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.
The Intel UHD Graphics G7 (Lakefield GT2 with 64 EUs) is an integrated graphics card in the Lakefield SoCs (e.g. Core i7-L16G7) for laptops. It offers no dedicated graphics memory (no eDRAM cache like the Intel Iris Graphics 655 predecessor of the Coffee Lake SoCs). The clock rate ranges between 200 MHz (guaranteed base clock) up to 500 MHz (boost). The TDP of the whole SoC is specified at 7 Watt.
The GPU performance is similar to the old Intel HD Graphics 630 and therefore only some low demanding games like League of Legends should run with the UHD Graphics.
A special new feature of the Gen11 graphics card is the new Variable Rate Shading (VRS) support. With it game designers can decide where to spend shading time and e.g. shade object in the background or behind fog with less resolution (up to using only one source for a 4x4 block). With this technique early results show up to 1.3x performance in Unreal Engine POC and 1.2x speedup in Civ 6. Up to now VRS is only supported by the new Nvidia Turing architecture (GTX 1650 and up).
The Lakefield SoCs and therefore the integrated GPU are manufactured in the modern 10nm process at Intel that should be comparable to the 7nm process of TSMC.
The Intel UHD Graphics G4 (Lakefield GT1 with 48 EUs) is an integrated graphics card in the Lakefield SoCs (e.g. Core i3-L13G4) for laptops. It offers no dedicated graphics memory (no eDRAM cache like the Intel Iris Graphics 655 predecessor of the Coffee Lake SoCs). The clock rate ranges between 200 MHz (guaranteed base clock) up to 500 MHz (boost). The TDP of the whole SoC is specified at 7 Watt.
The GPU performance should be a bit slower than the old Intel HD Graphics 620 and therefore only some low demanding games like League of Legends should run with the UHD Graphics.
A special new feature of the Gen11 graphics card is the new Variable Rate Shading (VRS) support. With it game designers can decide where to spend shading time and e.g. shade object in the background or behind fog with less resolution (up to using only one source for a 4x4 block). With this technique early results show up to 1.3x performance in Unreal Engine POC and 1.2x speedup in Civ 6. Up to now VRS is only supported by the new Nvidia Turing architecture (GTX 1650 and up).
The Lakefield SoCs and therefore the integrated GPU are manufactured in the modern 10nm process at Intel that should be comparable to the 7nm process of TSMC.
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card - Average benchmark values for this graphics card * Smaller numbers mean a higher performance 1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation
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 detailed information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.