Intel HD Graphics Card Really That Bad?

[jav6454]

Well, in favor with good reason. Intel "GPUs" suck. Bad.

Of coarse. Even if nvidia re-brands their GPUs, it's still much better than what Intel has...

 

[Hellhammer]

Intel revoked NVIDIA's GPU license for the Core i3/i5/i7 processors. Or something to that effect. Also, Intel made the Intel HD graphics chip into the CPU die itself. There's no way to separate or deactivate it. And due to space and power constraints, there's not enough room to do the "NVIDIA 9400M/9600M GT" combo like before. In conclusion, it's just much easier to add a powerful NVIDIA GPU to an existing Core i5/i7 with integrated graphics.

Actually, the Westmere solution is made of two dies, one being the CPU (32nm) and the other one being the IGP (45nm). It wouldn't be that hard to make a CPU without IGP. Sandy Bridge will introduce one die design, meaning that both CPU and IGP will be on single die (both 32nm).

Also, has it been confirmed that it's only a licensing issue, not something physical? I was just thinking as 9400M for example has integrated bridges so it controls the memory but Nehalems have integrated memory controller so that it could be that it's a hardware limitation, so that the memory controller will simply not give any RAM for the GPU thus make it useless. Was it ASUS that showed the motherboard with integrated ATI 5xxx that has its own GDDR? Maybe the industry is moving towards that.

Intel IGP is faster than 9400M in benchmarks but it could be Apple's bad drivers causing the issues, the chip itself isn't that bad as people think it is