today. It's precisely why we don't adjust clock speeds - we're not looking at the technical efficiency of their pipelines on a clock to clock basis, this is a product analysis.
Fuzion is already 2 years late, until we see silicon - something we maintain equally across every product from every company - it's just a powerpoint presentation like Larrabee, and a wet dream of AMD enthusiasts.
Krayzie - I realise that, but Crysis is a hardcore game not a casual one. I only did MW2 because it's popular and made for all products. Showing Crysis barely playable on any IGP is not really a measure of much, since we were focusing on what games people might want to really play on integrated graphics :)
Java - our conclusions as well. We point out on the last page that the AMD solution offers great value for money, but for those who really, really want the extra features like bit-streaming Intel offers this and ClearVideo has fantastic de-interlacing.
One button overclocking is an option, yes, but at what voltage and cost to efficiency? The extrapolation of data is numerous and something that requires a whole separate article to cover in itself.
Right now I'm sitting with an Atom 330 and nVidia ION which works great.
However I am looking into maybe getting a setup with a bit more "grunt" in the CPU area and would like a CPU that can play HD material on "raw power" in case hardware acceleration doesn't work.
Would a core i3 be sufficient for this?
It's a nice sound! I'll be ordering mine at the weekend.
@corbendallas - based on this review the i3 530's GPU core more than holds its own decoding 1080p so it's by far the best option & makes me wonder why Intel have bothered with the i5 661 - it has a higher TDP and whilst it's GPU core may be faster, if the i3 530 can decode 1080p flawlessly, why bother spending the extra cash on the 661 for a MCE or genereal use PC?
I'm 100% sure that on my previous machine with GMAX4500 I only ever saw utilisation in the 15 - 20% range also when using PowerDVD so I don't follow the remarks made about utilisation always being high with Intel Gfx.
Would have been good if you had compared more game titles too, seriously it's interesting to see how something like modern warfare performs, but in reality why not show more games that people with low powered integrated graphics are likely to play? For what it's worth, I've just played through 3 campaigns of Left 4 Dead 2 and have been amazed that it was actually playable and looked good (at 1366*768 medium settings). FPS was hovering around 20fps which sound v low, but it was surprisingly smooth.... considering I play on an i7 machine with a 5870 normally, I was pleasantly surprised... GMAX4500 never delivered anything close.
I can't help feeling that we might even see more performance as Intel have finally appeared to have sorted out their drivers to a point where games actually don't not work now.... ;-)
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