How good is the onboard video on the Intel i5 2500K?

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evanesce

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 19, 2011
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How does it compare with a discrete Geforce 9800 low power edition (what I used before this).
 
9800 isn't that bad... (GeForce, that is... You'd be hard pressed to still be using your ATI 9800 pro... :p)

Having said that, I didn't mind the onboard graphics on my 2600K either. What are you playing/doing with it?
 
I will want to play WoW, Everquest, Skyrim, stuff like that mostly. Also plan on turning it into a Hackintosh system. The 9800's getting old, i had to epoxy a case fan to the heatsink on it, the other one cracked off from excessive use/heat heh....
 
Unless you want to play some of those at lower settings compared to your 9800, you'll have to keep it around for a while longer.
 
The Intel HD Graphics 3000 that is found on the i5-2500K is somewhere between an Nvidia 9400GT and a 9500GT, or about equal to AMD 5450 in performance - far, far below the 9800GT. Keep the 9800GT.

That being said, this review tested Intel HD 3000 with a number of games, including WOW; looks like it would do okay. EQ and EQ2 minimum requirements are lower than WOW. You would be able to do Skyrim on low settings; see this interesting chart.
 
Thanks evilsofa. Do you know how this HD 3000 integrated matches up with my other llano quad core The AMD A8-3850 pc's video capability? Radeon HD 6550D. Thanks so much. I am clueless as to video power and comaprisons.
 
xDezor said:
9800 isn't that bad... (GeForce, that is... You'd be hard pressed to still be using your ATI 9800 pro... :p)

Having said that, I didn't mind the onboard graphics on my 2600K either. What are you playing/doing with it?
Click to expand...

The graphics on the entire AMD (originally ATI) R300 series (which includes not just the AMD Radeon 9800 Pro, but its various desktop and mobile spinoffs) are far from *bad* - with few exceptions, all but the lowest-end mobile variations support Aero (up through Windows 7, no less), and DirectX 9c is supported (again, through practically every iteration). The issue with R3xx is that it is pretty much AGP/PCI-only; therefore, for *that* reason, it's an ancient graphics architecture by comparison merely to its descendants.

HD3000 (shared by the Sandy Bridge K-subseries - i5-2500K and i7-2600K) is actually a step above R3xx (and the first time that Intel has surpassed even EOL AMD or nV mainstream GPU silicon) by supporting DX11 directly (something which AMD HD4xxx and earlier does not do); due to the sharing of space on the CPU die, it is better at tasks like video processing and transcoding (Handbrake and Media Expresso, for example) than even *current-generation* AMD and nV GPU silicon. Where it falls down is where both AMD and nV GPUs shine - gaming and GPGPU work. (Understandable, as AMD GPUs since the aforementioned HD4xxx and their nV competition are tighter-focussed (niche) GPUs compared to even HD2000, let alone HD3000.)
 
You can think of it this way: if your 9800GT should fail, you won't be totally up the creek - you'll still be able to run games at minimum settings until you can get a new video card. But you probably won't want to run with just the onboard video long-term.
 
evanesce said:
Thanks evilsofa. Do you know how this HD 3000 integrated matches up with my other llano quad core The AMD A8-3850 pc's video capability? Radeon HD 6550D. Thanks so much. I am clueless as to video power and comaprisons.
Click to expand...

Generally speaking, the graphic cores in the Llano A4 thru A8 APU ranges between a little less powerful than desktop Radeon HD 5550 (A4 models) to a bit less powerful than the desktop Radeon HD 5570 (A8 models). The A6 graphic cores would be somewhere in between.
 
The Intel HD 4000 graphic core in select Ivy Bridge CPUs (coming soon) was estimated to be about 60% faster than the Intel HD 3000, but I believe some benchmarks have shown the HD 4000 to be 40% more powerful. That would make the Intel HD 4000 about as powerful as the Radeon HD 5550, maybe slightly faster.
 
Is it possible to disable the onboard video from an intel 2500K if I continue to use my discreet, or will it continue to consume heat/energy on this chip? Thanks for all the answers.
 
Oh that's very good. I've been using AMD for quite a while, but came to a dead halt trying to intall Hackintosh on an AMD system (nearly impossible).

Would the video overclock along with the cpu if I were to oc this chip?
 
What's your resolution and your current setup?

Trinity is due to come out this Summer and should be a significant improvement over Llano in graphics. At the moment it doesn't make too much sense in buying Llano if you can fit a discrete GPU in there as well. A 5770/6770 are very good and only cost ~$100 while providing far better graphics than Llano. On the other hand, if you're looking to get rid of your discrete GPU altogether then wait till Trinity and see how it performs. Trinity is due out in a month or so? Supposedly Trinity will be capable of running crossfire with various GPU architectures but the extent of how much work they're doing in that area is still fuzzy.

If you're planning to buy now then a cheap Intel i3 and a 5770/6770 might be your best bet.
 
Resolution is 1080p via hdmi. I just can't believe that the video card I bought like almost 3-4 years back (the 9800GT) is still quite powerful.

In this day and age that's incredible!
 
It's good enough to view and stream 1080p movies flawlessly. If you plan on gaming on it; I'd say good luck.
 
happyboy said:
It's good enough to view and stream 1080p movies flawlessly. If you plan on gaming on it; I'd say good luck.
Click to expand...

If you keep your expectations reasonable, its doable. You wouldn't be playing BF3 or gaming at high at 1080, but if you don't mind dropping down to 1366 or so, and going to low-medium settings, gaming is doable.

Before I bought my 448, I was playing Source games at 1280x1024. Source games scale extraordinarily well, but still.
 
Another data point for you: the minimum system requirements for Guild Wars 2 include Nvidia 7800, ATI X1800, Intel HD 3000, or better.
 
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