Intel HD Graphics 4400 vs NVIDIA GeForce 930M vs Intel HD Graphics 400 (Braswell)

Intel HD Graphics 4400

The Intel HD Graphics 4400 (GT2) is a processor graphics card included in some of the ULV Haswell processors of 2013. The relatively low base clock can be automatically overclocked using Turbo Boost technology. Depending on the processor model, the turbo clock rates may differ, resulting in varying graphics performance between models.

In comparison to the HD 4000, the HD 4400 graphics core has been modified extensively. The GPU now supports DirectX 11.1, OpenCL 1.2 and OpenGL 4.0. It also features an improved decoder for 4K videos and the fast Quick Sync encoder. Compared to the faster 4600, the 4400 offers the same amount of shaders, but lower clock speeds (see table of clock speeds of the different CPU models below).

The performance of the HD Graphics 4400 is somewhat below the HD 4600, since the GPU is designed for ULV models. Therefore, the clock rates are relatively low. Furthermore, the reduced TDP limits the Turbo Boost. Compared to the ULV versions of the Ivy Bridge HD 4000, the HD 4400 is about 20 - 30 percent faster. This performance boost is achieved by architectural improvements and an increased number of execution units: The GT2 version integrates 20 EUs, compared to 16 EUs for the old HD 4000. Depending on the clock rate, the HD 4400 matches the performance of a dedicated Radeon HD 7550M.

Due to the 22nm 3D Tri-Gate production process, the power consumption is relatively low. The HD Graphics 4400 can be found on ULV dual-core Haswell models with a TDP of 15 watts.

NVIDIA GeForce 930M

The NVIDIA GeForce 930M (sometimes also called Nvidia GeForce GT 930M) is a (lower) mid-range, DirectX 11-compatible graphics card for laptops unveiled in March 2015. It is based on the last years GeForce 840M. In addition to the "normal" 25 Watt 930M, there is also a low power variant with a TDP of 12 Watt and support for DDR3 and GDDR5. The DDR3 variant should be approximately 10% slower than the 25 Watt version. The performance of the GDDR5 version is still unknown. The shader count for these low power 930M are also unknown. As the LP version is clocked only at 457 MHz + Boost it may feature more shaders (or a high Boost).

Update: The N16S-LP variant (5-12 Watt TDP, Low Power version?) will be available with GDDR5 starting in the first quarter of 2016. Later in 2016, the successor named GeForce 930MX was released that was available with GDDR5.

Architecture

Compared to Kepler, Maxwell has been optimized in several details to increase power efficiency. Smaller Streaming Multiprocessors (SMM) with only 128 ALUs (Kepler: 192) and an optimized scheduler should lead to better utilization of the shaders. Nvidia promises that a Maxwell SMM with 128 ALUs can offer 90 percent of the performance of a Kepler SMX with 192 ALUs. The 930M should feature the full GM108 with 3 SMMs (384 shader cores, 24 TMUs, and 8 ROPs due to the 64-bit interface). 

Another optimization is the massively enlarged L2 cache. The larger size can process some of the memory traffic to allow for a relatively narrow memory interface without significantly reducing performance.

Similar to GM107, the GM108 supports DirectX 12 with Feature Level 11_0 only.

Performance

The performance should be a bit below an average GeForce 840M due to the slower core clock. This means that demanding games like Evolve are only playable in lowest settings. Less demanding games like F1 2014 or Fifa 15 on the other hand should run in highest settings. See gaming benchmarks below for more details.

Features

GM108 integrates the sixth generation of the PureVideo HD video engine (VP6), offering a better decoding performance for H.264 and MPEG-2 videos. Of course, VP6 supports all features of previous generations (4K support, PIP, video encoding via NVENC API). Unfortunately, HDMI 2.0 is still not supported.

Power Consumption

The power consumption of the GeForce 930M should be about 33 Watts or less. Therefore, the 930M is best suited for laptops 13 inches in size or larger. The 900M series also supports Optimus to automatically switch between an integrated graphics card and the Nvidia GPU.

Intel HD Graphics 400 (Braswell)

The Intel HD Graphics 400 (Braswell)  is an integrated graphics card in the low end SoCs of the Braswell series (2016 Celeron models). It is based on the same architecture as the integrated GPU of the Broadwell graphics cards (e.g. HD Graphics 5300), but offers less shader cores and slower clock speeds.

It is a rename from the Intel HD Graphics (Braswell) card that included the faster 16 EU model in the Pentium SoCs. See the Intel HD Graphics Braswell graphics card page for benchmarks.

The performance depends on the processor (different boost speed for the GPU) and the used memory.

Gaming performance ist still only suited for older or less demanding games. Often also the processor is limited gaming performance (e.g. in the dual-core N3000).

The SoC also integrates a video decoding engine that should be able to handle 4K H.265 videos.