NVIDIA Maxwell GPU Surface Book vs Intel Iris Graphics 5100 vs NVIDIA GeForce 930MX

NVIDIA Maxwell GPU Surface Book

The Nvidia Maxwell GPU is a dedicated graphics card in the Microsoft Surface Book laptop. It is based on the Maxwell GM108 chip as the Geforce 940M with 384 shaders. Instead of the DDR3 graphics memory, the Surface Book graphics card features faster GDDR5 memory (both 64 Bit though). 

Thanks to the faster graphics memory, the Surface Book Geforce is performing better than the average GeForce 940M. However, the 945M and GTX 950M are still noticeably faster. Demanding games therefore only run in low settings fluently.

More details can be found in our extensive review of the 2015 Microsoft Surface Book with the dedicated Maxwell GPU.

Intel Iris Graphics 5100

The Intel Iris Graphics 5100 (GT3), also called HD Graphics 5100, is a processor graphics card included in some of the Haswell processors of 2013. It represents the highest configuration of the integrated graphics unit (40 execution units), but lacks the additional eDRAM cache of the Iris Pro Graphics 5200. The base clock can be automatically overclocked using Turbo Boost technology. Depending on the processor model, the base and turbo clock rates may differ, resulting in varying graphics performance between CPU models.

In comparison to the HD 4000, the graphics core has been modified extensively. The GPU supports DirectX 11.1, OpenCL 1.2 and OpenGL 4.0. It also features an improved decoder for 4K videos and the fast Quick Sync encoder.

The performance of the Iris Graphics 5100 is about 20 percent above the HD Graphics 5000, which can be found in ULV CPUs of the 15W class. In a best case scenario, the IGP machtes a dedicated GeForce GT 640M LE. In other cases, however, the performance is only at the level of the GeForce GT 620M due to the limited memory bandwidth. Current games (as of 2013) can be played fluently in low or medium detail settings and a resolution of 1.024 x 768 or 1.366 x 768 pixels.

Due to the 22nm 3D Tri-Gate production process, power consumption should be relatively low. The Iris Graphics 5100 can be found on certain ULV dual-core Haswell models in the 28 Watt TDP range.

NVIDIA GeForce 930MX

The Nvidia GeForce 930MX is an entry-level DirectX 12 graphics card for laptops that was announced in the first quarter of 2016. It is the refresh of the GeForce 930M and now supports GDDR5 graphics memory. It is based on the same GM108 chip and may feature slightly increased clock rates.

The performance will depend on the used graphics memory. With fast GDDR5 it should be similar or slightly faster than the Maxwell GPU in the Surface Book. With DDR3 it performs be somewhere between the old 930M and 940M. That means that only non demanding games of 2017 run fluently (in lowest detail settings) on the GeForce 930M. Games with low demands like Dota 2 or Path of Exile should run in higher detail settings and resolution.

The power consumption should be quite similar to the 930M and 940M and therefore also suited for smaller laptops.