Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3600 vs HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge)

Primary details

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

Place in the rankingnot ratednot rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
ArchitectureGen. 6 Sandy Bridge (2011)PowerVR SGX5 (2008−2011)
GPU code nameSandy BridgeCedar Trail
Market segmentLaptopLaptop
Release date1 May 2011 (13 years ago)1 November 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 cores64
Core clock speed350 MHzno data
Boost clock speed1100 MHz400 MHz
Manufacturing process technology32 nm32 nm

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 bus width64/128 Bitno data
Shared memory++

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX10.1no data

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3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution.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.

HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge) 976
+97500%
Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3600 1

Pros & cons summary


Recency 1 May 2011 1 November 2011

Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3600 has an age advantage of 6 months.

We couldn't decide between HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge) and Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3600. 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.

Vote for your favorite

Do you think we are right or mistaken in our choice? Vote by clicking "Like" button near your favorite graphics card.


Intel HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge)
HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge)
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3600
Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3600

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.


2.7 84 votes

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

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
2.5 134 votes

Rate Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3600 on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Questions & comments

Here you can ask a question about this comparison, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.