NVIDIA 780a: Integrated Graphics and SLI in One
by Gary Key on May 6, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Integrated Graphics Performance & GeForce Boost
As expected, AMD's 780G manages to outperform NVIDIA's integrated graphics steadily across the board:
| AMD 780G | NVIDIA 780a/GeForce 8200 | % Performance Advantage (AMD) | |
| Half Life 2 Episode Two (10x7) | 43.1 | 30.2 | 42.7% |
| Microsoft Flight Simulator X (10x7) | 24.6 | 21.4 | 15.0% |
| Company of Heroes (10x7) | 29.4 | 19.4 | 51.5% |
| Unreal Tournament 3 (10x7) | 22.9 | 16.8 | 36.3% |
| Crysis (10x7 LowQ) | 20.3 | 16.9 | 20.1% |
Once again, although this comparison matters more for the nForce 730a and GeForce 8200 motherboards, NVIDIA's mGPU just doesn't compare to AMD's.
The performance advantage ranges from 15% to just over 50%, and the only surprising part here is that AMD doesn't do better given the theoretical advantage it holds over NVIDIA. As we mentioned before, it's doubtful that many will buy a nForce 780a board and use its integrated graphics to play games but the AMD performance advantage holds true for 750a and GeForce 8200 platforms as well. For a company that has been criticising Intel's integrated graphics performance as of late, we would expect nothing short of the best scores here.
If the mGPU performance of the nForce 780a (or any of the other new NVIDIA chipsets) isn't enough, you can simply toss in a low end discrete GPU (dGPU) and NVIDIA's latest drivers will enable GeForce Boost. GeForce Boost is nothing more than SLI but between a mGPU and dGPU. Given how slow the mGPU is, GeForce Boost will only actually improve performance with a low-end dGPU and thus NVIDIA only supports GeForce Boost with either a GeForce 8400GS or GeForce 8500 GT.
With GeForce Boost enabled, the display driver also comes up with a new name for the mGPU + dGPU combo. If you combine a nForce 780a with a GeForce 8400GS you get a GeForce 8500 and if you pair the 780a with an 8500 GT the driver will report the mix as a GeForce 8600.
| NVIDIA 780a + GeForce 8400 GS | Half Life 2 Episode Two | MS Flight Simulator X | Company of Heroes | Crysis | Unreal Tournament 3 |
| mGPU alone | 30.2 | 21.4 | 19.4 | 16.9 | 16.8 |
| dGPU alone | 41.2 | 39.6 | 38.7 | 20.3 | 21.4 |
| mGPU + dGPU (GeForce Boost) | 50.3 | 39.6 | 45.5 | 30.1 | 22.2 |
| % Increase due to GF Boost | 22.0% | 0.0% | 17.6% | 48.3% | 3.7% |
With a GeForce 8400 GS we actually see decent scaling from a dGPU to the GeForce Boost mode. The added performance is large percentage-wise but in raw numbers it's nothing huge. You're basically getting a smoother gaming experience with GeForce Boost enabled, at least in those games where bridgeless SLI is supported.
| NVIDIA 780a + GeForce 8500 GT | Half Life 2 Episode Two | MS Flight Simulator X | Company of Heroes | Crysis | Unreal Tournament 3 |
| mGPU alone | 30.2 | 21.4 | 19.4 | 16.9 | 16.8 |
| dGPU alone | 47.5 | 35.3 | 48.6 | 24.8 | 33.1 |
| mGPU + dGPU (GeForce Boost) | 47.7 | 37.8 | 49.3 | 26.3 | 27.3 |
| % Increase due to GF Boost | 0.0% | 7.0% | 1.4% | 6.0% | -17.5% |
GeForce Boost does next to nothing with an 8500 GT and in the case of Unreal Tournament 3, performance actually decreases. Of course it's a safe bet that future driver updates will improve scaling and performance from GeForce Boost.
AMD supports a similar technology with its 780G:
| AMD 780G + Radeon 3450 | Half Life 2 Episode Two | MS Flight Simulator X | Company of Heroes | Crysis | Unreal Tournament 3 |
| mGPU alone | 43.1 | 24.6 | 29.4 | 20.3 | 22.9 |
| dGPU alone | 51.6 | 30.2 | 36.8 | 23.3 | 28.5 |
| mGPU + dGPU (Hybrid CrossFire) | 61.4 | 37.3 | 54.3 | 31.4 | 32.7 |
| % Increase due to Hybrid CF | 19.0% | 23.5% | 47.6% | 34.8% | 14.7% |
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homerdog - Tuesday, May 6, 2008 - link
Don't get me wrong, HybridPower is a cool feature that I will consider when I'm making my next motherboard/GPU purchase.However, the fact remains that the HD3K cards have a significantly larger delta between their idle and load power consumption figures than the current crop of Nvidia cards. If ATI continues to build on this trend they may not even need a complex mGPU/dGPU hybrid solution to get idle consumption down to near IGP levels, although they're probably working on one anyway.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, May 6, 2008 - link
Now we just need Hybrid Power in laptops - where it should have been first, IMO! At the very least, HybridPower should have shipped with support for 8800GT/GTS 512 and 9600 cards rather than just 9800 GTX/GX2.Also, my two cents on GeForce Boost: hooray for an extra 20% over 20FPS. That sounds fine, until you look at the bigger picture. A GeForce 8400 GS or 8500 GT is terribly slow relative to most discrete GPUs. Sure, they cost $40 to $70 depending on model and features. An extra 20% performance (or even 50%) would be fine. However, a $75 8600GT is already about twice as fast and a 9600GT (with rebates available for $110-$120) isn't even on the same continent.
If you have an IGP motherboard and you think it's too slow for games, I seriously doubt you're going to want to spend $50 to roughly double the performance. As any mathematician can tell you, multiplying any real number by zero is still zero. It may not be that bad, but I'd say 9600GT with Hybrid Power support is what people should shoot for. I figure that will arrive some time in the near future. Then just wait for it to show up on Intel platforms.
FITCamaro - Tuesday, May 6, 2008 - link
While I agree with you, I think this is a great idea. An onboard GPU is always going to use less power than a discrete one. The main issue I'm concerned with is, does the system get back the memory used by the onboard GPU when the discrete GPU is in use? Granted it's only going to use 64-128MB of RAM likely, maybe 256. But still, those are resources that aren't able to be used by games.Of course it doesn't really matter for most since it only supports the 9800GTX and 9800GX2 and, in my opinion, you'd have to be stupid to go with the 9800GTX when the 8800GTS 512MB offers nearly identical performance. Heck even the 8800GT 512MB is only about 5 FPS different.
They need to offer the hybrid power support across the entire 8x00 series.
BansheeX - Tuesday, May 6, 2008 - link
Who cares about the Phenom? Where is the Intel variant, aka 730i? Another three month delay for that one? Sigh.FITCamaro - Tuesday, May 6, 2008 - link
People who want a Phenom.DigitalFreak - Wednesday, May 7, 2008 - link
Those mythical people exist?KnightProdigy - Thursday, May 8, 2008 - link
There are a lot of AMD fans. AMD still has a lot of loyal followers, maybe you forget that AMD had the speed crown for many more years than Intel. I have been an NV fan since it was STB in the early 90s, I, for one, like the fact that they are offering similar solutions, even though they lag a little.Gary Key - Tuesday, May 6, 2008 - link
We expect to see the Intel mGPU variants this summer, just in time to compete with the G45.