Resolution Scaling with Intel HD Graphics 3000

All of our tests on the previous page were done at 1024x768, but how much of a hit do you really get when you push higher resolutions? Does the gap widen between a discrete GPU and Intel's HD Graphics as you increase resolution?

On the contrary: low-end GPUs run into memory bandwidth limitations just as quickly (if not quicker) than Intel's integrated graphics. Spend about $70 and you'll see a wider gap, but if you pit Intel's HD Graphics 3000 against a Radeon HD 5450 the two actually get closer in performance the higher the resolution is—at least in memory bandwidth bound scenarios:

 

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 stresses compute a bit more at higher resolutions and thus the performance gap widens rather than closes:

For the most part, at low quality settings, Intel's HD Graphics 3000 scales with resolution similarly to a low-end discrete GPU.

Graphics Quality Scaling

The biggest issue with integrated and any sort of low-end graphics is that you have to run games at absurdly low quality settings to avoid dropping below smooth frame rates. The impact of going to higher quality settings is much greater on Intel's HD Graphics 3000 than on a discrete card as you can see by the chart below.

The performance gap between the two is actually its widest at WoW's "Good" quality settings. Moving beyond that however shrinks the gap a bit as the Radeon HD 5450 runs into memory bandwidth/compute bottlenecks of its own.

Intel HD Graphics 2000/3000 Performance Overclocking Intel's HD Graphics
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  • samrty22331 - Wednesday, June 1, 2011 - link

    visual studio 2010 professional not supported intel i5 2500k
    so
    can you say
    how to install vs 2010 in this
  • Okurka - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - link

    The base clock of the HD 3000 GPU is 1100 MHz, not 850 MHz.
    That makes the 1550 MHz an overclock of 40,9 %, not 82,4 % as stated in the article.
  • khalnayak - Sunday, January 22, 2012 - link

    I am having Intel HD 3000 - Sandy Bridge in my system and i was willing to get the game called "oil rush" but then i have found weird response for the game here http://www.futurehardware.com/pc-gaming/288.htm , so i just wanted to know is there any one who have tested the Intel HD 3000 - Sandy Bridge for oil rush, any help for this will be highly appreciated.
  • thr0nez101 - Sunday, January 29, 2012 - link

    I've got intel hd graphics 3000 and according to this forum/review it has a prob running dawn of war 2 on low graphics... i have it set to max graphics and i runs a dream... same with a lot of games i play on it...
  • oliverr - Saturday, February 11, 2012 - link

    guys, is it safe to overclock the Intel HD 3000 GPU ? I own a 2500K CPU. I can overclock the GPU to 1450mhz and it looks stable . But i dont know how to read the temperature from the GPU unit, so iam afraid i could burn my GPU/CPU .
  • cerberaspeed12 - Thursday, February 16, 2012 - link


    hi.first off all sorry for my english.I have a doubt .I have seen the dells lap top.they are identical but one have the Intel Core i3-2350M 2.3GHz ,the odher is Intel Core i5-2450M 2.5GHz , and the third have Intel Core i7 -2670M 2.4GH

    the prices is 600 $,670$ and 800 $,I am working some live multi channel audio production and .net teh programing.So for wich one i soud go.Thanks
  • indyaah - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link

    any suggestions how can i??
  • weirdo2989 - Sunday, March 4, 2012 - link

    Hi Techies,

    I recently got this processor. It is ultimate for gaming.
    However in my windows CPU meter gadget, i can see only 2 cores functioning. Stock comes with unlocked multiplier afaik. But here in my system, it shows only 2 cores. Is there any way to activate all the cores for better performance?

    Any suggestions/tips would be highly appreciated.

    Thanks.

    Regards,
    Parth
  • 0121birmingham - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - link

    Just to say i wrote a small post on this issue at http://intel23976fpsproblem.blogspot.co.uk/
    It does not look like the problem has been fixed in the new z77 line up. DAM
  • milutzuk - Saturday, July 14, 2012 - link

    Beside VS2008 compiler performance I would like to see growing a database with some Java compiler performance, either under NetBeans or Eclipse. Thank you.

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