Best integrated chipset ever

[Mr Buckshot]

http://www.trustedreviews.com/notebooks/review/2008/10/21/nVidia-GeForce-9400M-Hands-On/p1

For anyone who’s looking to purchase the smaller standard Macbook (non-Pro) or Macbook Air, this spells good news. The previous Intel integrated IGP used in these lower-end Macbook models was able to run Call of Duty 4, Doom 3, etc, but the performance was slideshow-like even at lowest settings. Now, this Nvidia Geforce 9400M, despite being integrated and sharing 256 MB of memory with the main RAM, gets playable framerates on Call of Duty 4 at 1280x800 on low-medium (going to 800x500, the same aspect ratio, allows details to be set higher). Older games like Far Cry, Half-Life 2, etc could potentially hit 1024x768 maxed – and only 2 years ago these older games were barely handled by the Geforce 7150M, the most powerful IGP at the time.

If there’s anything that could really use this, it would be a Netbook (i.e. Asus EEE). Current Netbooks, mostly using Intel cards, can hit Halo at native res on max and that’s as far as they’ll go. Slap in the 9400, and not only can they play a LOT more games, they can also do some 3D rendering work and decode high-definition video. The 9400M would also be a great addition to some of those “budget” prebuilt slim desktops. Believe it or not, many users here are unlucky, they are limited to playing Halo on gaming-incapable computers purchased by technology-illiterate parents. If they had the 9400M instead of some horrible Intel card, they could be running Call of Duty 4 without the game looking like an eyesore!

I’ve seen the Mac port of Call of Duty 4 running on one of the new Macbook Pros (with a hybrid Geforce 9400M/Geforce 9600MGT system). Of course, the 9600MGT easily handles the game, but the 9400 allows the game to run while the Macbook Pro is on battery power.

Of course, Crysis will inevitably bring the 9400M to its knees (well it runs, albeit like a slideshow), but if you got the 9400M in some ultra cheap machine, you can’t really complain! It also outpeforms many of the lower end dedicated graphics cards of yesterday, although its lack of dedicated memory may hinder performance.

[Mr Buckshot]

Forgot to add, the next company to step into the market of handheld games consoles might want to consider deriving the console’s guts from this chipset. If the PSP’s successor (and I mean a whole new system) were to use something like that, me want. Heck, I daresay the 9400 even beats the Wii’s graphics, which aren’t bad.

[Delta4907]

Wish this was available when I bought my laptop. It has a Geforce 7150M.

[Needles]

Nvidia still makes integrated graphics?

[343guiltymc]

A X1300 PRO can run Far cry 1, Half life 2 etc at max settings at 1280x1024, but a 9400 M cannot?

[Syuusuke]

Nvidia still makes integrated graphics?

For laptops, yea.

[Mr Buckshot]

A X1300 PRO can run Far cry 1, Half life 2 etc at max settings at 1280x1024, but a 9400 M cannot?

Dedicated memory vs shared memory...makes a difference. The 9400M can render details better than the desktop X1300 though. Anyway the laptop X1300 has a tendency to use Hypermemory to steal system RAM too.

The Geforce 9400M can probably hit Half-Life 2 maxed at 1280x800 (native res of Macbook 13").

I think Nvidia still makes integrated Geforce 6150s and 7150s for desktop mobos. The 6150 was the first IGP capable of running Doom 3 with 30 fps (640x480 on lowest, but it ran playably and that's what was impressive in the first place).

Let's wait for this chipset to go into tablets and Netbooks. It could help to boost their sales a bit. Like I said, I personally saw it running COD4 on battery power with over 40 fps, clearly an impressive feat.

[Xetsuei]

The 9400M can render details better than the desktop X1300 though.

And how would you happen to know this?

[Mr Buckshot]

And how would you happen to know this?

DirectX10 support. One of my friends has a laptop with a Radeon Mobility X1400 (same core as X1300, just faster speed), and the Macbook's 9400M can turn on more COD4 eye candy then the X1400 at the same resolution and maintaing the same framerate.

Then again, COD4 is one of the better-scaling games of its generation.

When this goes into a Netbook, screw the DS/PSP, the Netbook will be my portable game system of choice. My Intel 915-powered EEE PC can't handle any games that are more advanced than UT2004 or Halo 1 (even on Halo 1 I turn off decals to boost frames, running at 800x480). However I have a separate Steam account for HL1 games and those are on the EEE.

[Xetsuei]

DirectX10 support. One of my friends has a laptop with a Radeon Mobility X1400 (same core as X1300, just faster speed), and the Macbook's 9400M can turn on more COD4 eye candy then the X1400 at the same resolution and maintaing the same framerate.

