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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
200 Comments
View All Comments
gruffi - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
Why not comparing with a HD 5570? That is what Llano is supposed to have, Redwood-class IGP. An HD 5450 is quite pointless. It just reflects competition for Ontario. But Sandy Bridge is not Ontario's competition.And what about image quality or GPGPU support? Pure FPS numbers are only half of the truth.
wiak - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
dont think so, its said that AMD's Fusion built-in GPU will have 400 SPUs (HD 5670 level-graphics), thats a far cry from HD 5450's 80 SPUs ;)so if you wanna game you still have to use something from a real graphics manufacture like AMD when it comes to GPUs bult into CPUs, as a added bonus you also have updated drivers and a decade old DirectX 9 compatibility, so you old games work without any big problems
icrf - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I am impressed that you have a functioning sample at least four months before it's available, run it through enough paces for a review like this, and they let you release the numbers. I mean, are they trying to suppress holiday sales?When do you think you'll have a Bulldozer sample from AMD to run a similar preview? Barring a surprise from AMD, at this point, it looks like I'll be building an i7 2600 early next year. The similar spec chip from today is an i7-975 Extreme, which is the fastest quad core in the bench, and Sandy Bridge runs 13-14% faster in the only benchmark I care about (x264). I guess even that might change significantly if it can take advantage of this "alleged on-die video transcode engine." I'd not heard of that before.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
Honestly we're probably several months out from having Bulldozer silicon in a similar state. With the past few generations of Intel CPUs, by around 4 - 6 months before launch we're usually able to get access to them and they perform very well.With AMD the lead time is far shorter. I don't expect us to have access to Bulldozer silicon that's worth benchmarking until Q2 2011 at the earliest. I'm more than happy to be proven wrong though :-P
icrf - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I guess I'm mostly surprised that Intel would do it. Conroe made sense. They had to show the world as early as possible that they had something significantly faster than AMD, suppressing sales of that for their own a little later. But now that they own that performance crown, why show previews so many months early? I suppose I could be over-analyzing it and the vast majority of the market couldn't care less so it makes little difference to their bottom line. Bragging rights simply make for good PR.Sad to see Bulldozer so far out. I assume the server chips will ship before the consumer ones, too, so it'll be at least a solid year before it could be in my hands, anyway. Oh well. To be honest, my C2D E6400 still does well enough for me. Maybe I'll just make my upgrade an Intel G3 SSD. If I got both that and SB, I don't know what I'd do with myself.
Thanks, and keep up the good work.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Saturday, August 28, 2010 - link
This preview wasn't Intel sanctioned, I believe Intel will release its own numbers at IDF in a few weeks.Take care,
Anand
icrf - Saturday, August 28, 2010 - link
Oh, I had assumed you got this chip from Intel and they had a typical NDA that said when you could talk about what you found. Where'd it come from, then? One of Intel's motherboard partners with whom you have a friendly relationship?aegisofrime - Saturday, August 28, 2010 - link
I must say, I'm really grateful for this article. I'm in the middle of planning an upgrade and information like this is really valuable to me. (and I guess to a lot of people as well!) I would just like you to know that your articles actually do influence some of our buying choices. So... Thank you! :DNow, all I need is a Bulldozer preview and all the pieces are in place...
vajm1234 - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
few things clear and few unclear as of nowthis sandy bridge review sample here do not have TURBO enabled. The CPU runs at 3.1GHz all the time, regardless of workload as anand stated
it says "Both the CPU and GPU on SB will be able to turbo independently of one another. If you’re playing a game that uses more GPU than CPU, the CPU may run at stock speed (or lower) and the GPU can use the additional thermal headroom to clock up. The same applies in reverse if you’re running something computationally intensive."
QUESTIONS
Q} will the on die GPU unit work in tandem with the other discrete GPUs out there or it will shut off? if yes will it work when sli or crossfire is enabled :p
Q} whatever the above statement says will it happen if we use discrete graphics from nvidia or ati?
Q} will there be any possibility to disable ONLY GPU and in certain cases ONLY its TURBO FEATURE
Q} any possibility to remain the GPU overclocked the whole time when cpu is IDLE
Q} what about accelerated hd video playback using the on die gpu?
Q} it support VT-x and AVX is it possible for you anand to use specific benchmark for these instructions, same request goes for the AMD
Q} as someone asked will there be a cheap 6 => core processor for mainstream market
Q} again as per the last comment ......When do you think you'll have a Bulldozer sample from AMD to run a similar preview?
this Ques Must be answered
all n all what i think even if there is a 15-19% perf. Jump its not worh the spending when u consider u have to upgrade the entire platform
and moreover limiting Overclocking features damm! a retarded decision i am not in a mood for amd but if the overclocking hits then i will move 10000...% :angry:
regards
DanNeely - Saturday, August 28, 2010 - link
If you're asking about an SLI/CFX pairing with the IGP almost certainly not. The only company to ever attempt something like that has been Lucid with the Hydra chip and the results have been less than impressive. Architecturally I don't know that it'd even be possible for them to try with the on die GPU. The Hydra chip sat between the CPU and the Gfx cards on the PCIe bus and looked like a single card to the OS. There's no way for them to insert themselves into the middle of the connection to the IGP.