Intel GMA

The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator, or GMA, is Intel's current line of integrated graphics processors built into various motherboard chipsets.

These integrated graphics products allow a computer to be built without a separate graphics card, which can reduce cost, power consumption and noise. They are commonly found on low-priced notebook and desktop computers as well as business computers, which do not need high levels of graphics capability. 90% of all PCs sold have integrated graphics.[1] They rely on the computer's main memory for storage, which imposes a performance penalty, as both the CPU and GPU have to access memory over the same bus.

The GMA line of GPUs replaces the earlier "Intel Extreme Graphics", and the Intel740 line, which were discrete units in the form of AGP and PCI cards. Later, Intel integrated the i740 core into the Intel 810 chipset.

The original architecture of GMA systems supported only a few functions in hardware, and relied on the host CPU to handle at least some of the graphics pipeline, further decreasing performance. However, with the introduction of Intel’s 4th generation of GMA architecture (GMA X3000) in 2006, many of the functions are now built into the hardware, providing an increase in performance. The 4th generation of GMA combines fixed function capabilities with a threaded array of programmable executions units, providing advantages to both graphics and video performance. Many of the advantages of the new GMA architecture come from the ability to flexibly switch as needed between executing graphics-related tasks or video-related tasks. While GMA performance has been widely criticized in the past as being too slow for computer games, the latest GMA generation should ease many of those concerns for the casual gamer.

Despite similarities, Intel's main series of GMA IGPs is not based on the PowerVR technology Intel licensed from Imagination Technologies. Intel used the low-power PowerVR MBX designs in chipsets supporting their XScale platform, and since the sale of XScale in 2006 has licensed the PowerVR SGX and used it in the GMA 500 IGP for use with their Atom platform.

Intel has begun working on a new series of discrete (non-integrated) graphics hardware products, under the codename Larrabee.

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