Then again, COD4 is one of the better-scaling games of its generation.

A mobile X1400 isn't a PCI-E dedicated X1300. Don't jump to conclusions.

[Mr Buckshot]

A mobile X1400 isn't a PCI-E dedicated X1300. Don't jump to conclusions.

sorry I guess it'll more sense to compare things strictly in terms of laptops. Anyway the X1300 is an overpriced low end card, don't know anyone using it in a desktop.

Though, the 9400M would be a good addition to the next nForce desktop motherboard, at least it provides a viable fallback if the dedicated card fails or if the owner has strict computer illiterate parents.

[343guiltymc]

sorry I guess it'll more sense to compare things strictly in terms of laptops. Anyway the X1300 is an overpriced low end card, don't know anyone using it in a desktop.

Though, the 9400M would be a good addition to the next nForce desktop motherboard, at least it provides a viable fallback if the dedicated card fails or if the owner has strict computer illiterate parents.

Ahem me. :rolleyes:

[Warsaw]

sorry I guess it'll more sense to compare things strictly in terms of laptops. Anyway the X1300 is an overpriced low end card, don't know anyone using it in a desktop.

Though, the 9400M would be a good addition to the next nForce desktop motherboard, at least it provides a viable fallback if the dedicated card fails or if the owner has strict computer illiterate parents.

Like this? (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010200280+107172854+1071745592&Configurator=&Subcategory=280&description=&Ntk=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=)

Also, I'm pretty sure that some of the integrated HD3x00 series can beat out the 9400M in the notebook world.

[legionaire45]

Read. (http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2008/12/3d-gaming-hd-video-coming-to-netbooks-in-2009.ars)

Assuming a standard atom platform draws roughly 12 watts of power and Nvidia's Ion platform draws around 18 (ouch), then on the low end the Geforce 9400M draws around 6 watts of power. Perhaps more.

A standard PSP uses a 1800 mAh battery; according to a friend, his battery lasts roughly 2.5 - 4 hours depending on usage. Using a bit of math, we come to the conclusion that the standard PSP battery can supply about 6.48 Watts per hour.

...so, is the next PSP going to be laptop sized?

This chipset would have been exciting around 3 months ago (http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/), but by now it's a fairly normal sight in low-power designs. I don't see why this thread exists.

PS: Comparing a video card that is three four (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ATI_Graphics_Processing_Units#Mobili ty_Radeon_Series) generations old (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R520#X1300_-_X1550_series)(actually, if you think about it, it's closer to 5 because the R525 core is an upclocked PCI-Express based R300). You're comparing a product derived from another product from 2004/2005 to something from late 2008. No shit the Nvidia product is going have a performance lead.

[Warsaw]

HD4 > HD3 > HD2 > X1k >Xn00 > Rad9 > Rad8 > Rad7 > Rage

Four generations old, if we are going by card designations.

Also, Buckshot, faster does not mean it is supposed to be better. Take my 7800GT and 6600GT, for example. THe 6600GT has a core clock of 650MHz, while my 7800GT runs at 457MHz, yet my 7800GT can kick the crap out of the 6600GT in any game, bar none. It has everything to do with architecture, speeds come in second.

[legionaire45]

Well, if the current generation is the HD4 series and 1 generation back is the HD 3 series, 2 gens back is HD2, etc. then the X1k series is the third generation from the current one.

I stopped going by card designation when Nvidia pulled their bullshit with the G92 core and it's 15 different series/marketing names. The underlying core designation is more important in terms of understanding how it works. Like you said, it's the architecture that counts ;).

[Warsaw]

I hear ya. ATi is much easier to follow...I am not sure whether the 9 series and the GTX2 series should be considered the same generation or not, since the transition was almost not there and they seem to coexist on the same echelon.

So, this 9400M is effectively the competitor to the 790GX chipset's integrated HD3300 GPU, which was quite capable in its own right. I remember the HD3200 giving the integrated GeForce 8200 a licking in the HD video playback tests, I wonder how the 9400M will fare agains the HD3300.

[Abdurahman]

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-9400M-G.11949.0.html

Look at how many integrated mobile gpus there are!!!

[Mr Buckshot]

Yeah, IGPs generally aren't good for gaming, but they can still be impressive in their own way. The Intel GMA 950 barely handles AERO GLASS dude, but Nvidia's solution can.

I think I heard some discussion once about how since AMD acquired ATI, AMD should start making high-performance IGPs connected directly to their CPUs for budget gaming.

[Warsaw]

Spider was the first step in that direction, and Dragon is the next generation of Spider. We will eventually see a CPU-IGP fusion.