Second-Generation Ultrabooks: Faster And Cheaper With Ivy Bridge

Features
By Andrew Ku
published

What can you expect from a 17 W processor after benchmarking its 77 W big brother? We get our hands on a reference-class Ivy Bridge-based Ultrabook and quantify how a hard thermal ceiling affects x86, gaming, transcoding, and Blu-ray playback workloads.

Integrated Graphics: Image Quality, Examined

Battlefield 3 (720P): HD Graphics 3000 (Sandy Bridge) VS. 4000 (Ivy Bridge) - YouTube
Watch On

We plan to examine the image quality of HD Graphics 4000 in an upcoming story. For now, though, we put together a few video clips to compare HD Graphics 3000 and 4000.

Overall, the output looks nearly the same on both solutions, although we know Intel made significant improvements to its anisotropic filtering. The problem is, AF is a luxury, and luxuries cost a lot when you're talking about integrated GPUs.

Battlefield 3 (720P): HD Graphics 4000 (Ivy Bridge) - YouTube
Watch On

Selecting different quality settings in-game makes a more discernible difference. But again, turning up the visual details exacts a painful penalty. Consequently, even if HD Graphics 4000 does improve on its predecessor's filtering, it'd be really hard to tell, particularly during real-world game play at low resolutions.

In fact, we had to generate these videos using our Core i7-3720QM and -2820QM systems because the 17 W parts were simply too slow.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, Quality Settings Compared - YouTube
Watch On
Andrew Ku
31 Comments Comment from the forums
  • sam_fisher
    It seems that Ivy Bridge's lower TDP and its HD 4000 comes into its own in the notebook/ultrabook market more so than the PC/gaming one.
    Reply
  • acku
    ^agreed

    Andrew Ku
    Tom's Hardware
    Reply
  • crisan_tiberiu
    they should use HD 4000 on every intel CPU, i dont get it why they dont ...
    Reply
  • sam_fisher
    crisan_tiberiuthey should use HD 4000 on every intel CPU, i dont get it why they dont ...
    The integrated graphics is built into the processor die and the changes between the HD 3000 and 4000 are physical changes, so they can't just change them without changing the whole CPU.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    crisan_tiberiuthey should use HD 4000 on every intel CPU, i dont get it why they dont ...
    Pricing, TDP, segmentation and PROFIT
    Reply
  • crisan_tiberiu
    sam_fisherThe integrated graphics is built into the processor die and the changes between the HD 3000 and 4000 are physical changes, so they can't just change them without changing the whole CPU. Yes, i know that :)) but when they designed IVY they should have designed every chip with the HD 4000. The HD 4000 is still outperformed by Liano iGPU if you remember...
    Reply
  • acku
    On the desktop side yes. Not on the mobile side.
    Reply
  • tomfreak
    Cant u put an older/previous generation desktop and benchmark against it? I cant or couldnt get how a fast a 2.0GHz Ivy vs a similar Nehelem Desktop CPU vs desktop core 2 duo CPU. Many of us buy notebook to replace desktop for casual use, we would like to know what it can do vs our old desktop.

    Besides get some older AAA games to bench, nobody play BF3 at Ultra books with HD4000. We wanna see what old games we can max out @ full resolution.
    Reply
  • silverblue
    I think AMD missed a trick with Llano. Instead of throwing four lowly clocked cores at a mobile processor, perhaps two higher clocked cores would've made much more sense. That way, they could possibly sport a higher clock GPU as well within the same TDP.

    Trinity's lower powered, higher clocked cores already look to have partly made up for this, but until the 17W variant comes along, there's no real indication of how it'll measure up to IB ULV. However, we do know that AMD pairs the slower GPUs with the slower CPUs and vice versa, so there's little chance of a, say, 2C/2T/1M CPU with the 7660G GPU.
    Reply
  • DjEaZy
    ... ok... you compare the Llano to Sandy/Ivy bridge in CPU performance, but not in GPU performance? and why not Sandy/Ivy Bridge to Trinity?
    ... and Adobe Photoshop CS 5? not CS 6?
    Reply