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Intel HD 4000 on ULV CPUs - slower than on normal TDP CPUs

theSeb

theSeb

macrumors 604
Original poster
Aug 10, 2010
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http://www.anandtech.com/show/5878/...ation-realtime-igpu-clocks-on-ulv-vs-quadcore

Most of this shouldn’t come as a surprise. In a thermally constrained environment (17W for the entire package), it’s going to be difficult to get higher performance from a chip. If you start from square one trying to build a chip for a low power environment (e.g. for a tablet or smartphone) and scale up, you can usually get better efficiency than if you start out with a higher power part and scale down—the typical range of scaling is around an order of magnitude—but if you need more performance you might fall short. The reverse also holds: starting at the top and scaling down on power and performance, you might eventually come up short if you need to use less power.

As far as Ivy Bridge goes, HD 4000 can offer relatively competitive performance, but it looks like it needs 10-15W just for the iGPU to get there. On a 45W TDP part, that’s no problem, but with ULV it looks like Ivy Bridge ends up in an area where it can’t quite deliver maximum CPU and iGPU performance at the same time. This generally means iGPU clocks will be closer to 1000MHz than 1150MHz, but it also means that the CPU portion of the chip will be closer to the rated clock speed rather than the maximum Turbo Boost speed. One final item to keep in mind is just how much performance we’re getting out of a chip that uses a maximum of 17W. ULV IVB isn’t going to offer gaming performance comparable to an entry level graphics solution, but then even the low-end discrete mobile GPUs often use 25W or more. Cut the wattage in half, and as you’d expect the performance suffers.

So how much faster can we get with ULV chips, particularly with regards to gaming? Intel has a new GPU architecture with Ivy Bridge that represents a significant update from the HD 3000 iGPU, but they’re still trailing AMD and NVIDIA in the graphics market. Their next architecture, Haswell, looks to put even more emphasis on the iGPU, so at least on higher TDP chips we could very well see as much as triple the performance of HD 4000 (if rumors are to be believed). How will that fit into ULV? Even if ULV Haswell graphics are only half as fast as full voltage chips, they should still be a decent step up from the current full voltage HD 4000 performance, which seems pretty good. Too bad we’ll have to wait another year or so to see it!
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That's sad. I've read the full Anandtech article and it looks like the improvements from HD 3000 to HD 4000 in ULV isn't that much. I'm gonna wait and see if Apple puts a discrete GPU in the 13" Pro. But with the space and thermal management constraints, I won't hold my breath. Where the heck is MSI's eGPU solution?
 
All these reports coming out on IB/HD4000 are making me highly consider saving $200 and going with a refurb Sandy Bridge Air. Seems like the increase in performance isn't measuring up to what a lot of people were expecting. USB 3.0 is one of the only features at this point that's making me wait. Really hoping they announce Airs at WWDC cause I hate waiting for IB knowing I might be going with SB anyways.
 
Given the relatively lackluster HD-4000 performance, I think I'll just wait for Haswell to upgrade my 2010 13" Air and instead, buy an Ivy-Mini with a discrete GPU later this summer.
 
Well since I'm not silly enough to expect gaming performance out of such a thin laptop with ULV processors, it's not a big deal (and frankly, no surprise).

Someday integrated GPUs will be up to gamer's standards, but for now, they're definitely just geared toward the common consumer (youtube, netflix, Facebook games, etc). Certainly more than enough for all that.

I guess the only option is MBP? Hopefully the 2012 13in MBP will have a dedicated GPU too.

Of course, there're some other ultrabooks out there that pack dedicated GPUs, so don't get mad at Intel, get mad at Apple.
 
Who's the moron who thought a ULV processor for an ultra thin laptop would deliver any sort of gaming performance? It's made to deliver good everyday performance and better battery life.

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KylePowers said:
Well since I'm not silly enough to expect gaming performance out of such a thin laptop with ULV processors, it's not a big deal (and frankly, no surprise).

