Intel HD Graphics 405 (Braswell) vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Max-Q vs Intel HD Graphics 2000

Intel HD Graphics 405 (Braswell)

The Intel HD Graphics 405 (Braswell)  is an integrated graphics card in the low end SoCs of the Braswell series (e.g. Pentium N3710). It is based on the same architecture as the integrated GPU of the Broadwell graphics cards (e.g. HD Graphics 5300), but offers less shader cores and slower clock speeds.

The GPU was simply called Intel HD Graphics (Broadwell) before 2016 and included also the slower 12 EUs version in the Celeron model. The Graphics 405 name currently only stands for 16-core-versions in Pentium models. The 12 EU version is now called Intel HD Graphics 400.

The clock speed and memory configuration can still vary from model to model.

Gaming performance ist still only suited for older or less demanding games. Often also the processor is limited gaming performance (e.g. in the dual-core N3000).

The SoC also integrates a video decoding engine that should be able to handle 4K H.265 videos.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Max-Q

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 with the Max-Q design is a mobile high-end GPU from the Pascal series. It is designed for thin and light laptops and about 10-15% slower than a regular GTX 1080 for laptops based on the cooling capabilities. The base frequency (1101-1290 MHz) is also much lower than on the regular GTX 1080 (1566 MHz, at least -18%) and the Boost (1278-1458 MHz) is also much lower compared to 1733 MHz (at least -16%) for the regular GTX 1080. The memory clock, however, is identical.

The clock is not the only difference compared to the regular GTX 1080 though. The drivers for the Max-Q version were optimized for efficiency (and not performance; only for Max-Q models), there are optimized voltage converters for 1V operation, high-end cooling methods, and a 40 dB limit for the fan noise (with clock adjustments to ensure this at all times).

The performance is nearer to the normal (Max-P) GeForce GTX 1070 than to then GTX 1080 (at least in the Asus Zephyrus). Therefore, most demanding games should be playable in full HD and maximum detail settings (see game benchmarks below).

Features

The GP104 chip is manufactured in 16nm FinFET process at TSMC and offers a range of new features. DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP), improved H.265 video en- and decoders (for PlayReady 3.0) are only some of the improvements. See our detailed Pascal architecture article for more details.

The power consumption of the Max-Q design is notably lower than the normal GTX 1080 for laptops and ranges between 90 and 110 Watt (TGP) according to Nvidia.

Intel HD Graphics 2000

The Intel HD Graphics 2000 (or Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD 2000 or GMA HD 2000) is an integrated graphics card in the Sandy Bridge codenamed processors. It is included in slower mobile processors (Pentium brand e.g. but called only Intel HD Graphics) and in most desktop processors. The HD Graphics 2000 has no dedicated memory but shares the fast Level 3 Cache with the CPU cores and also part of the main memory. Due to Turbo Boost, the GPU can be overclocked depending on the current CPU load and power consumption. The GMA HD 2000 offers only half of the 12 Execution Units (EUs) of the Intel GMA HD 3000.