Intel GMA 3100

The Intel GMA 3100 is an end-of-life integrated graphics processor from Intel, built on the Bearlake chip with a Generation 4.0 architecture and manufactured on a 90 nm process at Intel's own foundry. Released on 2007-05-08, this IGP was designed for the GMA Graphics-M generation and connects to the rest of the system via the Front Side Bus interface. The data in the benchmark database shows a 50th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 0, indicating a part that functions primarily as a display output solution rather than a performance-oriented graphics processor.

Benchmark Performance

The benchmark data for the Intel GMA 3100 is remarkably sparse: the average benchmark score sits at 0, while the percentile versus all GPUs is 50. This combination is unusual. A 50th percentile ranking typically implies that half of all GPUs in the database perform worse, but a score of 0 suggests that the GMA 3100 either was never subjected to the database's benchmark suite or that it produces no measurable performance in those tests. The absence of any nearest rivals in the data further complicates interpretation; there are no direct comparison points with named competitors, no delta percentages, and no relative performance scores to draw upon.

The pixel rate of 1.600 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1.600 GTexel/s are the only concrete throughput figures available. These rates are consistent with a part that has 4 texture mapping units and 4 render output units operating at modest clocks. The fact that the pixel rate and texture rate are numerically identical suggests a balanced design where each ROP and TMU operates at the same effective rate, but without clock speed data, the underlying frequency cannot be determined from the fact pack alone.

The 50th percentile ranking is worth interrogating. In a database that includes discrete graphics cards, workstation GPUs, and other integrated parts, being at the median does not necessarily indicate average performance in real-world terms; it may simply reflect the distribution of entries in the database. A score of 0, however, places the GMA 3100 at the absolute bottom of the scoring scale, which strongly implies that the database's benchmark suite is either incompatible with this GPU or that the GPU fails to complete any of the benchmark workloads. The percentile may be 50, but the score of 0 means that in terms of actual benchmark output, the GMA 3100 produces nothing.

Power and Cooling

The thermal design power of the GMA 3100 is 13 W. This is a very low figure, which is expected for an integrated graphics processor that shares the system's memory and relies on the chipset for its operation. The slot width is listed as IGP, confirming that this is not a discrete card that occupies a PCIe slot but rather an integrated component. Consequently, no power connectors are required, and the database does not list a suggested PSU. The bus interface is FSB, meaning the GMA 3100 communicates with the CPU and memory through the system's front side bus rather than through a dedicated graphics interface like PCIe.

The implications of the 13 W TDP are significant for system design. A part drawing only 13 W can be cooled passively, and the IGP form factor means that no separate cooler is needed; the chipset heatsink that ships with the motherboard handles thermal dissipation. The GMA 3100 imposes virtually no additional thermal or power burden on the system, making it suitable for compact, low-power, or fanless designs. However, the low TDP also reflects the part's limited computational capabilities; there is no room for high clock speeds or large numbers of execution units within such a tight power envelope.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The GMA 3100 has no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores. This is entirely consistent with its Generation 4.0 architecture and its DirectX 9.0c API support. DirectX 9.0c is a legacy API level that predates the introduction of hardware ray tracing by well over a decade, and the absence of dedicated RT and tensor hardware means that any ray-traced workloads would be impossible to accelerate. The OpenGL support is listed as 2.0, which is also a legacy API version. Vulkan support is not listed, which means the GMA 3100 cannot leverage modern low-level graphics APIs.

The feature set here is defined by what is absent as much as by what is present. The 4 TMUs and 4 ROPs are the only fixed-function units listed, and there are no shading units, no FP32 or FP16 throughput figures, and no tensor or RT cores. The API support caps out at DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 2.0, which means that any application requiring DirectX 10 or later, OpenGL 3.0 or later, or Vulkan will not run on this hardware. The data indicates that the GMA 3100 can provide basic 2D desktop acceleration and very limited 3D rendering for applications that target the DirectX 9.0c or OpenGL 2.0 feature levels.

FAQ

Q: What API levels does the Intel GMA 3100 support?

A: The GMA 3100 supports DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 2.0. It does not support Vulkan.

Q: Does the GMA 3100 have ray tracing or tensor cores?

