Intel GMA 3000 HD

I am getting a ThinkPad X220 next year for college because of the ridiculous battery life and Performance I get in such a small package, not to mention the build quality and IPS screen.

The only thing that concerns me, however, is the Intel GMA 3000 HD.

I have looked at numerous reviews, but most of them deal with pre-release drivers, Desktop 3000 HDs which have more cores to them supposedly, and are done on Quad-Core processors.

I will admit, I almost never play the newest games. But the game that really, really, excites me is Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I think it would be silly to buy a notebook with a decent graphics card for just one game. So here are the questions I have:

1. Is the Intel GMA 3000 HD good enough, with an educated guesstimate, for Deus Ex: Human Revolution on Low Settings, MAYBE medium settings?

2. Should I stick with the Core i5 25xx CPU or spring for the Core i7 26xx CPU for the X220? Will I notice the difference?

3. Will the GMA 3000HD be able to run Hulu 720P or 480P fullscreen on a 2440x1600 monitor?

4. How about emulated N64, PS2, PS1 or other console emulated games? Is it good enough for that?

 

Both the laptop and desktop HDG 3000 have 12 EUs. They're exactly the same other than the laptop one having slightly lower clock speeds. The i7-2620M's 3000 is practically identical to the desktop version, while the i5 one is slightly slower.

 

Its hard to say to be honest because it will all depend on the game requirements but my guess would be that its unplayable. The GMA is a Class 3 GPU and its lower than an 8600M GT which is mostly the minimum for laptop gaming these days. Here is the Notebook review mind:

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD - Notebookcheck.net Tech

This gives you some Frames of recent games however again depending on the speed the CPU can give it. You might get away with 15-20 frames with everything on low but it would be barely playable. Its hard to mix battery power and graphics because of the power required.

My only advice to you is maybe think about getting an Nvidia Optimus card in a laptop 335m/445m/555m Dell XPS 15/17 they are pretty compact and have the latest specs for a good price on ebay at the moment that will help you with the battery life you may not get the battery power you want but you could then play newer games and there are some good ones coming out this year.

 

Wrong link. That's for the old GMA HD on Arrendale.

Intel HD Graphics 3000 - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

Take a look at this Anandtech review. It doesn't specifically review 3000 HD graphics, but it has it in the benchmarks, and it looks like it gives decent frame rates in many (though not all) games, certainly much better than any other IGP. It even passes low end AMD and NVIDIA discrete GPU's in most games, though on some it falls behind badly.

So it'd be hard to say how well it works for Deus Ex: Human Revolution specifically, but considering its performance in games where it works well, and hoping that drivers would improve by that time so that other games perform better too, there's a change you'll be able to play it decently at low settings.

 

1. Is the Intel GMA 3000 HD good enough, with an educated guesstimate, for Deus Ex: Human Revolution on Low Settings, MAYBE medium settings?

- It should be ok for lowest settings. I don't know how demanding that game will be though. Most games should play in low (older ones in higher settings). Even crysis plays at around 40fps on low.

2. Should I stick with the Core i5 25xx CPU or spring for the Core i7 26xx CPU for the X220? Will I notice the difference?

- For gaming it wont make any difference. The once time you'll notice a difference is when you're doing lots of things at once, or using demanding software. Remember is the processor name is just "M" it's dual core. It need to say "QM" for it to be quad.

3. Will the GMA 3000HD be able to run Hulu 720P or 480P fullscreen on a 2440x1600 monitor?

- Easily. It could probably play any videos at 2440x1600 (if you could find one). Videos are far less demanding then games.

4. How about emulated N64, PS2, PS1 or other console emulated games? Is it good enough for that?

- Should be more then good enough for that.


Take a look at this link. (scroll down till you get to the game benchmarks). I would probably reccommend getting a dedicated graphics card (even a really bad one), but this would probably do for lowest settings.

Intel HD Graphics 3000 - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

+1 rep to you guys.... Anymore input appreciated!