IGP - gaming, plus multimedia
We're looking at our four games with just the IGP active on the respective processors. Keeping matters simple and modern, the four 2500-series CPUs are joined by a significantly cheaper Core i3 2100 and, from AMD's side, the £99 A8-3850, featuring Radeon HD 5500-class integrated graphics.
The AMD APU's integrated graphics are significantly more powerful than Intel's, which come in HD 3000 and HD 2000 flavours.
We saw little difference between the Core i5 2500K and 2500 numbers in the 2D tests, but the presence of faster graphics in the 2500K puts it at the head of the Intel pack.
Interestingly, the 45W 2500T has the same HD 2000 graphics as the other two 2500 processors, but, as we alluded to earlier, it's actually clocked in at higher dynamic speeds - 1.25GHz vs. 1.1GHz - and this is why it benchmarks somewhat faster.
Why Intel is boosting the IGP frequency on its most energy-efficient part is hard to understand; surely the Core i5 2500(S) should be specified with the same, or higher, dynamic clock, you would think?
AMD's HD 6550D graphics continue to run rings around Intel's. The 2500K's graphics are the fastest of the Intel bunch, followed by the highly-clocked HD 2000 in the Core i5 2500T. Specification-wise, the 2500, 2500S and 2100 all use the same graphics, leading to near-identical scores.
Multimedia
The various IGP combinations had no problems in playing high-definition video stored locally (H.264, 1080p) and remotely (YouTube HD). We hooked up an ASUS Blu-ray drive and played The Departed without any problems, noting a maximum CPU load of 25 per cent.
