With my I7 system sitting around and only needing a video card, I decided to take it out of my AMD rig and use the IGP (Integrated Graphics Processor) the board offers.  If you all are like me, it has probably been at least 10 years since you even thought about integrated graphics. With the new games that are available in today’s market these IGP’s, however much improved, will still be slaughtered. The real question however, is just how bad will these games eat up this ATI Radeon HD 4200. It made me wonder just how good the HD4200 is, because of future plans I have with it. I did some testing with some visually demanding games that I have laying around, plus a few 3dmark programs.

Features:

Integrated Graphics HD 4200

• DirectX 10.1 support
• 2nd generation Unified Video Decoder (UVD 2.0)
  • Full hardware decode acceleration of H.264/VC-1/MPEG-2
  • Hardware decode acceleration of a secondary video stream (Picture-in-Picture) (10-20% CPU usage decrease)
• Improved ATI Avivo Video Post Processor
  • Enhanced DVD up-conversion to HD
  • Automatic dynamic contrast adjustment
• Multichannel LPCM over HDMI (no PAP, no HD audio bitstreaming

Test System:

• AMD X4 965 @ Stock
• MSI 785GM-E65
• 2x2GB Gskill Eco
• Corsair HX 750W
• 500GB WD Black

Test List:

• 3DMark06
• 3DMark2001 SE
• Call of Juarez
• World in Conflict
• Far Cry 2

Lets get to the interesting screen shots I have for you!

3DMark06:

Once the test got done running and the scores came up I could not help but laugh. 1804? I refreshed! Still 1804! Did I just set a world record? I was so close to the world record I could smell it! Now you may say “I must have the nose of a bloodhound if I can smell that far.”  Well I did just have surgery to fix my nose from when i broke it and was 80% closed on one side. Maybe that doctor hooked me up with a great sniffer! Either way, I will give it to you, because I am 37,512 points behind first place.

3DMark2001 SE:

Now we can look at another monstrous performance put out by my HD4200.  At 13,300, I was not exactly blown away but this. A stock setup with an Nvidia 280 GPU can run around 60k. Yes, you would be a fool to think the IGP would be anywhere near the 280, but still we can dream! If we can’t dream we can complain like any good unread computer user will do and does about lack of performance.

Call of Juarez:

Now with the manufacturer claiming the HD4200 is fully Dx 10.1 compatible, I felt the need to see how it would do. You can claim Dx 10.1 all you want Mr. Manufacturer but with this test I ran and a few more to come, Dx 10.1 tore your GPU a new one! Now, you find me true gamer, hell find an average gamer, who can play a game at and average FPS of 3.8 and I will streak through the snow!  So claim all you want about the greatness of being Dx 10.1 compatible, but users will find themselves forcing Dx 9 wherever possible.

World in Conflict:

With World in Conflict I wanted to try something different. I turned everything to the lowest settings possible to see if that would help anything. As it turns out, it did not change anything. Still a staggering, migraine inducing average of 2 FPS. Is there anything more that needs to be said? I don’t think so, the pictures say it all!

Farcry 2:

Now with this test, you can see a little light at the end of the tunnel. With Dx9 enabled and the settings you see above the HD4200 GPU was able to crank out an eye popping 26.33 average FPS. However, when I turned up the graphic details to ‘High’ the IGP gets torn apart once again with an average FPS of 7.46.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, if you expect this IGP to be able to do much more than play Pacman, then you are sorely mistaken and need to do A LOT more reading! However, if you love Pacman and web surfing then this would be a perfect money saving solution for your build. The HD4200 definitely has its place in the computer world, but just needs to find its niche in the low-end computer user section. Once it does, it could really be a solid addition to a web browsing computer. Building grandma a computer? HD4200 is highly recommended! Building a high-end computer to play all the new games on maxed out settings? I will back hand you if you even consider this option. Also, if you are seriously considering the HD4200 for your high-end gaming rig, just send me a check because you do not deserve a high-end computer! For what the HD4200 is, it does its job very nicely. Being the first of its kind to be fully Dx 10.1 compatible shows a bright future for the 4xxx line of GPU’s.

Note:

Stay tuned for overclocking results in the 2nd part of the review.