GMA X3100 - Is it worth it?

[benl101]

I'm writing this on an Acer I bought 9 months ago. Even though it's only 9 months old I'm in the market for a new notebook because this piece of crap has a truly awful video card - the Intel 910 GML, which presumably must stand for "Graphics Must Lag".

I can't even get acceptable performance out of Warcraft 3 which is some 5 years old from this laptop which is less than 1 year old and upgraded to 1gb of ram.

Basically I wasted my money on a new laptop that shipped with an old video card - that wasn't on the description but I'm sure you can blame Acer or Circuit City for that. One thing's for certain - it's not my fault for putting my trust in a well known and respected name like Intel.

Today I noticed HP have brought out a new notebook which looks quite cool. The only reason I bought this one actually was because the HP I had was stolen in New York City.

The new HP DV9500T looks great except I'm really concerned about one factor - it has an Intel GMA X3100 and there's no option to get it with another video card.

I haven't been able to locate any benchmarks showing how this card stacks up against nVidia and ATI notebook offerings, and I'm afraid of blowing another wad of cash on a machine I'm going to be consistently disappointed by.

So be honest now - if I buy the new HP with the Intel X3100 am I going to be able to play modern games on it like Command and Conquer 3 without dumbing down every possible feature and stopping every system service to squeeze every bit of juice out of the rest of the notebook, or should I just buy something else?

[Aaron_B_Intel]

http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/intelgm965/sb/CS-026146.htm

There's a list of which games are known working on the X3100. The good news is: WoW is on there. The bad news is, C&C3 is not. Of course, the chipset's only been out for a day and a half, so it's possible C&C3 is supported, but it's just not known. C&C3 is not listed on the X3000 page either and that's been out for a year, but it could just be an oversight. Or not.

The X3100 is essentially the X3000 with a slightly slower clock and some power saving features to make it more mobile friendly. I'd expect any game which works on the X3000 to work on the X3100, possibly with lower FPS.

The X3x00 is better than the 915G chipset by leaps and bounds-- at least theoretically-- but so far the drivers are not enabling all the features. Intel says it's working on better drivers this to enable HW T&Ls, which should improve gameplay significantly, but so far none have arrived.

Ask again in a month and you'll have better chance of a decent answer.

[benl101]

Thanks for the list.

I guess I'll wait and see if it's a crapper or not.

[yanks]

Which graphic cardis better the 256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400or Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100?

[henriq]

If you would have asked that same question to me beforeI purchased a motherboard with the GMA x3000 I would probably say yeah go with the Intel, but right now I would stay away from any Intel graphics, just to get away from all the bad driver support given by Intel. I really dont have any experience with Nvidias integrated or mobile solutions but with Nvidia dedicated solutions I never had any issues needing drivers and alsonever had to wait 5 months for them to enable an important feature like HW T&L and HW shaders, wich did came advertised 5 months ago in the specifications for my motherboard. So if you purchase the x3100 you could end up with a functioning card but also you could end up with a long wait for drivers just so it enables features that are already advertised in the specifications for the x3100.

[kukito]

Lenovo has some sweet laptops with the choice between X3100 or discrete nVidia graphics. ThinkPad R61.

[hybridspecies]

I must confess a certain degree of ignorance on this matter. I bought a new Sony VGN-SZ series laptop with the x3100 and seem to find it is capable of displaying very high quality graphics but with appalling fps. In CS:Source, for example, I get about 12 fps. Is this really the maximum this is capable of or is it a setup/driver problem? Elsewhere, I've seen favourable reviews, so I'm rather confused. Thanks in advance.

By the way, I tried downloading drivers but get error messages either saying it is unvalidated or they're already up to date. Maybe I'm downloading the wrong ones? :S

[jzc__jzc]

I think a bit better, but if you like to watch movies,not game,i suggest you choose x3100.x3100 use less battery and the laptop with intergrate card is light.

[nafsta]

Hey
i am going to buy a notebook soon, currently i am looking at HP DV2500 and HP Tx1000z, i realised that they use different graphic cards. The dv2500 uses intel's GMA X3100. Where as the tx1000z uses nVidia's geforce 6150. Now, i am not a gamer infact can't even remmember when i played computer game last time, but i will be using some graphics design software such as photoshop and some cad/cam softwares for design and technology work. It wont that complecated 3d graphics though. Which one is better, personaly i quite like the tablet but i havnt got a clue which graphic card out of these 2 is better. Help would be appriciated....thanks

[gn4hz]

I took a look at the new HP laptop as well. I liked all the options; everything was cheap and decent. I loved the beautiful design as well. The one thing that is making me uncertain about purchasing this computer is the graphics card. Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100.
I have no clue if this card is worth it or not. Currently, I have a Dell XPS. The graphics card is also intel. I am unsatisfied with this. Mobile Intel 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Chipset Family. This doesn't even support Vista. Its been horrible to the games I have tried to run on this computer. I'm an occassional gamer, and I work with tools such as photoshop on my laptop. If I do decide to get the HP, I'd be equipping it with 2 GBs of memory. I would like to know if it is worth getting 2 GBs of RAM with the X3100, or just finding a new laptop with better graphics card options. I don't really want to waste money on this new computer if it won't run the way I want it to.

Thanks.

[valkenburg_m]

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) X3100 is an integrated (onboard) graphic chip on a Mobile Intel 965GM chipset (for Merom = Core 2 architecture). It is the successor of GMA 950. Most interesting is the integration of a fully programmable pipeline. Due to the integration of DirectX9 features, HDR and Hardware Transform & Lighning (T&L) - predecessor only had Software T&L - should be ready for Windows Vista Premium (support Aero Glass fully). Respective the data, the peformance should be clearly better than GMA 950. greetz DigiB

[okatomy]

if anyone really wants to play some games, stay away from any intel graphics.

not only games perform very slow, most new games wont even start.

any nvidia graphics, even a geforce fx ( 3 years old) is better than everything from intel.

as long as u watch dvd, internet, photoshop, stay with the intel. Vista Aero runs fine on intel at GMA950 and up too.

BUT FOR ANY GAMES GET ATLEAST THE CHEAPEST DECENT GRAPHICS CARD FROM ATI OR NVIDIA

[a_haouchar]

i totally agree because the GMA950 doesnt even have anti alised! although intel graphics wont even take it.