Intel HD Graphics 5000 vs AMD Radeon HD 7450M vs AMD Radeon HD 7490M

Intel HD Graphics 5000

The Intel HD Graphics 5000 (GT3) is a processor graphics card included in some of the ULV Haswell processors of 2013 (e.g. Core i5-4250U). It represents the highest configuration of the integrated graphics unit (40 execution units), but lacks the additional eDRAM cache of the Iris Pro Graphics 5200. The relatively low base clock can be automatically overclocked using Turbo Boost technology. Depending on the processor model, the base and turbo clock rates may differ, resulting in varying graphics performance between CPU models.

In comparison to the HD 4000, the graphics core has been modified extensively. The GPU 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.

According to benchmarks in 3DMark 11, the HD Graphics 5000 is up to 50 percent faster than the previous HD 4000. In games, however, the performance advantage is significantly lower. With simultaneous load on the CPU, the low TDP of the ULV models (15 W) limits the Turbo Boost of the GPU. Although the HD 5000 features 40 Execution Units, the graphics performance is still somewhat below the HD Graphics 4600 with only 20 EUs (HD 4000: 16 EUs). Overall, the HD 5000 is thus just behind the AMD Radeon HD 7660G and at the level of a dedicated Radeon HD 7650M. Current games (as of 2013) will run fluently in low to medium-low settings.

Due to the 22nm 3D Tri-Gate production process, power consumption is relatively low. The HD Graphics 5000 is available on certain ULV dual-core Haswell models in the 15 Watt TDP range.

AMD Radeon HD 7450M

AMD Radeon HD 7490M

The AMD Radeon HD 7490M (sometimes also still called ATI Mobility Radeon HD 7490) is a laptop graphics card for entry-level to middle-class notebooks. It is based on the old 40nm Seymore-XT chip and is therefore just a renamed version of the Radeon HD 6490M. Depending on the notebook, the card can be clocked at 800 MHz for the core and 950 MHz for the GDDR5 memory.

The 160 Stream processors are still based on the "old" 5D architecture similar to the 5000 series. Therefore, the number of shaders is not directly comparable to the 1D cores of current Nvidia GPUs. The Stream processors can be used with DirectX 11, OpenGL 4.1, DirectCompute 11 and OpenCL. The latter two APIs allow the Stream processors to be used for more general computational work, such as video transcoding.

The performance of the 7490M should be above the Nvidia GeForce GT 520M. Therefore, the card is positioned in the lower middle class and allows current games to play in medium detail and resolution settings. In our tests with a similar Radeon HD 6490M in a 15" MBP, modern games like Starcraft 2 and Mafia 2 reached about 30fps in medium detail settings under a resolution of 1024x768. Less demanding and older games like Trackmania also ran in high details and resolution settings. However, Battlefield 3 may not run at all and demanding games like Dirt 3 will only be playable in low settings.

The new UVD3 video decoder supports the decoding of MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2, Flash and now also Multi-View Codec (MVC) and MPEG-4 part 2 (DivX, xVid) HD videos on the graphics card.

Furthermore, the HD 7400M series integrates an HD audio controller to transmit HD Audio (TrueHD or DTS Master Audio) over HDMI and DisplayPort (e.g., for Blu-Ray videos).

The AMD HD3D Technology offers support for Blu-Ray 3D and 3D displays (both integrated and external). However, the solution is not as mature as Nvidias 3D Vision.

Thanks to Eyefinity, the AMD graphics chip is able to theoretically drive up to 4 monitors simultaneously. However, this only works if the laptop features enough DisplayPort outputs.

The power consumption of the chip should be similar to the Radeon HD 6490M and is therefore suited for 13" or larger laptops.