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Technology site AnandTech has posted benchmarks of Intel’s upcoming Sandy Bridge chipset which shows a major boost in graphics performance.
Sandy Bridge is the next revision of CPU architecture from Intel expected to arrive in products early next year. This will also represent the first consumer launch of Intel microprocessors based on 32nm fabrication technology. As with previous Intel technology solutions, the Sandy Bridge platform offers an integrated graphics option.
Previously Intel integrated graphics solutions were of such low performance they were insufficient to provide acceptable performance to all but the least demanding of videogames. This gave rise to a substantial market in so-called discreet graphics options where a seperate graphics card provides the graphics hardware.
However technology web site AnandTech has obtained preview Sandy Bridge hardware and published an extensive set of benchmarks. The results show that Sandy Bridge integrated graphics performance is dramatically faster than Intel’s previous best offering.
Batman: Arkham Asylum managed 66 frames per second in 1024 x 768 resolution compared with 35 frames for the best result obtained from Intel’s (HD Graphics) solutions. The results are no match for higher end discreet solutions from AMD and Nvidia however the benchmarks showed that Sandy Bridge generally outperformed the low level entry discreet ATI Radeon HD 5450.
"Sandy Bridge puts all current integrated graphics solutions to shame, and even looks to nip at the heels of low end discrete GPUs," said AnandTech founder Anand Lal Shimpi.
"For HTPC users, Clarkdale did a good enough job – but for light gaming there wasn’t enough horsepower under the hood. With Sandy Bridge you can actually play modern titles, albeit at low quality settings."
See the AnandTech Sandy Bridge Preview for more.
Image credit: AnandTech
