Integrated Graphics - Slower than AMD, Still Perfect for an HTPC

Intel was very careful to seed reviewers with the Core i5 661, it provides integrated graphics performance equal to if not better than the best integrated graphics from AMD and NVIDIA.

The same, unfortunately, can’t be said about the Core i3 530. With 81% of the GPU clock of the 661, the i3’s graphics are obviously slower. It’s not a huge drop, but it’s enough to be noticeable and enough to be slower than AMD:

1024 x 768 Batman: AA Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Dawn of War II Dragon Age Origins HAWX World of Warcraft
Intel Core i5 661 (HD Graphics) 35 fps 21.6 fps 15.0 fps 41.5 fps 53 fps 14.8 fps
Intel Core i3 530 (HD Graphics) 28 fps 17.5 fps 9.5 fps 34.4 fps 45 fps 12.5 fps
AMD Phenom II X4 965 (790GX) 35 fps 29.3 fps 12.1 fps 35.6 fps 58 fps 21.1 fps
Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 (GMA X4500) 15 fps failed 1.4 fps 16.8 fps 26 fps 11.7 fps

 

The i3 does retain all of the sweet TrueHD/DTS-HD MA bitstreaming support that makes Clarkdale the perfect HTPC platform. If you don’t need the extra CPU power, the Core i3 530 could make for a great HTPC.

The Performance & Power Summary Overclocking Intel’s HD Graphics - It Works...Very Well
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  • marc1000 - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link

    its interesting how close in performance the e8600 is to the i3... of course you loose some power efficiency but if you already have a good discrete GPU and a e8600 (or another older penryn clocked to e8600 levels, as it is my case), then none of the new CPU's are ground-breaking deals... they are faster, of course, but they are also expensive. not funny. going from a P4 to a Penryn was really great, but from a Penryn to these new ones... its just "good".
  • Grooveriding - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link

    Any chance of seeing some comparisons of this chip at 4ghz vs an i7 920 at 4ghz. I'd love to get an idea of how it compares clock for clock in gaming against the 1366 platform.

    Be interesting to see if it's better just getting this if you're a gamer.
  • cmdrdredd - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link

    2.66Ghz i7 920 vs 2.93Ghz i3 530 is already there. The 2.66Ghz i7 is on average 10fps faster. Overclocking both to 4Ghz would have the same results if not even furthering the gap. Why? Because a slower clock speed CPU is already faster. So equaling the clock speed doesn't mean equaling performance.
  • strikeback03 - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link

    Even better, if they could add overclocked results they already have to Bench.
  • ltcommanderdata - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link

    I'm wondering if overclocking the IGP's shader units overclocks the memory controller as well since they are on the same die? That would help explain the good performance scaling. As well, was power consumption significantly different with the IGP at 1200MHz? If not, then Intel should definitely have clocked their IGPs higher. Catching up to current gen IGPs from nVidia and ATI is noteworthy for an Intel IGP, but presumably nVidia and ATI have their next gen IGPs right around the corner and Intel's IGP doesn't push new performance boundaries.
  • IntelUser2000 - Monday, January 25, 2010 - link

    No, the IGP is on its own clock domain. You can overclock the iGPU seperately from everything, even the base clock. On the motherboards which allow overclocking of the iGPU on Clarkdale, you don't have multiplier options, but a straightforward frequency adjustment.
  • Abhilash - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link

    sysmark is absurd
  • Abhilash - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link

    http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=112&...">http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=112&...
  • karlkesselman - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link

    hi,

    On page 2, Load Power Consumption you have i870 using less power than i750. This can't be. It's either a misprint or the "load" test doesn't fully stress the i870 or maybe some hardware misconfiguration.

    Then there is the WoW test.
    i750 has 92 fps
    i530 has 77 fps
    and
    i530 (OC @ 4 GHz) has also 92 fps
    We know that WoW only uses 2 cores so i750 must be having turbo boost enabled running @ 3.2 GHz. That explains why it gets 92 fps. But then the i530 @ 4 GHz gets the same fps. This is either a mistake (was the test running the same hardware?) or i530 is less efficient then i750 (at least running WoW; maybe because of the memory controller and/or the 8 MB L3 cache or both?).
    Also in this case (WoW test) it would be interesting if we could see the power consumption during the test (i750 compared to i530).
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link

    Our 870 has always used slightly less power than our 750 sample. A while ago Intel did away with having a single voltage for each product shipped. In my experience, the higher end chips are usually the ones that can run at the lowest voltages.

    All of our Core i7/i5 numbers are run with Turbo enabled, but remember that Clarkdale's memory performance isn't as good as Lynnfield. We see this manifest itself in more than just WoW. If you have the money, you're better off with Lynnfield. But at $113 you're at nearly half the price of the cheapest Lynnfield.

    Take care,
    Anand

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