The Sandy Bridge Preview
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 27, 2010 2:38 PM ESTSandy Bridge Integrated Graphics Performance
With Clarkdale/Arrandale, Intel improved integrated graphics by a large enough margin that I can honestly say we were impressed with what Intel had done. That being said, the performance of Intel's HD Graphics was honestly not enough. For years integrated graphics have been fast enough to run games like the Sims but not quick enough to play anything more taxing, at least not at reasonable quality settings. The 'dales made Intel competitive in the integrated graphics market, but they didn't change what we thought of integrated graphics.
Sandy Bridge could be different.
Architecturally, Sandy Bridge is a significant revision from what's internally referred to as Intel Gen graphics. While the past two generations of Intel integrated graphics have been a part of the Gen 5 series, Sandy brings the first Gen 6 graphics die to market. With a tremendous increase in IPC and a large L3 cache to partake in, Sandy Bridge's graphics is another significant move forward.
Is it enough to kill all discrete graphics? No. But it's good enough to really threaten the entry level discrete market. Take a look:
Batman: Arkham Asylum
It's unclear whether or not graphics turbo was working on the part I was testing. If it was, this is the best it'll be for the 6 EU parts. If it wasn't, things will be even faster. Comparisons to current integrated graphics solutions are almost worthless. Sandy Bridge's graphics perform like a low end discrete part, not an integrated GPU. In this case, we're about 10% faster than a Radeon HD 5450.
Assuming Sandy Bridge retains the same HTPC features that Clarkdale has, I'm not sure there's a reason for these low end discrete GPUs anymore. At least not unless they get significantly faster.
Note that despite the early nature of the drivers, I didn't notice any rendering artifacts or image quality issues while testing Sandy Bridge's integrated graphics.
Dragon Age Origins
The Sandy Bridge advantage actually grows under Dragon Age. At these frame rates you can either enjoy smoother gameplay or actually up the resolution/quality settings to bring it back down to ~30 fps.
Dawn of War II
It's not always a clear victory for Sandy Bridge. In our Dawn of War II test the 5450 pulls ahead, although by only a small margin.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
Sandy is one again on top of the 5450 in Modern Warfare 2. Although I'm not sure these frame rates are high enough to really up quality settings any more, they are at least smooth - which is more than I can say for the first gen HD Graphics.
BioShock 2
Intel promised to deliver a 2x improvement in integrated graphics performance with Sandy Bridge. We're getting a bit more than that here in BioShock 2.
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is finally playable with Intel's Sandy Bridge graphics. The Radeon HD 5450 is 10% faster here.
HAWX
Sandy Bridge Graphics Performance Summary
This is still a very early look. Drivers and hardware both aren't final, but the initial results are very promising. Sandy Bridge puts all current integrated graphics solutions to shame, and even looks to nip at the heels of low end discrete GPUs. For HTPC users, Clarkdale did a good enough job - but for light gaming there wasn't enough horsepower under the hood. With Sandy Bridge you can actually play modern titles, albeit at low quality settings.
If this is the low end of what to expect, I'm not sure we'll need more than integrated graphics for non-gaming specific notebooks. Update: It looks like all notebook Sandy Bridge parts, at least initially, will use the 12 EU IGPs. Our SB sample may also have been a 12 EU part, we're still awaiting confirmation.
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Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I don't believe any of these apps have AVX support, they're all too old for that.Take care,
Anand
ESetter - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
Thank you for the quick answer. It would be great to include some software with AVX support in the full review, when Sandy Bridge launches. Probably the Intel Math Kernel Library will be updated in time.darckhart - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
1. i'd like to see some temp numbers. along with, does intel stock hsf actually do the job here? (which they have been getting better at really)2. i didnt see anything about accelerated hd video playback using the on die gpu?
3. sure these cpu look great from price point performance gain....until you realize you need a full platform upgrade to go along with it...which if we assume mainstream mobo around the 100$ mark and ram to match since they're taking away the bclk deal... and every 2 yrs is a bit too soon for full platform upgrade imo.
4. hardware virtualization parts? i know the current i3 vs i5/7 chips had some stuff disabled. will these SB chips follow the same profile?
5. mobile versions? we know the mobile ones are usually cut back to fit low tdp profile. will the same cuts apply like the current mobile i3/i5 parts (eg, no real quad core parts)? otoh, what about the quad core mobiles? the current i7 mobile quads are laughable at their performance and heat output (i'm looking at you first gen hp envy). do you think these SB quad mobiles will actually be decent?
DanNeely - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
Wikipedia lists both 2 and 4 core mobile parts. Not definative but they generally do a good job of keeping up with the latest leaks for things like this.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge_(microar...
hamitaltintop22 - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I hope there is a price drop for the i5 750 to around $150 when this comes out or i7 920 to $200 (no microcenter here).DesktopMan - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I'm not sure about this, but I seem to recall having read that aes-ni instructions use the GPU, at least partially. Makes sense as the gpu is excellent at parallel tasks. If this is the case, would the 6 EU part perform differently than the 12 EU part at AES?Any news on when the inevitable Q67 would launch? I guess it's likely that Q67 will use AMT 6.0 as it was a pretty recent upgrade.
With sata III support at launch you'd imagine they'd also support sata III on their gen 3 SSDs. Time will tell I guess.
overclocking101 - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
wow bummer. welcome to the end of intel Bus speed overclocking. I will not be adapting the new sockets unless something happens and intel changes their minds. overclocking is not as easy as switching multiplyers even EE cpu's of nowadays show that. 90% of the high overclocks with EE cpus show that a mixture of multi and bus speed is needed. i sense though that with the higher end socket intel will allow it. if not i think its a very bad move on their part.starfalcon - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I don't think any of the sandy bridge graphics will be able to get to GT 240 levels.This one trades blows with the 5450 as we can see, and just looking at 3DMark06 scores the 5450 scores about 3500 or so, while the GT 240 does maybe 9000 or 10000.
If the more powerful sandy bridge graphics can get up to 4000 or 5000 or so that would be great, that would be beating the 9400 GT and closing in on the 9500 GT, not getting to GT 240 levels though. Wonder what the next integrated graphics after this will be like.
TETRONG - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I take it this means it will soon be the optimum time to purchase current-gen technology at significantly reduced prices?Just wanting to build a no nonsense system at slightly below the current price/performance sweet-spot.
Seems Intel are only interested in toying with consumers.
They've wasted die space that could've been used for a more capable CPU. How many years have we been chained under 4Ghz frequency? 5 years or so?
Nine women can't make a baby in one month! Not every problem is parallelizable - we need greater frequencies/efficiencies.
Now they are locking processors and playing games with the sockets. No USB 3.0!!?
Garbage, No Thanks!!!
Seems you are giving them a free pass Anand. Very convenient timing to steal AMD's thunder, eh!
I love you man - big fan since the beginning, but you should read Scott Wasson over at Tech Report. Those value scatterplots are very helpful to me - these regurgitated press releases, not so much.
Sorry;(
To be so harsh, but we deserve better than these kiddie chips!
Only you can hold them accountable for these failures of imagination.
wyvernknight - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I am a bit disappointed. Seems like since intel is wiping the floor with AMD, decided it was OK to screw us all over with this socket thing. I will still buy an intel processor if AMD has no cards to play, but i wont be pleased.