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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wut - Sunday, August 29, 2010 - link
Yep. I bet AMD is really wondering about that right now.greenguy - Saturday, August 28, 2010 - link
I bought basically what is an i5-750 based on Anand's review here. Or at least, the Xeon version with hyperthreading (needed ECC RAM).From what I can tell, you get about a 20%-30% improvement over the i5-750, with the same power consumption. That's pretty good. Not only that, you get some competent entry level graphics... which would have good open source drivers. That's somewhat exciting, though I wonder whether it would do multiple monitors. Any idea on that Anand?
Maybe I'll just stick to the cheapest Nvidia discrete cards I can buy, a couple G210s do the trick (to get 4 1920x1200 monitors). Unless Intel can make those G210s redundant, it represents just an incremental bump in performance, as the only thing that is of interest is the increase in CPU. One thing that is nice is that Intel is reputed to have the best open source support for their GPU drivers, which makes things really interesting now they are producing stuff that will compete with the entry level discrete market. It could be really good for Linux/BSD people like myself.
The other thing of interest for me is in the low power, low cost, high numbers of SATA connections space, with ECC. I wonder if Bobcat will have something there, as AMD don't seek to arbitrarily differentiate their markets like Intel does with the ECC RAM.
Also not really sure what the big thing is with the motherboards and same CPU. I tend to keep the same computer as a build. By the time you want to upgrade the CPU, there is invariably other stuff that needs upgrading, e.g. USB3, graphics, SATA, RAM, whatever. So you end up wasting the old parts for not that much benefit. Better to just re-purpose the old machine, and when you have enough money, buy the most performant parts that are still good bang for buck. A good example was the i5-750 about 8 months ago or so. So I don't fault Intel for this.
wut - Sunday, August 29, 2010 - link
Intel's going after the mid range market, where most of the money is. We'll have to wait and see how good AMD's Fusion mid range ends up being. Even if it catches up all the way and achieves performance parity so AMD can make more money by raising prices, Intel would have their newest gen on the market first. Fusion had better be really, really, good...Hrel - Sunday, August 29, 2010 - link
I'd say if that 2500K is 215 or less it'd be a fair buy. I'd still wait for the price to drop below 200 cause that's my absolute cap on a CPU. I am a little annoyed that it doesn't have hyper threading though, from a moral standpoint, I mean, from a raw material standpoint how much does adding hyperthreading cost? nothing! yeah, that's what I thought.Hrel - Sunday, August 29, 2010 - link
Those are some impressive integrated graphics. I've thought this for a while now, but we really don't need a card any lower than the HD5670, and maybe the 5650 in discrete graphics. Prefferably just the 5670 though. If mobo makers start setting aside a single DDR3 slot for the integrated GPU to use and dedicated GPU only memory, like a discrete GPU, so the integrated GPU doesn't have to share system RAM we really won't need low end graphics in laptops at all anymore.mino - Sunday, August 29, 2010 - link
Adequate.5450 is the LOWEST END card from 2008, A facelifted 4350.
And 780G, it FINALLY manages to out-pace, in 2011, is the mainstream part of 2008 too.
In 2011 there will be a 10W Ontario with 5450-class GPU on 40nm bulk ...
On the other hand it seems Intel is thaking the GPU side seriously. Finally.
But they are still where ATI/NV were in 2004 ...
LuckyKnight - Sunday, August 29, 2010 - link
I would have liked to have seen a better comparison when it comes to idle power consumption? How much has it improved since moving to a 45nm->32nm GPU?Also, has Intel addressed the Clarkdale issue of not outputting industry standard 24fps? (23.976 hz)
Miggleness - Sunday, August 29, 2010 - link
I was planning on purchasing an i5-760 in 2 weeks but looks like I'll have to settle for 2nd hand, low end parts instead and wait for the i5-2400's release.Great job Intel. I for one no longer have that much interest in overclocking when I have Turbo boost to compensate for that.
Hope we hear about the official pricing soon.
jfelano - Sunday, August 29, 2010 - link
Intel could have hit one out of the park with this one if it worked on existing s1155 motherboards....unfortunately it doesn't and it screws over everyone who bought into s1156 or s1366.....yet again.siberian 3 - Sunday, August 29, 2010 - link
Hi everyone i've read the preview and i am not so impresed by the performance of SB.The IGPis great but it make sense only for the mobile section of the pc not the desktop!!
From the preview i understand that this is not a real fusion product but an evolution off clarkdale and arandale products.
So i will wait for Llano to see what Amd has to offer!!!