Does the Intel HD 3000 really suck?

[mark28]

The Intel 3000 outperforms an ATI 2400 so it will be better all around.

Well, if he wants gaming, spending $1200 on laptop that has integrated GPU is really a bad idea. A MBA has even better graphics.

He should save up for the 15" if he wants to do gaming imo, despite not having the money atm. ( this is assuming he wants to play games with his Mac )

 

[ana.la]

Well, if he wants gaming, spending $1200 on laptop that has integrated GPU is really a bad idea. A MBA has even better graphics.

He should save up for the 15" if he wants to do gaming imo, despite not having the money atm.

ia, but i don't want gaming. i want a mac. i want a laptop that is great for my daily needs. but i would be really happy if i could play a few games once in a while.

and i'm a she =)

 

[ana.la]

The Intel 3000 outperforms an ATI 2400 so it will be better all around.

thank you! but stupid question: does it outperform an ATI 2400 in every way or like just in low settings?

 

[mark28]

ia, but i don't want gaming. i want a mac. i want a laptop that is great for my daily needs. but i would be really happy if i could play a few games once in a while.

and i'm a she =)

The 13" MBP is fine then. It can play a few games once in a while ofcourse

 

[bossmanjunior]

if it has just integrated graphics it should have more than just 13 hours of battery. like the lenovo with 30 hrs

 

[aiqw9182]

thank you! but stupid question: does it outperform an ATI 2400 in every way or like just in low settings?

It outperforms it in every way.

 

[karsten]

this is assuming the intel video drivers don't blow chunks for games

 

[mattk3650]

I think you'll notice the extra battery life more than the lower gaming performance

I have absolutely no problem with the 10 hour battery it currently has. How about we do this magical formula:

Pull out that waste of space known as an optical drive

In its place, put a slightly larger battery, a dedicated GPU with Optimus or ATI switchable, and maybe an SSD boot drive and space for more RAM.

Now you get better battery life, better graphics, and a faster computer! THERE!

 

[kitzuki]

for gaming
Yes

 

[KPOM]

ia, but i don't want gaming. i want a mac. i want a laptop that is great for my daily needs. but i would be really happy if i could play a few games once in a while.

and i'm a she =)

If you aren't gaming, the Intel IGP will be just fine. It can handle browsing, OS X's graphics, and streaming of content. It's at least on par with the NVIDIA 9400m that was in the 13" MacBook Pro 2 years ago, and for basic tasks and light gaming is about par to the 320m that's in the current 13" Pro and MacBook Air. The 320M is faster for more intense gaming, but Intel won't license its use with its newer CPUs.

On the whole, the new systems will be a big upgrade for everyday tasks except gaming.

 

[aCondor]

Is it powerful enough for video? I want to "watch" "movies" of people "doing it." In HighDef. Oh yeah.




And by "doing it" I mean acting. What did you think I was talking about?

 

[DeusInvictus7]

Is it powerful enough for video? I want to "watch" "movies" of people "doing it." In HighDef. Oh yeah.




And by "doing it" I mean acting. What did you think I was talking about?

Lol. Nice.

And to answer your question. It definitely will be able to run high def video. I watch high def video on my MBP (see sig) and it doesn't even use the dedicated graphics, but the very low end Intel HD graphics.

 

[tigress666]

The 320M is faster for more intense gaming, but Intel won't license its use with its newer CPUs.

If this is true definitely glad I got my 2010. A big fat raspberry to Intel for not supporting other video cards (is too bad, I am jealous of the i5 processor but I think for what I wanted which was some moderate gaming mine is better then). Why do they do this anyways? Just trying to force people to buy theirs or is there some other reason they won't allow it?

 

[Yaboze]

Before you judge a 13", I'd wait for Mac benchmarks. Usually someone posts their results with a few Mac native games here after a new product launch.

The problem is that many of these sites do PC benchmarks on these cards and they have more mature drivers most of the time.

On paper the HD 3000 could match up to a 320M, but the Intel OS X drivers could be total crap and it may perform badly.

Intel is not known for good GPU's or good drivers.

 

[henrikrox]

The intel igp scales so bad.

Put settings on medium. And the 320m leaps ahead. For gaming the intel igp, is crap.

Dont buy I'f you want half decent frame rates

 

[aberrero]

Yes, the real problem here isn't that it is slow, it is that it is Intel.

Nvidia is going to be much more proactive with drivers and game support. Also, the nvidia chip runs CUDA apps reasonably well in windows if you want to do that sort of thing.

Still, the integrated graphics aren't terrible. It's just that Apples $1199 laptop is literally exactly the same on the inside as a $400 Toshiba. They basically went with the cheapest possible option on the 13" pro. Low res display and crappy video card.

