Notebookcheck

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M (G) / ION (LE)

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M (G) / ION (LE)

The Nvidia GeForce 9400M G is an integrated (onboard) graphics card for laptops without dedicated graphics memory. The card was introduced in October 2008 in conjunction with the new Apple MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air products (called only 9400M). At the time of announcement it was the fastest mGPU (motherboard GPU) on the market.

The 9400M G graphics core is used in the MCP79 laptop chipset and in the ION platform for netbooks (which is essentially the same). The ION LE uses the same graphics core, but the DirectX support is limited to 9 (instead of 10). The clock rates of all thre platforms is identical.

The performance of the 9400M G is comparable to current entry level GPUs with dedicated graphics memory (like the GeForce 9300M GS).Therefore, the graphics adapater is able to display older games (like Doom3) in high details fluently and new (not too demanding games) in low details fluently. Warhammer Online should for example run on the 2.4 GHz MacBook fluently. Compared to the predecessor in the MacBook, the Intel GMA X3100, the GeForce 9400M should perform 5x better.

Because of the shared memory (the memory is reserved from the main memory), the graphics adapter performs significantly better with DDR3 main memory than with DDR2 (up to 33% more performance).

The current consumption of the mGPU is with a maximum of 12 Watt TDP (for the whole chipset (north- and southbridge are integrated) on par with the current Intel GMA X4500MHD (Centrino 2).

The chipset supports Hybrid-SLI (HybridPower) in conjunction with some GeForce 9x00M cards like the 9600M GT. HybridPower is a technique to choose between the integrated and dedicated graphics core, if performance or battery runtime is needed. Up to now the user has to use a tool to switch between the GPUs. (in Windows Vista, XP is not supported and MacOs needs a reboot according to Nvidia - at time of announcement). GeForceBoost to boost the performance (using SLI) is not supported in the MacBook Pro.

As the 9500M G, the 9400M features 16 stream processors that do the work of the former dedicated Pixel- and vertex-shaders. The unified shaders of Nvidia are 1-dimensional (AMD has 5-dimensional shaders which leads to the higher number of shaders).

The MCP79MX (codename of the GeForce 9400M) can help the CPU in decoding HD videos. It features the PureVideo HD engine (VP3 video processor). Furthermore, the chip can be programmed using CUDA and can accellerate some operations in Photoshop CS4.

At the same time the desktop 9300 and 9400 mGPU was presented, which should perform simillarly (the laptop chipset 9400M should perform a bit lower than the 9300).

ManufacturerNVIDIA
GeForce 9400M Series

GeForce 9400M (G) / ION (LE) 16@450MHz

GeForce 9400M GeForceBoost 24@MHz

CodenameMCP79MX
Pipelines16 - unified
Core Speed *450 MHz
Shader Speed *1100 MHz
Memory Speed *
Memory Bus Width
Memory Type
Shared Memoryyes
256 MB (Apple)
DirectXDirectX 10.0, Shader 4.0
Current Consumption12 Watt
Transistors282 Million
technology65 nm
FeaturesPureVideo HD VP3
Notebook Sizesmall and light
Date of Announcement14.10.2008
Link to Manufacturer Pagehttp://www.nvidia.com/object/product_gef...
* The specified clock rates are only guidelines for the manufacturer and can be altered by them.

Benchmarks

3DMark 2001 - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 5439     avg: 8199 (19%)     max: 13845 Points
3DMark 03 - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 3385     avg: 4132 (7%)     max: 5759 Points
3DMark 05 - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 2143     avg: 3002 (13%)     max: 3930 Points
3DMark 06
0% 100%
min: 1118     avg: 1733 (9%)     max: 2207 Points
PCMark Vantage - Gaming Score 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 1149     avg: 2425 (19%)     max: 3668 Points
Windows Vista Experience Index - GPU
0% 100%
min: 4.8     avg: 5 (78%)     max: 5.7 Points
Windows Vista Experience Index - GPU Games
0% 100%
min: 5.1     avg: 5 (77%)     max: 5.3 Points
Cinebench R10 - Shading 32Bit
0% 100%
min: 939     avg: 2231 (28%)     max: 4402 Points
Windows 7 Experience Index - Graphics
0% 100%
min: 3.9     avg: 4 (59%)     max: 4.8 points
Windows 7 Experience Index - Gaming graphics
0% 100%
min: 5.1     avg: 5 (72%)     max: 5.4 points
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card

Game Benchmarks

The following benchmarks stem from our benchmarks of review laptops. The performance depends on the used graphics memory, clock rate, processor, system settings, drivers, and operating systems. So the results don't have to be representative for all laptops with this GPU. For detailled information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.

Anno 1404
Anno 1404 (2009)
low:
15.8 17 19.1 42 ~ 23 fps      Compare
ultra:
6.2  fps      Compare
» With most tested laptops not playable.
Sims 3
Sims 3 (2009)
low:
43 77 ~ 60 fps      Compare
med.:
10 28 ~ 19 fps      Compare
high:
2  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings low.
F.E.A.R. 2
F.E.A.R. 2 (2009)
low:
19 20.7 44 ~ 28 fps      Compare
med.:
27  fps      Compare
» With most tested laptops not playable.
GTA IV - Grand Theft Auto (2008): Not playable with a weaker graphics card. - more...
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead (2008)
low:
64  fps      Compare
high:
14.7 23 ~ 19 fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings low.
Far Cry 2
Far Cry 2 (2008)
low:
36  fps      Compare
high:
11.9  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings low.
Crysis Warhead (2008): Not playable with a weaker graphics card. - more...
Racedriver: GRID
Racedriver: GRID (2008)
low:
17 60 ~ 39 fps      Compare
med.:
11 17 ~ 14 fps      Compare
high:
9  fps      Compare
» With most tested laptops playable in detail settings low.
Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare
Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare (2007)
low:
33.1 70.5 ~ 52 fps      Compare
med.:
27.1  fps      Compare
» With most tested laptops playable in detail settings low.
Supreme Commander - FA Bench
Supreme Commander - FA Bench (2007)
med.:
12.1  fps      Compare
high:
8.9  fps      Compare
» With most tested laptops not playable.
Crysis - GPU Benchmark
Crysis - GPU Benchmark (2007)
low:
22.8 30.4 32 ~ 28 fps      Compare
med.:
11  fps      Compare
high:
6.3  fps      Compare
» With most tested laptops not playable.
Crysis - CPU Benchmark
Crysis - CPU Benchmark (2007)
low:
21.4 28.3 30 ~ 27 fps      Compare