Graphics Cards – Making The Step Up From Integrated Graphics

 TECHNOLOGY X TESTING PROTOCOL

At Technology X, we test our graphics cards slightly different depending on the purpose of the product, whether it’s for an entry-level user or if it’s for an extreme gamer. Throughout all of our testing, we ensure that our system has been optimized with our SSD Optimization Guide. Benchmarks of the products we test are that of brand new products. This means that the product has not been used previously, except possibly for some initial testing performed by the manufacturer. The purpose of this is so that we can verify that the manufacturer’s specifications match the product. Additionally, we also try to include links to the benchmarks used in our report so that you, as the reader, can replicate our tests to confirm that your graphics cards is as awesome as it should be!

SYSTEM COMPONENTS

Our previous system was built as of the result of some great relationships and purchases; our appreciation goes to the below mentioned manufacturers for their support in our project. All of the components we use for testing and evaluation can be easily purchased at a relatively affordable price. The links provided below can assist in pricing, as well as availability for those of you who may find interest in our equipment. Please note, we have uninstalled the graphics card found in the above photo.

PC CHASSIS:	InWin 901 Mini-ITX Chassis
MOTHERBOARD:	ASUS P8H77-I Mini-ITX
CPU:	Intel i7 2600 CPU
CPU COOLER:	Corsair H80 CPU Cooler
POWER SUPPLY:	Cooler Master M2 Silent Pro 850W
SYSTEM COOLING:	Corsair Chassis Fan
MEMORY:	Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracer 1600 MHz
GRAPHICS:	INTEGRATED

BENCHMARK SOFTWARE

The software used for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reviews and consists of Piriform Speccy, GPU-Z, FutureMark’s 3D Mark, 3D Mark 11, PCMark Vantage, Unigine Valley and Heaven, as well as FurMark. In consumer reports, we prefer to test with easily accessible software that the consumer can obtain, and in many cases, we even provide links. Our selection of software allows each to build on the last and to provide validation to results already obtained.

There is however one other benchmark test that is worth mentioning, which is included in a wide variety of reviews by other websites. FRAPS is a Windows application that is used while you are playing your favourite PC game to measure the FPS. Technology X strives to create a testing environment that can be easily replicated, and to completely describe every setting and parameter required to achieve the FPS we would achieve in our game and system would be impractical and yet still may not provide you with a perfect environment to test your card. All of our benchmarks are easily downloadable, free, contain presets, and serve as an easy comparison for you, your system and graphics card. We do encourage you to use FRAPS to test different graphic settings and how the FPS changes upon each adjustment.

PIRIFORM SPECCY

Piriform Speccy is a great tool for checking the status and health of your computer system. It provides you with brief summary, or a detailed look, at your operating system, CPU, RAM, motherboard, graphics, storage, optical drives, audio, peripherals and network.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the left we can see our test bench, and the various components installed as mentioned above. On the right we can see more information about our integrated graphics. we can see that it is Intel HD Graphics which is running out at a clock speed of 850 MHz. Our research of the Intel H77 chipset identifies to us that the source of the GPU would be from the processor itself, in this case the Sandy Bridge Intel i7 LGA 1155 CPU.

GPU-Z

GPU-Z is a very simple, easy to use tool that can provide you with a bunch of information about your graphics card. This utility is very easy to read, and to use as you can easily see the actually GPU, sub vendor, bus interface, driver version, memory size, GPU clock frequency and more. It can even determine whether you are running a single GPU or multiple GPUs in your system. This small utility can tell you more about your graphics card than you will ever need to know.

With GPU-Z, we again see that we are looking at Intel HD Graphics and that it interprets the GPU default clock speed as 850 MHz.

FUTUREMARK 3D MARK

CLOUD GATE

Cloud Gate is a DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark suitable for all classes of DirectX 10 compatible windows notebooks and home PCs. Watch as massive spaceships careful position themselves inside these barrel-shaped portals and within seconds are transported to a new world.

Our first benchmark test achieves a total score of 23628, while maintaining over 200 fps in both graphical tests. Our physics test did return with a lower than expected score of 25 fps.