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Nvidia 9400m vs. Intel HD 3000

M

MrRoyksopp

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 4, 2010
134
0
I just want to get something clear.
Which graphic card is the best overall?
The Nvidia 9400m or the new Intel HD 3000 graphics?

Will I be able to play for an example, WoW on a Intel HD 3000 graphics card?


- Thanks.
 
aiqw9182 said:
The Intel HD 3000 outperforms the 9400M.
Click to expand...

So the people whining about the new Intel HD 3000 graphics, what are they actually whining about?
And since I have the 2009 15" 2,53 macbook pro, it will worth for me to make an update and buy the new 2011 13" macbook pro, right?
 
My question would be is how does it compare to the Nvidia GeForce 320M since the 320M has an 80% improvement over the 9400 according to Apple.
 
MrRoyksopp said:
So the people whining about the new Intel HD 3000 graphics, what are they actually whining about?
And since I have the 2009 15" 2,53 macbook pro, it will worth for me to make an update and buy the new 2011 13" macbook pro, right?
Click to expand...
People are complaining because it isn't AS good as the 320M but realistically, all machines with a 320M were released last year and I'll never understand why people want to upgrade one year after they buy a machine. Anyone upgrading from a 9400M will see an improvement in the GPU as well as the obvious massive CPU gains.

molson2k said:
My question would be is how does it compare to the Nvidia GeForce 320M since the 320M has an 80% improvement over the 9400 according to Apple.
Click to expand...
It perform slightly worse than 320M.
 
MrRoyksopp said:
So the people whining about the new Intel HD 3000 graphics, what are they actually whining about?
And since I have the 2009 15" 2,53 macbook pro, it will worth for me to make an update and buy the new 2011 13" macbook pro, right?
Click to expand...

Because people like to complain. When Apple originally decided to forego Nehalem and keep core2duo for 320m on their last 13 inch macbook pros, they were raising a fuss over not using the latest cpu architecture.

Now that Apple had decided the sandybridge igp is powerful enough to properly drive their operating system, the people are complaining over using an igp that performs around 320m-- potentially slightly less powerful, but using a cpu that's twice as powerful. Most of them probably don't even know about the leap in igp performance being one of the main differences between sandybridge over nehalem, and continue to view the sandybridge igp as equal to nehalem's.
 
My imac can't even run Left 4 Dead 2. So any improvement from a Radeon 1600 will be appreciated!
 
Close to the 9400? Maybe. Close to the 320m? Hardly.

TMRaven said:
Because people like to complain. When Apple originally decided to forego Nehalem and keep core2duo for 320m on their last 13 inch macbook pros, they were raising a fuss over not using the latest cpu architecture.

Now that Apple had decided the sandybridge igp is powerful enough to properly drive their operating system, the people are complaining over using an igp that performs around 320m-- potentially slightly less powerful, but using a cpu that's twice as powerful. Most of them probably don't even know about the leap in igp performance being one of the main differences between sandybridge over nehalem, and continue to view the sandybridge igp as equal to nehalem's.
Click to expand...

Yes, the Sandy IGP is probably "good enough" for most users, and with the end of production for the C2D, Apple really didn't have much choice without a pretty major redesign, but that doesn't lessen the sting for those who were hoping for something a little better.

If you read the benchmarks carefully, you will see the the 320m actually outperforms the Intel Sandy IGP by a lot - 30 - 50% in more GPU-intensive games and settings. Stands to reason - the nVidia IGP has 4 times as many shaders and better drivers behind it. The Sandy does get a higher clock and more memory bandwidth, but that isn't nearly enough to close the gap.

As for me, as soon as I heard "Sandy Bridge IGP" in connection with the MBP 13, I ordered the 2010 model (and happy I did, as the C2D can do anything the i5 can do - if only slower - and the 320m can do some things Sandy can't, like OpenCL, CUDA, some games).
 
I just sold my mid-2009 MBP (13", 2.53GHz, 4GB, 250GB, Nvidia 9400M) and purchased the new MBP (13", 2.3GHz, 4GB, 500GB, Intel HD 3000). It was a compulsive buy. I basically had to pay £200 for the luxury of the upgrade.

I'd like to ask two things: 1) How many of you think my decision was stupid? and 2) Is the HD 3000 better than the 9400M? Thanks!
 
Yes the HD 3000 is better then the Nvidia 9400. I'm not sure by how much but it is better.

I still think we should all wait until we get better benchmark tests as well. Since some applications seem to perform about the same between the 320 and the 3000 it may be down to drivers right now.

We must also remember a lot of the benchmarks floating around out there are under Windows. Most of us plan on using OSX so we should really be looking at two different sets of benchmarks.

1. Windows gpu performance which will relate to gamers.
2. OSX gpu performance for those who use OSX applications.

It is my suspicion that performance under OSX may be pretty darn close for both cards. For those who want to run bootcamp, shame on you. LOL Just kidding.

