Nvidia GeForce GT 525M vs Intel HD 3000 Benchmark

We have finished a couple of benchmarks on a Dell Inspiron 17R laptop with the Nvidia GeForce GT 525M dedicated video card and Intel’s Core i3-2330M processor.

The notebook has both the 128-bit GT 525M 1GB GPU for more intensive graphics tasks and the Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics on the CPU for better power efficiency, so it’s pretty handy for comparison of these two. 3D Mark Vantage, PC Mark Vantage, and Crysis benchmarks we did on the system can help you decide if the Nvidia GeForce GT 525M is worth extra money when choosing between a more expensive laptop configuration with the 525M and a cheaper one with integrated Intel HD only.

The tested 17.3″ Inspiron 17R also has 4GB of RAM, a 500GB 5,400rpm hard drive, and Windows 7 Home Premium OS.

In the Nvidia Control Panel, you can choose which application will run on which graphics processor.

GPU Switching Between Nvidia GT 525M and Intel HD 3000
GPU Switching Between Nvidia GT 525M and Intel HD 3000

First, we ran 3D Mark Vantage, where the GeForce GT 525M scored 3771 points in Peformance mode, while the Intel HD 3000 had more than two times lower result – 1453. GPU selection also had an impact on overall system peformance measured using PC Mark Vantage, but the difference (4930 vs 4529 points) is not that big since graphics is only one factor besides many others in PC Mark calculations.

Nvidia GT 525M vs Intel HD 3000 Benchmarks
Nvidia GT 525M vs Intel HD 3000 3D and PC Mark Vantage Benchmarks

In Crysis, different GPU choices also reveal big performance difference of up to 3X in favor of the Nvidia chip.

Nvidia GT 525M vs Intel HD 3000 Crysis Test
Nvidia GT 525M vs Intel HD 3000 Crysis Test

Obviously, the GT 525M enables playable frame rates on low and medium settings even in hardware-demanding games and that’s not the case with Intel’s integrated graphics built into their “Sandy Bridge” processors. For casual gamers, an investment of about $75-$100 for the discrete GPU would be justified. But, the GPU doesn’t help much in other computing tasks, such as web browsing, office apps, etc. Even 1080p video playback runs equally smoothly on both GeForce and Intel HD, so if you don’t plan to use your next laptop for any gaming, you will be fine with the integrated solution.

Note: Full Dell Inspiron N7110 review is here.

6 thoughts on “Nvidia GeForce GT 525M vs Intel HD 3000 Benchmark”

  1. Thanks heaps, I was worried that my casual gaming on my Toshiba L750 would be a dud, but this put my mind at ease :-)

    Reply
  2. Hi Thanks for review. I’ve got a question. I’ve just bought dell 15 inch, i7-267qm, ect… with both, above mentioned graphic cards. My question is: does I must manually change graphic card priority when playing or this is automatic settings? I installed Witcher 2 and cannot play it at all but maybe this is because the game is too “heavy”.

    Thanks.

    Reply
    • It should be automatic, but you can check the settings anyway in Nvidia Control Panel and force the game to use Nvidia.

      Reply
  3. HI, thanks for the review. I am very interested in testing the power consumption in a notebook using the geforce or the intel internal card. Any suggestion?tnx again
    Carlo

    Reply
    • Hi Thanks for review. I’ve got a question. I’ve just bought dell 15 inch, i7-267qm, ect… with both, above mentioned graphic cards. My question is: does I must manually change graphic card priority when playing or this is automatic settings? I installed Witcher 2 and cannot play it at all but maybe this is because the game is too “heavy”.

      Thanks.

      Reply

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