Someday integrated GPUs will be up to gamer's standards, but for now, they're definitely just geared toward the common consumer (youtube, netflix, Facebook games, etc). Certainly more than enough for all that.

I guess the only option is MBP? Hopefully the 2012 13in MBP will have a dedicated GPU too.

Of course, there're some other ultrabooks out there that pack dedicated GPUs, so don't get mad at Intel, get mad at Apple.
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Sure. They'll put an nvidia card in an 11" MacBook Air and I'll see you all back here complaining that the battery drains in 2 hours.
 
thewoz said:
Sure. They'll put an nvidia card in an 11" MacBook Air and I'll see you all back here complaining that the battery drains in 2 hours.
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lol yeah, that's true. But my Sony Z 3 years ago had a switch to switch between integrated and dedicated GPUs, so that could be an option? Perhaps just be on AC when having a gaming sesh and turning on the dedicated GPU?

But I agree, Nvidia/AMD need to come up with some ULV solutions catered to the ultrabook category that will not only outperform integrated solutions, but stay battery conscious as well.
 
jgc said:
All these reports coming out on IB/HD4000 are making me highly consider saving $200 and going with a refurb Sandy Bridge Air. Seems like the increase in performance isn't measuring up to what a lot of people were expecting. USB 3.0 is one of the only features at this point that's making me wait. Really hoping they announce Airs at WWDC cause I hate waiting for IB knowing I might be going with SB anyways.
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The i5 Ivy Bridge beats the i7 Sandy Bridge from what i've read, not sure if only in CPU or also in GPU.

I already have a Sandy Bridge Air so i'll be staying with it until haswell if not broadwell, but i wouldn't knock the IB Airs until they've been thoroughly benchmarked.
 
angemon89 said:
As long as it can do 1080p video without skipping a beat, I'm good. I cannot wait for my new baby to be announced!
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Well that shouldn't be a problem seeing QuickSync is built into the CPU; as long as the software support is there.
 
jgc said:
All these reports coming out on IB/HD4000 are making me highly consider saving $200 and going with a refurb Sandy Bridge Air. Seems like the increase in performance isn't measuring up to what a lot of people were expecting. USB 3.0 is one of the only features at this point that's making me wait. Really hoping they announce Airs at WWDC cause I hate waiting for IB knowing I might be going with SB anyways.
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There's a good article over at Real World Tech looking at the Ivy Bridge graphics. It looks like a real step up from Sandy Bridge.

I'd be interested to know how many applications use the OpenCL api.
 
anotherdave said:
There's a good article over at Real World Tech looking at the Ivy Bridge graphics. It looks like a real step up from Sandy Bridge.

I'd be interested to know how many applications use the OpenCL api.
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I ended up being all talk...ordered the IB MBA. The graphics alone weren't enough for me but all of the other incremental upgrades + 8 gb RAM sealed the deal.
 
theSeb said:
Vapourware. :mad:
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Actually, I see that the Magmax TB enclosure is now available, but it does not support any graphics cards yet.

http://www.magma.com/thunderbolt.asp

Graphics Card Support
External graphics support is a feature many users desire and we’ll keep you informed as our compatibility list grows. Be the first to know... Join Magma Expresso.
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RRP is $975. You might as well get a separate gaming desktop.

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alphaod said:
Well that shouldn't be a problem seeing QuickSync is built into the CPU; as long as the software support is there.
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Unfortunately there aren't any encoders in OSX that actually use QuickSync, despite the fact that QuickSync was available in Sandy Bridge already. There are two or three Windows rippers though. The speed difference when encoding with QuickSync is quite substantial and it would be nice to see it in OSX.

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angemon89 said:
As long as it can do 1080p video without skipping a beat, I'm good. I cannot wait for my new baby to be announced!
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My 2011 MBA can do 1080p without skipping a beat. My 2009 13" MBP can do it too.
 
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