Intel Sandy Bridge Graphics Haven't Gotten Faster In Recent Years

[starshipeleven]

A new laptop with fake i7 (i7 U, these are basically overclocked and undervolted i3 branded as i7 because uhhhhh marketing needs i7 for ultrabooks even if you can't fit a true i7 in there) and skylake graphics is like 300 bucks, maybe even cheaper if you can find good deals.

fixed.

[Passso]

fixed.

Gotta agree with that, Intel marketing is killing the i7 reputation with those fake "highend" laptop processors.
Actually the U series is pretty good for most users, but should be named "fast i3" or "i5+"...

[Amarildo]

No, Intel's OpenGL driver doesn't use Gallium3D. The i965 Mesa driver is still a "classic" driver.

There is the "ILO" Gallium3D driver for Intel that was developed by LunarG as an experiment, but they haven't really done much work to it in many months. Not sure ILO even supports Skylake currently and still only supports GL3, etc. ILO was never the default Intel driver and basically is/was a code experiment.

Michael, could you delete one of your private messages so I can send you one?

[starshipeleven]

Actually the U series is pretty good for most users, but should be named "fast i3" or "i5+"...

I'm suspecting a maneuver where they offload the dumb userbase on these fake i7 (as they don't usually run loads that require a i7 so they don't notice it), while they can charge a higher price for the "faster i7" (original ones) for gaming or something.

[Passso]

I'm suspecting a maneuver where they offload the dumb userbase on these fake i7 (as they don't usually run loads that require a i7 so they don't notice it), while they can charge a higher price for the "faster i7" (original ones) for gaming or something.

Yup, being alone on the high-end segment allows everything!

[startas]

fixed.

yes, i am well aware of the fact that these cpus have only 2 real cores, 4 threads and bigger caches. I have such cpu myself, and it is very fast and will be more than enough for any of yours "3D software development". Taken into account all improvements, it is way faster than i3. Plus gpu matters more. Plus your laptop is ALWAYS cool, has great battery life and superb performance. You need to get a super good ssd before you will need to upgrade any cpu. Point, just save those damn 300 bucks in a week and buy a damn new laptop.

[startas]

yes, i am well aware of the fact that these cpus have only 2 real cores, 4 threads and bigger caches. I have such cpu myself, and it is very fast and will be more than enough for any of yours "3D software development". Taken into account all improvements, it is way faster than i3. Plus gpu matters more. Plus your laptop is ALWAYS cool, has great battery life and superb performance. You need to get a super good ssd before you will need to upgrade any cpu. Point, just save those damn 300 bucks in a week and buy a damn new laptop.

And point is, dont get O.T. in such shitty manners - one minute you are talking about how you cant buy even low end pc, next minute you talking about the need core i9999 + nvidia titan xxx ......

[starshipeleven]

yes, i am well aware of the fact that these cpus have only 2 real cores, 4 threads and bigger caches. I have such cpu myself, and it is very fast and will be more than enough for any of yours "3D software development". Taken into account all improvements, it is way faster than i3. Plus gpu matters more. Plus your laptop is ALWAYS cool, has great battery life and superb performance. You need to get a super good ssd before you will need to upgrade any cpu. Point, just save those damn 300 bucks in a week and buy a damn new laptop.

1. I'm not the guy that can't buy a laptop

2. I was just pointing out a fact as it was not apparent and way too much people get fooled by fake i7

3. calm the fuck down

[caligula]

I'm suspecting a maneuver where they offload the dumb userbase on these fake i7 (as they don't usually run loads that require a i7 so they don't notice it), while they can charge a higher price for the "faster i7" (original ones) for gaming or something.

Well to be honest, I don't think most ordinary people need or even should need 'i7 performance'. The lower end notebooks have faster iGPUs, faster and more RAM, faster SSDs, the new CPU instructions do disk encryption twice as fast (starting with Haswell), the video decoder performance is excellent. I can see why Intel is focusing on this other stuff. Ahmdahl's law gives the hint that you should focus on the stuff that gives best speedup at lowest cost. The latest Skylake laptops have relatively good battery life. You can watch over 10 hours of HD movies. My old Sandy Bridge Macbook Pro was twice as heavy as the new laptops (that is, it had a huge battery), but the battery life of 6-7 hours with wifi switched off and no workload at all wasn't that special. Consumer laptops have gone through a 400-500% battery life improvements, yet still the performance feels snappier than before.

[starshipeleven]

Well to be honest, I don't think most ordinary people need or even should need 'i7 performance'.

True dat, it's just when you pay for an i7 and you get a high-end i3 that it's bad. Because that's what is happening.

the battery life of 6-7 hours with wifi switched off and no workload at all wasn't that special. Consumer laptops have gone through a 400-500% battery life improvements, yet still the performance feels snappier than before.

Another Mac user that has no grasp of reality outside Apple's stuff.

1. most consumer laptops never really reached 5 hours in the same conditions because they had a 4-cell battery to begin with (Apple usually used 6-cell batteries)

2. there is no 400%-500% battery life improvement anywhere as most consumer laptops have now switched to 3-cell batteries, and thus the actual endurance is the same. (Apple uses bigger batteries than that so they can keep the same overall endurance)

3. meanwhile, smart buyers buy laptops from OEM assemblers like pcspecialist.co.uk that actually used 6-cell batteries, and now use 4-cell batteries like more expensive work laptops, so you can actually have endurance.