X3000 GMA performance?

Does anyone have any good, recent benchmarks or performance stats for Intel's X3000 IGP? I'm going to end up having to buy a board with one and am wondering about how well it is (ands is expected to) perform.

Anandtech has been promising a comprehensive review for the last two months, but it hasn't surfaced. I think they're catering to Intel and waiting for driver releases to review it, which really pisses me off. From the gossip, indications are the driver still does many things in software, and the benchmarks back this up. There is not indication when Intel will release drivers that fully support the hardware.

From the scattered user benchmarks, you can gather this general trend:

1. You'll need a beefy Core2 Duo to back up your X3000 because a good number of operations are still done in software. As always with integrated graphics, you'll need lots of high-speed memory if you want to turn up the texture quality and effects.

2. HDR is out, even the hack HDR in the Source engine. Yes, even though it has 8 shaders.

The 3dmark 2001SE score is around 7000, which puts it a little slower than a Radeon 8500. FOR COMPARISON: on 'reasonable' systems, I've seen scores of 10-12k for a 9600 Pro, and 18-20k for a 9800 Pro, so 7000 is pretty bad.

Why did I mention the 3dmark 2001SE results? Because the '06 results are pathetic: about 150-160. FOR COMPARISON: a 7300 GS gets about 800 in 3dmark06, default settings.

Feedback on playability:

Half-Life 2: playable at 800x600 (20-40fps), high settings, Trillinear, simple reflections.

Half-Life 2 Ep 1: has to be forced into Dx8.1 mode, lower framerates.

If you're planning on playing games, even a 7300 GS would be better.

I heard that with the latest drivers, it can play HL2 and games released around that time at 1024 minus HDR from a thread on the anandtech forums.

The lack of good reviews annoys me too. I really wish intel would be faster on their drivers...

When I heard of the X3000, I expected very little because Intel lacks one thing (in comparison to Nvidia and ATI): cutting-edge graphics products.

If you don't sell cutting-edge graphics products, you never have to be "the best," so your drivers end up mediocre. For Nvidia and ATI, the tricks of the trade learned at the high-end eventually filter down to all their offerings. That is why the 2-pipe GeForce 6150 actually beats the 8-pipe X3000 in 3dmark06 (the GeForce 6150 gets a score of about 200, even though it has 1/4 the pipes AND lacks the advantage of the benchmark-friendly Core 2 Duo).

For comparison, look at S3: their cards are beefy and clocked very high, but they perform like crap (indicating poor drivers). S3 spent the last few years concentrating on low-end cards and chipsets, and now they just can't compete with the years of high-performance experience in ATI and Nvidia's driver teams.

Until Intel starts to compete in the standalone graphics arena, I expect their drivers will continue to suck.

Are Intel's onboard graphic solutions geared for gamers? I thought they were geared mainly towards the business solutions aspect of PCs. A HUGE number of PCs sold use onboard video for the millions of businesses out there, which is where onboard video makes money. Therefore, I still wouldn't expect much from intel's GMA. For gaming, I'd wait for NVIDIA to release an IGP chipset for Intel, but I dont even know if thats planned/in the works or not, lol. Anyone know?

Out of curiosity, why do you need an integrated video board?

mATX conroe and I'm waiting for the R600s. There's no P965s out yet(ARRRRGH!!!) for mATX.

This IGP seems to be for low-end gaming platforms/HTPCs. Its overpowered being clocked at 667 and support DX10, has PS3 with abilty for PS4 and 8 unified pipelines. It has mpeg decoding features and other stuff.

It has alot of potential but the drivers out now haven't transfered all the features to hardware yet.

Intel's graphics solutions will never make sense for gaming. Any benchs that make the GMA X3000 look competitive with an X300 are high end Core2 systems with a least 1gb DDR2 800 dual channel. If you are using onboard, then you must be building either a system not for gaming at all, or it is a budget gaming system. Why spend extra on lots of high end RAM if a $50 graphics card would serve you better? Forget PS/VS 30, noone who knows what an IGP vs. discrete graphics card is will care about Intels graphics chips untill Intel can get performance up to par with current gen bottom-end budget cards, without being more expensive (ultimately) to match the performance.