In terms of overall graphics performance, the GeForce 9300 is in a class by itself on the Intel side of things. While the G45 struggles to maintain any kind of playable frame rates in the games that I tried and crashed 3DMark Vantage altogether, the GeForce 9300 was able to finish the test and have decent frame rates throughout. The GeForce 9300 chipset is 20% faster than the Intel G45 chipset across the board. By this performance metric, it is likely that the faster 9400 boards will outstrip the G45 chipset by 35% or more across the board. This is a very impressive feat for an integrated graphics card to say the least. Had the GeForce 9300 and 9400 come out when the G45 launched, Intel might have had a real problem. Intel is rumored to have a new CPU coming out for the high-end and we’ll see how that translates with integrated graphics at that time.
Of the three GeForce 9300 boards I’ve tested the ASUS has the most connections for the integrated graphics including HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort and VGA. This gives the purchaser of this board the widest possible array of monitor connections and is perfect for the Home Theater PC user that has a new HDTV with DisplayPort or DVI or HDMI. The ECS board is the only one of the three to be in a full-ATX size, leaving plenty of room for expansion. The ECS board usually is the least expensive so that gives the user the widest possible budget choice. In terms of performance the ASUS board comes in at first place across the board but the MSI and ECS boards are close due to being the same chipset, memory controller and everything else that this chipset offers.
The bottom line on integrated graphics is that they are not meant for the hardcore enthusiast gamer. If you want a great experience in any modern game, purchasing a discrete card can and does improve the overall performance throughout. If you want an integrated graphics to play the latest games the 9300 or the 9400 are the only choices on the Intel side of things as the games will play unlike that of the G45 which crashed running Enemy Territory Quake Wars due to it not meeting the minimum system requirements for the OpenGL extensions. NVIDIA showed off some demos of games on the Intel side having less than stellar graphics in games when using the G45 integrated graphics. One side note, with the cost of Q6600s and other Intel CPUs reaching the under $200 price range, there really isn’t a good reason not to use a dual core CPU with the GeForce 9300 at least. This seems to be NVIDIA and Intel’s answer to the entry level gamer and HTPC motherboard and for the market audience it’s aimed for it hits the target dead center.