A: No. The fact pack lists no RT cores and no tensor cores for this GPU.

Q: What is the thermal design power of the GMA 3100?

A: The TDP is 13 W, and the slot width is IGP, meaning it is integrated and requires no power connectors.

Q: What type of memory does the GMA 3100 use?

A: It uses system shared memory, with a system-shared bus width and system-dependent bandwidth.

Q: What is the production status of the GMA 3100?

A: The production status is end-of-life. Its release date was 2007-05-08.

Q: What is the average benchmark score of the GMA 3100?

A: The average benchmark score is 0, and it sits at the 50th percentile among all GPUs in the database.

How It Compares

The nearestRivals field in the fact pack is empty, meaning the database contains no direct competitor comparisons for the Intel GMA 3100. This is itself a telling data point. Most GPUs in the database have at least one rival listed with a name, score, and delta percentage; the absence of any such entries for the GMA 3100 suggests that the database does not consider this part to be competitive with any other GPU. The 50th percentile ranking places it at the median of all GPUs, but with a benchmark score of 0, this percentile is likely a default or placeholder value rather than a meaningful measure of relative performance.

Without rival data, the only comparative statement that can be made is that the GMA 3100's benchmark score of 0 places it at the floor of the database's scoring scale. Any GPU with a nonzero score would outperform it by an undefined margin. The pixel rate of 1.600 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1.600 GTexel/s are the only throughput figures that could be compared to other parts, but without rival numbers in the fact pack, such a comparison is not possible. The data simply does not support a detailed competitive analysis for this GPU.

Who Should Consider It

Given the benchmark score of 0, the 50th percentile, and the API limitations of DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 2.0, the GMA 3100 is not a candidate for any modern gaming or graphics workload. The absence of Vulkan support and the lack of RT and tensor cores further eliminate it from consideration for contemporary applications. The 13 W TDP and IGP form factor, however, make it suitable for systems where display output is the only requirement — for example, a basic office machine, a thin client, or an embedded system that needs to drive a display without any 3D acceleration.

The 4 TMUs and 4 ROPs, combined with the 1.600 GPixel/s pixel rate and 1.600 GTexel/s texture rate, suggest that the GMA 3100 can handle 2D desktop composition and perhaps very old 3D applications that target DirectX 9.0c. At high resolutions, the system-dependent memory bandwidth would become a bottleneck, but for low-resolution desktop use, the part is functionally adequate. The 50th percentile ranking, while misleading given the 0 score, at least indicates that the database does not classify the GMA 3100 as an outlier; it is one of many low-end integrated parts that populate the middle of the distribution. Users who need anything beyond basic display output should look elsewhere, as the data shows no measurable benchmark performance.

Memory Subsystem

The memory subsystem of the GMA 3100 is entirely system-shared. The memory size is listed as System Shared, the type as System Shared, and the bus width as System Shared. This means that the GMA 3100 does not have its own dedicated VRAM; instead, it borrows from the system's main memory. The bandwidth is described as System Dependent, which indicates that the available memory bandwidth for the GPU depends entirely on the host system's memory configuration — the speed of the RAM, the number of memory channels, and the efficiency of the FSB interface all play a role.

This system-dependent bandwidth has direct implications for high-resolution performance. At higher resolutions, the GPU needs to access more texture data and framebuffer data per frame, and with no dedicated VRAM, all of that traffic must share the system memory bus with the CPU. The 1.600 GPixel/s pixel rate and 1.600 GTexel/s texture rate are the fixed throughput limits of the GPU itself, but the actual achievable performance will be lower if the system memory cannot supply data fast enough. The 4 ROPs are responsible for writing pixels to the framebuffer, and the 4 TMUs handle texture sampling; both are dependent on memory bandwidth that is not under the GPU's control.

The key takeaway is that the GMA 3100's memory subsystem is a bottleneck by design. It is a low-power integrated solution that avoids the expense of dedicated VRAM, but this comes at the cost of predictable performance. The system-dependent nature of the bandwidth means that two systems with the same GMA 3100 could have different real-world performance depending on their memory configurations. The GPU's own specifications of 1.600 GPixel/s and 1.600 GTexel/s are only half of the equation; the other half is the host system's memory.