AMD Radeon HD 6470M vs Intel HD Graphics 5300

AMD Radeon HD 6470M

The AMD Radeon HD 6470M (sometimes also still called ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6470) is a laptop graphics card for entry level to middle class notebooks. It should be based on the Seymore-XT chip and therefore feature the UVD 3 video decoder. Compared to the faster HD 6490M, the 6470M only supports slower DDR3 graphics memory.

The 120 Stream processors should be still based on the "old" 5D architecture similar to the 5000 series. Therefore, the number of shaders is not comparable to the 1D cores of current Nvidia GPUs. The Tessellation performance should be improved (like the desktop 6800 series) with the new cards. The Stream processors can be used with DirectX 11, OpenGL 4.1, DirectCompute 11 and OpenCL. With the later two the cores can also be used for general computations like transcoding videos.

The performance should be somewhere between the HD6370M (renamed 5470)  that features less shaders and the HD5650. Therefore, all current games should run in low detail settings fluently.

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 6400M series integrates a 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 (integrated and external). However, the solution is not as mature as Nvidias 3D Vision.

Thanks to Eyefinity the 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 Mobility Radeon HD 5470 and therefore suited for 13" laptops and up.

Intel HD Graphics 5300

The Intel HD Graphics 5300 (GT2) is an integrated Broadwell graphics card revealed in late 2014. It can be found in Core M ULV SoCs such as the Core M-5Y70. While the GPU shines with its extremely low power consumption, raw performance is quite low and barely sufficient for modern games.

Architecture and Features

Broadwell features a GPU based on the Intel Gen8 architecture, which has been optimized in various aspects compared to the previous Gen7.5 (Haswell). Inter alia, the shader arrays called "subslice" have been reorganized and now offer 8 Execution Units (EUs) each. Three subslices form a "slice" for a total of 24 EUs. Combined with other improvements such as larger L1 caches and an optimized frontend, the integrated GPU has become faster and more efficient than its predecessor.

The HD Graphics 5300 represents the mid-range version of the Broadwell GPU family and consists of one slice with 24 EUs. Beyond that, there is also a low-end variant (GT1, 12 EUs) as well as higher-end models (GT3/GT3e + eDRAM, 48 EUs).

All Broadwell GPUs support OpenCL 2.0 and DirectX 11.2. The video engine can now decode H.265 using both fixed function hardware as well as available GPU shaders. Up to three displays can be connected via DP 1.2/eDP 1.3 (max. 3840 x 2160 @ 60 Hz) or HDMI 1.4a (max. 3840 x 2160 @ 24 Hz). HDMI 2.0, however, is not supported.

Performance

Depending on the specific CPU, the maximum GPU frequency varies between 800 and 900 MHz. Due to the very low TDP, however, the average clock in 3D applications will be significantly lower. Therefore, the HD 5300 just barely outperforms the old HD 4000 or HD 4200, but requires much less energy for the same performance.

Only a few games as of 2014/2015 will run fluently at low settings, e.g. Dota 2 or Sims 4.

Power Consumption

Thanks to a new 14 nm process, the entire Core M chip is specified at just 4.5 W TDP and is suited for passively cooled tablets. The TDP is flexible and can be reduced or increased, which has a significant impact on performance.