Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 600 vs Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 900 vs Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 500
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 600
► remove from comparisonThe Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 600 (also called GMA 600) is a graphics cards for embedded products (e.g. MIDs), netbooks and other small mobile devices. It is integrated in the Atom Z600 series CPUs and compared to the GMA 500 it features a twice as high clock speed of max. 400 MHz. The integrated video decoder is able to accelerate MPEG-2, VC-1, and AVC HD videos.
The graphics core is based on a licensed PowerVR SGX core and is clocked with max 400 MHz. The GMA 600 should be theoretically compatible with DirectX 10.1 and features 4 unified shaders. Because of the missing Windows BIOS support, the Lincroft SOC is currently not able to run Windows (only CE) and therefore supports OpenGL ES 2.0, Open VG 1.0, DirectX 9.L. Another restriction is the max. resolution support of 1366x768 with LVDS and 1024x600 with MIPI.
The performance wont be sufficient for playing demanding 3D games.
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 900
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The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 (also known as GMA 900) is an integrated (onboard) graphic chip on the Mobile Intel 915GM chipset for Intel processors. It does not support hardware T&L (Transform & Lightning) calculations (which is required for some games).
It supports DirectX 9.0 with Shader Model 2.0 (Vertex Shader are calculated in Software - by the CPU) and OpenGL 1.4. Furthermore, the chip is able to accelerate the decoding of MPEG2 videos and supports Motion Compensation.
The GMA 900 can not be described as a graphics card that is sufficient for gamers. Still Intel published a list of games that will run (not needingly beautiful) on the notebook. Some old 3D games and especially 2D games should run without problems. The advantage of integrated graphics cards, is that they have a low power consumtion and therefore save battery life. Furthermore, the laptop may stay cooler and more silent than laptops with dedicated graphics cards. For office programs and surfing the performance is more than sufficient.
Currently there are no drivers that support Aero Glass for Windows Vista.
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 500
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The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 500 (also called GMA 500) is a graphics card for embedded products (e.g. MIDs), netbooks and other small mobile devices. It is usually paired with an Intel Atom CPU and designed for video playback tasks (even HD content). The integrated video decoder is able to accelerate MPEG-2, VC-1, and AVC HD videos.
The graphics core is based on a licensed PowerVR SGX core (Power VR SGX535 as in the Apple A4) and is clocked with 100 (UL11L) or 200 MHz (US15L, US15W chipset). The GMA 500 is compatible with DirectX 10.1 and features 4 unified shaders. Still the performance wont be sufficient for playing 3D games.
The chipsets that integrate the GMA 500 (UL11L, US15L, and US15W) support
UL11L | US15L | US15W | |
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Core Speed | 100 | 200 | 200 MHz |
Max RAM | 512 MB | 1024 MB | 1024 MB |
max Displays | 1 | 2 | 2 |
PCIe Slots | 1 | 2 | 2 |
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 600 | Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 900 | Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 500 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GMA Series |
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Codename | GMA 600 | GMA 900 | GMA 500 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Architecture | PowerVR SGX5 | Gen. 3 | PowerVR SGX5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pipelines | 4 - unified | 4 / 0 Pixel- / Vertexshader | 4 - unified | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Core Speed | 400 MHz | 400 MHz | 200 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Shared Memory | yes | no | yes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
API | DirectX 9.0c, Shader 3.0 | DirectX 9c, Shader 2.0 | DirectX 10.1, Shader 4.1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
technology | 45 nm | 130 nm | 130 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Features | OpenGL, PowerVR SGX Kern, Screen Tiling, Internal True Color Processing, Zero overhead AA, 32 Bit floating-point operations. | No Hardware Transform and Lightning Support (T&L), MPEG2 acceleration, Motion Compensation | OpenGL 2.0, PowerVR SGX Kern, Screen Tiling, Internal True Color Processing, Zero overhead AA, 32 Bit floating-point operations. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Date of Announcement | 01.05.2010 | 01.03.2005 | 01.11.2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Link to Manufacturer Page | www.intel.com | download.intel.com |
Benchmarks
Average Benchmarks Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 600 → 100% n=4
Average Benchmarks Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 900 → 152% n=4
Average Benchmarks Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 500 → 50% n=4

* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation
Game Benchmarks
The following benchmarks stem from our benchmarks of review laptops. The performance depends on the used graphics memory, clock rate, processor, system settings, drivers, and operating systems. So the results don't have to be representative for all laptops with this GPU. For detailed information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.
Average Gaming Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 600 → 100%
Average Gaming Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 900 → 134%
Average Gaming 30-70 fps → 134%
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 600 | Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 900 | Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 500 | |||||||||||||||||||
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low | med. | high | ultra | QHD | 4K | low | med. | high | ultra | QHD | 4K | low | med. | high | ultra | QHD | 4K | ||||
Fifa 12 | -1 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Resident Evil 5 | -1 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Trackmania Nations Forever | -1 | ||||||||||||||||||||
World of Warcraft | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Counter-Strike Source | -1 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Quake 3 Arena - Timedemo | 24 | 32.1 | |||||||||||||||||||
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 600 | Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 900 | Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 500 | |||||||||||||||||||
low | med. | high | ultra | QHD | 4K | low | med. | high | ultra | QHD | 4K | low | med. | high | ultra | QHD | 4K | < 30 fps < 60 fps < 120 fps ≥ 120 fps | 1 | | 1 | | | | < 30 fps < 60 fps < 120 fps ≥ 120 fps | | | 1 | | | | < 30 fps < 60 fps < 120 fps ≥ 120 fps | | | | | | |
For more games that might be playable and a list of all games and graphics cards visit our Gaming List