MSI Z87I motherboard review - Performance IGP Graphics: Intel HD 4000 Game

Intel IGP HD 4000 Game Performance

Now, we've been chatting up on the embedded IGP you can make use of if you purchase a Haswell based processor. With so few shader cores and raw horsepower we seriously recommend you to look into a dedicated graphics card for gaming. Only, and again, only if you lower image quality settings to the absolute minimum you might be able to play a game at 10x7 or 12x10.

Far Cry 2

Above, you can see multiple IGPs at work, the HD 4600 IGP inside the 4770K is rendering Far Cry 2 with 0xAA enabled, high image quality settings and DX10 mode. Intel made quite a big step in performance over previous generations really, it can now compete much better with AMD's APU offerings. Let's be honest here, 27 FPS at 1920x1200 is OK'ish for an integrated GPU.

Resident Evil Benchmark

Now, here try to compare say the Core i5 661 processor with its embedded IGP to the Core i5 2500K series 3000 IGP. Then look at series 4000. The title you are looking at is the Resident Evil benchmark, we have HQ settings enabled, are in DX9 mode yet have AA disabled. Honestly that's not bad for an IGP.

3DMark Vantage confirms the much better overall IGP performance, however the strong processor power will influence the P score big-time. So try and focus on the GPU score there.

And of course, since the Intel 4000 series is now DX11 compatible a quick run with 3DMark 11, the score is reasonably okay in DX11. But that's the IGP, let's pop a real dedicated graphics card into the PC and see what happens. Next page please.