AMD Radeon R8 M445DX vs Intel HD Graphics 500 vs Intel HD Graphics 530

AMD Radeon R8 M445DX

The AMD Radeon R8 M445DX is a Dual Graphics combination of the integrated Radeon R5 (Bristol Ridge, e.g. in the A10-9600P) and a dedicated Radeon R7 M440 graphics card. It was introduced in mid 2016 for entry level multimedia laptops. The R8 M445DX runs both cards in hybrid crossfire mode and renders games in AFR mode (alternate frame rendering) that renders a frame alternately on each card. Therefore, the Dual Graphics needs driver profiles for each DX 11 game to work properly and often suffers from micro stuttering.

The Radeon R6 features 384, the Radeon R7 M440 320 shader cores, both based on the GCN architecture. Technical details on each card and benchmarks can be found on their GPU pages.

In our gaming tests, the performance of the Dual Graphics combination depends on the driver support. Except 3DMark benchmarks however, we saw nearly no game that could profit from the Crossfire combination with the launch drivers. Currently, buyers should only see the R8 M445DX as a single R7 M440.

In idle the dedicated GPU is shut down to save power and only the integrated R5 is running. Running together, the power consumption of both cards are combined (5-10 + 20-25 Watt).

Intel HD Graphics 500

The Intel HD Graphics 500 is an integrated processor graphics unit from the Apollo Lake generation (e. g. Celeron N3450 and Celeron N3350), which was announced mid 2016. The GPU can convince with low consumption figures, but the performance is only in the low-end segment and is rarely sufficient for modern games. Being a partial configuration of the Apollo Lake GPU, the HD Graphics 505 is equipped with just 12 Execution Units (EUs) (HD Graphics 505: 18 EUs) running at up to 650-700 MHz depending on the model. The technical specifications of the GPU are based on Intel's Gen9 architecture, which is also used for the more expensive Skylake series.

Due to its lack of dedicated graphics memory or eDRAM cache, the HD 505 has to access the main memory via processor (2x 64bit DDR3L-/LPDDR3-1866, LPDDR4-2400).

Performance

The HD Graphics 505 should be slightly slower than the older Broadwell GPU HD Graphics (Broadwell), so modern games (as of 2016) will rarely run smoothly even at the lowest settings.

Features

The revised video engine now decodes H.265/HEVC completely in hardware and thereby much more efficiently than before. Up to three displays can be connected via DP/eDP or HDMI (4K probably only at 30 Hz via HDMI 1.4).

Power Consumption

The TDP of the whole Pentium N4200 chip is 6 Watts by default, so the GPU is primarily used for (often passively cooled) netbooks or thin notebooks. The TDP can also be reduced to 4 Watts, but this will obviously affect the performance.

Intel HD Graphics 530

The Intel HD Graphics 530 (GT2) is an integrated graphics unit, which can be found in various desktop and notebook processors of the Skylake generation. The "GT2" version of the Skylake GPU offers 24 Execution Units (EUs) clocked at up to 1150 MHz (depending on the CPU model). Due to its lack of dedicated graphics memory or eDRAM cache, the HD 530 has to access the main memory (2x 64bit DDR3L-1600 / DDR4-2133).

Performance

The exact performance of the HD Graphics 530 depends on various factors like TDP, L3 Cache, memory (DDR3/DDR4) and maximum clock rate of the specific model. The fastest desktop versions (Core i7-6700K) can compete with a dedicated GeForce 920M and will handle modern games (as of 2015) in low or medium settings.

Features

The revised video engine now decodes H.265/HEVC completely in hardware and thereby much more efficiently than before. Displays can be connected via DP 1.2 / eDP 1.3 (max. 3840 x 2160 @ 60 Hz), whereas HDMI is limited to the older version 1.4a (max. 3840 x 2160 @ 30 Hz). However, HDMI 2.0 can be added using a DisplayPort converter. Up to three displays can be controlled simultaneously.

Power Consumption

The HD Graphics 530 can be found in several notebook and desktop processors of different TDP classes (35 - 91 W).