Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 500 vs vs Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 900
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 500
► remove from comparisonThe Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 500 (also called GMA 500) is a graphics card for embedded products (e.g. MIDs), netbooks and other small mobile devices. It is usually paired with an Intel Atom CPU and designed for video playback tasks (even HD content). The integrated video decoder is able to accelerate MPEG-2, VC-1, and AVC HD videos.
The graphics core is based on a licensed PowerVR SGX core (Power VR SGX535 as in the Apple A4) and is clocked with 100 (UL11L) or 200 MHz (US15L, US15W chipset). The GMA 500 is compatible with DirectX 10.1 and features 4 unified shaders. Still the performance wont be sufficient for playing 3D games.
The chipsets that integrate the GMA 500 (UL11L, US15L, and US15W) support
UL11L | US15L | US15W | |
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Core Speed | 100 | 200 | 200 MHz |
Max RAM | 512 MB | 1024 MB | 1024 MB |
max Displays | 1 | 2 | 2 |
PCIe Slots | 1 | 2 | 2 |
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 900
► remove from comparisonThe Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 (also known as GMA 900) is an integrated (onboard) graphic chip on the Mobile Intel 915GM chipset for Intel processors. It does not support hardware T&L (Transform & Lightning) calculations (which is required for some games).
It supports DirectX 9.0 with Shader Model 2.0 (Vertex Shader are calculated in Software - by the CPU) and OpenGL 1.4. Furthermore, the chip is able to accelerate the decoding of MPEG2 videos and supports Motion Compensation.
The GMA 900 can not be described as a graphics card that is sufficient for gamers. Still Intel published a list of games that will run (not needingly beautiful) on the notebook. Some old 3D games and especially 2D games should run without problems. The advantage of integrated graphics cards, is that they have a low power consumtion and therefore save battery life. Furthermore, the laptop may stay cooler and more silent than laptops with dedicated graphics cards. For office programs and surfing the performance is more than sufficient.
Currently there are no drivers that support Aero Glass for Windows Vista.
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 500 | Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 900 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GMA Series |
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Codename | GMA 500 | GMA 900 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Architecture | PowerVR SGX5 | Gen. 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pipelines | 4 - unified | 4 / 0 Pixel- / Vertexshader | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Core Speed | 200 MHz | 400 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Shared Memory | yes | no | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
API | DirectX 10.1, Shader 4.1 | DirectX 9c, Shader 2.0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
technology | 130 nm | 130 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Features | OpenGL 2.0, PowerVR SGX Kern, Screen Tiling, Internal True Color Processing, Zero overhead AA, 32 Bit floating-point operations. | No Hardware Transform and Lightning Support (T&L), MPEG2 acceleration, Motion Compensation | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Date of Announcement | 01.11.2008 | 01.03.2005 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Link to Manufacturer Page | download.intel.com | www.intel.com |