NVIDIA GeForce MX230 vs Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640

NVIDIA GeForce MX230

The Nvidia GeForce MX230 is an entry-level dedicated  laptop graphics card with DirectX 12 support (FL 12_1) based (most likely) on the Pascal architecture (and not Maxwell as the older MX130). Similar to the faster MX250, the MX230 is based on the GP108 chip.

Features

The GP108 chip is manufactured in a 14 nm FinFET process at Samsung (LPP) and offers a number of new features, including support for DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR and improved H.265 video de- and encoding (PlayReady 3.0). 4K HDR with Netflix, however, wont run due to the minimum 3 GB graphics memory that is required. Compared to the bigger Pascal chips, the small GP108 does not support Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) for VR and G-Sync. A full list of improvements and the new Pascal desktop GPUs is available in our dedicated Pascal architecture article.

Performance

Thanks to the newer Pascal architecture, the MX230 is significantly faster than the old GeForce MX130 (Maxwell based). Demanding games of 2019 run only in lowest resolution and detail settings and may stutter (e.g. Anno 1800 or Rage 2 ran with under 30fps in our benchmarks). Less demanding games like Overwatch, Fifa 19 or Rocket League, however, can be played in higher detail and resolution settings without stuttering (see benchmarks below).

Power Consumption

The MX230 is manufactured in 14nm at Samsung and due to the low shader count and 64 Bit memory bus, the power consumption is rather low. Therefore, the chip can be also used for small and thin laptops. In our power tests, the faster MX250 needed 22% more power (Furmark load) and the old MX130 even 38% more. The integrated UHD Graphics 620 needed on average only 17% less power at a much lower performance.

Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640

The Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 (GT3e) is a processor graphics card for Kaby Lake models announced in January 2017. As the successor to the Intel Iris Graphics 540 (Skylake), the Iris Plus Graphics 640 is used for 15-Watt ULV models and is equipped with 64 MB eDRAM cache. There should not be any big changes compared to the Iris Graphics 540.

The so called GT3e version of the Kaby Lake GPU still has 48 Execution Units (EUs), which can reach up to 1050 MHz depending on the model. Besides eDRAM cache, the Iris 640 can also access the system memory (2x 64 Bit DDR3L-1600/LPDDR3-1866/DDR4-2400) via processor interface.

Compared to the Iris Plus 650 from the 28-Watt models, the Iris 640 only has a slightly lower maximum clock as well as the lower TDP, so the utilization of the Turbo Boost potential should be worse.

Performance

The exact performance of the Iris Plus Graphics 640 depends on the CPU model, because maximum clock as well as the size of the L3 cache can differ a bit. The system memory (DDR3/DDR4) will influence the performance as well.

The fastest chips are high-clocked Core i7 models like the Core i7-7660U. Depending on the game, the Iris Plus 640 will probably be similar to the previous model somewhere between a dedicated GeForce 920M and GeForce 940M and is usually limited to low settings in modern games.

Features

The reworked video engine now fully supports hardware decoding of H.265/HEVC videos. Contrary to Skylake, however, Kaby Lake can now also decode H.265/HEVC Main 10 with a 10-bit color depth as well as Google's VP9 codec. The video output is possible via DP 1.2/eDP 1.3 (up to 3840 x 2160 @60 Hz), whereas HDMI is also supported in the older 1.4a standard. An HDMI 2.0 output can be added via converter from DisplayPort. The GPU can drive up to three displays simultaneously.

Power Consumption

The Iris Plus Graphics 640 is used for 15-Watt ULV processor and therefore thin notebooks and Ultrabooks.