Barefeats already did a benchmark test last week using Cinebench under OSX and the Intel 3000 just barely edged out the Nvidia 320. Cinebench is a pretty accurate test because it is basically running a real 3D scene through the Cinema 4D engine. For those who actually need a gpu to do work in applications such as Cinema 4D, After Effects, Photoshop and Motion it looks like the Intel may be just as good as the Nvidia 320.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1104515/

Here is my post where I talk about my current Nvidia 9400 vs the cinebench tests from Barefeats.
 
I'm not much of a gamer but I played the StarCraft 2 demo last night on mine and it ran perfectly on low settings and it hicupped a little on medium at first then ran perfectly fine. Not sure how intensive that game is but it's definitely playable on the 13''.
 
wannamacpro said:
Yes, the Sandy IGP is probably "good enough" for most users, and with the end of production for the C2D, Apple really didn't have much choice without a pretty major redesign, but that doesn't lessen the sting for those who were hoping for something a little better.

If you read the benchmarks carefully, you will see the the 320m actually outperforms the Intel Sandy IGP by a lot - 30 - 50% in more GPU-intensive games and settings. Stands to reason - the nVidia IGP has 4 times as many shaders and better drivers behind it. The Sandy does get a higher clock and more memory bandwidth, but that isn't nearly enough to close the gap.

As for me, as soon as I heard "Sandy Bridge IGP" in connection with the MBP 13, I ordered the 2010 model (and happy I did, as the C2D can do anything the i5 can do - if only slower - and the 320m can do some things Sandy can't, like OpenCL, CUDA, some games).
Click to expand...

Looks like the HD 3000 is pretty much just as fast as the 320M to me. Which benchmarks are you guys reading? It wins some, it loses some, it needs new drivers, it is overall faster than the 320M under OS X. It is way faster than the 9400M.

Considering the gap in speed between the 2011 and 2010 models, it is completely absurd to order the 2010 model. We don't know if SB can do OpenCL, and what are you going to do on a 13" that requires CUDA? What games can the 320M run that the HD 3000 can't? Come on, that was a really silly decision.
 
Evil Spoonman said:
Looks like the HD 3000 is pretty much just as fast as the 320M to me. Which benchmarks are you guys reading? It wins some, it loses some, it needs new drivers, it is overall faster than the 320M under OS X. It is way faster than the 9400M.

Considering the gap in speed between the 2011 and 2010 models, it is completely absurd to order the 2010 model. We don't know if SB can do OpenCL, and what are you going to do on a 13" that requires CUDA? What games can the 320M run that the HD 3000 can't? Come on, that was a really silly decision.
Click to expand...

Just a question. Even if the HD 3000 did support OpenCL, since the GPU is in such close proximity to the CPU, would there as much of a gain in a program that relies on OpenCL?

Not saying that the *physical* proximity makes a huge difference, but since the 320M is on a different die, it is a little more independent.
 
anyone with a 2010 model unless you really need the speed now hold onto your comp until next year at least the resale wont decrease that much more and there is not much point to upgrade every year unless you need the performance.

My 13" will be here sometime this week its a CTO option (the one in my sig) i will be doing some tests on SC2, L4D2, and TF2 to see how it hold up i will be doing these tests on the OSX side for those like me who wont be using Boot camp. Because it seems on OSX the 3000hd is better but on Win7 the 320m has better drivers. I have a seperate comp for windows use so all my time is spent in OSX.

If it gets here this week hopefully i can run these tests this weekend as i work 50+ hours a week and dont get much game time when i get home.
 
impulse462 said:
Just a question. Even if the HD 3000 did support OpenCL, since the GPU is in such close proximity to the CPU, would there as much of a gain in a program that relies on OpenCL?

Not saying that the *physical* proximity makes a huge difference, but since the 320M is on a different die, it is a little more independent.
Click to expand...

It is really much more ideal to have the IGP on-die rather than on-controller (in a small computer, at least). You only have to have one primary heat evacuation path. The CPU and GPU can be managed by the same power controller and share the same thermal envelope. The problem is, in the past there didn't exist an on-die IGP that was any good. Intel's is just now catching up to mobile on-chipset solutions from last generation. No doubt Ivy Bridge will accelerate things again.

GPUs and CPUs are fundamentally designed for different things. One could say they are good at solving different kinds of problems. While a GPU is a highly parallelized floating point monster, the CPU is much more of an all-rounder. If you gave a GPU a big integer set to solve, it would be very slow. Having the IGP on the controller or on the die is pretty irrelevant as far as what types of problems you get it to solve.

Even if the HD 3000 does not support OpenCL today, I suspect it will support it before or when Lion ships. We're going to see a lot more OpenCL usage in Lion than we do in Snow Leopard today.
 
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