Ivy Bridge graphics performance estimates

Less than two months remains until the launch of the latest Intel micro-architecture, codenamed Ivy Bridge. New micro-architecture will feature many performance enhancements, and one of them is a beefed up on-chip Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). According to previously leaked documents, Ivy Bridge should perform considerably faster in graphics applications than Sandy Bridge microprocessors. Expreview ran a number of benchmarks on engineering sample of unlocked i5-3570K Ivy Bridge processor with HD 4000 graphics, and compared results to second generation i5-2500K with HD 3000. The results, collected by Expreview, confirmed previously leaked performance estimates.

In 3DMark Vantage synthetic benchmarks Core i5-3570K achieved 88.9% higher GPU score when using Entry preset, and 122.1% better score with Performance preset than Intel i5-2500K. In game benchmarks Ivy Bridge CPU also had significant lead over Sandy Bridge counterpart, ranging from 30% to 84%:

Game title	i5-3570K with HD 4000	i5-2500K with HD 3000	Difference
Left 4 Dead 2	72.53	42.27	71.6%
Street Fighter IV	58.8	41.13	43%
Starcraft II	29.3	22.5	30.2%
DiRT 3	44.02	29	51.8%
Farcry 2	33.47	18.14	84.5%

All game benchmarks ran at 1280 x 720 screen resolution. Average performance boost for game benchmarks was 56.2%. Forthcoming Core i5-3570K CPU operates at 3.4 GHz, which is 100 MHz or 3% faster than the 2500K. Even if we deduct 3% gain, attributed to higher frequency of Ivy Bridge CPU, the HD 4000 still has on average 50% faster graphics than Sandy Bridge HD 3000.