Pentium Mobile Processors now ship with HD Graphics 3000?

[idata]

Are some of the Pentium Mobile Processors, such as the Sandy Bridge B950 in http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=3558127&type=product&id=1218412710630 this Lenovo model, now shipping with HD Graphics 3000 instead of HD Grahpics? Most of the marketing charts and other information I've read state that HD Graphics 2000 and HD Graphics 3000 require 2nd generation Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 processor. Any insight appreciated.

[Adolfo_S_Intel2 · Accepted solution]

This processor comes with embedded graphics controller HD Grahpics. No hard drive Graphics 2000 or 3000, please check this link:

http://ark.intel.com/products/55627/Intel-Pentium-Processor-B950-(2M-Cache-2_10-GHz) http://ark.intel.com/products/55627/Intel-Pentium-Processor-B950-(2M-Cache-2_10-GHz)

[JEFFREY_F_Intel]

I think this is a case of marketing and product segmentation causing confusion..

There are new Pentium and Celeron parts that are based on the same Sandybridge architecture as the Core i3/i5/i7 2xxx parts. The Pentium and Celeron parts are dual core, typically run at lower speeds, and have some premium features disabled ( reduced cache, turbo, hyperthreading, aes-ni, ...) and are sold at reduced cost. In addition, these Pentium and Celeron branded parts have the same graphics circuitry in them as the HD2000 or HD3000 (not sure which for Pentium Mobile), but have some of the video features disabled for product segmentation reasons.

http://ark.intel.com/compare/52231,59836,50178,52220 http://ark.intel.com/compare/52231,59836,50178,52220

Pentium branded Sandybridge parts are missing support for: QuickSync encode/transcode acceleration , Intru3D stereo 3d video playback, Wireless Display, and ClearVideoHD (some video post processing effects). Stepping up to Core i3 adds all of these features. Stepping up to Core i7 adds the Intel Insider (premium content download capability)

Some features are common on all Sandybridge based chips that include graphics support - all support the same DirectX and OpenGL apis, all offer hardware accelerated video playback including protected content such as Blu-Ray.

Intel uses the Intel HD Graphics (with no number) for the graphics capability of these Sandybridge Pentium and Celeron parts to distinguish them from the fully enabled HD 2000 or faster HD 3000 associated with the Core i3/i5/i7 branded CPUs.

Unfortunately, this results in some potential confusion because Intel HD Graphics was also the brand name used in the 2010 "Arrandale" (mobile) and "Clarkdale" (desktop) cpus. I say unfortunately because the features are not the exactly the same. The 2011 Sandybridge "HD Graphics" supports DirectX 10.1, OpenGL 3.1, multisample anti-aliasing vs. the 2010 "HD Graphics" which (DX10, OGL3, no MSAA). And I would not expec the performance to be exactly the same either. The 2010 HD Graphics has 12 execution units (EUs) running at lower clocks and with different microarchitectural characteristics than the 2011 (probably 6EUs, but clocked higher, improved microarchitecture).