HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge) vs GeForce GTX 860M

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Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the ranking516not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
ArchitectureMaxwell (2014−2018)Gen. 6 Sandy Bridge (2011)
GPU code nameN15P-GXSandy Bridge
Market segmentLaptopLaptop
Release date12 March 2014 (10 years ago)1 May 2011 (13 years ago)

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores6406
CUDA cores1152 or 640no data
Core clock speed797 MHz350 MHz
Boost clock speedno data1100 MHz
Number of transistors1,870 millionno data
Manufacturing process technology28 nm32 nm
Power consumption (TDP)75 Wattno data
Texture fill rate43.40no data
Floating-point processing power1.389 gflopsno data
ROPs16no data
TMUs40no data

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Laptop sizemedium sizedno data
Bus supportPCI Express 2.0, PCI Express 3.0no data
InterfaceMXM-B (3.0)no data
Supplementary power connectorsNoneno data
SLI options+-

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory typeGDDR5no data
Maximum RAM amount4 GBno data
Standard memory configurationGDDR5no data
Memory bus width128 Bit64/128 Bit
Memory clock speedUp to 2500 MHzno data
Memory bandwidth80.0 GB/sno data
Shared memory-+

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display ConnectorsNo outputsno data
eDP 1.2 signal supportUp to 3840x2160no data
LVDS signal supportUp to 1920x1200no data
VGA аnalog display supportUp to 2048x1536no data
DisplayPort Multimode (DP++) supportUp to 3840x2160no data
HDMI+-
HDCP content protection+-
7.1 channel HD audio on HDMI+-
TrueHD and DTS-HD audio bitstreaming+-

Supported technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

H.264, VC1, MPEG2 1080p video decoder+-
Optimus+-
Ansel+-

API compatibility

List of supported graphics and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX12 (11_0)10.1
Shader Model5.1no data
OpenGL4.5no data
OpenCL1.1no data
Vulkan1.1.126-
CUDA+-

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.


3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

GTX 860M 19216
+1869%
HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge) 976

3DMark Cloud Gate GPU

Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.

GTX 860M 27961
+1891%
HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge) 1405

Pros & cons summary


Recency 12 March 2014 1 May 2011
Chip lithography 28 nm 32 nm

GTX 860M has an age advantage of 2 years, and a 14.3% more advanced lithography process.

We couldn't decide between GeForce GTX 860M and HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge). We've got no test results to judge.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M
GeForce GTX 860M
Intel HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge)
HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge)

Comparisons with similar GPUs

We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.

Community ratings

Here you can see the user ratings of the compared graphics cards, as well as rate them yourself.


3.7 437 votes

Rate GeForce GTX 860M on a scale of 1 to 5:

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2.7 82 votes

Rate HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge) on a scale of 1 to 5:

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Questions & comments

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