IGP Performance

Intel was not exaggerating when they made bold claims about the performance of the integrated HD Graphics 3000/2000 engines. In StarCraft II the Core i7 2600K averaged 47.9fps at 1360x768 making it almost 3x faster than the Phenom II X4 970/Radeon HD 4290 (890GX) combo and 5x faster than the Core i5 655K processor.

The Intel Core i7 2600K averaged 45.1fps at 1360x768 when testing with Resident Evil 5 making it 89% faster than the Core i5 655K and over 3x faster than the Phenom II X4 970/Radeon HD 4290 (890GX) combo. The Core i5 2500K was 10% slower than the Core i7 2600K, but with 40.6fps at 1360x768 it was able to deliver playable performance using the low quality in-game quality presets.

The popular Battlefield Bad Company 2 game is a tall order for IGP solutions, even when using the lowest possible quality settings. The Core i7 2600K averaged 34.4fps while the Core i7 2600K rendered 28.5fps. This made the Core i7 2600K almost twice as fast as the Core i5 655K and just over 2x faster than the Phenom II X4 970/Radeon HD 4290 combo.

Far Cry 2 is rather IGP friendly when run in the DX9 rendering mode using the low quality preset. The Intel Core i7 2600K averaged 53.3fps at 1360x768 while the Core i5 2500K rendered an average of 46.4fps. When compared to the Core i5 655K the Core i5 2500K was just over 2x faster while it was also 51% faster than the AMD Phenom II X4 970/Radeon HD 4290 combo.