ASRock H61iCafe Intel H61 Motherboard Review

Testing – Video
Unlike our other motherboard reviews we are not using a discrete video card with the ASRock H61iCafe, this is because the board has built in Graphics via the CPU itself.  This was one of the big features announced with the second generation Core processors from Intel.  Here is a little bit of information on the technology from Intel.

“Intel HD Graphics is next-generation graphics technology in 2nd generation Intel® Core™ processors. Intel HD Graphics integrates high-performance graphics and media processing right on the processor, putting the two key gaming components – CPU processing and graphics – together on a single chip. Two versions of Intel HD Graphics are available: Intel® HD Graphics 3000 and Intel® HD Graphics 2000.

Intel HD Graphics take advantage of graphics being integrated into the processor, thus significantly boosting performance, while eliminating the need for separate hardware and the design and performance challenges that accompany them. The graphics engine includes more, redesigned execution units (EUs) and enhanced 3D functionality.”

Our first test is 3DMark Vantage, I ran it on the “Performance” setting.

3dmarkv

Our next benchmarking tool is the Heaven Demo v2.5.  The settings we used were, shaders: high, textures: high, filter: trilinear, Anisotrophy: 4x, antialiasing: none.  We ran it at 4 different resolutions.

heaven

The Stone Giant demo was produced by Fatshark in collaboration with BitSquid using BitSquid Tech. It has primarily been developed to test the BitSquid tools and technology in a real-world production environment.  The settings we used were Aspect: Auto, Tessellation: High.  We also ran it at 4 different resolutions.

stonegiant

As you can see the Intel HD Graphics are definitely not a replacement for a discrete video card.  Even low end cards perform much better than the integrated graphics.  These graphics will be able to play some games, mainly DirectX 9 and 10 games at low settings, but that is about it.  If you are looking to do some gaming it would be a good idea to get a discrete video card.

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