Intel SNA Performance Continues To Be Compelling

[GreatEmerald]

I can guarantee you that intel GPUs offer a much better experience than AMD's chipset integrated GPUs. I have no idea how the comparision is like with the newer Llano iGPUs, which is something I would also like to know, but the difference was massive with the chipset ones. That is in real-world desktop usage not synthetic benchmarks.

You missed the word "discrete" in the post you quoted. And I assume he meant with proprietary drivers.

[bridgman]

It helps you get to them a lot faster

That said, if the context here is X-style 2D operations then I agree that is going to be more a function of effective memory bandwidth (2-3x), driver design, and other hardware features (eg 2D accel HW) than shader power (10x). What makes it hard to predict is that desktop operations are increasingly going through 3D APIs (where the performance dependencies are a bit different) rather than X drawing operations, so generalizing is becoming more problematic every year.

[curaga]

Shader power doesn't help driver fallbacks

[bridgman]

Llano has ~10x the shader power of the fastest IGP (5 x 16-way SIMD vs 2 x 4-way SIMD), and Trinity is higher again (6 x 16-way SIMD). The IGPs are comparable to RV610/620 but without dedicated video memory.

[devius]

I would however like to see some kind of baseline against the usual suspects in discrete gpus. Nothing fancy, just the bottom of the range from AMD and Nvidia to give it all some kind of perspective.

I can guarantee you that intel GPUs offer a much better experience than AMD's chipset integrated GPUs. I have no idea how the comparision is like with the newer Llano iGPUs, which is something I would also like to know, but the difference was massive with the chipset ones. That is in real-world desktop usage not synthetic benchmarks.

[curaga]

That would be embarassing the AMD and Nvidia GPUs. Intel + SNA should beat both regardless of driver.

[tenzero]

Cool but a reference point would be nice.

Hey Guys,

It is great to see the relative gains that Sandy Bridge / Ivy Bridge whatever are doing. And much love to the dudes squeezing all kinds of performance out of it with a new software architecture.

I would however like to see some kind of baseline against the usual suspects in discrete gpus. Nothing fancy, just the bottom of the range from AMD and Nvidia to give it all some kind of perspective.

Cheers,
t