 

[henrikrox]

I know I get osx a beautiful OS.
But with such a crap display res and gpu. It's hard to justify. Feels like apple is being more and more greedy. I mean how much money do they make per laptop

Just saw the other day a upcoming slim good looking samsunf 13 laptop with 1440x900 display with a dual core i5 sandy bridge, 6 hours battery life. And a gt535 which is awesome. For a 100 bucks less then the mbp 13 base.

All in a good design.

I dream

That one day. I can get those specs in a apple laptop.

But, I guess It won't happen

 

[mashsensor]

Let the benchmark do the talking, a lot of people who got the new 13 will be claiming hd3000 is better, people who got the old 320m will be claiming its better. People tend to like to rationalize their purchase

We probably wont have to wait for long. I just picked up a i7 13, dont plan on playing much games, will be mainly for work running eclipse, xcode and visual studio . The huge boost in cpu is important to me. I have a ps3, xbox, and a 500 dollar AMD rig at home with amd 6 core cpu and 6850 1gb card for games.

Definitely looking forward to see some benchmarks, gaming performance is the composite of all the parts working together, not just the gpu.

 

[tom vilsack]

thank you! but stupid question: does it outperform an ATI 2400 in every way or like just in low settings?

hd 3000 # 154

ati 2400 # 229

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

 

[henrikrox]

Let the benchmark do the talking, a lot of people who got the new 13 will be claiming hd3000 is better, people who got the old 320m will be claiming its better. People tend to like to rationalize their purchase

We probably wont have to wait for long. I just picked up a i7 13, dont plan on playing much games, will be mainly for work running eclipse, xcode and visual studio . The huge boost in cpu is important to me. I have a ps3, xbox, and a 500 dollar AMD rig at home with amd 6 core cpu and 6850 1gb card for games.

Definitely looking forward to see some benchmarks, gaming performance is the composite of all the parts working together, not just the gpu.

your hdd is going to bottleneck your system hard, you wont even notice the difference between a core 2 duo and a sandy bridge cpu.

ANd no, the gpu, and cpu is all that matters when gaming, ram matters, maybe one tiny fraction. And the gpu matters almost everything, all the cpu does, is handle physcis etc.

good your glad with your laptop, its just proven in benchmarks that its worse for gaming then the 2010 model.

Even when the intel 3000hd is running along with a quad core sandy bridge it looses to a core 2 duo with a nvidia 320m

 

[mashsensor]

your hdd is going to bottleneck your system hard, you wont even notice the difference between a core 2 duo and a sandy bridge cpu.

I bet! complete waste of money after all

 

[AngryCorgi]

It's better than the 9400M but a little worse than the 320M. It should be fine for what you want to do.

This is an accurate assessment. People reviewing the desktop sandy-bridge said it is a tad better than the 310m (and it was shown beating the HD5450 on one site, though that is the weakest HD5xxx card).

 

[AngryCorgi]

hd 3000 # 154

ati 2400 # 229

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

Be careful when comparing those #s for much. The HD3000 they tested was clocked at 1.35ghz (13% faster than the MBP13 chip).

 

[wrightc23]

your hdd is going to bottleneck your system hard, you wont even notice the difference between a core 2 duo and a sandy bridge cpu.

ANd no, the gpu, and cpu is all that matters when gaming, ram matters, maybe one tiny fraction. And the gpu matters almost everything, all the cpu does, is handle physcis etc.

good your glad with your laptop, its just proven in benchmarks that its worse for gaming then the 2010 model.

Even when the intel 3000hd is running along with a quad core sandy bridge it looses to a core 2 duo with a nvidia 320m

Ain't that the truth. Your PC is only as quick as it's slowest component is general rule of thumb for every day tasks.

Having said that I've just picked up a new 13" i5 and it's certainly feels snappier than my 2010 13".

It's difficult to dispute though that the 2010 model is going to be the better option for games. Given that the Macbook isn't really for games and isn't marketed for games it's no big loss. I'm surprised so many on here are so upset at Apple replacing one weak integrated gpu for a weaker one given that clearly the MBP 13" is not a games machine.

 

[frick]

HD3000 gaming performance is awful. This is not really debatable.

For those of you linking the Anand benchmarks to support the claim that the HD3000 is "on par" with the old 320M, please note that it is important to differentiate between CPU-heavy and GPU-heavy tasks when making this determination. Case in point:

On low settings, the quad-core + HD3000 outpaces the old MBP13. This is because the shader utilization on low settings is so minimal that the GPU is not the performance bottleneck. Contrast this with medium settings, where shader usage increases considerably (at least in SCII; other games will be different):

Is the 3-year old C2D is beating up on the new Sandy Bridge quad core? No. This situation is GPU-bottlenecked, and demonstrates the utter inadequacy of Intel's integrated graphics in running even mainstream games at decent image quality settings and playable framerates.

Remember that these are average framerates; ideally you want your *minimums* to be in the 30fps area to maintain smooth gameplay, which is why averages of 60+ fps are desirable.