|
TopNax |
Dawn of War II
Dawn of War II is an RTS title that ships with a built in performance test. I ran at the lowest quality settings at 1024x768.
Here the Core i7-2600K and 2500K fall behind the Radeon HD 5450. The 5450 manages a 25% lead over the HD Graphics 3000 on the 2600K. It's interesting to note the tangible performance difference enabled by the higher max graphics turbo frequency of the 2600K (1350MHz vs. 1100MHz). It would appear that Dawn of War II is largely compute bound on these low-end GPUs. Compared to last year's Intel HD Graphics, the performance improvement is huge. Even the HD Graphics 2000 is almost 30% faster than the fastest Intel offered with Clarkdale. While I wouldn't view Clarkdale as being useful graphics, at the performance levels we're talking about now game developers should at least be paying attention to Intel's integrated graphics. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Our Modern Warfare 2 benchmark is a quick FRAPS run through a multiplayer map. All settings were turned down/off and we ran at 1024x768.
The Intel HD Graphics 3000 enabled chips are able to outpace the Radeon HD 5450 by at least 5%. The 2000 model isn't able to do as well, losing out to even the 890GX. On the notebook side this won't be an issue but for desktops with integrated graphics, it is a problem as most will have the lower end GPU. The performance improvement over last year's Clarkdale IGP is at least 30%, and more if you compare to the more mainstream Clarkdale SKUs. |
BioShock 2
Our test is a quick FRAPS runthrough in the first level of BioShock 2. All image quality settings are set to low, resolution is at 1024x768.
Once again the HD Graphics 3000 GPUs are faster than the Radeon HD 5450; it's the 2000 model that's slower. In this case the Core i3-2100 is actually slightly slower than last year's Core i5-661. World of WarcraftOur WoW test is run at fair quality settings (with weather turned down all the way) on a lightly populated server in an area where no other players are present to produce repeatable results. We ran at 1024x768.
The high-end HD Graphics 3000 SKUs do very well vs. the Radeon HD 5450 once again. We're at more than playable frame rates in WoW with all of the Sandy Bridge parts, although the two K-series SKUs are obviously a bit smoother. HAWX
Our HAWX performance tests were run with the game's built in benchmark in DX10 mode. All detail settings were turned down/off and we ran at 1024x768.
The Radeon HD 5570 continues to be completely untouchable. While Sandy Bridge can compete in the ~$40-$50 GPU space, anything above that is completely out of its reach. That isn't too bad considering Intel spent all of 114M transistors on the SNB GPU, but I do wonder if Intel will be able to push up any higher in the product stack in future GPUs. Once again the HD Graphics 2000 GPU is a bit too slow for my tastes, just barely edging out the fastest Clarkdale GPU. |
Starcraft II
We have two Starcraft II benchmarks: a GPU and a CPU test. The GPU test is mostly a navigate-around-the-map test, as scrolling and panning around tends to be the most GPU bound in the game. Our CPU test involves a massive battle of six armies in the center of the map, stressing the CPU more than the GPU. At these low quality settings, however, both benchmarks are influenced by CPU and GPU.
Starcraft II is really a strong point of Sandy Bridge's graphics. It's more than fast enough to run one of the most popular PC games out today. You can easily crank up quality settings or resolution without turning the game into a slideshow. Of course, low quality SC2 looks pretty weak compared to medium quality, but it's better than nothing. Our CPU test actually ends up being GPU bound with Intel's integrated graphics, AMD's 890GX is actually faster here:
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Call of Duty: Black Ops is basically unplayable on Sandy Bridge integrated graphics. I'm guessing this is not a compute bound scenario but rather an optimization problem for Intel. You'll notice there's hardly any difference between the performance of the 2000 and 3000 GPUs, indicating a bottleneck elsewhere. It could be memory bandwidth. Despite the game's near-30fps frame rate, there's way too much stuttering and jerkiness during the game to make it enjoyable.
Mafia II
Mafia II ships with a built in benchmark which we used for our comparison.
Frame rates are pretty low here, definitely not what I'd consider playable. This is a fact across the board though; you need to spend at least $70 on a GPU to get a playable experience here.
For our Civilization V test we're using the game's built in lateGameView benchmark. The test was run in DX9 mode with everything turned down at 1024x768:
Performance here is pretty low. Even a Radeon HD 5450 isn't enough to get you smooth frame rates; a discrete GPU is just necessary for some games. Civ V does have the advantage of not depending on high frame rates, though; the mouse input is decoupled from rendering, so you can generally interact with the game even at low frame rates. |
Metro 2033
We're using the Metro 2033 benchmark that comes with the patched game. Occasionally I noticed rendering issues at the Metro 2033 menu screen but I couldn't reproduce the problem regularly on Intel's HD Graphics.
Metro 2033 and many newer titles are just not playable at smooth frame rates on anything this low-end. Intel integrated graphics as well as low-end discrete GPUs are best paired with older games. DiRT 2
Our DiRT 2 performance numbers come from the demo's built-in benchmark:
DiRT 2 is another game that needs compute power, and the faster 2600K gets a decent boost from the higher clock speed. Frame rates are relatively consistent as well, though you'll get dips into the low 20s and teens at times, so at these settings the game is borderline playable. (Drop to Ultra Low if you need higher performance.) |
